#55: An Incomplete List of Things That Gave Me Nightmares this Week

DREAM JOURNAL

Hello from your resident nightmare girly!

I love sleep but she doesn’t always love me. Here are some relatively embarrassing examples of things that scare me silly. Enjoy!

1. $6 mini lip liner I bought from the Sephora sale

   In this horror show of a dream, I’m filming a straight-to-camera lip liner tutorial despite the fact that I’ve never applied lip liner in my life and I have not disclosed that to whoever is watching this presumably live disaster. I dramatically and accidentally over-line and when I go to wipe off the excess, the liner bleeds from dusty pink to coal black and spreads across my chin like I’ve been eating assphalt. That’s not a typo. I mean like eating the ass of a creature made entirely of asphalt. I panic. The liner was permanent. The Sephora girls laugh as I struggle. I will look like I eat tarry roadbutt forever. My influencer days are over. #canceled

2. My sister’s birthday

   The night before Gabby’s golden day (I love you, seeeeester! ❤️) I dreamt that Adam (my bf) had a secret sister named Adelaide he'd kept hidden from me. I was confused and pissed about this so I kept calling her Adaline. Because that’ll show him! The name switch-up makes Adam furious (a rare emotion for him). He can’t deal with my petty antics right now. He has to tell me something. He’s going to propose to Adelaide…his SISTER. What the hell? Are you crazy? No, no, not in an incest way, he assures me. (???) He wants her to marry Marcus, her current fling, so Adam plans to get down on one knee, for Adelaide, HIS SISTER, at my grandma’s house, to propose that she marries Marcus. He’s not telling Marcus this, hoping that once Adelaide says yes he’ll feel too awkward to retract the proposal — the foundation of any strong marriage! — and be forced to wed her. This is, obviously, batshit. It doesn’t make any sense. He says I’m just mad because of the secret sister thing. Um, yeah. Duh. Obviously. But this is also an objectively horrible idea. Plus, it’s my sister’s birthday party! Why would you even do a regular, sane proposal at someone else’s birthday party?! Adam’s not having my sass, and I spend the rest of the dream following him around wailing and begging him to reconsider, staining all the linens with my tears. He proposes. Marcus is pissed. I wake up.

3. An early draft of my friend’s dark comedy pilot

   It’s giving glimmers of Fear Factor, and I don’t want to get into it, but I woke up slapping all over my body to get the bugs off. Thankfully they were only dream bugs— as far as I know.

4. A heavy (but beautiful) book that I guess is about evil grandpas?

   I’m a read-before-bed girly which is not the best activity for someone who is also a nightmare girly. Whatever I read has a tendency to seep into my subconscious right before I’m trapped there for 8 hours. I just finished Cocoon by Zhang Yueran, and it is clearly a Good book, a haunting coming-of-age about the burdens of generational secrets and not belonging. I don’t want to give anything away, but there’s talk of souls becoming trapped and death being prolonged rather than thwarted. My brain got real surreal with some of the plot points and…no thanks! Not again! (If you’ve read this, you’ll know what I mean when I say the dream made my temples hurt.)

5. Commercials for horror movies about demented and/or possessed dolls and/or children

   HULU, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. I AM WATCHING ABBOTT ELEMENTARY. I DID NOT ASK FOR THIS. STOP.

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• If you’re watching Ted Lasso Season 3, did you know that Zava is based on a real guy? I’m a few weeks late, but I just learned this. What a nut!

What have you been dreaming about? Do you see slivers of real life show up in your non-waking hours?

Sending you happy thoughts and sweet dreams. Please return the favor or I am in big trouble. Save me from myself!

ily bye,

Ari