A New Job

This was a very detailed dream and although i can tell i’ve forgotten some important elements, there are very clear images that remain this morning.

My current job has ended and i am checking out what could be my new job at the company that took away the contract that i worked on. I walk across an expanse of well kept lawn to a large brick building. At first glance, it reminds me of my old high-school (which was very prison-like with no windows). I approach some automatic glass doors that open accordion style, and enter. Inside, there is lots of light and it’s very welcoming somehow. I am escorted to the unit where i will be working. I take my spot next to a guy who is picking up what appear to be insect larvae (but aren’t insect larvae – it’s a foamy, rubbery substance about a half-inch long and tubular shaped).   He picks one up from the carpeted floor and “swipes” it along a ?magnetic strip. If a tiny green light comes on at one end of the capsule, he puts is ?(can’t remember this detail). If a tiny red light comes on, the capsule has to be put back on the floor. It’s brainless work but the pay is tremendous. I’m trying to decide if it’s what i really want to do. The big money makes it very tempting even through the work would be soul-killing. There is a group of about six men at a cafeteria table eating lunch. These guys do that same “larva” work. One of the men is monstrous looking. His head is misshapen on the left side and his left eye shows a lot of the red inner lids (like a Saint Bernard dog) but i’m standing to his right side and don’t see that initially. He looks just like John Lithgow to me, and i tell him so. The other guys at the table kind of gasp and start laughing hysterically because they can’t believe i said such a thing right to the guy and they know what the other side of his face looks like (and i still don’t)  Dark Side Of The Face/Moon? JohnLithgow then turns to look at me straight on and i see the left side of his ruined face. It almost looks melted. I don’t react and continue talking and joking with the men at the table and think that working with these people (along with the big paycheck) would make the shitty work bearable. Two of the men at the table get up to give me a tour of the operation. They’re young (twenties?) and not gorgeous, but physically attractive to me. Healthy. Sporty looking. Apparently they find me attractive too and make several comments about my fluffy hair.

We go into an outdoor courtyard like space. Its brick floor/patio is in a parquet pattern. There are many (8? 12?) tables separated by low brick dividing walls so the effect is similar to booths in a restaurant. The tables are round and there are 4 – 6 chairs around each. This is the provider services/phone unit. I’m amazed. It looks so nice but i’m wondering how the reps can conduct business in this “outside” environment. One of the guys points out that it’s not finished yet and shows me the holes in the tables where the large umbrella will be placed which will keep the rain and sun off of the employees. It seems like a fine idea and i’m impressed how well this new company is pulling the work site together. It’s much nicer than my current work environment.  

We return to “our” department so i can practice “swiping the larvae”. I swipe one and the light turns green. It’s so easy. It’s a stupid job. I ask the guy working next to me why we are doing it. He explains why (but i can no longer remember the explanation – maybe i’ll come back later). I swipe another and it turns red. I know i’m supposed to put it back on the floor but it’s not natural to me – i’d rather throw it away. The guy explains that they get put back on the ground because even though it didn’t turn green that time, it might turn green the NEXT time it’s swiped. The capsules ?contain information that is read by the magnetic strip, but not all strips are compatible with all of the capsules so it’s like a random thing. The goal is to keep swiping and get as many green lights as possible in a work day. I’m extremely torn about whether to take the job or not, because it’s (to me) completely meaningless work that will provide no job satisfaction at all BUT the money and the guys i’d be working with are very tempting.

That’s all i remember right now.

Work dreams aka End of the Line

I am packing up my personal stuff from work to begin bringing it home. I have two empty boxes. They're the boxes that the reams of paper we use in the printers come in so they're a decent size and have lids. I fill both boxes full of stuffed toys and i'm surprised by how many toys i have at work. They're nice and very colorful. There's a plush tiger that's very soft and looks like new at the top of one of the boxes. The other box contains a brightly dressed clown doll. End of dream.

The Company is selling off all our equipment at work as we close down. My co-workers and i now work at communal "cafeteria" tables. Each table seats about ten of us, on benches, five on either side. It's very cramped. I have one person to my right and three to my left. Sylvia sits across from me. It's pretty cozy but i know it's just for a little while so i make-do.

