Tag: dreams

Was The Leftovers supposed to be a horror story or Damon Lindelof’s personal fantasy?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is actually a post that I’ve kept in my back pocket for a while, and one that I knew that I had to be in the right frame of mind before I could actually write it.  I had to be in an agitated mood, which is hard to imagine a person like me not being in an agitated mood, but I also needed to have the time necessary to put my thoughts to keyboard.

But not just any agitated mood, but one specifically where I’m feeling like there are just too many fucking people in the world, and how I’d wish a ton of people would just spontaneously vanish, like Thanos’s Snap or, and in the context of this specific post, like in the plot of The Leftovers.

Now [spoiler alert] because I’m going to go ahead and just probably spoil a bunch of things for those of my zero readers whom might actually be interested in watching this show in the future, despite the fact that at this point it’s like ten years old.

But the basic plot of the show in the beginning is that for absolutely no apparent reason at all, 2% of the entire earth’s population just spontaneously vanished.  Nobody knows whether they were killed, were transported, were abducted or whatever, the point is that 2% of the earth’s population just mysteriously disappeared, and that 2% might sound small, but still equated to about 140 million people.

[Spoilers begin] It turns out at the end of the series, the answer to The Disappearance is that the 2% did not die, or cease to exist, they were simply transported to basically, another version of the world where they were the only ones on the planet.  To them, 98% of the planet mysteriously vanished, and they clearly had it way worse than their counterparts, because with 98% of the planet’s population disappearing, that’s a whole fuckton of global infrastructure that’s gone with it.

And such is actually explained, that as a result of the planet becoming so sparsely populated, a lot of shit did kind of go primal, and stuff like the grid becoming unreliable, things such as transportation, flight, and science crashing to near halts, but the 2% of humanity does survive.  They acknowledge, adapt and survive, and as time passes, people move on with their lives.

All of this is explained as one of the main characters, late in the series, Nora, who lost her husband and both her children in The Disappearance, finds a scientist in Australia who claims to have figured out what had happened, and had invented a machine that could transport subjects into the alternate world, goes to the alternate world, discovers that her family, after dealing with the shell shock of their own Disappearance and the loss of a wife and mother, moved on.  So, as not wanting to traumatize her family with a miraculous reappearance, she decides to go back to her world, but is rudely awakened to the idea that a world with 98% less people in it, is just a little bit behind scientifically, and basically has to wait decades before the invention of the alternate world travel machine to be built so that she could return to her version of existence.

The point of explaining all of this is that every now and then, there are days of my own existence where I feel that there are just too many fucking people on this planet, and musing how liberating it must be to be on either end of a Disappearance.  Like days where I’m commuting to work, and wondering just why there are so many fucking cars on my route on some days versus others (the existence of I-285).  Or when I’m going to Costco and the parking lot is practically entirely full, and there are 107 cars in line for gas on top of everything.  Or when I go out of the house to run a quick errand and there’s a surreptitiously high amount of cars also on the road or at the stores, and I’m thinking what the fuck.

It sure would be nice if 140 million of these motherfuckers just bamf’d to alternate world and alleviated my world of their existence.  Or better yet, I get to be one of the lucky 2%-ers who gets to have a wide open fucking empty version of the world where there’s tremendously way less chance of people fucking up my daily rhythm just by existing in close proximity to me.

I figure Damon Lindelof came up with the general premise of The Leftovers to sound scary and ominous that such a wild global event could occur, but on days like this where I’m sour over the knowledge of the world’s global 8 billion human beings, I begin to think that perhaps The Leftovers and The Disappearance might also be a fantasy.  Because on days like this, it definitely sounds like a dream come true to me, to be somewhere 98% less populated.

I’d definitely miss my kids and family though. 😢

The worst dream of my life

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic about it either, because I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream in my life that upon waking up, it reduces me to breaking down into sobbing, I need nearly 30 minutes to bring myself back to earth, and it proceeds to ruin the entire day because I can’t stop thinking about it, and thinking about it fills up the wells again and it’s moar crying all over again.  Telling my wife about it floods the gates one more time, and I can’t even bring myself to write about it until an entire day has passed because it apparently did that much of a number on me.

So yeah, I think it’s pretty safe to say that this was the worst dream I’ve ever had in my entire life.

In a nutshell, I was dying, which I can’t really say has ever really bothered me in the past, but then I had kids, and the number one drawback to no longer living would be the inability to watch and experience their growth and now the thought of death isn’t something to be so ambivalent about anymore.

