Amazingly I have no recall of a dream at all last night. I slept really well, and it was so much easier to get out of bed since I didn’t feel like I was pulling myself out of another world. Hmmm…maybe that has something to do with our late night activities…
When I became aware I found myself in a bedroom, knowing it was late at night. There were two full sized beds in the room, which seemed to be a peachey color. The bedding was all wispy and soft fabric in pinks and whites. Someone was coming to do their rounds, and this was a cause for great fear. Read the rest of this entry »
Wow.
I was walking around a carnival type of place which reminded me of Musikfest and the Celtic Classic. It ran all through the city and it was crowded with people. Eventually I walked away from the crowds on to a street near the hospital. People there were dying, and they all needed injections from gigantic syringes. A doctor in a white coat was checking the needles to see if they worked properly. Read the rest of this entry »
Dream of 10/20…I’m getting behind!
There isn’t much to recall, and at first I though that I’d had a peaceful night’s rest, but it hit me like a brick that this was not so.
When I became aware I was walking down a country road in my home town. I decided I would try to take a short cut that I had learned of in another dream, knowing full well that the way was very difficult and would take me longer than just walking the straight path. Read the rest of this entry »
Dream of 10/19
I don’t have any idea why, three of my coworkers and I were attending a seminar in a large auditorium that was located on a boat, some kind of aircraft carrier or cargo ship. We all had drinks and were having an enjoyable time together but we were having trouble locating four seats together. There were a lot of people attending but there were still many empty seats, it was just that the open seats were all in groups of two or three and no one would move so that we could sit together. Eventually we located some other people we knew and sat among them, chatting a laughing while waiting for the presentation to start. Toward the end of the presentation a guy standing near the front was demonstrating this new hair color headband that distributed the color just on your roots. I thought this was great and just had to try one right away, not thinking that I would have no place to wash the stuff out of my hair afterward. I was talking to the man who gave the main presentation up at the front of the room and I was commenting on the fact that the big boat was metal, and how astonished I was that it could float. Sitting on the podium was an almost empty container of wood stain. It was a metal can, about four inches high and about ten inches across, with a dribble of very pale stain clinging to the bottom. I picked it up and was rolling the dribble around while we talked. We left the boat to go swimming either in a pool or at the beach, but I didn’t go to the beach. Instead I found myself on a road trip with three different people, one of whom was hugely pregnant and another who is my boss’s immediate supervisor. We were travelling in a white 80’s Geo Tracker. The pregnant lady needed to stop for cigarettes so we did, and they sent me inside to get them. Inside the gas station was this tiny little booth surrounded by plastic sheeting to form an enclosed space, as though they were doing construction. It was almost empty when I walked in, there was only one person ahead of me. He was taking a long time, and before he was done a crowd of smokers filed in and there was so much smoke that I couldn’t breathe and I started to feel sick, so I walked out. I told the pregnant lady that she could get her own cigarettes because I wasn’t going back in there. She did, and then she miscarried the baby, which didn’t seem like a very big deal to anyone. Our next stop was a shopping mall because the boss’s boss said her high heels were hurting her feet. We went in and they disappeared into the shoe department. I was looking around and noticed a pair of Eddie Bower workboots at the top of a display, and by them was a sign that said “Free Roadside Service with Purchase.” A black man was inquiring as to whether that included only one towing per year or if it was unlimited.
That scene cut out to me being at a hotel or a temprary apartment somewhere in Iowa with my little sister (who lives in Texas) and she had just found out that her husband was going to divorce her. She didn’t tell me, I saw it in an email reply from something she sent to our father’s older brother. She was pretty pissed off and I was upset for her as well as at her for not telling me about it. She needed my help to move her stuff home to my parents’ old house.
With that I woke up.
This was the night of 10/18, Wednesday.
The dream starts in a classroom filled with people from different times in my life. I was talking with a former classmate about how well I did in math as I was trying to get up from a student desk. My satchel got caught up on the edge of the desk and I couldn’t get it untangled. Just outside of the classroom there was another room that vaguely resembled the bridge from “Event Horizon.” It was sort of roundish with a sloping ceiling with dim lights and some wood trim, so it wasn’t quite all metalic. In that room a bunch of people were waiting for a bus with a nice man who had short grey hair. He had some sort of control box that looked a little like a dark grey or black Etch-a-Sketch only a little more round. It had a black screen with a monochrome green readout. He was trying to set a force field of some kind, and we all had to gather on one side of the room for him to set the far side. When it came time for him to set the half we were standing in we had to all crowd into the bathroom. The readout showed one-inch-high vertical bars with numbers underneath. He showed me the last series to set the field, 2111.
This bathroom was smallish and dimly lit. It was in shades of grey and there was a mirror above the toilet. Everything was very simple and modern-looking like something from IKEA. It was spotlessly clean, and as we crowded into it there was just enough room for every person to stand with all of us scrunched together, like the space was expanding to let us in and the shrinking to fit.