All the people at my table are gone. There are a few people sitting along a table or bench attached to a wall (like at a beer bar or pub). There are five or six chairs along this wall and Wanda is sitting at one of the spaces. I'm trying to do my work but the format of the worksheet has changed and i'm having trouble finding the fields. I'm annoyed that this change was implemented by management without the workers being notified. I can still do the job but it's taking me a lot longer because i have to search for the relevant fields to conduct my review. 

I move to a seat next to Wanda thinking that she can help me because she's a keyer but she doesn't have any answers as to why the worksheet was changed so i move back to the table where i was working, but sit at the end closest to where Wanda is sitting. It's really slow going and i'm getting more and more frustrated. I'm beginning to worry because i have two different stacks of reviews i need to complete before the end of the day or i will either have to let one group recycle, or i will have to come in to work on Friday and i really don't want to have to do either.

Four younger people come and sit at the table with me and i don't know any of them or where they work within the company. Now i'm trying to get to the homepage so i can access the MMIS and do my job. Nothing is the same. I can't figure out where to put my ID and password to get in. I ask one of the young men if he can help me access the MMIS and he looks at me like i have two heads. I explain to him that The Company has changed the look of the access screen and i don't know where to put in my ID and password.  He takes my laptop to see if he can figure out what i need.

The man hands me back my laptop and tells me that the reason i can't access the MMIS is because i've dropped my laptop and bent a component. He shows me where the piece is bent but i can't see anything that looks abnormal. I tell him that i have not dropped my laptop (implying that he doesn't know how to help me and should just admit the fact) but he insists. He asks another of the young men at the table to take a look but i take back my laptop and move back to my original spot at the table and continue trying to access the system. I'm fuming over the company selling off the machines in operations before we (the contract) was finished using them and wondered what else they were going to sell off (take away from us) before our work was actually complete.

Spider, Moth, and Lion

I'm not sure if i'm actively present in this next dream or just an observer. From where i am ?sitting/standing i can see what appears to be a large spider in front of a hedge. I'm trying to figure out if it's real or a fake one but i can't quite see in the low light. It's dusk. The harder i look at the "spider" the more i can't tell, really, what it is. Maybe it's a moth caught in the spiders web, but i can't see the rest of the web so i'm thinking that maybe it's a dead moth that's been caught in scraps if an abandoned web.

As i continue watching, a medium sized spider scuttles into my view. She is remaking the web and i know that the original web was hers and she consumed it and is now rebuilding. Now i can tell for sure that what i took to be a spider is actually a moth. The spider doesn't disturb that moth but rebuilds around it. She starts with the center piece and drop lines before she begins making the sticky spiral. I love watching her make her web and how quickly she works. When she gets to the outer webbing she begins to move very fast. She finishes and returns to the center to wait.

As i'm watching, a very large male lion with an impressive mane sits down in front of me. He is between me and the web. The web is no longer in front of a hedge but is free standing somehow. It's probably four of five feet across and a couple of feet in height. More like a fence than an orb web, although i can still see the traditional octogon-like shape on the left-hand piece of it. Now i can see through to web to a vista of rolling hills beyond. Another large moth has gotten entangled in the web several inches to the right of where the already dead moth is caught (which is well right of the spiral part of the web). The spider runs over to the live moth and begins to prepare it. First is the bite to paralyze the prey and then she begins to wrap the still moving insect in silk.

The entire time this spider is working, the lion is just sitting between me and the show and i'm concerned that he is going to get up and walk away. I'm equally concerned that he will come my way and attack or walk away from me and damage the web by walking right through it. The spider continues wrapping the moth and, just as i feared, the lion gets up and walks into the main part of the web and tears through it. The spider and prey are still "safe" but the main part of the web is destroyed. I feel bad for the spider because she's going to have to rebuilt the entire thing but then i think maybe she won't since she already has food.

Is it the shoes?

