Mythical Spider Archetype

There’s a large spider in a web in the corner of my living room. It’s the size of a small throw pillow with legs. Very hairy. Black and red. It’s in the family room in the corner by the television. Mom and Dad want it out of the house. I’m intimidated by its size but want to leave it be because it’s not hurting anything. Its web is more like a birds nest and the spider just sits in the next like a chicken on an egg. As i watch, a silvery thin ghost-like spider drops out of the spider’s belly. It reminds me of ectoplasm and it makes me nervous because i don’t know which is the real spider anymore. The silvery thing drops to the floor and runs off. This happens several times over what seems like a period of hours or maybe days. I think the spider is molting and the silvery thing is just the old shell being sloughed off but i’m not sure. The spider begins to move out of the nest. Mom, Dad, and i run back to their bedroom (now we’re in the Manassas house). We shut the door and wait. We can hear the spider and another large ?insect coming up the hall talking. The insect bug is telling the spider to seal the doors shut. When it gets to the door of the room we’re hiding in i ask the spider why she is listening to that insect and sealing us in when we let her make herself at home in our home. I’m angry and sad that she would be so easily swayed against the people who protected her while she was vulnerable.

Anther dream.

A woman is having a baby. I don’t think i know her. Something about the baby is strange? Or maybe it’s something about the birth itself that is odd. That’s all i can remember right now.

Another dream.

I come into the kitchen of my current house. Mom is cooking something on the stove. She turns to me and is holding her hand up to her right temple and i can tell she’s in great pain. I’m worried she’s having a stroke and ask her if i should call 9-1-1 and get an ambulance. She tells me it’s just a bad headache and seems to recover but i’m worried and wonder if i should give her an aspirin anyways.

My sleep was so broken last night i would’ve expected to remember a lot more dreams but i only remember a little slice of one and the only reason i remember that one is because when i was brushing my hair this morning something white fell out of my hair and when i picked it up, it was a feather and i remembered i was flying.


I’m in an old house. I think it’s supposed to represent my great-grandparents house. Harriet is standing in the room with me. i’m so happy to see her. She’s so short! I’d forgotten how short she was. She’s telling me to look at the tops of the large wooden shelves that line some of the walls and read the writings there. I fly up to the ceiling level and clear off the dust that’s obscuring the writing. It says Bob Devine 1949. I tell her what it says and that’s all i remember.


Harriet is my great aunt. When she died, i walked with her in a dream to the end of the world where Death took her to the other side. Bob Devine is her husband. I wonder if his time here is nearing the end. Or maybe it's wordplay. Devine - divine. He's very old so it wouldn't surprise me if he leveled up. I kept waking from the bright light shining on my face but it must’ve been moonlight because every time i’d wake up and look out the window to see if i could find the eclipse but the sky was pink and covered with clouds. I think i was waking up. Maybe that was a dream too. Although i distinctly remember looking at the clock and seeing 12:45, 2:47, and 4:13. I should tell Mike in case he wants to play those numbers!

Memento mori

I watched a movie called A Haunting in Connecticut right before i went to bed and my sleep was broken and full of nightmares or hallucinations. The first ‘scare’ i remember i’m not sure if i was awake or asleep or in between. A strong cold breeze touched my face and exposed arm. I pulled the covers up over my arm and up to my chin. I felt the sabre-tooth jump onto the bed and realized the cool breeze was just him pushing the door open. My hand touched something cold and hard and i jumped, causing the sabre-tooth to jump off the bed and leave. My hand had touched my night table but it felt like a coffin. Then i thought about the movie some and wished i had somebody in my bed with me because i was scared. Then i think i must’ve slept some because a few hours later i woke up to the sound of Cameron talking on the phone. The light from her bedroom was shining in my eyes. She was talking on her cell phone and had turned on the shower to let it warm up. It was so goddamned loud! I realized she hadn’t shut the bathroom door. I could hear her telling the person she was talking to that she didn’t need an alarm clock because she had an inner voice that would just tell her when it was time to wake up. I was going to yell for her to shut the doors but i guess i fell back to sleep. My last thought before unconsciousness was what was she doing up so early and then figured she knew what time i get up and wanted to be out of my way so she got up earlier. Some more sleep time. Now i’m on a campus and in line. As we get closer to the entrance i realize it’s a school and i have no idea what i’m supposed to do or what classes i’m taking (classic scenario). Once i enter the building it occurs to me that i don’t even GO to school anymore and continue up the wide hallway looking for an exit. There’s quite a lot of hustle and bustle and the building is more like a hospital or office complex (generic institutional building). I have no idea where i am or how to get out so i’m looking for a bathroom to duck into and get my bearings. I find myself in a big atrium-like lobby. There are guards on the upper levels and i decide i better put on my company ID badge so they know i belong there. Finally, i get to the front entrance and exit the building. I have a wheelchair for a vehicle and it’s tiger striped metal. It goes really fast and i’m zooming up a boulevard, passing pedestrians and dodging road hazards (pot holes, dirt patches, rocks). Then i’m in the mall i go to sometimes in dreams. I have to cut through a restaurant to continue and the place is so crowded i fold my wheel chair up small and put it in a little Christmas gift bag so i can maneuver through the crowd. The restaurant looks like it was maybe built in an old movie theatre because after the top ‘flat’ part, the floor slants down pretty sharply. There are fewer tables but now there are people sitting in arena or theatre seats. As i start down the stairs a couple with a little toddler leaves their seats several stairs down in front of me. The man and woman are walking down normally, leaving their toddler to make her way down on her own. I’m concerned she will fall and quickly catch up to her and rest my hand on top of her head to steady her. The parents have reached the bottom and are looking back up at me with their daughter and seem a little angry. When the daughter and i finally get to the bottom i remove my hand from her head and leave, ignoring her parents. I’m back out in the mall now and about to get back on the road when i realize i don’t have my wheelchair. I got back into the restaurant and i’m standing by the check out area. A woman from the kitchen comes out and hands me my xmas package and i leave. Now i’m walking through another restaurant and Betty is sitting at t table. Apparently she was expecting me so i sit down. There are a lot of “business” people around us, men in suits. Betty hands me a menu for drinks. It’s got several mixed drinks with fancy names i can’t remember now, and a list of shots. I’m surprised there’s no tequila on the list and look it over several times, looking for tequila. Some other ladies join Betty and i at our table – one is LyndaB, not sure who the other was – and Lynda also comments on the missing tequila. Now i’m back on the road in my tiger wheelchair. The road is bad for wheelchair driving and i keep getting stuck. The sand is white sand. Cars are passing me and i’m nervous about getting hit and wake up to Strawberry Fields.

So tired. Hit the snooze two times like always then got up. The first thing i noticed is that my door was closed so the breeze i felt couldn’t have been from the sabre-tooth pushing the door open. I got a little bit of a chill wondering what really happened then. When i got into the hall i noticed that the Cameron wasn’t in the bedroom and hadn’t been there (and why would she have been, on a school night) so i don’t know what light was shining in my eyes and what i was hearing that sounded like the shower running. For a second i thought about alien abduction and the crackpots who believe they’ve been abducted, so i did a body inventory and it didn’t feel like i’d been prodded or sodomized so figured it was some blend of dreaming and sleep paralysis.

That’s a pretty good movie that can get into my head like that and mess up my sleep. It had lots of references to ectoplasm and séances that were so popular in the Victorian era. Photographs of the dead posed like they’re still alive. That was popular too and has always fascinated me. Morbid? Creepy, for sure. There were some good authentic photographs in the movie. This is the one that struck me the most. Poor living brother. Dolls with teeth and memento mori photos of the dead never fail to creep me out. I love it! The imagination can be the best drug of all.

Chop Sticks

I’m in a dark little shop. A dollar store maybe? Or maybe an Asian market type place. It smells like spices. I am standing in front of a bin and it’s full of chop sticks. Each pair is individually wrapped. I think that maybe i need some of these and pull a pair out. Each wrapped pair is attached to the next pair so they come out of the bin like computer paper. I pull out four and tear it at the perforation. I'm thinking i'll bring them to Scott and Mike's. Just as i make the tear i see that there are some other chop sticks in the bin right next to the one i’m looking in and wonder what the difference between the two are. The other bins’ chop sticks are also wrapped. I tear the wrapper off the ones i’ve selected and the handles are the square kind like in the sushi restaurants i go to. I check the sticks in the other bin, tearing off the wrapper, and the handles are round and carved some. Other than that there’s no difference and i’m not sure which i should get. I decide the round ones will be better because i know that if i get the square ones, Scott will do that thing he does where he rubs them between his hands.

