Did you ever wake
Did you ever wake up annoyed from a dream?
I had a dream that we went to the store for a particular pen. I needed a permanent fine tip pen for a project I was doing, and we went to 2 different stores to find the right pen. The second store that we went to had just one left, so I grabbed it and brought it home. When I got home, I realized that it wasn’t the right kind of pen, it was one that someone put in there from their pocket, and it was half used and had “LAUNDRY” written on the barrel in Sharpie. I woke up so annoyed about not having the right pen because it just wasn’t worth it to drive all the way back to Walmart to exchange a measly pen.
There are places that I have recurring dreams about. I don’t know whether they are just sets my mind has come up with or places I’ve been or places I will go, but they haunt my dreams. One is a grocery store that seems to have a disproportionately large selection of toilet paper and paper towels. Another is a ranch that I’ve never seen before.
There’s a Joyce Carol Oates story about a woman who sees the house she dreams about, knocks on the door, and goes through some unpleasantness. I don’t know the name of it, but it’s a great story and quite eerie.
When I want to be disturbed, I read Shirley Jackson. The Haunting of Hill House is, of course, one of the all-time scariest books ever, but her short stories are so abrupt and slightly off in some way that they tend to make me uncomfortable. But in a good way.