Waking Mind

It’s vague, the dream I had last night.  Really, I only remember what it was about.  My uncle, my cousin (who alternated as my step-daughter) and I were on some sort of motorcycle pilgrimage to visit either my mother’s grave, or the place where she died (which in the dream was in the middle of nowhere, but in real life was in the hospital).  I was riding up behind my husband on his motorcycle, and at one point he left to take a ride by himself, to leave me and my uncle and my cousin to make our peace at my mother’s grave-site (there was a crossroad?  a body of water?  something.  it’s not clear).  My cousin and I were somewhat removed, emotionally (I was eight and she was five when my mother died), but my uncle was a mess, and was upset at us that we weren’t more emotional than we were.

That’s all I remember.  I woke up feeling disjointed, and the feeling persists if I try to remember any more details.

I tried channeling my dreams last night per Crystal’s suggestion, and asked to be shown the path to my joy.  This is the result.

The first part of the dream was kind of like a romantic comedy.  The male protagonist was with a girl, and the female protagonist was with a guy, and though the “viewers” of the scenes wanted the male protagonist and female protagonist to be together, they also liked the people they were already with.  Kind of like “Sweet Home Alabama” where you liked both Patrick Dempsey’s character and the other guy, and who would end up with Reece?

So anyway.  The male and female protagonist (I’m watching this, not in it, and the characters were pretty much like Patrick Dempsey and Kate Beckinsale) are friends, and they’re exploring the properties that Patrick owns (he’s rich, she’s not).  He’s built a castle, ostensibly for his girlfriend, but you can tell he built it with Kate in mind.  Kate likes it, is overwhelmed by it, but you can tell that it’s not “her”, and she tells Patrick so.  He looks disappointed, and asks “Well, what would your perfect home be?”  And she says, “Just like the little cottage in x (can’t remember the name she gave).”  Which turns out to be a little ivy-covered cottage that Patrick also owns.  There’s a sense that they’re going to choose to be together…

… the dream changes, and now I’m in it.  I’m at Grandma’s, and there’s the sense that I’m there for some sort of a family meeting.  Uncle Fred is there, but not seen.  I’m talking to Grandma about how homesick I am, and I’m saying without words that I want the house to be given to me.  Suddenly we realize that the trees at the edge of the woods bordering her property are on fire and instead of the fire moving backward into the woods, the flames are moving forward across the lawn toward the house.  My grandmother and I fight the fire back – the house is saved, but the trees right near the house, the willow and the poplar that I spent hours and hours playing in and lying under as a child, are destroyed.  My grandmother says something to the effect of, “Oh well, George never liked those anyway.”  “George” could be my brother-in-law George, or my uncle George.  I’m getting the sense it was my uncle George she meant.  Despite these words, I had the feeling she was going to give the house to me.

There was another part of the dream that I can’t remember the details of (an adventurous theme, lots of characters and running around), but in the end I started on the ground, I was running and leaped to jump over something, and instead of landing I just floated up and up and up.  I remember wanting to open my subconscious up to whatever was “up” there, receiving me.  I tried to concentrate and not concentrate at the same time.  I floated higher and higher into the atmosphere, sometimes moving quickly upward, sometimes almost drifting at a standstill with barely any upward movement.  I went through the clouds and was nearing the blackness of space.  The worry crossed my mind that I would suffocate, but at the same time I reminded myself to trust in what was happening.  Then as I reached the blackest part I woke up.

From this site:

If you are feeling fear when you are flying or that you feel that you are flying too high, then it suggests that you are afraid of challenges and of success.

Last night I had a dream about a huge croft-type dwelling.  You know, the kind of place that houses a huge family and servants and workers and whatnot.  It was for sale (I apparently found it on Realtor.com) for $427,000.  I WANTED IT.  I dragged Jen out of work with me to go look at it (even though my senses tell me this place was in Maine).  It was three stories and Victorian-looking on the outside, with all kinds of funky rooms and round towers running up the corners of the house, neat doors to get in and out, a HUGE kitchen area that lead into a common area, and alcoves along the sides of the common area for horses (inside the house???).  It was fully furnished, OLD, packed with history, and lots of other people were there viewing it at the same time we were. And I wanted to kick them all out because that house was MINE.