That’s all i remember now. Does it mean any decision i make isn't important because the fundamental choice (chop sticks) has already been made? I hate it when Scott does that with the chop sticks. I've read that to do that in Japan would be considered very rude. He laughs at my concern. What is the chop stick supposed to represent? A tool to convey sustenance. Or something more simple and obvious i can't see? The dream doesn’t offer any answers. I am standing at a crossroad looking for a clue.

Tornadoes

The dream begins (from the point i remember) i’m in the yard of my current house (i think) except the fence around the pasture isn’t there, and the field is dry and very “dust bowl” seeming. Other people are there too but i’m not sure who they are. Conditions are ripe for tornadoes and we’re all keeping an eye out for suspicious funnel clouds. From my vantage point i can see tornadoes in Illinois and Missouri. Someone wants to see what i’m seeing and i point out a very large evergreen tree and say “one hand-width to the right of that tree is Missouri.” The tornadoes in Illinois all collapse but the ones in Missouri seem to be multiplying. When i turn my attention back to my own yard, i see a funnel cloud coming. It’s gigantic. It stretches from the ground all the way up into the universe. There are other, smaller funnels around it but it’s that giant one that frightens me. It seems like the other people don’t notice or realize the danger. I shout “Run!” and begin herding them towards the house. Now it’s my house on Castlemill. We run in through the garage and the people are blindly running. I realize they don’t know that we have to get to the center of the house, deep inside where we’ll be the most safe from shattering glass and flying debris. I collect as many of them as i can and point them in the direction of the closet where i think we’ll be able to wait out the tornado.

That’s all i remember. Usually when i have a tornado dreams it’s because there really has been a devastating tornado attack somewhere in the Midwest. Last night was different though. Being able to see across the country – Missouri and Illinois. Misery? Chicago? Kansas (city MO)? Political dream maybe? That was a tornado of biblical proportions. Great. Awesome. Like that scene in The Ten Commandments when Charlton Heston as Moses parts the Red Sea. Riding out the storm in safety? Leading the lost flock to safety? Calm in the center of the storm? Hmm. No idea.

retro-futurism or just kitsch?

I’m visiting in an old house that’s been converted to apartments. Victorian? In the basement is a kind of museum and i’m looking around at the stuff. There’s an old card table that’s unremarkable except for the fact that i remember my parents had one just like it when i was a kid. There are two chairs at the table. They’re mismatched. One is from a diner set and has red sparkly vinyl covering the seat and back. The other chair has a solid color covering but i can’t remember what now. Beige? That one doesn’t have padding at the back – just grayish metal. Other than that difference, both chairs are the same style. I really like the red sparkly one and can envision how it would look with its matching table and chairs. Very 50’s “Happy Days” rock’n’roll style. My attention is grabbed by ?? sitting on top of a chest of drawers. What is it? I can’t remember now. It’s art of some sort. Not sculpture so much but something poured into a mould like we used to make as kids. What the hell is that called? The substance hardens into a kind of chalky material. Plaster of Paris? Anyways, this is very ornate and red gel-like material formed into something i remember i found to be very pleasing. I continue poking around and there’s an old electric icebox from the early days. It’s in perfect condition and very deco in style. The outer casing is a kind of flesh tone pink color but inside, aside from the chrome bars that make up the shelves, the drawers and door shelves are turquoise plastic. (Now that i think about it awake i realize it’s a lot like an old Metropolitan.) I'm especially amused at how short the fridge is - it only comes up to about my chin unlike today's monster fridges that are taller than i am. I open the freezer compartment and there’s a round black tray with a bottle of wine and some chocolates on it. Inside the freezer compartment (which is chrome) the ice trays are the same turquoise plastic. There’s an orange price tag on the outside of the freezer compartment. $825.00. I think that this little refrigerator it’s exactly the kind that Sharon has in her kitchen and i want to take pictures of it, inside and out, to show her how hers would look if she emptied it out, defrosted the freezer, and cleaned it up. I’m thinking 800 bucks is a not a bad price if she wanted to sell hers.

Now i’m back upstairs in the apartment. I don’t know whose apartment it is but i’m sitting on a small couch (love seat) when two women come inside. One is apparently the person who “manages” the little museum and the other is the person to whom the antique refrigerator belongs. I can’t really see the manager, but the owner person is dressed kind of bohemian and wears wire rimmed glasses and a kind of slouchy black velvet hat. She addresses me with “YOU broke the seal!” and i realize that must’ve been her wine and chocolate. I admitted i did open the freezer not realizing it was sealed. I went on to explain how i wanted to take pictures of it, inside and out, to show my friend because of its perfect condition. I described how Sharon’s was fridge so full of stuff and the freezer frosted over that i didn’t think she realized what a treasure she had. The bohemian lady immediately became friendly and began to tell me a story about the red mold sculptures and how they went with the refrigerator.

Upstairs again. Apparently i have been back down stairs to purchase the red molded sculpture things. They’re very dusty so i decide to wash them. As i’m drying them off, i notice the larger of the pieces has holes in it and i wonder if it had been doctored to look in better shape than it really was and i’m kind of disappointed. I decide it still looks pretty cool and start to dry the smaller piece of the set and it pulls apart like it’s made of hardened pudding or something. It’s kind of gushy and gross but i put it back together and hope it will dry okay and wake up.

Odd. I LOVE that old house! Hardwood floors. Heavy doors. It might’ve been that half-round place i went a few nights ago. Same era. Same ‘solid’ feel like old houses have to me. I think that those red things were actually the mould FOR the plaster, and not the finished work. So the image was in reverse. That would explain the red rubber-like texture and maybe why i can’t remember exactly what the “picture” was (although i think i could see it plainly IN the dream). Plaster plaques. Some kind of pastoral landscape with flowers in front (along the bottom), and a fountain in the center. Cemetery art? Not sure.

Tarot Moon dream

I and a bunch of people are going to a party. We have to cross a big field and we’re running and laughing as we make towards the trees on the other side. There are probably about 15 of us, boys and girls. The full moon above us is extremely bright and i can see all of our shadows so it seems like there’s a lot more people. I look at the moon and see the optical illusion of many moons. Like when you stare at a bare light bulb and then look away, the imprint of the light bulb is still there. So everywhere i look i see big round silver moons all over the sky and on the ground. Something happens that makes us all turn around and head back to the house where we came from and as we’re running home we all stop in wonder at a moon illusion in the sky. It’s a castle and an entire walled city. It looks like it’s made out of fog and sparkles with the reflection of moon light. I want to see if i can get inside the moonlight city but everybody else keeps running back to the house and i follow.

At the house there’s some kind of party happening. I’m in the kitchen where there’s a man drying dishes and a woman washing dishes. The sink is completely full of water. I can hear the raucous noise coming from the other room but i really want to go back and see the moon castle. To avoid going through the crowd of people i push out the kitchen window over the sink and go out of the house that way. Right outside the window is a BIG sink. A water trough or industrial sized sink, i guess. It’s completely full too and i dump it over so all the water spills on the ground. It’s where the water from the inside sink drains out so i’m thinking it’s a good thing that i’ve emptied it.

I begin walking up a garden path. I come to a turn and there’s a very large turtle – a couple of feet across – zipping back and forth across my path. It’s really fast, like a hazard in a Super Mario game. I’m thinking that since it’s only a turtle it can’t hurt me so maybe i could just jump over it. Just as i’m thinking that though, i see that right at the turn in the path is a rhododendron type bush low to the ground. Hiding underneath, barely visible, it’s a crocodile. If i jump over the turtle it will put me right in front of the crocodile and i’m perplexed. Saved by Strawberry Fields.

The emptying of the water trough immediately brings to mind Lao Tzu. "Clay is molded to make a vessel, but the utility of the vessel lies in the space where there is nothing. Thus, taking advantage of what is, we recognize the utility of what is not." The very fast tortoise is a symbol i don't understand. Maybe it represents the unbelievable. Like the moon castle. Just because something seemingly defies reality doesn't mean it can't be real? Crocodile in the bushes = doubts? Thinking about this dream, it's like the tarot card brought to life. Very good feeling dream.

Dream buffet. Scraps of many dreams.