In this dream, i’m preparing to go out with a few people. I’m not sure if it’s a “date” or not, but i do know that i like a man in our “party” and want him to notice me. My shoes are black ?suede with a low thin heel. Vintage looking, but classic. We’re almost ready to go when i remember i forgot something (jewelry?) and need to run back to my room to get it. 

I go downstairs (Manassas house) to retrieve what i’ve forgotten and then i’m crossing a stone walk way over the ocean. There are no rails and the waves are very high, coming over the side of the bridge. I have to time my crossing with the waves and each time a large wave comes, i jump up and float above it until it goes by. This occurs three times and then i’m at the door of a ?crypt.  

The door is stuck and i pull on it until the whole panel of the crypt comes out. It’s heavy – a slab of stone or marble. I tuck the panel away so i can put it back when i’m finished getting what i came for. Inside the crypt it’s my room. The furnishings are velvets and silks. Mostly red. I go to the dresser to get my jewelry. I find an old bottle of perfume i like (Magie Noire) and spray some on thinking maybe if i smell nice the man i like will notice and like me. After i spray it on i’m worried that maybe it’s too old and doesn’t smell like it did when i wore it in my younger days. I ask Lois if it smells okay and she says it does but she’s choking/coughing a little from breathing in the mist in the closed space. 

 

Still, i feel pretty good about myself and my great shoes and head back out of the tomb. I wake up as i’m putting the stone slab back in place.

She's leaving home....

I’m at work (it seems like the original Waters Edge office) and realize i really need to start packing up my personal stuff and bringing it home. As i look around me i realize i have a LOT of personal shit and wonder where i’m going to put it once i get it home. There’s the old Grundig, a wooden bookshelf that belongs to me, a BUNCH of plants. I feel overwhelmed and don’t know how i’m going to get it all home. Then i remember i have a pick-up truck and feel a little better, thinking that as long as i can get somebody to help me get it into the back of the truck, i can get it home. As for all the plants, i decide to give away as many as i can and only keep the roots of the ones that are important to me.

This is a new kind of stress dream! Obviously related to my real-life waking situation of having to start closing down this 26+ year relationship/career.  The interesting thing about the dream is the symbolism. The old Grundig. The old ’75 Chevy pick-up. Both of those items have been out of my life for longer than i’ve worked at this company. And the plants…  i often dream of the plants and the panicky feeling that i haven’t watered them in i don’t know how long and i’m worried they’ll all be dead. Maybe it’s my psyche cleaning out debris to make ready for the next adventure? Or maybe the Grundig and pick-up truck are symbols of a happier, freer, easier time in my life. I had great times driving that ol’ rust-bucket of a truck.

Luckily, i don’t really have that much personal stuff to bring home but i have a feeling that the dream is trying to tell me something else but i can’t quite understand it yet. 

Hammer of the gods

The setting is a some old ?English pub. Hardwood floors, wood paneling, kind of dusty like it hasn’t been used in a long time. Most of the furniture is gone but there are a few wooden chairs and tables near some windows. The windows don’t let much light in because they’re so grimy. There’re two guys standing near the mirrored bar and they are holding a guitar. It’s not a typical guitar because the neck is very long – twice as long as normal. One guy is holding the body of the guitar while the other guy, young 

Jimmy Page, is holding up the neck and playing it with a bow. The sound isn’t great but not completely unpleasant either. Behind my right shoulder, fiddling with something  ?a microphone stand? is the young Robert Plant looking like Norse god-like. John Bonham is sitting in the chair to my left. His shoulders are MASSIVE. The guy holding the body of the gui

tar must be John Paul Jones. I feel such love towards Jimmy. While he and JPJ mess with the strange guitar, i lean over Bonzo and take his hands in mine. I’m surprised at how fine, almost feminine, his hands are knowing what a power drummer he is. Even his forearms aren’t bulky as you’d expect but his shoulders are massive. He reminds me of a bison. He’s very sweet and soft-spoken and i can’t help but rub his shoulders and pet his head and kiss his cheek. I think on some level in this dream i know that he’s dead and i’m just trying to appreciate being able to touch him for a while in the dream. Plant isn’t a big part of the dream really, but his presence is a beautiful “glow” or presence in the room. Occasionally i hear him say something to Jimmy and JPJ but i don’t recall that he speaks to me directly. They’re preparing for a show that will be held in this dusty space later (tonight).

