Sunday, April 18, 2010

HHD Results! Wake up, already!



Way to step up, folks! It's funny how HHDs of late accumulate more slowly than they used to: but then by the end of the day you've got over 50 poems.

I'm grouping my favorites by type:

Generally hilarious and cool haikus

AC said

the dawn treader found
an island where dreams come true
sounds good but isn't

Which was great because I was thinking of that very scene when deciding on whether to include the more daydreamy kind of dreams in the topic.

"Dreams come true here? That's great!"

"No, not daydreams. Dreams"

There was also a priceless array of work dream haikus, which I felt were best summed up by these three:

Stan:

Dreaming about work
Happens almost all the time
Can't I just be done?

Cat:

I hate those work dreams
wake up feeling exhausted
yet day's just starting

AC:

work dreams are unfair
we don't get time-and-a-half
union, anyone?

Haikus that captured the fantastic weirdness of dreams

Cat:

When I was a kid
Dreamt my Barbies came to life
they were pinching me

In the horror movie they'd eat you or stab you or something, but then when it "really" happens they're just petty little mean things, pinching you. Yes.

AC:

an eye in an arm
helplessly drawn forward i
fall into the eye

Eeeew! You dreamt that?! Eewww!

JSP:

Friends getting murdered
Sociopathic natives
Pole vault over shrubs

It's all basic nightmare until that last line. "Shrubs?" Was this happening at a backyard barbecue? "Pole vault?"

Julie:

Awesome baby's room
Ocean waves come through the door
Take away laundry

Julie had actually told me about this dream, and it wove itself in haiku form admirably.

Haikus that revealed stuff deeper into the writers' heads than I probably expected

JPX:

Sex dreams are the goal
I had one that was so real
Woke humping the air

Wow, dude. That's, uh...

This where I point out that I always wake up before things really get going in sex dreams, on two occasions becuase I stopped to look for a condom before going further. In a dream! Dammit. They really drilled that stuff into your head in the late eighties.

50PageMcGee:

weird oral sex dream
'cept instead of vagina
it's a cheeseburger

That brings up all kinds of questions, most of them logistical.


Haukus that personified dreams I have had myself

JPX:

Used to dream of toys
Would try to wake up with them
True, I still do this

Not only do I also have dreams like this, JPX himself stars in most of them. For instance when I said this:

A toy dream I had
Omelette critter with handles
Hammerhead rode it

I was referring to when I dreamt that JPX and I got to see all these preview toys for the original Star Wars line, and Hammerhead (the cantina dude) had this animal he rode on that was like a big, flat, round slug. It had a single antenna in the middle of its back that split into two handlebars. The toy looked like a life size omelette with handlebar antenna and a Hammerhead figure standing on it. Awesome.

And this poignant pair from DCD:

Hate confrontations.
Yet, in dreams I crush people
with my righteousness!

Every point - Made!
They surrender at my words!
I'm tough. In my dreams.

Oh man, soooo there.

In the end, it came down to three. The runners-up are...

JSP:

Look out your window
Me and my sky bicycle
Destination: space

Yay. Pretty much what I didn't know I was looking for when I solicited your ambitions. And that last line is a gem. "Destination: space." Should be a TV show.

The other runner-up is 50PageMcGee's:

after my car wreck
months of dreams interrupted
spider-crack visions

Very nice. Personal, shocking and satisfyingly visual.

But the winner is from my loverly lady:

Julie:

Extra room in house
Coolest room I've ever seen
My recurring dream

That one completely nails a recurring feature in dreams I've had since childhood, with one important difference. In my dreams, that extra room is usually just another confusing element in an already odd task. Like the time I dreamt that one Christmas we received a real-life spacesuit from the world of Space: 1999, and the corner of the living room had been turned into a huge fishtank that we could swim in while wearing the spacesuit. And when it was my turn, nobody could find the helmet, not even in that extra room in the house. Damn.

But in Julie's dream, that room is the coolest room she's ever seen. That's great! What a positive thing to shoot for next time I'm trying to direct my dreams.

We're also having a yard sale tomorrow, and so all this deep thinking about the space in the apartment is resonating nicely in my skull.

And, additionally, this evening when I gave her my camera so she could watch some footage I'd shot earlier in the day, afterwards she secretly took a picture of her boob.

6 comments:

50PageMcGee said...

you can ask JSP -- after reading his, i totally called "destination: space" as my favorite.

i'm very happy to have made it to the final round, despite my long hiatus.

congrats julie -- a fine bit of scribing.

*cough*nepotism*cough*

Catfreeek said...

Congrats Julie, well done!

Great topic Octo, virtually limitless possibilities.

These 2 from Stan really amused me, I could just picture him doing it:

Super Mario
When I flew in "64"
I flew in my dreams

Same way: get red cap
Then three long jumps and I'm off
Tried it in the park

Julie said...

Hm...I don't think it's nepotism, exactly, but I think the boob picture might have helped my cause.

Thanks!

JPX said...

Congrats, Julie! What's funny is that Octo and DCD's house added rooms over time, which was very surreal to me. The house literally doubled in size, it became a resort!

AC said...

congratulations, julie!

great topic, octo. glad you got the dawn treader reference.

i too have bizarrely practical concerns in sex dreams.

yes, the falling-into-the-eye-in-the-arm dream was both real and recurrent.

Whirlygirl said...

Congrats, Julie I love your winning haiku! Excellent topic, Octo. I totally meant to write some, I'm obsessed with dreams. I annoy JPX with the recount of my nightly dreams frequently. He can't take that I remember every detail and feel compelled to share them with him. Octo, he said you did the same to him growing up.

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