this is the kind of thing that happens in my dreams

[truepenny]

I'm not real fond of insects.

Last night I found another crawly thing with too many legs; this morning I dreamed that papersky, rysmiel, and zorinth (along with many of my other favorite people) were in town for a convention, and that they had come by to fetch me for something-or-other. Of course, I wasn't ready (this was also trying to be one of those dreams that I get occasionally, where I'm late for something and I can't find any underwear, or, as in this case, my bra straps had unthreaded themselves), and so while I was trying to get dressed, I was telling Papersky about my insect encounter of the previous evening. (Rysmiel and Zorinth were waiting outside, for reasons that will make sense in a minute.)

She said, "What d'you mean, a 'crawly thing with too many legs'?"

"I don't know," I said. "More than eight and less than a hundred."

She produced a book on insects from somewhere about her person and started flipping through it. After a moment, she said, "Could it have been an India-Rubber Beetle?"

"I don't think it was a beetle," I said dubiously.

"Well, come look." And I went out into the living room where she was sitting, where she was holding--not a book with color plates, which was what I'd been expecting--but a paper towel with dirt and dead leaves and a long sort of centipede-esque thing and a fat white grub. (Do beetles HAVE grubs? Oh well, maybe India-Rubber Beetles do.)

"No," I said, "that's not it," and went back into the bedroom.

At this point, Rysmiel and Zorinth came in, and I heard Rysmiel say, "Oh dear, the grub is escaping. We'd best catch it," and Zorinth say indignantly, "It isn't a grub!" Clearly, they'd been outside collecting more fauna.

And that's when I turned around and saw on my dresser this amber-colored thing the size of my thumb that looked like a cross between an ant and a wasp. And woke up.

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

There are virtues I will under pressure admit to having, but I'd not thought being arthropod-friendly was one of the more visible ones.

Beetles do have grubs; to my knowledge all insects have little maggoty larval forms of some sort.

[kate_nepveu]

If I had that dream, I'd be freaked out all day (skin crawling for no external reason, starting at things seen out of corner of yet). I get a mild skin-crawl just reading it; I admire your fortitude in describing it.

(Chasing the housefly out of the bedroom this morning so I could get dressed without being dive-bombed was bad enough.)

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Actually, while I admit to liking spiders, I don't like centipedes, there's something about the way they move that always startles me.

Looking it up in a book is therefore much more characteristic than having one on a kitchen towel.

However, Zorinth can get quite enthusiastic about that kind of thing.

Sorry.

I had one of my weirder Cantre'r Gwaelod dreams, in hexameter, in which I was climbing an inland light-house from the top of which, I had been assured, I'd be able to call the sea. I was feeling very uncertain about this, as I knew I was in the middle of a desert in the middle of a vast continent, so the sea had a long way to come and might not hear me. I was reassuring myself that the salt-water was in my blood, and I would know the time to call by the tides in my pulse. There was a very slight smell of the sea because the people who built the tower had brought a bucket of sea-water and poured it on the ground before they started laying the courses of the stones, and even though it was a long time ago, the scent was still there. I don't know who I was or why I wanted to call the sea, I wasn't thinking about that at all, only worrying that I wouldn't be able to. I woke before I reached the top.

That looks even odder written down than it really was.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

That looks even odder written down than it really was.

Odd, and yet strangely compelling. If you ever decide to write something around it, I'll look forward to reading it.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

And, see, you just have way cooler dreams than I do. My dreams are never beautiful. Scary, morbid, sometimes funny ... but almost never beautiful. And that is an absolutely beautiful dream.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I also have stress dreams about missing trains and planes and not being able to find my clothes, with variants about realizing Zorinth is completely unclad in the snow -- and when he was a baby I used to have dreams about accidentally dropping him off buildings.

That one was one of a series of dreams about Cartre'r Gwaelod, the Lost Land, which I've been having occasionally for years. I think the deep inner meaning is that I miss the sea. Thank you, subconscious, I did know that already.

My dreams tend to be either forgettable muttering or very vivid images.