The dream morphs. Now Jimmy Page and i are standing outside at the bottom of a flight of cement steps leading up to a ?brownstone. There are about five or six step up to brown wooded double doors. There’s a handbill on the door. It all looks old and abandoned. The handbill is still in good shape but it’s from a long time ago. On it is pictured a nice looking young lady with long red hair. It’s Jimmy’s old girlfriend. He wants us to go inside and make love and asks me to put on a red wig because he wants to pretend i’m the girl in the handbill. I’m so happy to be with him, i agree because i really want him to be happy. We’re in a “bohemian” bedroom with a purple velvet cover on the bed.  I’m wearing the long red hair and performing oral sex on Jimmy. I feel beautiful and happy.

Strawberry Fields brings me out of the dream. :o( 

Leela: The Game of Self-Knowlege

I'm in a "play" ground. The ground cover is red stones. There seems to be a specific order or path to follow to enjoy the "games" and i'm attempting to follow the path in the order it was intended. There's a gate that leads to a zigzag path (weave polls?) to some swings. I enjoy each section until i reach some ?monkey bars. I begin to climb the ladder to hand-walk through the bars but see a very large cobra is coiled around the top of the 'feature' and it frightens me, so i skip that one and head to the next. The next obstacle is an ornate kind of "play house" that is painted in the manner of the old Victorian houses and is very charming. I really want to go inside and play but i notice that there's another large cobra underneath the stairs and i'm too

afraid to walk over the snake because i know it's waiting for me to try.

I leave the play ground and go out through another gate and find that the playground is contained within a larger playground. I hurry through to the next gate because i'm sure that the cobras are following me.

When i woke up from this dream i immediately got the snakes and ladders theme of it but have been puzzling over it, wondering what am i supposed to be doing? One can't confront a cobra. Or is that what i'm supposed to do? The insight is right in front of me but i can't find it.  

Illusion of Glass Ceiling

It's a work setting in a high-rise tower. I've been invited to come to a meeting on the top floor and a couple of executives? in suits are going to escort me to the meeting. I'm not dressed for it - i'm not in pajamas but in something just as casual. When i get there, it's a HUGE room. Very spacious like the conference rooms in "conference centers" with very high ceilings and lots of tall, green trees inside. Very beautiful and has a "comfortable" feeling in spite of the "business atmosphere."

  

There are a lot of people, men and women in suits, sitting at many rectangle conference tables. The room is amazing. Large, airy. The ceiling is mostly glass. There's some sort of meeting  going on and all of the people in the room and i are listening in via conference telephones placed on each table. I feel out of place among all these suits and i'm more interested in the beautiful space of the room than whatever is going on over the phone. The sky darkens over the glass ceiling and the rumble of thunder can be heard over the voice coming out of the phones. Dark roiling clouds are covering the sky outside the glass ceiling and a hard rain begins to fall.

 I'm very excited and blurt out to the people at my table that i'd heard of how awesome experiencing storms from this conference room were and feet honored to be witnessing it for myself (notice that i'm not at all impressed about being invited to the meeting and attending the "important" conference). The rain is getting in and the people are moving towards the center of the room. I realize that the "ceiling" only covers the space immediately above the room but there's a gap of a few feet between the ceiling and the upper walls. It's amazing! I love that the elements can get in and disrupt all these well-dressed "proper" business people and take them out of their comfort zone (and into mine).

A fever dream

I'm in the back of a very large vehicle. Like an RV but much bigger and wider. I'm try to sleep on a thick foam mattress that takes up nearly the entire floor. I'm not sure who is driving but we're going to ??  There's somebody sitting next to me, talking to me but i don't think i'm really paying attention. The idea of the journey exhausts and excites me at the same time. I lay back and let the journey begin. We're flying through dark blue space and nothing is visible outside the windows. Mostly i can only tell we're moving by the sensation. We are going fast and go through a large loop - completely upside down and around like a loop on the Big Wheel's race track. It's fun! Then we do a series of barrel rolls and i'm dizzy, but then we settle into just regular flat roads. Some kind of humanoid creature is in my face talking to me and i don't know what it's saying. It won't leave me alone so i push it off to the side of me because it's scaring me.

