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The resurfacing of old dreams

I just remembered I had a xenomorph dream about a week ago and forgot to log it. The only thing I remember is being in a low, narrow place with creepy bas-reliefs of the creatures in question, either chasing or being chased by them. It was not good. I was not having a good time.

Logged. Everybody carry on with your day.*

* Bombermine

Who comes up with these plans?

I haven’t had one of these in a while. This does not mean I need any more.

• I’m on a spaceship of some kind, sent to investigate the engineering level, which has been reported to be “covered in blood”
• My total armament is two cheap-looking pistols that seem to have come out of a videogame
• I’m accompanied by a Japanese schoolgirl who’s wielding a miniaturized Gatling gun that makes a high-pitched whir when powered up
• At the ship’s hangar deck, we encounter the empty husk of something vaguely xenomorph-like, along with a white plastic shopping bag full of that vile black goo from Prometheus
• As we make our way out of the hangar deck, the scene shifts abruptly
• Now I’m in a high school auditorium looking down at the stage, where some people are clustered
• I’m balanced precariously on some kind of railing on the wall maybe twelve feet up; a few others are with me
• The plan — the horrific, idiotic plan — is this: when the xenomorphs come to tear the people onstage apart, the curtains will be severed and dropped upon the melee, and in the confusion my fellow wall-clingers and I will escape
• The initial half of this plan more or less succeeds
• Then the first of many six-fingered claw hands seizes the ankle of the person next to me
• I have enough time to think “What a stupid fucking idea” before I wake up

I wish that girl with the Gatling gun had stuck around. Mid-dream scene changes are the worst.

Quick exit

This is the first one of these I’ve had in a while. I’m not sure it could be characterized as a nightmare, though, at least not until the very end:

• I’m with a team of space Marines and a female scientist who I know to be a clone (not an android), newly arrived outside a building on the edge of a snowy town at night
• We’re met by a few civilians and another clone scientist; neither of them seem comfortable around each other, which I note and file away for later
• The civilians are armed with large balloons from which they squirt flammable gas over a fairly short distance, which I suppose is better than nothing
• It turns out I’m armed with an M-8 Avenger from the Mass Effect games: it fires bullets and a “freeze cloud”
• The civilians and I kick in the door and flood the first room with flames and my freeze cloud; nothing’s there
• Okay
• We move to the next room and do it again
• At this point someone asks me why I’m the only one with a gun
• I turn, muttering “Where’s the rest of my asshole team?” And those clones, I also think
• Which is when the pounding on the opposite wall starts, and suddenly everything goes to shit
• A neat garage-door-sized hole in the wall opens up and xenomorph drones start pouring through
• My gun is stuck on “freeze cloud” mode and let’s be honest, it does not seem to be doing the job
• “Use your bullets! Use your bullets!” someone screams, and then they’re upon us
• And I’m awake with a sudden whole-body jerk

Yup.

Confession: I tried to go back to sleep afterward, if only to find out what the deal was with those clones who didn’t like each other. No dice. At least I tried!

And … cut!

This was a weird one. Imagine for a second that they decided to make a reboot of Alien: Resurrection; the dream flipped between two states:

• I’m part of the crew making the movie, shaking the prop alien queen head on a complicated piece of carpentry for some shot or other
• I’m watching events in the story as if the whole thing is real, observing the disturbing and bloody progress of a human/alien hybrid called a “berserker” as it rampages through the ship
  • This is more unsettling by far
  • Also, this human/alien hybrid is much scarier-looking than the one in the actual movie that got made in 1997

One unrelated thing that happened in the dream: during the “filming” state, I hung out in a library and sat next to James Franco, who it turns out is a massive douchebag, at least in my dreams. I didn’t know what to do with this information; someone needed to know.

But you’re not the “Game over, man!” guy, dammit

I’m investigating an abandoned industrial planet that I know to be infested alongside Carter Burke and an unnervingly freaked-out and unprofessional Corporal Hicks on an overcast day. I’m in the driver’s seat of the APC (which is on the right side of the vehicle for some reason), trying to get a sputtering and incoherent Hicks to explain to me how to load the clips for the single pulse rifle we own; it’s a frustratingly fiddly and complex process. Suddenly, from the passenger seat, Burke shouts and points out my window. I get far enough in my turn towards it to catch a glimpse of a shiny black elongated skull and six-fingered claw hand before I feel the impact.

I wake up with the right side of my face pressed into my pillow. Good morning!

The same story continuously retold

This was part of a longer, crazier, more disjointed dream, but at one point I ended up as part of the crew of a spaceship essentially reenacting the plot of the first Alien movie. I knew this was exactly what was going on as I watched them wheel their crewmate, facehugger and all, into the ship’s airlock from outside, yet was somehow powerless to say “Hey! Don’t do that!” The dream switched settings and plots entirely after the chestburster scene, fortunately.

(for those just now reading: I’ve been wondering for a long time whether these creatures recur in my dreams as often as I think they do, and what (if anything) that means, so I decided to post any xenomorph dreams I have here with this tag the morning after they occur — this way I can keep track of their actual, as opposed to perceived, frequency)

This one still counts, I think

I’m watching an animated movie that’s essentially an Aliens/Halo crossover, but then I find myself inside an empty house with three other people bedding down for the night near the fireplace in sleeping bags, and there are acid burns on mine.

Out in the cold

There’s not a lot to this one: I’m trapped in an elevator that’s exposed to the arctic elements, like on a spaceship launch gantry or something, with another guy and a cranky but immobilized xenomorph that keeps trying and failing to spit acid at us. We hit it with an iron fireplace poker occasionally, but not to great effect. Then suddenly I’m in a movie theatre with no aliens in sight. Dreams, man. Dreams.

Covering fire

This is one of those dreams where I just watch events happen; in this case, it’s Sigourney Weaver being chased around an enormous, decaying, labyrinthine, warehouse-like building by a single huge, monstrous creature. Eventually, she finds herself on the path to freedom, with the xenomorph gaining on her, when all of a sudden the Ghostbusters appear to give her backup, opening fire with their proton packs. I’m so distracted by how amazing this is that I don’t actually know whether or not she found her way out; I do know she definitely avoided getting killed, thanks to the Ghostbusters. Add one more to the list of reasons why proton packs are great.

Calling for extraction

Another one of these dreams. Two adjacent box canyons on a jungle planet are infested with the usual menace; this time, the facehuggers are compact, almost like horseshoe crabs, and harder to spot. My team happens upon a small group of burner sysadmin types, and we begin the hike out of the canyon to escort them out of danger. One of them keeps hitting on the pretty redhead in my squad (who I’ve never seen before IRL), calling her “the girl of his dreams,” which is strangely fitting, given that it’s happening in a dream. I wish he’d get eaten, but he doesn’t.