Dreams again
Oct. 28th, 2005 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThat was a lot of dreams. I kept waking up every hour or so and remembering more dream. Most of them were pretty. And, okay, kinda terrifying, but pretty.
Like the one I just woke up from. There was a dragon. Pretty! And, er, it nearly flamed and eated the boat I was on. Scary.
But the key thing in that dream wasn't the dragon at all, it was the multiverse movie rights.
See to start the evening I discovered a way into a parallel universe. Probably several. But the one I ended up in, I could go back and forth no problem. So I started thinking. And my thought was, there in the movie section, there's a top 20 movies bit and I'd never heard of any of them. And I could, in theory, just pick up the 20 discs and step back into my universe with them, no investment, no problems. But no, I wanted to do it right. I wanted to be the first inter-multiverse trader. I wanted to *buy* the movie rights.
Think of it. Small investment, especially initially when they don't actually believe there is a whole other universe out there. Maybe some technical problems initially - they might use a different code on their discs, or different size discs, or different electricals, or a different value for 'volt'. Anything where someone made a choice, or flipped a coin, could turn out different. Which is why there are so many different movies. Think how many people have to choose a particular film in order for it to get to the screen! Think how many decades of choices could have been made differently! The entire history of the movie industry could be different. You'd have to choose which movies *not* to release just so you wouldn't flood the market!
So, in the dream, I started at the BBC. They had made some movies in that world, but mostly I wanted their back catalog of DVDs. Most of them different, at least slightly. And yeah, I guess in theory a book shop would be very different too, and awake I'm finding that idea much more interesting, not least because paper suffers from fewer format problems (if they write in English). But at the time, DVDs, and cinema, wow.
The BBC didn't want to play. The BBC were taking themselves far too seriously and wouldn't believe the basic premise. The BBC were also the local distributors of most US movies, so that was screwed too.
If I wanted to make a deal in England.
Turned out that in that 'verse you could walk across the Atlantic as fast as I'd walk to the shops, as long as you had a little magic and a good idea where you were going. I had the former, but I got a bit stuck in the middle for lack of the latter.
Decided to go where all the movies were made.
Landed in the middle of a set while it was filming.
It was kind of like a very goth James Bond film, only with Bond being as cool as he is supposed to be, and as scary. Played by Christopher Walken, wearing a big black coat with red lining and a huge tall collar that curved over. I'm not describing it well but, very goth, very cool.
So I get myself behind some part of the set and hide and watch. And CW walks past a few times and gradually I realise something - he's not from around here either. He's the guy from my 'verse, but here he is, being treated like the screen god this 'verse thinks the guy is. So next time he walks by, I say 'loved you in Sleepy Hollow', and his assisstant looks puzzled, then goes 'Ah yes, the Aardman animations short...' and they turn away, and I say 'No, the Tim Burton live action actually.' So CW looks back at me again, and knows that I know.
To make the various parts of the dream fit together with an Ominous Plot, he should arrange to meet me on the ferry. But he didn't. The dream just skipped to there.
Anyways, on the ferry, there are warning signs all over. Some ferries go out to see dolphins and whales, and this did indeed have that possibility. But it warned you not to lean out to see them, because they were probably about to get eated by a dragon.
And if we didn't follow certain rules of conduct, and if we happened to be on the two or three boats a year that got unlucky, we could be getting eat too.
Problem.
So, we get on the boat. Someone bought me some stuff in the gift shop to take with me. Vases with flames on, and a shirt with lots and lots of flames. So once the boat is out to sea, but before it gets to the danger area, someone goes around confiscating things most likely to get us killed. Including all the flame pattern stuff.
and I get all cynical about recycling of gift shop stock
and don't actually expect to see a dragon
but then, DRAGON! Biiiiiig dragon flaming right around us.
but then, me being magic, I hear that the dragon suddenly starts thinking. see dragons have to get to a certain size to start thinking, and this one just did, but it is all alone and rather confused. But then another dragon turns up and tries to eat the first dragon, bites and latches on. So I'm yelling at the dragon to 'Think!' and it thinks of scraping off the other dragon on a nearby bridge. But then its all hurt and tired and hungry. So I tell it again, think of a plan. So it goes.