I wake covered in sweat. My fever broke but i don't feel better. I want to ride in the RV in space some more.  

Layers of dreams

I'm in my bed asleep and just waking up from a dream that i want to remember. In that dreams dream, there's a girl that is very interesting to me. I follow her around as she tells me of her adventures. She's wearing a metallic looking pink lycra body suit. She looks anime. We're in a inner city children's park and she's showing me the different rides.  The first one we look at is like a regular "gate" ride that goes 'round and 'round but it's very high off of the ground and you have to climb a jungle gym to reach the platform to use it. As we're climbing, she tells me about another ride at the end that's like a car. She and her boyfriend were playing on it and he was killed and his body was tossed over into the straw bales that edge the park. I'm not sure i believe her but i'm having fun and she is interesting. Next we crash a party at some redwood picnic tables. There are a bunch of people (all girls i think) and we sit down among them. The interesting girl picks up a raw turnip from a platter of vegetables and announces in a voice that makes you believe that it is a feat of skill or magic that she will now eat the raw turnip! It's funny and everybody is laughing. There is a basket of red sauce (looks like Tabasco) in front of me and i grab a bottle, take off the tiny red bottle cap and in the same voice, advise that i shall now drink the entire bottle of red sauce. Some of the girls gasp in alarm but i read the ingredients to them and assure them the sauce is more sweet than hot and it will be fine. I drink down the red sauce and it's very tasty. All of a sudden, a cute black rat runs up to me and sticks its head into the bottle. I'm alarmed because i can see that the neck of the bottle is going to cause the critter to suffocate. I grab the body of the rat in my right hand and the empty bottle in my left and pull the rat out. It's head is bigger than the opening but somehow i get him pulled out and he seems fine.

Now i wake up and get out of my bed. I walk down an unfamiliar hall looking for the bathroom. The floor is stone slabs, very rustic. The first door i come to is another bedroom and at first i like it a lot. The beds head and foot board are made of tree limbs. But there's a second bed in the room that i don't like and realize there's no windows, so i go back into the hall. I go into the room at the end of the stone path and it's a bathroom. There's a stone tub built into the wall and the only window is a large round stained glass over the tub that lets in some light be obscures any view. It's very church like and i find it soothing. I brush my teeth at the stone bowl sink and go back into the hall. I return to "my" bedroom and even though the bed isn't as inviting as the tree bed in the other room, i like this room better because it has two windows. I lay down in the bed and from there, look out the window at all the people going to work and school. Once in a while, one of the commuters looks at my window but i'm laying down and sure they can't see me watching them.

Some kids come in to my room with their mom and get on the bed. I think they don't notice i'm there. The mom is going to tell the children (a boy and a girl) a story and i like stories too so i'm happy about that. But we are in the story now and we're in the lodge-like living room of a home. The man of the house is standing in the room in front of a nice fire in the fireplace.  It's very cozy. I decide i need to leave and make my goodbyes to the family and leave through the rustic door. It's cold outside and there's snow on the ground. The man and woman come out and we sit on the ground of the porch because i'm undecided about whether or not to leave.  I begin to tell them about my dream about the interesting girl and then i'm back in that dream.

The interesting girl and i have reached the last ride (apparently that dream was still being dreamt even though i was in another dream too) and it's the car ride. It's not at all what i expected. It seems to be a Camaro or other muscle car but half the size of a real one. It's standing upright on the front bumper and some mechanism of the ride makes the engine roar and the hood fly open. Somebody has a picture of a guy standing in front of the ride. The interesting girl tells me that it's a picture of her boyfriend and that she's the naked girl in the picture. I don't see the picture, but from the way the ride is, i'm guessing that she's seated on the top of the ride and her boyfriend is pleasuring her orally. Just then the engine roars and the hood opens and i realize that must've been how he was killed. I see hundreds of bales of straw around the edge of the park and get sad. I know that the body is nearby. I ask the girl more about it and she describes that they were actually having sex when the accident happened and he was tossed into the bales by the car. She told me that other people told her to just leave him there so she did. I admitted that when i'm dead i'd just as soon be left for the bugs and rodents to eat and she agreed.

