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I had somewhat weird dreams last night, which I have enjoyed so many of lately (Yet remembering so little). IDK, I think I’m way behind on sleep. Okay, so here’s how it went:

The beginning part was vague, like old memories. It was definitely in my hometown, but things were out of place. I was with some friends and I was driving and driving around looking for a place to park. That kind of thing can be stressful, you know! Especially when you have friends who just want to get to where you’re going. But you would excuse my poor parking skills if you saw the weird, altered geography of the town.

Here’s an anecdote: Dreams about my hometown but weird aren’t so uncommon. I like to think I’m good with geography, but the brain always makes mistakes. However, one particular dream in the depths of 2020 was of note-- I was walking around my apartment complex, but things were foggy and ash was falling. There wasn’t a single person to be found. Apartments were replaced with old concrete architecture, and where my bedroom once sat was the giant head of a statue. It was such a vivid dream that I realized the inspiration exactly-- Silent Hill 1! So, as anyone would do, I spent the rest of quarantine reimagining my city as a SH-like setting complete with dungeons, enemies, and so on. That being said, I didn’t have to reimagine my elementary school in Silent Hill 1, because it already is in Silent Hill 1-- It was the inspiration for Midwich Elementary! I love to brag about that cuz it's so cool. All that to say, I’m used to exploring hometowns-but-weird, although the next stage in the dream was more interesting…

I was in one of those brewery/restaurant/things that you find so often in Oregon. A $30 fish and chips with homemade ‘slaw kinda place. On one side of the building was a stage for performances, and I was backstage. This was to be the premiere of my play “The Swan Song of Barbar & Co.” It was a biting satire about a circus ringmaster who goes on trial, the titular Barbar being a stand-in for Trump. This is reminiscent (But not NEARLY as serious) to a real short story I wrote about a Power Rangers villain on trial for evil misdeeds.

Anyways, this was the very first time I let someone read the script, and the play was already running late. Even the actors were reading it for the first time. I guess they didn’t need rehearsal? Unrealistic as that sounds, I was confident handing the script over to the lead actor. Unfortunately, he told me that it sucked and that the script was unreadable. They refused to perform. And, to boot, I would have to entertain the audience for an hour because I had ordered the time slot. I don’t think stages work like that, but whatever.

My dream didn’t go much further, because I was woken up by my alarm. I was all sweaty and it took me a minute to come back to reality. Dreams can really stress you out! Okay, anyways, hopefully I’ll have better dreams tonight.