Manassas again. This time the road is the one Shari lived on. Can’t think of the name of that neighborhood or the road right now. A woman is walking up Kahn’s Road toward the neighborhood. But Kahn’s is different. It’s all “civilized” and built up with houses and sidewalks. I ask the woman where she’s going and she tells me she’s going to meet her child coming home from school. I’m thinking that maybe there’s a school now at the end of the road where the horse stables used to be. She invites me to join her sometime and i think i will. Now it’s another day and the lady is again walking towards the neighborhood road to meet her child. I’m with another person. A guy. Scott? And as we approach the woman from the other directions (from Trails End) i’m expecting her to greet us but she walks right by without acknowledging she’s met me. I’m confused but figure it’s because i’m not alone. My companion and i decide to walk up the neighborhood road to see parents meet their children anyways. There’s a man with jogging with a dog heading down the road towards the cul-de-sac. The dog has black curly hair. Might be a standard poodle or some kind of water dog. There are a few children walking up the sidewalk towards us on the other side of the road from the jogger and i try to guess which child is the woman’s.

Now i’m in another neighborhood, still in Manassas. Is it the neighborhood across the street from where Shari lived? Or maybe it’s an extension of what used to be Trails End. It’s where the Mennella’s live now i guess and Linda and her mom are standing out in the yard with other neighbors that i don’t know. Where BarbaraK lived? Barbara married JayMennella so maybe that’s the connection. Anyways, we’re standing around a decent sized pond that doesn’t have much water in it. We’re waiting for something. Fireworks? It’s nearing twilight and i see that all the houses have strange downspouts. Linda’s house has life-sized alligator shaped downspouts. I can see another house has caimans, another house has crocodiles. All of them are startling and very real looking. I mention to Linda and her mom that those downspouts would probably prevent burglars because they look so real.

Now i’m in a grocery store in a strip shopping center i’ve been to before in dreams. I need to buy ?something. Can’t remember. The store is large but there aren’t too many people shopping and the shelves are mostly bare. I go into a section (looks like one of the auction houses in World of Warcraft kind of) and i’m waiting for my turn to place my order. As i’m waiting, looking at the other people, i notice smoke coming from a piece of machinery behind a chain-linked fence. As i watch i see that other smoke is coming from other objects behind the fence. I can see glowing orange of flame. Other people are beginning to notice the smoke but they’re not doing anything. They’re just standing in line like nothing is happening. I yell “FIRE” and pull a lever to sound the fire alarm. A fire truck full of fire men arrives nearly immediately and begins to empty the store of people. I got outside and can see that the entire base of the building is in flames.

Now i’m in another store and i’m getting ready to go on a trip. Angie is there. And a young, fat, black teenage boy. A song is playing on a portable CD player and i can tell that the teenager likes it. I tell him that i have the CD and offer to let him burn a copy if he wants. He does so i drive to my house to get the disc but i can’t find it. I return to the store and tell him i couldn’t find it and feel bad about it. I leave and i’m in a large yellow construction vehicle riding on roads under construction. The roads are red clay but seem finished otherwise. Even the overpasses are red clay. I feel like i’m in an episode of the Gumby Show and nothing is quite what it seems.

I remember something i'd forgotten about. At the end of Trails End past the Harlow’s house there was a wild area with a pond. Angie and i used to go there to smoke cigarettes and dream. It was very quiet and nobody else ever came there that i know of. It wouldn’t surprise me it that was all built up now and an extension of the neighborhood. There was also the cow pond on the opposite side of Kahn’s from Trails End where we used to sunbathe on the dock. I’m not sure what these Manassas fragments are trying to get me to remember. Something i need to revisit and think through with new eyes? I can’t quite get the message but the visuals and feelings rising out of my memory closet are mostly neutral.

I just had an insight. Manassas was a crossroads for me. Maybe the dreams are offering alternatives to the paths i chose. That would maybe mean i need to go back and look at my foundation of beliefs and see if they are still valid? No. That doesn't feel right. Maybe i need to look at how i relate to other people? Choices? Hmm. I don't know. But that is where my life changed that caused me to enter a path that led to the road that got me to where i am now. Life is a maze of decisions. Right/left. Yes/no. Wait/move on. Black/white. Night/day. Anything that can be answered by a Ouija board or Magic-8-Ball. That's funny. Who the hell is programming this strange game?


Just remembered another dream from last night. It seems like it takes place where we used to camp at Thornburg VA. Snoball is in the dream! I don’t recall ever having a dream with him in it before. He’s nice and plump and healthy looking except for on his left side is a kind of blue plastic netting. I ask mom if the netting can be removed ever because it’s so visible against his beautiful white fur. She says he can’t have it removed ever. I ask her why he got it and she said that Brad Pitt accidentally shot him with a hand gun.

Brother Snoball! He was never as plump as he looked in the dream. He was large and lean. DAMN! It was great to see him again!

Manassas dream redux

I don’t remember what it is i need to fix, but i know where the part that will complete the fix can be found and i get on some kind of three-wheeled motorized contraption to ride there. Angie is with me and she’s riding a cruiser style bicycle. We ride through the paths to Sabula’s field and onto Hoadley Road. We’re riding like we’re going to Taylor’s store. There’s a lot of commuter traffic so we ride mainly on the shoulder of the road. At one point we have to “off road” and the ground is kind of murky and boggy. After we cross through an intersection at the light (total déjà vu from my Cages dream from a few weeks ago) we take a left turn onto a gravel driveway and ride up to a white farm house. I go inside the house and into a closet. There’s a secret way up into a part of the house that only i know about and i find the hidden staircase at the back of the closet and go up. The stairs are stone and spiral up to the next floor. Once i’m up there i can hear Angie downstairs looking for me. There’s also a road crew working on the road outside the house and i can hear them so clearly that it startles me at first because i think they’re talking to me. I poke around in the small space looking for the missing piece. Sometimes i forget what it is i’m looking for. I can’t find the part here although this is where i’m sure i left it. I get a sense that it’s a block of wood i’m looking for but not really sure. I realize i can’t find it and descend the circular staircase back into the closet. Angie is waiting for me. We leave to go back to Trails End but now my mom is with us. She’s riding on a motorized mini-bike right behind me. Traffic is very heavy and it takes a little while to find a break. I know my vehicle doesn’t have a lot of zip and have to be sure i have plenty of space to get up to speed. Finally, there’s a break and i go for it with mom and Angie right behind me. We’re on the paved shoulder and picking up speed when some red race car zooms around us and gets in front of me. I’m surprised that such a fast car would want to drive on the shoulder. We begin a climb up a steep hill and i’m losing power. I need to put my odd vehicle into a lower gear. I reach down to find the gear shift but my hand is tangled in some sort of plastic cover ?raincoat? and i can’t get a grip on the ball. I tell mom to keep on going and i’ll catch up but really i’m not sure i’ll make it to the top and i wake up.

What is it i was looking for? What was it supposed to fix? Even if i could have got hold of the gear shift would i have known what to do with it? Damned frustrating dream.

Strange but appealing abodes

I’m walking up a sidewalk path to the front door of a building where i’m looking to ?live? The building is in a city but i don’t know where. None that i’m familiar with. Somebody is with me. We enter through a heavy wooden door. Not fancy, but solid. I think it’s solid oak or some other hard wood. We’re walking down a dimly lit hallway. The walls are covered in old fashioned cloth ‘wallpaper’ with a faded pattern. I think it’s vertical stripes with ivy. Ivory and jade. The hallway isn’t very long and at the end is a sort of circular vestibule with two doors, side by side. I knock on the door on the right and a woman in an apron opens the door. We enter into a room that’s a half circle (quarter circle really). As soon as i see it i realize that this apartment and the one on the left should be one because then the circle is completed (half circle really but in the dream i understand it to mean ‘complete’). As i have this realization, the wall that separates the two apartments is gone and now i’m seeing the room how it was meant to be seen. Wide open, and rounded. Like being in the bow of a ship. There are large windows along the front and a large stream of water or maybe a narrow river. I’m disappointed to see that on the other side of the water it’s all built up with shopping and apartments and imagine how beautiful it must’ve been when the building i’m in was first built. I make a comment to that affect and the woman who opened the door tells me “It’s been built up like that since 1924” which i take to mean there never was the beautiful i imagined. I’m not disappointed though and begin to explore the left side of the place. There’s a kitchen with a long wall of stove tops and several people are making dinner. Multiple families share this space. We (the woman, my companion, and i) walk through a door into another room. I think it’s another kitchen but this one has stove tops and ovens. There are several people sitting around a table. The table reminds me of the kind in a diner. I don’t know what that material is. A kind of plastic? It’s white but there’s a pattern on the plastic, like ?triangles or teepees, maybe diamonds? in gold. It’s pretty tacky but i like it. Retro. We leave this room because there are too many people crowded into it and are back in the first hallway. I love this space but it would take a lot of effort to turn it from the multi-family apartments back to a “whole” house.