The night before last I had a dream featuring Robyn and Fred. I dreamed that we lived near to each other, and there was some sort of system of tunnels and hidden rooms that allowed me to follow this crazy maze from my house into their attic (I don’t think they even have an attic). For some reason I used to come and go that way frequently (maybe when someone else lived there?), but then had not done so in a very long time. Then one night I decided to just trespass right into their house and log into Robyn’s computer to read through her archives. Fred was in the room when I showed up (I kind of came in through a closet door or something?) and looked surprised and annoyed, but didn’t really say much to me. I started to feel like maybe I had made a mistake and wasn’t welcome, then Robyn came into the room and started to TOTALLY bitch me out, the way that Fred wouldn’t (I don’t think Fred’s so timid in “real life”). She was so furious with me that it appeared our friendship was at an end and she didn’t want to see anything more of me for at least a few months. I realized that it wasn’t cool at all to just appear in someone’s house, completely trespassing and not invited, having not even entered through the front door, forcryingoutloud. So I bawled my eyes out and begged forgiveness, which she declined. I don’t think she’s so mean in real life, either. But then again, I don’t just waltz into other people’s houses “in real life”.

What a weird pair of dreams.

I’m remembering the “feeling” of this dream much more than the details.  It takes place in Maine, primarily at my neighbors the Marshall’s.  They’re remodeling their home and making it decidedly castle-like (I’ve always loved their farm).  Their daughter Christine is in the dream, we’re friends (and are in real life, though haven’t been close since childhood). 

I’m apparently still in high-school, and a former friend of mine (FORMER) is suddenly in charge of whether or not I get to graduate.  High school.  As an adult (because I’m grown in the dream, not a teenager again).  I am decidedly not happy about her power over me, and she does intend to hold it over my head.

And that’s all the details I remember.

I have very action-adventurous dreams.  Last night’s was a two-parter.  First, Calvin was a drag racer (except it was on a circle track?  which is weird, but so was the rest of the dream, so!) and we lived on a farm in Nebraska that was next door (like, walking distance) to the track.  There was a big barn at the track, and each racing team had a stall in which to set up their gear (which is funny because usually racing teams have huge RV and tractor trailer setups).  Anyway, Calvin needed Band-Aids so I walked from the track, past our house to the store. 

While I was at the store, huge thunderclouds built up, and four or five tornadoes snaked down from the sky.  Directly over the race track, heading toward our house.  I started running from the store (dirt road, could see over hills and fields across to the house and the track).  As I ran I tried to decide if I should stop at the house or keep going to the track.  I wanted to find Calvin more than I wanted to get out of the storm.  But as I approached the house I saw Calvin and some other folks who were friends/relatives running from the track TO the house, so we all got inside.  Larry the Cable Guy was there and I asked him if there was a storm shelter (which is odd, since it was supposedly my house so shouldn’t I know?) and he opened the door to a shack attached to the back of the house and joked that we should get in there.

It got very dark and windy but the house never got hit by a tornado.  When the storm cleared we walked back toward the race track and everything was still standing, untouched.

There was another blurb of a dream in which I was furious at my ex for going to a birthday party for Calvin’s Grandfather (who in real life he’s never met, of course) and leaving me behind.  I think I even yelled at him out loud in my sleep over that one.  I can clearly remember the disbelieving FURY.

Finally, there was some sort of Terminator-type Judgement Day invasion where humans and enemies looked alike and it was hard to tell who was friend and who was foe.  There was a huge high school where factions from BOTH sides were hiding.  There were corridors with blocks of lockers moved to form bunkers and hideouts, and a lot of popping up into ceilings and crawl spaces to avoid detection/capture.

Keira Knightly got thrown out of some upper-story windows down into the parking lot below.  She was nekkid.  Oooookaaaayyy…  Oh, and Joaquin Phoenix was the head hancho bad guy who did it.

At one point I was with two guys (who seem familiar to me but I can’t place them) and we were trying to get up into a hole in the ceiling because Joaquin Phoenix and the attacking force was approaching down the corridors.  One guy went first, the second guy followed, and neither one of them turned to help me up.  So I was struggling and panicking and trying to get up into this hole in the ceiling while they just sat there and watched.  I could hear the enemy approaching, my legs and body were still dangling down from the ceiling…

…and I woke up.

I dreamed that Izzy from Grey’s Anatomy birthed my baby.  At Grandma’s house, in my old room.  There was no pain, and I was on my hands and knees as I pushed.  It was very vivid and real at the time.  I had a boy.  I snuggled and kissed him even though he was still covered in the ook. 

 When I woke up for real in the morning, I was momentarily worried that I hadn’t been woken up earlier by the baby’s cries.

I thought about keeping a hand-written journal of my dreams, but based on the experience I had recently of recording a dream on notebook paper, and then scanning it for a WordGoddess entry, I decided to just throw up a simple blog and spare my poor wrist.  I can type faster than I can write, anyway.

My dreams have been really screwed up for a while, now.  I don’t necessarily believe in dream interpretation or that my subconscious is trying to tell me something.  I don’t pick apart every little nuance and spend vast amounts of energy looking up the implications in the dream interpretation book my former boss once gave me (it’s really a silly book).  Mostly, I think that dreams are a manifistation of recent thoughts, conversations, television programs or movies seen recently, books read recently, and the like.  Yet, some dreams that I’ve experienced as of late have been completely out of the blue and unrelated to anything happening in my life at all.