"Okay, what is it that dragons eat, thats right around here someplace... aha!" Dives down, swoops up, bursts through the floor of the boat!!!
And I jump over to stand right next to it and whap it on the nose.
Actually I shouldn't still be calling it it. When it started thinking one of the early thoughts was its name - Mykey.
So, Mykey just got whapped on the nose by an irritated mage, and now can see who was talking before. I say, no more eating humans! No more eating people that think! Thoughts are cool. You can have conversations and stuff. Then you'll have more thoughts. So don't go eating them!
'Eating thoughts doesn't make you smarter?'
*sigh* 'No, Mykey, eating thoughts makes you dumber, actually. Eventually rots your brain. There were some humans that tried it... ended up with holes in their heads...'
So Mykey concludes that eating humans is of the bad, and goes away again.
It was kind of terrifying and really sweet all at once.
I think Mykey sounded like Donkey from Shrek.
Imagine if Donkey from Shrek looked like the Dragon, only changing colors a lot, and really seriously trying to eat you.
yeah, so, by the end it was mostly funny.
But that dream was fun.
There was also a part where I was looking for tie-dye rainbow banners to hang up in my new pagan temple, which I was making in a renovated building just down the road from here. The building kind of lacked walls, but had some very impressive pillars. So I was going to hang pretty banners on them. Maybe with yin-yang symbols on, and we could have synchronised martial arts going on, look really impressive.
I'd kind of like to build temples, big grand places with pretty windows and roofs and floors and all, but I try and think what they should look like and I keep coming back to trees, and really, trees look like trees better than anything. So mostly it would work better to find a nice place in the woods.
Except for the cold and the wet and the hedgehog problem. Unexpected hedgehogs can ruin your whole day. Especially unexpected flying hedgehogs. Not that that happens very often. Just, when it does, it is really really memorable.
Like the one I just woke up from. There was a dragon. Pretty! And, er, it nearly flamed and eated the boat I was on. Scary.
But the key thing in that dream wasn't the dragon at all, it was the multiverse movie rights.
See to start the evening I discovered a way into a parallel universe. Probably several. But the one I ended up in, I could go back and forth no problem. So I started thinking. And my thought was, there in the movie section, there's a top 20 movies bit and I'd never heard of any of them. And I could, in theory, just pick up the 20 discs and step back into my universe with them, no investment, no problems. But no, I wanted to do it right. I wanted to be the first inter-multiverse trader. I wanted to *buy* the movie rights.
Think of it. Small investment, especially initially when they don't actually believe there is a whole other universe out there. Maybe some technical problems initially - they might use a different code on their discs, or different size discs, or different electricals, or a different value for 'volt'. Anything where someone made a choice, or flipped a coin, could turn out different. Which is why there are so many different movies. Think how many people have to choose a particular film in order for it to get to the screen! Think how many decades of choices could have been made differently! The entire history of the movie industry could be different. You'd have to choose which movies *not* to release just so you wouldn't flood the market!
So, in the dream, I started at the BBC. They had made some movies in that world, but mostly I wanted their back catalog of DVDs. Most of them different, at least slightly. And yeah, I guess in theory a book shop would be very different too, and awake I'm finding that idea much more interesting, not least because paper suffers from fewer format problems (if they write in English). But at the time, DVDs, and cinema, wow.
The BBC didn't want to play. The BBC were taking themselves far too seriously and wouldn't believe the basic premise. The BBC were also the local distributors of most US movies, so that was screwed too.
If I wanted to make a deal in England.
Turned out that in that 'verse you could walk across the Atlantic as fast as I'd walk to the shops, as long as you had a little magic and a good idea where you were going. I had the former, but I got a bit stuck in the middle for lack of the latter.