My companion and i leave the building and go back outside but now it seems like we’re somewhere else, not in the same city where we started. A car pulls up to the curb in front of us and we get in. The driver takes off in a hurry, tearing up the grass we’re driving on. He’s driving like a maniac. Now i’m alone with the driver in the front seat and the car is a pickup truck. He’s still driving fast and recklessly but i don’t care, i’m just trying to take in the scenery. We come to a neighborhood of beautiful old houses. They’re all attached to each other like townhouses, but great big places. Each façade is a different color and different trim, but all pretty much the same size so the roof-line is even. We drive up a narrow wooden road (like a dock) that runs in front of the houses and i realize it’s not a road and we’re not supposed to be driving on it but the man says he doesn’t care if the rich people don’t like it and keeps going further up the sidewalk until we come to the end of that block and have to turn right to continue. I don’t know where i am but i love these old houses and marvel at them as we speed by them.

That’s all i remember. Great feeling dream from an architectural standpoint! I love to go to strange new neighborhoods. I always wish i could get back to that one i dreamed when i was little. I still can distinctly see the piano house and the teapot house. Now that i remember that one i think that maybe the lady that opened the door in this dream was the same lady that opened the door and let me in to the piano house. That dream had noodles in the sink but i don’t remember a sink in this one. Just ovens and stove tops. How odd.

Cages

It seems like i’m in Manassas at my old house. Or the network of paths in the woods behind that house specifically. Somebody and i are trying to get to a ?mouse that is missing. I’m trying to make a “yoo hoo” whistle sound but my lips are dry. My partner ?Angie? (i’ll assume it’s Angie) whistles for me and we can hear the mouse whistle in response so we know we’re going the right way. I’m not sure but i think we might be animals of some kind. Dogs maybe? As we leave the woods to cross Sabula’s Field we see several other dogs of types i’ve never seen before. There are parents with their kids choosing a pet and each time a child points out the one he or she wants, i think that the particular dog will require some kind of special care that will make the relationship a lot more difficult than either the parent or child expects. As we near Hoadly Road we come to some large old oak trees by a white farm house (my great-grandparents?) and i can see a pair of peacocks doing a mating dance. The male is beautiful iridescent blue-green and the female is shades of gray but still striking. I want to watch the dance but the mouse is calling. It takes us forever to get through the oaks to the road and before we get to the road i see the peacock pair again. They look awful, ragged and worn, but they’re still dancing. It’s their post romance dance and even though they look pretty bedraggled - all the feathers from their tails are mostly gone leaving just the long quills - they seem content.

On the road it’s a short way to the mouse and we walk in to a little house and i go right to a room with little furniture and no carpeting or curtains. There’s just a table with a cage with a blue floor sitting on top and inside the cage a little black mouse with a white belly. It looks okay but i can see that it’s out of water and doesn’t have any food and we got there just in time. I fill up the little eye dropper with water and hang it back inside the cage and the mouse drinks some water. Then i find some loose sunflower seeds and put them in the cage and the little mouse starts to eat one of the seeds. I find a little muslin bag of bird seed and pour some of that in the cage and the mouse likes that food better.

Sharon comes in to the room. This is supposed to be Sharon’s house in Herndon but the floors are all wood without carpeting and the furnishings are sparse. She’s making excuses why the mouse didn’t have food or water like she wasn’t responsible. Dream morphs and Angie is gone. Sharon is sitting in a recliner type chair and complaining about how uncomfortable the chair is. I look around the room and all the furniture looks fine but i know that it’s all the stuff that belonged to her grandmother. I begin to suggest that she take out a second mortgage on the house and refurnish it but even as i’m thinking it it’s like she can read my thought and begins making excuses and berating me because i don’t know anything about her situation. Then i suggest she just buy a new recliner because even a quality one shouldn’t be expected to last forever. Sharon says that she’s going to reupholster the chair herself and i warn her that she’ll never be able to make the chair as good as new again and should really just buy new furniture. There’s somebody else in the room with us. A man. He isn’t saying anything. Sharon gets up out of the chair and she, the man and i (who are both already standing) leave the room to go. We’re heading to the front of the house to go outside. As i’m walking, leading them out, i’m pointing out how no matter which way your gaze falls, you can through all of the rooms to the blue sky and green trees outside. When we get to the front of the house we turn around and look back to where we came from. The light from outside shines in through all the glass and lights up all the rooms with a soft golden light. I tell Sharon how much i’ve always loved her house and it’s really heartfelt and makes me want to cry because it’s so beautiful.

The house i was dreaming in was the star of my dream. The rest may have held more meaning but the house is what i loved. Sort of a Frank Lloyd Wright modern. All wood and glass and sky. Just another kind of cage i guess. The peacock dance was sweet.

multi-layered game

There’s a large rectangular game board in the middle of the rec room. It’s about the size of a large pool table. I’m trying to figure it out. There are four different types of dice so i get that there are four different games that can be played on the same board. I put three sets of the dice away and hold on to one set of three so i can figure it out one game at a time.

The board has terrain and reminds me of one of those train things

that hobbyist build. Like a miniature town. But this board is simpler than that. It’s divided into four sections for the game i will try. At the middle of each side there is a small range of mountains. Each mountain has a pass with a tunnel cut through. Each tunnel contains a hazard and as i’m moving around the board, (as a game piece on the game board) a large yellow Goofy jumps out of the cave and begins chasing me. I run like hell and manage to lose him in the hills behind me. Now i’m back to being the player outside the game and walk around the table to examine each cave. There’s a Goofy in every one. The yellow one that chased me, a blue one, a red one and a green one. I look at the three dice i’m holding and realize that only two go with this game, the third one is the same type but is small. Two large red casino type dice and one small red one. I’m confused because that means i’ve either messed up one of the other sets of dice for the game, or else there’s a fifth game that uses the one die.

Now i’m in a bedroom with two twin beds and a nightstand or bed table (can’t think what those are called) in between the two. I’m sleeping in the one closest to the door and on the left from my sleeping position. The right hand bed is against the wall and ?Lois is sleeping in it. Or it might be Cameron because it’s a young girl. The wall at the foot-side of our beds is all bookshelves with a television in the center. I’m watching a movie that shows how to play one of the games on the board. Not the Goofy game, but more like a war game. There are a lot of hut-type buildings made of ?sticks or straw. Defenders are standing along a canyon ridge and firing cannons at the destroyers. The destroyers have big trucks that each have the trunk of a giant tree on top and the destroyers drive the trucks with their built on rams right into the huts. Every time they hit a hut the hut explodes into rubbish. I’m watching this and it doesn’t seem like a very fun game but i keep watching to see what the other games will be like. The girl in the other bed is awake too now and i think that maybe she wants to read a book because she’s looking at some books that are on the nightstand. I decide i’ll pick out a book for her to read. I get out of my bed and go up to the wall of books. I’m looking for a type of book that has many short fiction stories in the fantasy genre. I know it’s purple and tall and skinny. I find many books of short stories and think about giving her one of them because they probably contain the same sort of stories i’m thinking are in the purple book. I realize that those are the stories i like to read but maybe the girl wouldn’t like the same kind so i get back in bed and let her find a book on the nightstand.

Now i’m in a dingy looking office – beige tile, beige walls, metal furniture. Looks like a government building. Utilitarian. Functional. There’s a man in a khaki uniform yelling at me and some other person. I realize i’ve joined the army and can’t understand what would make me do such a thing. I’m wondering if i can quit but know that if i’ve signed papers to be in the army i’m screwed. The yelling man is showing us the obstacle course. I think that maybe if i fail they’ll have to let me out. Then the game movie is over and credits are running but i still don’t know how to play the games or what the rules are or what the different sets of dice are for.

Vivid.

Mission Impossible?

Some kind of epic mish mash dream of which i can only remember this little bit:

In one part of the dream, the oldest of the work Betty’s is in charge of watering the ?grain. I can see her standing on the side of a dirt road or driveway. She’s with two horses. One is horse size but the other looks not a lot bigger than a colt. For some reason i need to learn how to do her job and now we’re in the barn and she’s showing me some odd harness type dealie that goes on the little horse. Betty is adamant it be done exactly as she shows me and i’m wondering if i should take notes but as i watch i realize that it only makes sense to do what she’s doing. What’s difficult for her will be simply common sense for me. Then we’re in a long narrow building. It has a flimsy feel. Everytime we move the entire building shake. Also, every noise we make has an echo like the place is large and hollow (even though i can see it’s fully furnished). There are a bunch of people standing along the hall. We’re crowded in. ScottW, Hunter, ScottH, Louise, Betty are the people that i remember but there were a couple more. ScottW was handsome as ever and i wanted to stand near him so i could look at him. We’ve got three new laptops. ScottW, Hunter, and i are using these new machines and they’re amazing. It has to do with the team (v-ball) and Hunter is extremely pleased with the configuration. ScottH takes credit for ordering the computers. Now we're sitting outside of a building on the sidewalk. Is it my junior high school? My friend Betty is sitting on the top step of a 3-step stoop. I'm happy to see her because it's been a while. She's wearing some hammered copper jewelry that i admire. Then it’s time for us to go and we all pile into the bus except for Betty. The grain hasn’t been tended and there’s no question that she will have to take care of it because i have to go with the team. I can tell she’s really disappointed but that’s just the way it has to be. As i get on the bus i tell Louise that i feel bad because i know how much Betty was looking forward to this adventure. As the bus moves out i can see Betty fixing up the harness for the little horse.