When the bus finally arrived I realized that the seat numbers were different on different buses. For some reason this was frustrating and important.
Apparently the busses took us to the mall. Once inside I was walking up the stairs–the mall must’ve been five stories high. On each floor there was something different, but it was all “mom clothes.” One floor had bermuda shorts and matching patterned/sequined t-shirts. There was a floor where I could see wind suits, and then finally something different, but it was all twiggy juniors clothing that was too skimpy or simply way too small. The visuals people must have been doing a floor move because around one corner there were manaquin busts all over the floor, probably twenty or so, all of them dressed in different colored blouses in different fabrics. All of these were business to evening blouses but small enough to fit a 6 year old girl.
I woke up disgusted that I couldn’t find anything to fit me.
Our last No One Dies Alone training class was yesterday. We talked a little bit about what the volunteers should do and where we go to find stuff. The last three of us shared our death stories.
I spoke about my father’s death and the fact that I was not there. We had such a poor relationship that when my mom called to tell me he was dead my first thought was “he did this on purpose.” You see, it was three days before my 30th birthday and I was pregnant with my second child. Dad simply had to be the center of my mother’s attention, and I figured that she had probably been talking a lot about grandchild #3 and my impending decade change. So he took her to work and kept her brand new car for the day and proceeded to fall asleep at the wheel on the way home, T-Bone a truck and killed himself. I still think he was either over-drugged or drunk. So I buried my dad on my 30th birthday after flying halfway across the country at the last minute with my 15-month-old, my husband, and my pregnant self. It’s hard to say I miss him because for the last ten years he had barely been present, even when he was physically there.
I admit I’m still a little honked-off about the whole thing. Now every birthday I get to remember my dad’s funeral. Yipee! It’s fair to say I’m still sad, too. Dad and I were a lot alike and it’s a shame that he worked so hard to destroy our relationship and never tried to heal it. It hurts to think about the fact that my own dad didn’t care enough about me to care that he hurt me so badly or so often or to say he was sorry.
Lately he’s tried to contact me. I don’t think I’m prepared to deal with that, nor do I feel like letting him get off that easy. I don’t know where he’s been for the last two and a half years, but it hasn’t been Here. He’d like to say something now, but frankly I’m in the middle of making dinner and I don’t have the time or inclination for going into a trance just for him. Whatever it is it can wait.
Maybe the next time I go to visit my uncle I’ll set aside some time for him.
another wild ride…
Last night when I “came to” I was in another crowded place, possibly another shopping mall or some kind of convention center. I realized I had to pee so I began looking for the bathroom. When I located the bathroom I found it to be a huge open room dimly lit with bare flourescent light fixtures and tiled in “institution green.” It looked ancient and it was in very bad shape. It was dirty, tiles were broken, divider doors were broken and their paint was chipped. Many toilets had no paper, did not function at all and were rusty, were full of standing ick, and/or were missing some part or all of the divider. People were lined up next to each other sitting down to go and I couldn’t locate an acceptable receptacle. All of the people were old and depressed-looking. Eventually I settled on one in a corner where the lights were dim.
After escaping the bathroom I entered another door close by. There were heavy old curtains drawn over the windows, blocking all of the outside light. Dirty, dank, old mattresses covered in tattered bedclothes were scattered about on the floor. I was instantly sleepy and couldn’t help by lay down even though I was repulsed. As more people entered the room I managed to rouse myself enough to notice two sets of my elderly bank customers being led in by a man I knew was in charge. I tried to yell out to tell them not to lie down but I couldn’t make any noise. Somehow I fought off the covers and got up, and I began to struggle with the heavy curtains. The rings were rusty and didn’t want to move along the rods and the curtains were fighting me back, but I was able to let a little light in. I managed to get one set of customers up and out but the others just waved goodbye as I left.
Next was a room where the floor was covered in puzzles. Everyone who walked in had to help put one together in order to leave. Two people were alreay working on my puzzle before I started. It was all in shades of brown and tan and the pieces were small. We were under a time limit, and the man appeared again. Something bad was going to happen if we didn’t finish the puzzle but the two men working on mine wouldn’t listen to me and kept messing it up.
I had an extreme sense of dread throughout the entire dream.
I woke up as I was yelling at them for screwing up again.
Comments?
Let me just start by saying this: when I dream it’s a fantastical experience. Some people only remember vague impressions from their dreams. Some people see disconnected images. Some only see things in black and white. My dreams are a cinematic showcase of sight, smell, sound, and sensation. The color is clear, everything is realistic. It’s as though I’m transported into another world to live another set of experiences. My body tends to react this way to what goes on in my head as well. I can awake with my heart racing, sweating, laughing, crying, furrowing my brow, and even talking.
So, on to last night’s bizarreness.