But in this dream, not only was I dying, I was basically otherwise alive and fine, but facing an impending, for lack of a better term, euthanization.  I had something that was going to definitively kill me, and for whatever reason, it would be best to be put to sleep lest I suffer a gruesome painful demise.  I had a scheduled death date and time in place, and I was basically spending my time in this dream trying to tie up loose ends, and try and make the transition into the world without me in it, as seamless as possible.

Two specific moments stood out the most that I can recall the most, which was a conversation with mythical wife, explaining that after I’m gone, I am fine if she wanted to ever remarry in the future, and obviously to just keep the girls in mind when looking for someone else.  She was more torn up about the conversation we were having than I was, which is probably not necessarily true to reality, seeing as how I probably shed tears way more than she does on the regular.

However that didn’t last long, because it was the other moment that I remember which ultimately ended up being the breaking point in my dream.  I was on my last day, and while walking around the house with my wife further discussing things to keep in mind and things that were settled, I realized that I only had about an hour left before my death appointment, and I proceeded to have a panic attack about why I wasn’t spending this time with my children. 

I frantically ran down the stairs and it was at this point in which I finally woke up.  It was 5:21 am, and I lay there for a few seconds coming to the realiazation that it was all just a dream.  I wasn’t dying, and I wasn’t going to be taken away from my wife and children.  It didn’t matter though, in the seconds that followed, I began openly weeping and the tears came pouring out, fat, hot and wet down my face. 

I couldn’t get back to sleep after a dream like that, so I went downstairs with the dog to take her out early, since she already perked up knowing that I had awoken.  Afterward, I meandered aimlessly downstairs, and gulped down some water since I had woken up with the driest mouth ever afterward.  Must been the blood pressure medication, which did state such could be a side effect; nothing was mentioned about lucid, horrible dreams though.

I sat in the media room in the dark, just replaying the dream in my head, and crying some more.  I clicked on the baby monitor to feel the most immense relief at seeing my two girls peacefully sleeping away in their rooms, knowing that I’d get to see them in just a few hours when they woke up.

Eventually I went back to bed, since rational thinking finally came back to me and I figured it would be best to at least lay down and try to sleep, even if it wouldn’t come, just so I could be warm and comfortable if anything at all.  I don’t remember falling back asleep, but I do remember being awoken by the alarm, that really wasn’t much long afterward.

My day was effectively ruined after that, and I had to make sure I kept my mind on the tasks at hand, because every time my mind wandered back to the dream, I would begin to feel tears welling up again, and crying in the office wasn’t something that I really wanted to have happen.

Point is, it’s not a difficult reach to say that this really was the worst dream that I’ve ever had in my life.  It’s like I can’t call it a nightmare, because there wasn’t anything unrealistically frightening, aside from the ability to schedule a voluntary euthanization, but the scenario of being a situation where I couldn’t see my kids ever again is something that could very well happen, and that alone puts the fear of god into me like nothing else.

The things I think when I start to feel mopey about being broke all the time

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Welp, I didn’t win Powerball yesterday; but I did win a whole whopping four dollars, which seems like a pretty solid consolation prize, I suppose.  So I guess it’s back to fantasy land when it comes to imagining a world where I didn’t have to stress about finances and all the money I don’t have no matter what I do in my life.

One of the things I often hear about, mostly from professional athletes, is the general idea of the importance of banking their first million as fast as possible, because the idea is that once you have a million in the bank, you can start to get on the short road of being able to live off of the interest and dividends alone, as long as you’re smart and don’t go too crazy with newfound wealth.

Obviously, it’s easy for the wealthy to spout this kind of simplistic ideation, but seeing as how it feels like I’ll never see a million bucks in my entire lifetime, who am I to argue with such a broad stroked idea in the first place?

That being said, I think it’d be really cool if I could befriend a wealthy person who has several millions of dollars in the bank, and really wouldn’t be at all affected if they were to temporarily part with just one of those millions, and allow me to just hold and sit on it, so that I too, could feel what it’s like to be able to sit back and watch money come in, solely from having some in the first place.  And after a predetermined amount of time, I would give the original million dollars back to this wealthy friend, and them being an actual friend, would charge me no interest and not make me feel bad about borrowing it in the first place.

I wouldn’t want to borrow a million dollars to frivolously spend and go nuts on all the outstanding mortgage and car payments.  Or fix up the house, make additions, or buy any shit I don’t need.  I just want to borrow a million dollars so that I can get a little bit of a boost at being able to passively accrue my own wealth.  To literally let it sit in a bank account of mine, where it can generate interest and grow for no other reason than the fact that it’s there.

And if the rich athlete theory is truly correct, then after a while, the money starts working for itself, wealth continues to accrue, and I can give the money back and start to live on my own proceeds.  And if this friend is truly a really good friend, they’ll float that million bucks over to someone else who just needs a boost at being able to start making their own passive interest wealth as well.