What an odd dream. I haven’t thought about ScottW in forever. One of ScottH’s really handsome gay friends. Gorgeous in a Johnny Depp way. Long narrow building. Bus. Horses. Old age (Betty's). What was Louise doing in my dream? She’s going with ScottH to see Lady Gaga so maybe Lady Gaga is implied? Some kind of sex dream? Probably. Yay my subconscious. Less metaphors, more penis. But please not Lady Gaga’s penis.

Ha! Got another part of the meaning. One trick pony beating a dead horse. That's hilarious, mind! Much funnier than the actual one trick pony beating the dead horse that it refers to.

Avant-garde sex dream

The room is a small auditorium or theatre but there aren’t any chairs. Is this Las Vegas? It’s decorated in art deco style and the colors are intense jewel tones of blue, red, green, and gold. There is an orchestra set up at the opposite side of the room. There are small groups of people seated on various sections of the floor. I sit down next to a small group of people. The couple next to me has a picnic basket and is having a picnic, red and white checked tablecloth spread on the carpet beneath them. It reminds me of sitting on the lawn at Wolftrap but inside. The music is nice – strings mainly. Yoko Ono is performing with the orchestra and i’m excited to hear what she’s going to do. Something’s happened. I either missed Yoko’s performance or she cancelled? As i’m leaving the venue I stop at a kiosk where some of Yoko’s art is for sale. There’s hardly anything there – like four items - but I look at the two pieces of jewelry hanging on the wall and a couple of rough sketches of ?circles. I tell the sales girl in the kiosk i’m surprised she doesn’t have a lot more art for sale because Yoko has many drawings and conceptual art that would probably sell quickly. It occurs to me i’ve missed the performance and the kiosk, once full of artwork, is just sold out of everything. I leave without buying anything and when I exit through the door i’m standing on a stone ledge overlooking a deep wide teal-gray colored river. It’s a rustic ?gold rush town. I enter a room and it’s a ?yoga demonstration class. There are seven people – three women and three men are demonstrating different yoga positions while the fourth man points out the benefits of the different poses. I realize he is rubbing the woman’s crotch and I look around to see if anybody else notices what he’s doing. That’s when I realize that people all around me are making out and feeling each other. I feel out of place and turn to leave. One of the yoga men approaches me but I tell him “Even if a naked 30-year-old Sean Connery walked into the room, I wouldn’t be interested right now” and leave. Now i’m in an empty stable sitting on a table. Sharon is there. She says she needs $10k and wonders if I could help out. I wonder why she needs the money and she starts talking about us going to ?Belgium.

That’s all i remember.

Art Deco. Yoko Ono. Jewel tones. Sex. 10K. A nekkid 30 y/o Sean Connery? Hell yeah i’d be interested. What the hell? Maybe i was referring to the orgy atmosphere. Yoga and orgy are kinda similar words. I never noticed that before.

transitions

I’m at work in a factory-like place. My desk is dad’s workbench. I had told ?Angie i’d drive her to an appointment and i’m preparing to leave. The radio is on and the news says that Blade had a stroke and is dead. I can’t believe it. Devastated. I know i have to get to his station and make sure the four-twenty is a good song. Just as i enter the station i hear some technosynthpop crap that the afternoon deejay lady is playing and i’m pissed because Blade would hate it. I get to where the music gets played and put on Janis Joplin’s ‘Get It While You Can’. I leave the building and i’m crying and driving aimlessly up and down roads i don’t recognize. I turn on the radio and there aren’t any stations anymore. Then i’m on a street, my car is gone and i’m walking and crying. I’m completely lost and sit down on a curb in a subdivision with sidewalks.

That’s all I remember. The subdivision with curb and sidewalks seemed familiar and might have been my first neighborhood in San Bernardino but I’m not sure. Or maybe Merritt Island. That feels more right. Terrible shocking dream. I still feel sick in my stomach. Death = change. Get it while you can is pretty self-explanatory.

feathers

I’m in the back yard of the house i grew up in. There’s some kind of festival? I keep finding bird feathers to collect. I have a good many feathers in my hand plus the quilt i’m carrying. The feathers are all different colors. I'm especially happy i found a red one because i never find red ones. I also have several little yellow ones and i wonder if they're from wild canaries. I decide i need a big bag to put the quilt and the feathers in. Now i'm in the mall i go to sometimes in dreams and walking up the stone floor. There's a fountain with some stone benches around it. I drop some of my feathers and i’m scrambling to pick them up before people walk on them. There's a girl sitting on the bench next to where i’m kneeling and comments about the pretty feathers. I tell her how a person from my work told me it was illegal to have wild bird feathers but that i didn’t see why there was anything wrong with it. She said she thought it was so Indians wouldn’t kill eagles for their ceremonies. I thought that since so many eagles are in zoos that Indians should automatically get any eagle feather that is dropped in zoo pens and she thought that was a good idea.

I’ve been finding lot of feathers from migrating birds lately. Plus Mike and i stopped at the pet store on Kildaire Farm Road after dinner yesterday and there was a sweet young green bird that was so lonely. It was squawking and carrying on so that i had to spend my time with it even though i wanted to visit with the rats. Poor little bird. There was another beautiful mostly blue bird. The sign said it was a love bird. I’ve never seen a blue love bird before! Pretty I wish i could’ve bought the blue love bird and the sad crying bird.

The other night i dreamed about Janet. I can’t remember how we were together but we were in ?her apartment kitchen (i think it was Lynn’s apartment really from when i knew him) and she was telling me how being married to Lynn didn’t turn out how she thought it would be. I exclaimed “you had a CHILD with him!” and was annoyed because i remembered she complained about her first husband when i first met her and wondered if Lynn was as unhappy as she was.

Lynn. He was my pal. I wanted him to love me but he wanted a mother woman. Janet was just like his mom and i couldn’t hold a candle to that. That dream stays with me. Me and Lynn standing on the shore of an ocean. Hundreds of dead blue birds are lying around me and the ocean is smooth and blue and calm as glass. He chose the calm blue safety over joy. I hope he’s not miserable with that choice. Is there such thing as a man that doesn’t want his mommy as his lover?

I’m at work (but it’s not my real office) and some of the nurses (Lana, Sheila, and one other – Joy? Kathy?) are doing something with envelopes. I ask if i can help them and Lana gives me a list, some greeting cards, and some objects like origami party favors. She wants me to address the cards to the names on the list and sign the cards. The people on the list are Medicaid ?dialysis patients and the nurses want to send them cards to let them know that they’re more than just dialysis claims to us. I think it’s a very nice thing to do because the nurses are usually so selfish and don’t think of anybody but themselves but i’m also embarrassed because my handwriting is so horrible and i know that Lana and Sheila have beautiful handwriting. I ask Lana if it would be okay with her if i just prepare the envelopes by putting the party favors inside and she and Sheila sign the cards. She accepts my compromise and i go over to the large wooden shelves to begin preparing the envelopes.

Those were the same wooden shelves as my dream from a few nights ago. I think there were feathers in this dream too. Origami out of feathers?

dying trees

I’m in the lobby of a lodge-type place. Or maybe it’s a lounge in the bar of the lodge. There’s a bunch of people sitting at round tables. Each table would comfortably seat four people but most tables only have two or three people. I’m alone at my table and don’t know anybody. The other people around me are older (which in dream terms would probably mean they’re my age because in dreams i’m always my inside age, not my chronological age). There’s an L-shaped ‘panel’ of seats set up behind long tables and there are even older men sitting in the chairs. There’s three seated at one table and four seated at the other table. I think there’s going to be some live music and i’m curious about the type of music that they’ll make. The man sitting in the corner of the table with four asks the audience “who likes The Beatles?” and several people in the ‘audience’ raise a hand. I get excited and jump out of my chair and go up to the table and begin to tell the men about how just the other night i was jamming with some people and we were doing nothing but Beatle’s songs. Behind me, at the three people table, a new man joins the panel. He seems very down and sad. As he’s welcomed by the group, the main talking man in the corner says something about how sorry he is that the man’s father has just recently died. I realize i know this new man - it’s Hilton Lamm. I think how awful it is for him to lose his dad when he just lost his wife not so long ago. I turn towards him and give him a hug. I can tell he doesn’t recognize me and i say to him “It’s me! Lois’ sister” but he still doesn’t seem to comprehend. I say “Lois Miller! You were a second family to her…” and he hugs me back but i don’t think he really remember me or even Lois and i feel bad for him feeling so bad.