Decided to go where all the movies were made.
Landed in the middle of a set while it was filming.
It was kind of like a very goth James Bond film, only with Bond being as cool as he is supposed to be, and as scary. Played by Christopher Walken, wearing a big black coat with red lining and a huge tall collar that curved over. I'm not describing it well but, very goth, very cool.
So I get myself behind some part of the set and hide and watch. And CW walks past a few times and gradually I realise something - he's not from around here either. He's the guy from my 'verse, but here he is, being treated like the screen god this 'verse thinks the guy is. So next time he walks by, I say 'loved you in Sleepy Hollow', and his assisstant looks puzzled, then goes 'Ah yes, the Aardman animations short...' and they turn away, and I say 'No, the Tim Burton live action actually.' So CW looks back at me again, and knows that I know.
To make the various parts of the dream fit together with an Ominous Plot, he should arrange to meet me on the ferry. But he didn't. The dream just skipped to there.
Anyways, on the ferry, there are warning signs all over. Some ferries go out to see dolphins and whales, and this did indeed have that possibility. But it warned you not to lean out to see them, because they were probably about to get eated by a dragon.
And if we didn't follow certain rules of conduct, and if we happened to be on the two or three boats a year that got unlucky, we could be getting eat too.
Problem.
So, we get on the boat. Someone bought me some stuff in the gift shop to take with me. Vases with flames on, and a shirt with lots and lots of flames. So once the boat is out to sea, but before it gets to the danger area, someone goes around confiscating things most likely to get us killed. Including all the flame pattern stuff.
and I get all cynical about recycling of gift shop stock
and don't actually expect to see a dragon
but then, DRAGON! Biiiiiig dragon flaming right around us.
but then, me being magic, I hear that the dragon suddenly starts thinking. see dragons have to get to a certain size to start thinking, and this one just did, but it is all alone and rather confused. But then another dragon turns up and tries to eat the first dragon, bites and latches on. So I'm yelling at the dragon to 'Think!' and it thinks of scraping off the other dragon on a nearby bridge. But then its all hurt and tired and hungry. So I tell it again, think of a plan. So it goes.
"Okay, what is it that dragons eat, thats right around here someplace... aha!" Dives down, swoops up, bursts through the floor of the boat!!!
And I jump over to stand right next to it and whap it on the nose.
Actually I shouldn't still be calling it it. When it started thinking one of the early thoughts was its name - Mykey.
So, Mykey just got whapped on the nose by an irritated mage, and now can see who was talking before. I say, no more eating humans! No more eating people that think! Thoughts are cool. You can have conversations and stuff. Then you'll have more thoughts. So don't go eating them!
'Eating thoughts doesn't make you smarter?'
*sigh* 'No, Mykey, eating thoughts makes you dumber, actually. Eventually rots your brain. There were some humans that tried it... ended up with holes in their heads...'
So Mykey concludes that eating humans is of the bad, and goes away again.
It was kind of terrifying and really sweet all at once.
I think Mykey sounded like Donkey from Shrek.
Imagine if Donkey from Shrek looked like the Dragon, only changing colors a lot, and really seriously trying to eat you.
yeah, so, by the end it was mostly funny.
But that dream was fun.
There was also a part where I was looking for tie-dye rainbow banners to hang up in my new pagan temple, which I was making in a renovated building just down the road from here. The building kind of lacked walls, but had some very impressive pillars. So I was going to hang pretty banners on them. Maybe with yin-yang symbols on, and we could have synchronised martial arts going on, look really impressive.
I'd kind of like to build temples, big grand places with pretty windows and roofs and floors and all, but I try and think what they should look like and I keep coming back to trees, and really, trees look like trees better than anything. So mostly it would work better to find a nice place in the woods.
Except for the cold and the wet and the hedgehog problem. Unexpected hedgehogs can ruin your whole day. Especially unexpected flying hedgehogs. Not that that happens very often. Just, when it does, it is really really memorable.