Then i really woke up and called in to work to tell Martha i wouldn't be in today. My head feels like it's being split in half.

Snowball!

 The key feature of the dream i remember is seeing my old cat-friend Snowball! He looked good! The dream seemed to revolve around him but there wasn’t a “story” to it as far as i can remember.  When i petted him, he was so white and fluffy like when he was young. I remember in some part of the dream telling somebody that Snowball is only two or three years younger than i am and i’d never heard of a cat living to be 50 (so the dream is in real time – not flashback time, which is interesting). I was recalling how i was only a toddler when my parents took Audree and me to the cat lady’s house to pick out a cat. Snowball was one of many cats inside a large (room-sized) cage with chicken wiring. There was a monkey in the cage with all the cats. This is a real memory. I was three years old at the most. Probably two, which would have made Audree six. Snowball was “her” cat, although he was part of the family all of my growing up.

One setting was my neighborhood in Manassas. Trails End Road. Angie was in the dream, and her step-dad. Those are the only people i remember being in the dream. Oh yeah. Audree and Lois.

The Angie scene. I’m at a house (not the Trails End house though) with Audree and Lois and Snowball. We’re getting ready to get in our car and go somewhere. Just as we’re getting ready to pile in, Angie pulls into the driveway in a big SUV. She gets out of the car and has a great big dog that looks like a Huskey or a Malamute with her. I’m annoyed because i wasn’t expecting her, she wasn’t invited AND she should not have brought a dog without asking first. I fear that the dog may hurt Snowball and tell her to get the dog back in the SUV. Snowball (who never was afraid of dogs) and the dog seem to get along fine though so it turned out to be no big deal.   

Why Angie’s step-dad? Odd.  Ben always scared the shit outta me. Big brute of a man. He was living in the house (next door to mine) all by himself. The house was empty except for him sitting on a couch in the front room.  No carpet and the wood floor made the house sound even emptier. He and i walked out into his front yard and out to Trails End. He was talking about cutting down the tree in the front yard and i noted that if he cut that tree down he wouldn’t have ANY trees in the front yard and wondered if that’s what he really wanted. When we returned to his house i saw that one of the bushes along the front of the house had been removed. It looked odd – like a missing tooth. But i saw how the sunlight could now shine in the window that had been blocked by the bush and the rays of sunlight could shine on the couch. I understood that he removed it so he could see out of the window when he sat on the couch and had the added benefit of being in the light.

Snowball kept going across the street and i was worried about him. At some level though, i knew i was dreaming and that he was dead and i think that’s why i was so worried, because i was afraid the dream would be over and i wouldn’t see him anymore.

I’ve had lots of dreams since i last documented any but this one was special. I don’t recall ever dreaming about Snowball before. :o)  My first kitty. He was a head-bumper. He lived to be twenty and died in his sleep in a sunny spot outside the house when it was still at Castlemill. Gosh. How long ago has that been now? Twenty five years? He was a a beautiful Angora with long, silky hair and big yellow eyes. I wonder if the dream was prompted by my concern about how old the sabre-tooth is getting. He’s almost 17. Pookie is 18. My parents are 80. We’re all getting ancient. Death is within arms’ reach for us all i guess.   

  

One dream i had several weeks ago and should have documented had me cutting off my own feet and sewing them back on, on the instruction of some doctor. That was kind of gruesome. But i did as instructed and seemed to have no trouble walking after i’d done so. I’ve had many weird ass dreams like that that didn’t’ seem worth writing about.

*These pictures are of random Turkish Angoras, not pictures of Snowball. But he looked just like these!