Now i’m outside on the grounds of the lodge, riding in a small vehicle like a golf cart or a “gator” with a loud redneck woman driving. She’s giving me a tour of the property. It’s historic. The trees on the property are ancient oaks but there’s something wrong with them. They have odd bulges distorting them like giant tumors. Some of the tree tumors are the size of Volkswagen beetles. Occasionally the woman will point out little oddities hidden among the trees. She points out a tree that has had the top has been sheared off to leave a flat table top. At the top are two King Kong apes carved out of wood. They’re fighting each other. I ask the woman what animates them but she doesn’t understand my question. I ask her specifically if they run on batteries or electricity or something like that and she, understanding me now, says “electricity”. I see many moving ‘things’ up in the trees and wonder how large of an electric bill the lodge must have to keep all those things moving. We continue on the tour. The path we’re on is kind of muddy and roots from the trees make the path bumpy. The great old trees make me think of my great-grandparents farm and i tell the lady that her trees are going to die of old age soon. She vehemently denies this. I tell her again that all trees eventually die of old age even if they live for hundreds of years. She doesn’t believe that. I explain that the trees on the property are probably 200 years old and don’t have much time left (not even mentioning the blight that’s obviously affecting them). She is very upset and refuses to believe what i’m saying can be true. She’s upset but so am i because i’m remembering how great the old farm was when i was a kid but how sad it was when all the trees died and the new owner bull-dozed everything down and used the cleared land to grow corn. Just as i’m about to start crying, the tour ends back at the lodge.

I’m walking through the lodge looking for my room. I have no idea which room i’m in. I walk through an empty ?dining room and enter through a door-way with wooden stairs going up. There’s a line of people but i walk right past them. The stairway is narrow and kind of dank and dark. I round the last corner and see it’s a public bathroom with a row of seats that are also toilets all around the room. There are some “privacy” curtains between some of the seats but mostly it’s just wide open and there are all different ages of men and women seated and doing their business. I don’t want to sit down with all those people and walk back out and pass all the people in line again. I’m back in the dining room and choose another door-way. It’s got the same kind of stairs as the last place. I’m thinking it’ll get me to the second floor. As i turn the last corner in this hall a naked man passes me going the other way. He’s makes some crack about me being a woman and i realize he’s just left the shower and i don’t need to go any further. I turn around and go back to the empty dining room. I’m beginning to feel a sense of panic because i can’t figure out how to get to the upper floors where the guest rooms are. I look up and can see there are four floors and doors to the rooms open up onto the open dining room which i now notice is a “great” room. Typical lodge with a large stone fireplace at one end. I still have no idea what my room number is but notice i have a key like you used to get at old motor lodges. It’s a brass key attached to a semi-diamond shaped piece of turquoise colored plastic with a number on it. I’m on the fourth floor but I don’t know how to get to it. Just then Scott appears and asks me where i’ve been and indicates i should follow him. I follow him through another doorway as i tell him about the tour and the trees and how the tour woman wouldn’t believe me that trees die of old age.

We’ve entered a kind of room of staircases. Each staircase apparently takes you to one of the three upper floors, depending on which staircase you choose. Scott looks at my key and chooses the staircase to get to the fourth floor. Once we get on the fourth floor we go towards rooms that are away from the ones that overlook the dining room. My room is at the end of a cul-de-sac on a room facing the outside of the property where the King Kong carvings are fighting and i tell Scott to look at them because they’re cool.

That’s all i remember.

'Possums rising

The night before last, i’m riding in the back seat of a large dark blue station wagon or SUV. While i was dreaming i knew who the driver and front seat passenger were but now i don’t remember. We’re driving on a narrow two-lane road. Trees and shrubs and other vegetation grow right up to the shoulder, giving the impression that we’re driving inside a leafy tunnel. We slow down because there’s a cyclist in our lane. The rider is having difficulty of some kind and the driver of the vehicle i’m in comes to a full stop on the road to allow the cyclist to gain some distance. The other lane is clear so i’m not sure why we don’t just pass him but we don’t. While we’re stopped i take the blue plastic tarp i’m holding and get out of the car. I fold the blue plastic into a square and lay it on the shoulder of the road. The shoulder is covered with fallen leaves and i arrange them over the plastic so it won’t show. I feel guilty leaving it because it’s polluting. At that same moment i’m thinking that thought, i decide i don’t want to continue to our destination and tell the front seat people i’m not going with them. They drive off. I’m very tired so i unfold the plastic, refold it oblong and lay it on top of the leaves to make a pallet. It looks inviting and comfortable and just as i’m about to lay down on it i wonder if there are insects in the leaves that will bite me as i sleep. I don’t see anything walking around in the leaves and decide it’ll be worth the risk. I lay down on the pallet and it’s very comfortable. While i’m lying there on the blue plastic on the side of the road i notice that what i took for trees and shrubs are actually very large wooden book cases lined up along the edge of the shoulder of the road. The lower few shelves are filled with dried leaves. I’m wondering who built the shelves when the pavement near my head begins to rumble. I roll over on my stomach to see what’s happening and see a place where the asphalt has been patched several times. This patched area is heaving up so that the patches are “unlayering”. Underneath i can see only a hollow darkness but i can hear something inside that is moving towards me at the opening of the hole. The dream morphs…

And now i’m lying on a floor in a very narrow kitchen. Galley kitchen. The floor is made of wooden planks. The stove and oven is at my back, cupboards are in front of me. There is a glass door on the wall closest to my head that leads out into a lawn. Immediately to the left of the door is another solid wood door that goes to the basement. Next to the door, to the right, is a short wall with a window. In front of the window is a small square wooden table for two. There’s a man sitting in the chair on the side of the table furthest from the door. He’s reading a newspaper and doesn’t notice me (or is ignoring me). In front of the door, there are many layers of wooden planks over a hole. I can see something white coming up from the dark depth of the hole towards me. I’m afraid but don’t move away. A little baby ‘possum pokes its head out and comes into the kitchen. It is SO cute i can hardly stand it! I pet the little head and scratch the little back. It loves the attention. Another one pops out from another opening. I want to pet this one too but it’s growling and showing its sharp little white teeth. I move very slowly (opossum slow) and pet the head anyway. I don’t think it’s sick but i’m worried that if it bites me i might have to get rabies shots. Just as i’m thinking that and looking for any kind of symptom of rabies, it bites the fleshy part of my hand under my thumb. I hold very still and realize that to avoid getting rabies shots i’d have to capture the little creature and turn it in to be killed and tested. I can tell how the bite feels that the skin isn’t broken, the ‘possum is just sort of holding my hand in its teeth like a dog does when it plays. I decide not to tell anybody and let the ‘possum go. I can see that there a several more ‘possums in the cellar and don’t want any more to come inside the kitchen. I begin to move the planks around to close the gap. The man at the table speaks and tells me that there are other exits to the outside because he can see some of the baby ‘possums outside in the yard. I look out the glass door and can see them too. It’s very green outside. Green lawn, big summer time hard wood trees. The little ‘possums look very white against the lawn and i hope they don’t wander too far from their nest and wake up with that thought.