As I became aware of my surroundings I found myself walking through part of a new shopping plaza that is getting ready to open near my home. I had just dropped my son off at daycare. I was on the hunt for a gift to give my husband for Yule. There weren’t too many people around as I entered a high-end men’s clothing store. I could smell the new clothes that were hanging on the racks that were crowded all around the store. The carpet was green and the walls were tiled in oak, and there were crystal chandeliers with dim yellow lights hanging from the ceiling. The tall, thin, dark-haired man standing behind the wrap stand was telling customers close to him that there was a “free gift” with every purchase, which was a small toiletry kit that contained a bright red shaver. I was looking at the khaki slacks hanging on the wall and trying to find the right size when I noticed the price tag. While I have no recall of the exact price I suddenly realized that there was no way I would be able to afford anything there and I left the store. As I was leaving a man was looking at the red shaver and runing it down a square length of wood that was set up for display in the middle of the store.
I left the shopping plaza to go to work, which was at my former high school as a helper in the library. The whole building was crowded with people, and as I was walking I met a fellow bank employee who works in another branch. Her role here was as librarian. This is someone who is my peer but whom I consider less competent than myself, so it seemed odd to find that she was now my boss. She helped me find the computer terminal I needed to begin my work. Later that evening I had spent so much time working at this terminal that I somehow fell asleep and when I awoke I was looking out of the screen–from inside the computer. This woman came over to shut off the computer, looked around the stacks of the library, didn’t see me, and left the computer running. After she walked away I crawled out from under the desk and headed for the checkout desk. Someone asked why I got to leave already and her reply was to lay off, because she has two small kids and she needs the time. I told her thanks and headed toward the parking lot.
It was very dark outside when I was leaving. Because it had been so crowded I had to park on the street, and as I was walking alone to my car I saw a man standing right by my car. I tried to hit the panic button to scare him off but it wouldn’t work. It’s difficult to describe him because he wasn’t clear, even though my impression of him was. He wasn’t too tall but he seemed lanky, he was probably slouching. His eyes were blue and wild, his skin was pale, and his greyish-white hair was a mess. He looked like Gandalf or Odin might look, and he was hopping around leering at me. His voice had an awful, sickening hissy quality, and I knew he wanted to scare me. Somehow I managed to get around him and lock the doors as he was playing at reaching for me.
There were several accidents on the roads of downtown Terre Haute (where I grew up) as I drove home in the rain. At one intersection there were police, fire, and ambulances. At another blocked intersection I got out of the car and heard shots fired. No one could tell me what was happening, but people were screaming and some building was on fire. I hid with some unknown people behind an old mattress that was leaning against a wall in an alley just off of the road. I don’t remember leaving there but shortly I found myself at home.
Once I got home I knew I needed to go upstairs, so I did. There was a song I needed to play on the trumpet which was up in the attic (I don’t play the trumpet or any other wind instrument). I could hear the song in my head, but I couldn’t get the instrument to do more than squawk a bit, and laughably I was trying to mute this horrible noise with a piece of cardboard so the members of the audience in the front row outside my windows didn’t think it was too loud. The trumpet was very cold, and it began to snow. The windows were open, and the white sheers were billowing in with the cold breeze. I rested for a minute in one of the windows on the side while looking up at the brown shingled, steeply inclined roof to the side of it. Eventually my (big, beautiful, black, and now dead) cat Onyx came in through the window. His fur was stark white and when I held him I noticed that he was covered in huge brown fleas that scurried away from my fingers where I touched his fur. At this point it occurred to me that I was dreaming, because Onyx wasn’t white he was black. I put him down and then I woke up.
Please feel free to comment…
I am really and truly tired. Weary. Exhausted. In a way that says I should probably be taking extra good care of myself or I’m headed for a dangerous crash. A friend of mine is experiencing such a crash, and her admission made me realize what a precarious hold I keep on my sanity at any given time. Years of practice have made me such a good actress that it’s even possible for me to fool myself for a while, but when my body starts howling at me I’m not left with anything but to pay attention to what’s going on.
There is so much that is going ok, or even (dare I say) well, that rationally it’s ridiculous to worry or to be down, but brain chemistry doesn’t necessarily respond rationally in my experience. My deepest, darkest fear is that I don’t matter and that nothing I do will ever matter. I am keenly aware that this is what was wrong with my dad. His choices are not my choices, bless the gods. I don’t run from any fight. My outcome simply must be better than his.
The problem that is tied up with this is that I have never learned to be weak without falling apart. I guess my emotional spirit is brittle, like a glass rod or maybe an egg. It can take an amazing amout of pressure–I can withstand an amazing amount of pressure. But if there’s a crack in the shell the whole thing is a complete disaster.
I need to learn to value myself and realize that what I do every day already matters. This is not a short or easy process. Every day I influence my children, who are both reasonably happy, healthy, and well-adjusted little boogers. What kind of adults they grow to be matters, and I have a huge hand in developing that with them. I have good friends and a husband who loves me, and I know that I matter to them. I have students online and off, and hopefully they would at least notice if I wasn’t around anymore 
sigh. I’m such a drag sometimes.
