the labyrinth film.

 I had a dream that was time split into two parts. There is a girl who dances for the ballet company near the Starbucks I work at. Her name is Jillian. Somehow, me and Jillian are cast in this movie about a maze inside a house. This first part is as if I’m watching the movie. There are two elements of this movie, one was entering into the house from the outside, one is a bathroom scene with the two of us. We are both talking as we are in somewhat dark lit room walking into the house. It feels less like a home and more like we are going through tunnels or a sewer or something. The major camera elements show our face from the lower right side and the lighting is that of a candle or something. But that’s not what it looks like to the characters… to the characters, everything is pitch black. The reason that the lighting is on us is to show our facial expressions while we’re talking on our way in. At first, we think it’s the way the house is designed, we can hear each other speak from no matter where we are (there is a point where the camera is showing both of us individually cutting back and forth trying to reach for each other, because we can hear each other’s voices from a certain distance away, but we never end up finding each other), but we find out eventually that we can also hear what each other is thinking. There are times in this movie where both of us end up confessing some darker element of ourselves to the other and it’s very emotional scenes. I remember mine being something along the lines of waiting to cross a street with my mother and there are so many cars coming from so many directions, and I keep waiting and it feels like I wait forever and then eventually I realize my mom has been gone and I have no idea how long she’s been gone for. Jillian’s confession I cannot remember, but you can see her face kind of contorting with her crying and how sad she is. Towards the end of this part of the movie, there is a romantic interest influence kind of coming in, because we are each helping each other figure out how to get through the labyrinth using only each others thoughts and words and we end up in this basement bathroom that looks like Saw. There is very little lighting, but because it has been pitch black for so long, it hurts our eyes. I remember going in closer to speak with her or hug her and be like hey we made it, but she is disoriented and cannot see that I’m coming closer to her so she’s kind of stumbling around and not able to see she’s avoiding me. The camera is now sort of like surveillance footage, steady camera from above in various corners of the room. I leaned against a wall and waited around while she cried. I could still hear her voice (obviously) but when I tried to telepathically communicate (it looked like a color wheel in my mind, no words just a million colors you could choose to radiate in a million different brightnesses to convey a message or a feeling or a direction, etc.) she wasn’t picking up on it anymore. We both end up hearing a voice in one of the bathroom stalls. Somehow the light changes and you can see that one of the walls is all bathroom stalls that we couldn’t notice before (you could see the light leaking in around and under the doors). She goes over to the door and you can hear her speaking with another girl, but it’s a very creepy sound where it sounds like murmuring. No matter how close I got to the door, it sounded like steady murmuring and couldn’t make out any words. I tried to get her attention and she got DEAD quiet and the lights went dark again. Not dark like the tunnels, but dark like the room was initially. Throughout the entire room, a color filled the room and it was not from either of us, it was from someone else (or actually it felt like someone from OUTSIDE the house) and it was menacing and I got horrified, but i realized it wasn’t horror of danger it was horror of embarrassment. Jillian came out of the stall a little while after I was reacting to that feeling and trying to feel around for vents or doors (even the one I found into the room was gone). She was in, like, “mean girl” form and was wearing, like a maroon/burgundy wrap top and a form fitting but flowing black skirt like she was going out to a club. And she was being mean to me, like, “i can’t believe you think i actually like you because you were able to talk to me” etc. And I was like it’s fine it’s fine let’s get out of here, I’m sorry, that’s my fault. And totally understanding the situation of how I knew we weren’t going to mean anything to each other after this. But she kept digging in and i don’t knw the dialog, but she was creating this whole dialog about how not only did i act like i thought we’d be together, but also that i thought she looked good in her clothes now and i should stop acting like i picked them (okay?) and then that i thought i was special for being chosen to be in this movie. And it was, like, a cool sense of a movie having one character come at another character but not the character, the character ACTOR and how he wasn’t doing a good enough job at the role and i would never get another role again. And then it showed the actual nature of my mom leaving me at the corner and it was on the news that people were laughing about how long the kid waited to cross the road (like hours) and people were yelling for him to cross and he never did, etc. and that was a news story about ME! (both me the actor and me the character, and the mom was an actor too?)

AND THEN the scene cuts and it’s like lights are on and camera people are there, and Jillian’s face is SO happy and embarrassed like i’m so so sorry and she hugs me like she’s tired and i’m like what the fuck? I don’t know which reality is happening and she starts talking to me about how hard it was to make all of that up and showing me the news etc. and she is like, holding my hand and we walk out of this door easily and we still have to walk a while through a labyrinth but we know how to get through (we hold our arms kind of like mario running pose) and we “follow our arms” and i can hear her voice but it sounds normal, not “produced” and i can’t do the thought color wheel anymore and we end up making our way out into a production lot hollywood parking lot and cast and crew is waiting for us. And i’m still feeling devastated and i can’t tell which is real and RIGHT THERE is the corner that i wouldn’t cross for hours (where my mom left me) and Jillian is talking to me and she’s wearing, like, workout gear now (not athleisure, more like loose sweats and t shirt) and she’s like i’ll see you at home, babe. And we get swept up in this crowd, kind of. Well, i have to change there out of my “prisoner” gear and into regular clothes (both outfits are the same, i don’t even change) and then i lose sight of her OR the idea that she’ll ever come back.

I woke up because of my alarm and then i usually go back to sleep for 30 minutes (twice). In one of those short sequences, we were in my old house in Levittown and I lived there alone (the rooms were different) and at one point, heather i used to work with came in the room, but she was in ‘costume’ as a character from the movie i just talked about. And then someone else i knew came in and someone they both knew came in. and they gesture towards the door and it’s Jillian walking in and she’s wearing this dress and she does a spin, and she looks me in the eyes like she’s waiting for me to comment on the dress AND THEN I RECEIVED A COLOR WHEEL EMOTION/COMMUNICATION ON WHAT TO SAY 

And i woke up for good.