Obviously though, this is a pipe dream as unlikely to happen as the magical appearance of a fucking genie.  People, especially the very wealthy, are far too greedy, far too possessive and far too protective over their money to be willing to participate in such an idea, no matter just how many people in the world it could help if they were just willing to try. 

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Don’t even want to consider the meanings behind these dreams

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been having some weird dreams.  And when I say weird, I really mean more like fucked up, in the sense that in these dreams, there’s killing going on.  Someone is out to kill me.  So I feel the need to kill them first.  People getting killed.  Animals getting killed.  Guns.  Strangulation. 

And with each time that a dream like these occur, I wake up feeling relieved that they were just dreams, and I don’t even try to rationalize the notion that dreams are our brains trying to tell us things, because in no world do I want dreams about killing things to have any modicum of involvement in how I operate my life.

But the last dream I had, was also the most vivid one, the one that stood out the most, and the one that prompted actual writing to occur.

I’m in a zombie game.  Basically I’m in Left 4 Dead’s interface, but in this particular zombie universe, the rules are slightly different.  Mainly, those who become infected, do not immediately have a fairly uniform amount of time before they inevitably turn into zombies themselves.  Not all of them.

In this dream, for those who become infected, there is no uniform amount of time left before someone becomes a zombie themselves.  For some people, it might be fairly instantaneous, but for some, it could be a few hours, the following morning, even a week, or even a month.  Maybe longer. 

Regardless, I imagine anyone could see the complications in such a mechanism there, because in all other forms of zombie literature and media, infection usually has a pretty predictable mortality clock on it, ranging from a few hours to several days, depending on the number of bites they’ve incurred.  So corresponding characters typically know that their time with the condemned is limited, and to start making peace with them while they’re still with the living, before having to make the most difficult act ever.

But what if that predictable timeline didn’t exist?  What if when someone was infected, nobody had any idea of when they were going to turn?  Could those bitten, simply continue to live their lives among the living until they would spontaneously expire?  Could those around the bitten cope with living among bitten people, knowing that they could spontaneously drop and return as zombies and threaten their lives?

And that’s where this dream had me placed.  In a zombie-infested world, among the living, several of whom were bitten, and were, at least in this particular shelter, being allowed to live out.  Me wrestling with my own thoughts and concerns over personal safety and the safety of others.  Struggling to accept the fact that there were people who were on death’s door, among us, still lucid, still alive, and still helping as best as they could.

I don’t recall in the dream having to murder a living person, which I suppose is something to be relieved about, but it also didn’t end without me having to pull the trigger a few times either.  Someone had dropped and was convulsing, and in a zombie world, decisions need to be made quick, so I brought up my shotgun, and it was the hardest decision in the world I’d ever made.  The game itself seemed to have a last second are you sure function that effectively stopped my first trigger pull, forcing me to put something over the person’s head before making a kill shot.

But because of the way things were, I’m left wondering if I made the right choice.  What if they were an epileptic and were just having a seizure or something?  What if they weren’t actually turning right then and there?  Why the fuck am I having so many dreams lately of killings going on?

My alarm goes off, and it’s time to let the dog out.  Unlike most mornings, I’m not happy to be woken up, but I am relieved to get out of yet another fucking weird killing dream, and hope this doesn’t mean anything in the grand spectrum of things.

New Father Brogging, #034

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Normally, I wait until I finish a series before I write about it, but I feel like writing right now, and there’s no guarantee that feeling will last later.  But I’m just about finished with The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix.  Although some of the subject matter about substance abuse is a little uncomfortable watch, not because I can relate so much as it’s just not always pleasant watching people degrade themselves through the things they do to themselves, it’s an excellent series that I’ve enjoyed very much and hope the finish is as strong as the series has been.

It’s a show that’s legitimately made chess seem as cool as I typically think it is from a metaphorical standpoint into actually being cool to watch a series that revolves around it.

Whenever I run on the treadmill, I’m usually watching wrestling highlights or shit on the WWE Network, most notably any of the documentaries that the service continuously puts out much to my delight because if there’s one thing that the WWE does very well, it’s produce documentaries.

Among the documentaries that I enjoy the most, are usually the ones that are about the female talent.  Alexa Bliss, Charlotte Flair, Sasha Banks, and most recently, an episode of Chronicle about Bianca Belair, which was especially good, because she’s a particularly extraordinary woman in the sense that she’s probably pound-for-pound the best athlete in professional wrestling, but also a hell of an artistic talent that designs and fabricates all of her own ring attire.