Last night i had disturbing dreams. I only remember the end of one. Three other people and i are in a motel room (we came in from outside but i don’t remember what we were doing or where we were – someplace with shops). There are two queen size beds and the usual furniture in a motel room. I’m trying to pack up my stuff because it’s time to go. I’m not sure if i have all of my things and when i turn to check under the beds i knock over a cowboy boot that was standing next to the bed. The man to whom the boot belongs mutters “bitch” under his breath. He’s scroungy and rough looking. A biker maybe? I set the boot upright again and apologize to the jerk. I REALLY do not like him. The other two people in the room are all packed and ready to go. Everybody is waiting for me. I put a stuffed toy animal in my backpack with some clothes and then i’m ready too. We leave the room and we’re in a station of some sort and in line for the ticket counter. I think we’re going to take a train and i’m uncertain about going. The other two people are people i know and trust but i don’t understand why this hateful man is with us. I’m trying to tell my friends that we can’t trust this other person and why we can’t but we get to the counter and the ticket man in the blue suit hands us a long string of tickets (the kind you get for rides at a fair or carnival). The first person in our group takes the string of tickets and we follow through the turnstile. On the other side of the turnstile is a table with four tall narrow glasses of dark liquid. Now we’re standing at the table but we’re in a room, like a foyer of a house. We each pick up a glass and drink because that’s the only way we can enter the next phase of our journey. We all drink about half of the liquid from our glasses. It doesn’t taste good but it doesn’t taste bad either. To me it just has a sort of dry nutty chocolaty taste. I drink a little more but it still tastes the same. The others drink theirs all the way and say “it tastes like Pepsi!” I take one more sip and get just a hint of the taste of Pepsi. There’s still probably an inch of drink at the bottom of my glass but i don’t want it. The others have finished theirs so we go through the door and there’s a ticket taker. My companions are talking and laughing about the Pepsi drink. The ticket taker man looks at me and i know he knows i didn’t drink the entire glass of ‘beverage’ and wonder if he’ll let me pass. My companions are walking ahead, creating space between us. I want the ticket man to let me through and begin laughing too. He lets me go and i begin to fly after my companions. I realize i’m tripping my brains out! We’re walking along a hall of fun house mirrors i think. I wonder why my friends aren’t high and i realize that the ‘Pepsi’ at the end of the drink was a part of the elixir that would allow ‘Them’ to keep us under their control. My friends don’t even know they’re tripping and i’m just flying along behind them looking at the mirrors on either side of me, seeing how distorted everything looks and i realize that i’m looking out of windows, not into mirrors and begin laughing even harder because i’m the only one who knows we’re tripping and i love being in that state. That’s all i remember.

Yay! I’ll take a trip any way i can! Flying in dreams (when you’re not being chased by a scary monster) is THE best feeling in the world. Definitely a high that can’t be duplicated. Who was that asshole in my dream? I really despised him and wanted him to leave our group.
From these dreams i think maybe i'm not ready to "arrive" = grow up? Don't want to complete the journey or don't want to continue in a state of blind numbness? Bookshelves empty but for old memories (dried up leaves)? Wonders (baby 'possums) from my subconcious (cellar) are trying to emerge through all my "adult" conditioning (asphalt/boards)? Refusal to finish the glass of medicine (give up my free will) in order to ride the rides that my friends are (conform). Disinterested man reading the paper - sort of a 'ticket taker' of a different fashion? The overseer? Some god-like conciousness that provides me with a clearer perspective and shows me that everything is okay really? My inner dreamer?

Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
It's getting harder to be someone but it all works out.
It doesn't matter much to me.

Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.

Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.

Strawberry Fields forever.

A confusion of dreams

I’m ‘home’ and see dad mowing or landscaping. It looks nice, and i’m noticing all the different kinds of seedlings that are just starting to take off and become little trees. One of them seems odd but i love it. It’s like a pussy willow branch but instead of the little furry flowers, it has purple and yellow pansies. I’ve never seen one like it before and wonder if it’s a new kind or if it’s a wild natural hybrid. As i continue to walk towards my destination (the house, i guess) i see a fast moving body of water pouring over one part of the yard creating what looks like a black mud wave. It’s really churning up that patch of ground and all kinds of interesting rocks and artifacts are being dredged up. I begin to pick up some of the pretty rocks but then put them back down because i don’t know what the plan for them is but as i turn to walk away from the deluge, i see something green on the ground. I pick it up and hold it up so ?? can see it and say “It’s Jade!” but even as i’m saying it’s jade i know that it’s not, it’s another common green mineral but i can’t remember the name (malachite).

I still have the green stone and i’m standing at a check-in desk. There’s a girl standing at the same desk but i’m not sure if she works there or lives there. She’s blond and fair skinned and wearing green plaid. It turns out her name is also Lesley. She suggests that maybe we should live together and it seems perfectly reasonable to me. We compare last names. Her last name is a Gaelic word for ?January (or maybe Winter) and i can see the word as she says it but can’t remember it now or how it sounded. I told her mine and we agreed mine was boring and we should use her name. As we’re talking, the space we occupy is an apartment with wood floors. The wood is light (Norwegian wood?) and the place is very sparsely decorated. This is where the other Lesley lives. As i scope out the place i mention that i have thousands of records and cd’s and books that i’d want to keep. She laughs and looks shocked at the same time. I tell her about a place i want to go see sometime. It’s at the southernmost point of a large lake in the middle of California. On a map California is like half the United States i think. San Francisco is in the upper right side. The lake goes from the bottom of SanFran way down almost to the desert. I tell her the name of the place (i’ve dreamt this place/map before but can never remember the name) and how i think it would be like a paradise because probably nobody ever goes there because it’s not convenient to anything and not on a path to somewhere else people would want to go. It IS the destination. Then we’re walking on a cobblestone walk in an old city. I think it’s in Scotland. It’s windy and cold. We go back to the apartment and there’s an amazing looking electric guitar in a stand. I pick it up to make it makes sounds and it’s got an interesting feel to it. Like the strings are hard light and i can bend them into all kinds of tones. A guy with long hair comes in. It’s her roommate and the guitars owner. He takes the guitar from me and goes off into another room. His room, i guess. I can hear songs coming from where he went.

That’s the tip of what i remember. There was a lot more but i can’t catch a wisp of the others. Good dreaming night between the full moon and my feverish brain. Eanáir is the (Irish) Gaelic for January. Scots Gaelic would be similar i suppose.

Pink Light

I’m in Las Vegas with my long-time-ago best friend Susan but it’s ‘Now’ and we’re both adults. For some reason, i’m barefooted. We go into a casino and i’m worried that the casino people are going to ask me to leave because i don’t have shoes on but as Susan and i are walking through the part of the casino where the shops and restaurants are and i’m looking at other peoples’ feet. I notice all the women have shoes on but they’re all wearing sandals, and even with their pedicured feet and toe jewelry they’re all jack-toed and bunioned and have generally ugly looking feet. I feel that even if mine are bare and the nails aren’t polished, i’m still not as gross as any of those other women. I point that out to Susan and she just laughs and says “I told you not to worry about it.” We go into a gambling room. It’s kind of dark, dank and icky looking (reminds me of downstairs at Charlie Goodnight’s) and we decide to try the next one. To get from one casino to another, we don’t have to go outside because there are these short tunnels between the walls of the different casinos. The tunnels are stucco’d and the floor is dirt. We stick our heads through one of the tunnels into the next casino but it doesn’t look fun there, so we go further to another tunnel. We go into the gambling room. It’s a combination gambling room and theatre but the show hasn’t started yet. The dealer is sitting behind his table. The table is a half circle and he’s in the middle. There’s one other person at the table but all the other people (maybe twenty or so) are seated around the theatre waiting for the show to start. We get some cards from the dealer and the casino lady brings us some drinks even though we didn’t even order any. My drink is in highball glass. Something in ginger ale. The ginger ale is very good and strong. I drink it down pretty quickly because it has a lot of ice in the glass. There are three round lights over the dealer. They’re like fluorescent tubes but circles. Neon i guess, but the circumference of the tubes is bigger than neon tube normally is. The light is flamingo pink and shining in my eyes so brightly i’m having difficulty seeing. It feels like i’m wearing contacts and the light is getting stuck between the contact and my eyeball so everything is a blur. The casino lady notices that i’m squinting and asks if i would like for the lights to be turned off. I tell her yes and i tell her that the light makes it feel like i’m wearing contacts even though i don’t wear any. She gives me a look like i’ve said something odd and goes to where the light control is. I wish she’d taken my drink order before she left because i’m thirsty for more of that ginger ale drink. I realize Susan and i aren’t even playing our cards and wonder if the dealer is going to get mad.

That’s all i remember. Odd dream. Mostly what struck me about didn’t strike me until i was awake and walking to my car to go to work. That pink light was uncomfortable bright and left me feeling quite disturbed even awake. It got me thinking about Philip K. Dick and the pink light beams he saw and i wondered for a minute if i’d been abducted by space aliens. And then i laughed at myself for thinking that. But really… it WAS very bright and disturbing. I assume i’d feel “probed” or something wouldn’t i? I can’t remember exactly what PKD said about the pink light. A means of communication from space travelers to us? I forget. Sometimes i think he was insane but sometimes i think that he was right and “the empire never ended.” Reality is so fluid sometimes.

