I had a dream (crammed between multiple others) about these weird, horrific, and wonderful animals I supposedly got given as pets to keep in my room. I remember one that was just larger than my hand and it was ferocious, tearing up bags and jumping from place to place, It had fur. I leaned down and looked at this strange enclosure, supposed to be a cage but, it was solid except a gap in the middle running across all sides of the cube. I looked into it and it felt like the gap was opening up for me to see into it. As it opened my excitement built. I was delighted to find that these light brown, caramel colored rabbits in medium to very small sizes were given to me in this strange enclosure. I remember calling out rabbits! and being excited. But then I looked around further and I saw lobster like creatures, and as I looked their numbers seemed to grow. It was horrific, With their hard shells and alien limbs, they were moving them like they were underwater where they should be. I even saw one with soft flabs of lobster colored skin and it looking more like a mammal than a sea creature. It was disgusting and it resembled a parasitical bug, enlarged, that looked at me straight in the eyes even though its eyes were pointed and was just black. Anyway, I find lobsters and sea creatures incredibly terrifying in the dream and in real life too, so when somebody suddenly held a large lobster and started to run towards me I ran as well and the dream cut to another scene that was even more disturbing. (I just thought the juxtaposition of the warm coloured inviting fluffy furry rabbits and the crawling hard shelled red lobsters was interesting) The scene cut to this aquarium display, very tall. What was in it was normal, but very strange. This man had put an assortment of starfish and sea-weed like fishes in the same tank. But something was very wrong. They all aligned themselves in rows, very unnaturally, but the most disturbing part was that you could feel that they were in agony, and anger filled their every limb as they wriggled them in unison. There was a constant groan in the air - against the artificial blue white lights from the tank - and I realize it was collectively coming from every creature in that glass display. I didn’t know if I heard it with my ears or felt the sound ringing in my whole body. The man asked out loud, what’s wrong with them? and for a second I thought maybe he forgot to put water in it, but I look up and it was filled to the brim. Oh, it was so very very wrong. Somebody please take them out or put them out of their misery.
I’ve always had a fascination with the aquarium. It is a great source of fear and I find it a place of great mystery. It can be light and fresh and it could be deep and dark. It is one of the Great Unknowns. It is the Fear of the Great Unknown. and the creatures! those creatures that live and breathe and move underwater, so incredibly different to us, so beautiful, so terrifying. So colourful, so bland, so large, so microscopic. Too many things you cannot see or feel. So silent. I love visiting the aquariums, but I feel a great sadness for these animals, of course, trapped in these places. The documentary Black Fish I watched a few years back was one of the saddest things I’ve ever watched. The whales and larger marine animals don’t have any space at all for a creature their size. And to be separated from their families… it is inhumane. But it reflects our society. We do that to our own kind too. And that cruel crowding and watching them like entertainment… it is like that fire i saw in switzerland again. and I am part of the problem. They are so beautiful and wonderful. But they really should be out in their natural habitat. I say that, but I enjoy zoos and aquariums so much. I went to a wonderful aquarium in the summer, right in the center of tokyo, I thought it was impossible for it to be good if its in the centre of such a crowded city, but it was one of the best I’ve been to. I did experience something bad at one though. A couple years back, I was enjoying one further from taipei and I suddenly felt extremely sick right before watching the dolphin show. I was sitting on the faded blue paint of the rows and rows of empty seats and I knew that something was very wrong. I ran to the toilet sink and threw up. That was the first time I ever stayed at a hospital for more than 3 days. When I was 14? The doctor poked my stomach several times and said yep, she needs to stay in hospital. and I felt real fear of death and illness. In reality I just had a stomach infection, but on top of that I also had a kidney infection because I didn’t drink water and I still don’t. It makes my pee red and it is terrifying. Sometimes it comes back and I down water and gulp it even though the tastelessness of it makes me feel sick and the color slowly goes back to normal. My real dad had a problem with his kidneys as well and had to get transplants. I had that disgust of drinking water I think, probably because I took a lot of pills as a kid not because I was terminally ill with some weird disease, but I was always tripped up over mundane sore throats and snotty noses. So now I just associate water with taking pills.
I really want to watch Blue planet etc since I know it goes into great depths into the ocean and it is fascinating and beautiful the way it is captured. Olive recommended it to me and I definitely want to watch it for research. She showed me this clip from it, and I thought it was the strangest thing. It is this lake thing at the bottom of the ocean. How is that possible?! and everything dies when it dives in, except for these very alien looking eel like things. So peculiar. I also got some videos at the tokyo aquarium and perhaps I could do something with those as well.