Journals and blogs that include rambling descriptions of the dreams of the authors hold very little interest to me, which is why I’ve chosen to keep a separate blog, instead of including this on Colloquial or Snerkology. I feel that these dreams of mine have been so vivid lately, and I’ve woken from them with such profound feelings and reactions, that I really ought to record them.

So that’s the purpose of this blog.  If this sort of thing interests you, I welcome comments and feedback.  But really, I’m just using this area and this format as a form of self-exorcism.

I’m living in a dark and gloomy – and colorless – house with another woman my age, and a little girl of about six who is always holding a doll.  Neither of them are anyone I know “in real life”, nor people I’ve seen on TV or in a movie.  The woman and I share a room and sleep in the same bed – roommate style.  Except that there are two dead people – a man and a woman – who occupy the bed as well.  My roommate cuddles up to them at night, and I sleep on the other side of her.  I keep reminding her that we need to get rid of the bodies – they’re starting to rot.  I’m casual about this, like it’s a housekeeping task that we’ve been procrastinating about.

In the dream, it “feels” like we’ve been living that way for some time.  But a suspicion is starting to grow within me that something’s wrong.  The little girl, who used to play and move around, becomes progressively less animated, until she does nothing but sit in a chair and stare blankly ahead.  The doll she holds goes from being fresh and clean, to smelling damp, to becoming moldy and rotten.  I take up the practice of moving the little girl from room to room, sitting her in different chairs, and pretending that the little girl is normal.

I begin to wonder when the last time was that anyone went outside the house.  I begin to realize that we can’t leave the house.

The scene changes, and I’m standing in the bedroom facing the woman.  The corpses in the bed are severely deteriorated, now, and the woman has a wild and crazed look on her face.  I yell at her, “You knew!  You knew all along that we were dead and you didn’t tell me!”  I realize that I’m holding the little girl’s doll, and as I look at it in my hands, it rots and disintegrates before my eyes.

I look up, and I see the woman reaching into the mouth of one of the corpses on the bed.  She pulls away her flattened hand, covered with deep black and cloying gunk.  She steps toward me, reaching that hand toward my face.  I physically feel panic and I know I cried out or made some sort of noise as I woke up.

Last night I dreamed that I was attending a combination JournalCon and TUSCon. It was held in a place that was the mall and AcronymCo combined.  The AcronymCo employees kept trying to gain access to the cafeteria/bar, where the riotous convention was being held.  The journal/TUS-ers (including Ashton Kutcher, who kept flinging bar food at the folks holding forums, heh) kept deflecting them.  I sat at a bar table and tried (drunkenly) to explain the “why” of on-line journaling to my former boss (hey, how did she get in?).

Then, somehow, I was outside in the parking lot, and the entire building was under ten feet of water.  In order to get back in I had to hold my breath and swim underwater to the entrance, where my friend Dani was waiting to let me in.   Everyone was in a panic, because for some reason they feared that people wouldn’t be able to survive the atmospheric pressure at ten feet below the surface.

I love dreams about flying.  Last night, I dreamed that Calvin, Marie and I were in the back yard.  I was spread eagle, parallel to the ground, floating.  I used the breeze to waft higher into the air, and tilted my arms back and down to float low, close to the ground.  There were pinecones inches from my nose (pinecones in the desert?), and then I’d swoop higher and gaze down on the sea of rooftops below me.  Calvin and Marie were standing below, grinning up at me and thinking it was very cool that I could fly.  I remember thinking in my dream, “The secret of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss,” (reference The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy).

As I floated higher, I looked at the horizon.  There were puffy white clouds, and the lighting said “evening” to me.  But as I gazed at the clouds, they gathered quickly and darkened, and started slowly swirling.  The swirling quickened, and I realized I was watching a tornado forming.  I remember thinking, “A tornado?  We don’t get tornadoes in the Phoenix area!”  I hollered to Calvin and Marie, and we all rushed into the house (I don’t know how I got down to the ground, though).

The house was dark, and it felt different than the house we live in now.  Narrower hallways, windows where there should be none.  I hollered at Calvin to wake up Marie (weren’t we all just in the back yard together?), and as he raced up the stairs, I told him to keep an eye out for the cat.  I ushered the dogs down the stairs to the basement (basement?  we don’t have one), and paused at the top of the stairs, looking across at a window.  It was completely silent and still, then all of a sudden the window burst in and shattered.  I scrambled down the stairs, and among the stuff down there was a box of books.  The cat was sitting on top of it, calmly washing himself.  I hollered back up the stairs, as Calvin and Marie started to make their way down, and said, “Never mind, here’s the cat!”

Then I woke up.