Piano Man

I’m in the Manassas house. There are two guitars on a bench-like table next to the piano. Both guitars are beautiful but one is unusual in that it’s made entirely of black wood and is so dark it seems to absorb the light. The silver strings really stand out against the darkness. I pick it up and strum it to see if it’s in tune. It has a lush rich sound. Neither guitar has a case but each has a kind of cloth shroud they’ll fit into. The one that goes with the black guitar is calico quilt and i use it to rub all the smudges off the guitar and then put the guitar in the sack. I put the other guitar in its sack too. There’s a coat rack – a 2x4 about six feet long with pegs sticking out of it – right next to the piano and hang the guitars in their shrouds up by a loop of material that’s sewn on to the bag. Now my attention turns to the piano. I play a few notes to see if it’s in tune and the lower register keys sound high and broken. I open the top of the piano to see what’s going on with the strings and i’m horrified to see that the mallets and strings are mangled.

Time jump to the incident with the piano: Dad is hanging up the coat rack thing and the top of the piano is open. He drops the hammer he’s using and it goes crashing onto the mallets and breaks them. Back to ‘now’…

I’m kind of confused why my alarm hasn’t gone off yet but go ahead and look up a piano repair business in the yellow pages of a phone book. As soon as i call the number, there’s a man at the door. He comes in through the front door and looks at the damaged piano. He tells me he would take it with him and fix it. I ask him how much it will cost and he tells me $130.00. I’m surprised and tell him i was afraid it would maybe cost nearly as much as the piano is worth. He laughs as he pushes the piano through double doors going out to where the carport would’ve been in real life. There’s just an empty field outside the door and the mans pick-up truck is parked in the middle of it. He pushes the piano towards the truck as i ask him when it will be fixed. He tells me a day that’s three weeks out and i tell him that he can keep it ‘til the first week of August because there’s no rush. The first week in August will give him four weeks. He’s surprised and pleased to have some extra time and drives off.

Back inside the house i’m wondering what time it is and why my alarm hasn’t gone off. I look up at a clock on the wall, the kind of clock you see in institutional type places – just big and round and plain, except it has roman numerals (it seems like my dream clocks generally do have roman numerals) and i do a double take because the clock is at three o’ clock! I realize that i’m in big trouble at work because i didn’t call in to tell them i would be out of the office. As i’m shutting the double doors i start to lock the storm doors and realize if i do that, nobody will be able to open them to unlock the front doors so i leave the storm doors unlocked. I close the double doors – they slide together – and lock them. I notice the piano is back in its spot and i’m confused. I open the top and see that the hammers and mallets have been glued in like the man was in a hurry. It’s all jumbled looking. Cameron is there and i ask her about the piano. She tells me that the man brought the piano back and told her he had to be away for awhile and would fix the piano properly when he returned. I didn’t understand what she was telling me and notice a piece of paper with some writing in pencil on it lying on the piano bench. I can’t make sense of the writing but i think the man had to go to his National Guard thing and will be gone for two weeks. I play some notes on the piano and it sounds good except that the lower registers play high notes and i realize i didn’t specifically ask for the man to tune the piano and wondered if that would cost extra. I’d thought it would all be included in the fixing.

I’m very confused about the time and go downstairs to my bedroom. It’s dark and i check my alarm clock to see why it didn’t go off. It’s still too early and i’m torn between going back into my bed and sleeping some more or, since i’m already up, taking a shower. As i’m trying to make up my mind Strawberry Fields wakes me up for real.

I’m not sure that i get the symbolism of the dream yet. Maybe it will reveal itself to me as the day goes on. Am i the damaged piano? Repairable but out of tune?

tiresome dreams

I’m at work but the only thing familiar about it is that Betty is still my manager. It’s night time. I was out sick during the day and have to work all night to make up for being out. We’re part of some marketing campaign and i have no idea what i’m supposed to be doing. As usual, Betty has complete and unwavering faith in my abilities even when i don’t and she’s all peppy and throwing out ideas. I realize i can’t even pretend to make an effort anymore and decide to leave. This building we’re in is very confusing. I walk out a door and can’t find my car anywhere. There are people in the parking lot, only shadows. They’ll kill me if they see me. I go back into the building, realizing i’m trapped until Betty wants to leave because i’m parked where she’s parked and i’ll never be able to figure out how to get back to that side of the building from the inside. I only remember an upward staircase through a reception area. When i get back to my office, Betty is in there doing some kind of craft with paper cutouts and glue. She shows me that she’s got a big paper grocery bag (the kind with handles) that’s full of supplies. I tell her that i really need to get to my car so i can go home and sleep because i’m going to need to get up early to go to work even after working all night. She didn’t realize how late it was and is worried that Bill will be mad at her for being so late. We go back to the staircase and reception area just like i remembered, but then we had to cut through somebody’s private office and make our way through the darkness until we get to the double glass doors of the “formal” entrance. I’m relieved because i can see my car. Betty and i part and now i’m driving along an unfamiliar road. I’m in ?Saint Louis and i’m lost. The road is a two-lane country road and it’s all dark. I come to the outskirts of some little town and see a fast food restaurant (KFC?) that looks open. I decide to stop there and try to call somebody to help me.

I’m asleep in my room. I think it’s the house in Wappinger’s Falls. There’s a window behind my head, and there’s a window on the wall to my right. I look to the bed on the right wall and see myself asleep in that bed. It occurs to me that since it’s myself in the other bed it would be safe to make out with myself but when i move over to that bed and start to go down on myself, i realize i can’t do it and my other self turns into the sabretooth. I'm disgusted with myself for thinking about making out with 'me' and go back to the other bed fall asleep.

When Strawberry Fields came i tried to get up and realized i still didn't feel well. Another day out of work. I hope i don't dream tonight and wake up feeling good tomorrow. There were other dreams but i don't remember enough to bring back the memories of them. Cars. Driving. Being lost. Same ol' same old.

a sci-fi dream

Two guys and i are travelers. We’ve just arrived to a new world in our transport. Our vehicle is sort of bus-like and silver on the outside, like an Airstream trailer. We’re strapped into our reclined chairs. The leader man unbuckles himself and tells us that he’s going to go out and explore a bit. As he’s saying that i can see large black spiders on the ground outside. They’re about the size of foot stools but they don’t scare me at all. It’s curious because it appears that we’re inside a large white room with linoleum floor. I’m not sure if we’re in a different “world” or just a different “time” and feel uneasy. The leader gets out of the vehicle and walks across the linoleum. He reaches a white wall and an opening appears so he goes through. The other guy and i get out of the vehicle. There’s a television with some couches arranged around it, like in a hotel lobby. I get comfortable on a couch while the man searches through the channels for something to watch. Because the room is so completely white, it’s impossible to know its dimensions. It feels like big empty space the way the sound seems to disappear and the air feels light. While the man is still messing with the television, a naked baby (cherub?) flies into vision and lands on the other couch. It’s a fat, happy little white baby. It laughs and the man and i begin to convulse. We are caught in some kind of blue light electrical net. We’re helpless. The baby stops laughing and flies away. We wonder what kind of entity it is.

It’s much later. I’m in a lab with a different man. He’s skinny and pale and wearing a white lab coat. He makes me a little uncomfortable. I think he’s the baby but all grown. He’s teaching me something. We have to go to another place where the equipment has been set up. I’m riding a bicycle with the pale man on the back. He doesn’t weigh anything but i’m having trouble controlling the bike. We’ve come to a stop light. On the other side of the intersection, the road is divided. The light turns green but i’m still concerned that cars will come and hit me. The bike is very wobbly because of how slow i’m going. Steering is so hard! I can’t stay to the right and am just concerned about getting across the road that i swerve to the left and go wrong way up the left side of the divided road. I get back over to the right side right away though because the “division” is a just short a grass island. I apologize to the man for taking us on the wrong side and putting us in danger. He’s unemotional and cold and doesn’t seem to be concerned that we could’ve been hit by oncoming cars. I realize that there are no other cars on this road but still shouldn’t have veered into the oncoming lane. We get to a building that reminds me of a library. We go inside. It might be a library but with all the books gone. On one of the tables there’s a machine and that’s apparently the equipment that i need to work with. I can see the blue lights. It looks like a copying machine. I’m afraid the man will laugh and i’ll be trapped in the blue net again.

And CUT. Sci-fi dream. Pretty cool. I didn’t know any of the people in this dream. The white room is like the prison in THX 1138. Great movie. I think i’ll watch it again soon. Maybe the movie's message is the inspiration for the dream. The spiders were the one normal seeming thing in the dream i felt comfortable with.