What I’m getting at is that especially lately, I’ve been enjoying watching stories, be them fiction or documentaries, about strong women, because as a dad to a daughter, it lets my imagination run wild about what my own little girl can grow up to be when she hopefully becomes a strong, talented and intelligent woman one day.

I’m not saying that I want her to be a chess grandmaster or a professional wrestler, specifically, but what I do want for my kid, and it wouldn’t have mattered if she were a boy or a girl, is for her to find at least one thing; one hobby, one activity, that they can hopefully become passionate about and hold onto through adolescence.  Swimming. Drawing.  Gymnastics.  Piano.  Martial arts.  Anything at all; multiple would be great, but I really just want her to have at least one thing, that she can hold onto, and make into some sort of lifelong habit.

One of the few regrets I have in my life is the fact that of all the things that I was doing as a kid; piano, Tae Kwon Do, basketball, drawing, Japanese language; I never really held onto any one of those things, never persevered through adolescence with any of those potential talents, and I let the talents and skills erode and fade away over time, and I can only wish that I didn’t, and that I could be above average at any one of those things today.

I don’t want my daughter to make the same choice, and obviously I know there’s a fine line of her voluntarily maintaining an activity versus being volun-told to stick with it, with the latter obviously leading to inevitable failure, but all I can do is really hope to encourage and let her make her own choices with her life, and watching stories of strong females in the world today gives me hope that there’s an endless bag full of possibilities for my daughter in the future.

New Father Brogging, #027

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was at a Target the other day, and while we’re checking out, I hear this little girl at the in-store Starbucks, ordering a caramel macchiato.  Now I think Starbucks’ caramel macchiatos are definitely tasty, but the thing is that this girl was like, ten years old.  And a Starbucks caramel macchiato probably has ten times the sugar and caffeine that a grown-ass adult ever needs in one sitting much less for a ten-year old twig of a girl.

Basically what I saw was a future Karen in the making, with a child already having developed a penchant for froufrou Starbucks coffee drinks, and for her own sake, it was good that the espresso machine was down, but I’m surprised that she or her completely disinterested looking dad didn’t demand to speak with a manager, and she walked away saying she was good instead.

One of my dreams now is to one day sit with my daughter in a coffee shop and have some coffee together.  However, seeing as how I would prefer for her to not start drinking coffee until she is like 17, that’s going to be a ways from now, but I’m willing to wait it out as long as I don’t risk stunting the growth of my daughter and/or make her a slave to caffeine as much as her dear old dad is.

The precise moment where the Braves fulfilled their destiny

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Top 4th, runners on second and third, nobody out.  The Braves had just taken a 3-2 lead on the Dodgers on a single by third baseman Austin Riley, and were in a prime position to bust the game open and put the Dodgers into a precarious hole.  Instead, in only a way that the bumbling Braves are capable of doing, they turn a scenario that has a high probability to score some runs into one where they commit three outs in mere minutes in a game where every single one of the first four innings felt like Star Wars trilogies in themselves, they took that long.

After Austin Riley got tagged out for the second out of a bang-bang botched run down, and then the Braves completed the colossal fuck up by harmlessly grounding out to end the inning, this is where I knew that the game was effectively over.  I’ve watched enough baseball in my life to recognize that when you give away opportunities to score runs that don’t cross the plate, Murphy’s Law dictates that the opposition will definitively, cash them in instead.  What probably should have been a 5-2 or a 4-2 score to end the 4th inning instead remained at a paltry one-run 3-2 score, which the Dodgers would easily grind away and overcome, while the Braves literally went three-and-out in every single inning except one throughout the remainder of the game.

The fuckup on the basepaths undoubtedly sucked all the wind out of the sails of the Braves, ruined all of their swagger and confidence, and most importantly, planted the undefeatable seeds of impending defeat into their minuscule brains.  The remainder of the game after that tragic sequence was all but a formality, and a contest of when, the Dodgers would eventually take the lead.

Frankly, the only reason why I watched the entire game was that I was hoping that the Dodgers would go to Kenley Jansen to close the game since he’s been pretty awful throughout the season and he would be the best chance for the Braves to maybe make some late-inning heroics as they’ve done numerous times throughout the year, but it turned out that the Dodgers didn’t trust Jansen in this critical game, and instead rode the hot hand of Julio Urias instead to close out the game himself.

Naturally, I’m sure anyone of my zero readers can see through the façade I put forth of being the world’s worst baseball fan when it comes to the Braves, and I spare a lot of words and drivel bemoaning them and deriding them, as if I had the mutant power to tempt fate to prove me wrong with writing, but in reality, there’s nothing more I would’ve wanted than to see the Braves actually not fuck up for a change, defeat the Dodgers and actually go to the World Series against the Tampa Bay Rays of all teams.

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