Category: Dreams

The Change Dream

Alone, I was coming down into a valley, leaving forests behind me. The end of an exhausting journey, I’d been walking through the mountains for a long time. It’d been stormy and chaotic up there. I’d been drenched to the skin through my clothes but now I was dry. Even though it was almost the day’s end, it was warmer down here in the valley.

Mountains edged the broad, green valley. A wide river wound through it. The sun’s final beams pierced the clouds in a space where the mountains were lower. Clouds still loitered but there wasn’t any threat of a storm. It was an idyllic, calm scene.

Weary, I slowed to regard the valley, although I still walked, not really thinking of anything but which the direction I should take and my next steps. With that happening, the sun winked behind clouds and mountains, making it instantly chillier. Past the clouds, stars began making their entrances.

Hearing a thunderclap, I started and turned to my left. A huge purple wave raced across the valley, It had a sole peak of amplitude that seemed about ten stories high.

Shock and alarm bolted through my me as I struggled to get a handle on the wave. I was thinking, “What was that?” I answered myself, “It was a wave. Yes, but why?” While I answered, the wave reached the valley’s far end and burst. A white flare arced into the night.

It was the wave that exploded, I thought. That’s a good thing, I decided, smiling to myself. Wasn’t it? Yes, I felt. It meant a big change had taken place. Not sure what had changed, or how, confidence surged into me.

I resumed walking, looking forward to the future.

The dream ended.

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The Friend Dream

I dreamed I was working for a friend. He was unreasonable and kept getting shunned by co-workers. Then he’d be fired and get hired elsewhere.

This happened multiple times. I’d always end up working for him again. We’d always be working in a clean, modern office environment, much like the ones I worked in in Atlanta and Foster City. Realizing what was happening to him, I started avoiding him. This often entailed me going around the hallways to avoid him, but the hallways formed a square, so he could turn around and confront me. Further, a co-worker who also worked for him informed on me.

At last, though, seeing that the inevitable was happening again and deciding that I wanted to break the cycle, I stole into the office, grabbed my gear, and ran out. Hearing him calling me in another hallway, I changed direction and quickened my pass. The co-worker spotted me and called to my friend. I found a stairwell and hustled into it.

Although I was now in the stairwell, I witnessed the co-worker tell my friend what I’d done, and then heard my friend tell her, “If that’s how he wants to play it, I’ll just cut him off.” I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but deciding that I needed to get away, I raced down the the steps and  out the building. As I left the building, I heard him shouting from the door. Looking back, I saw him waving at me.

The dream ended.

The thing is, I worked for this guy several times. We’d worked together in one place and then sought me out and lured me to another place. I enjoyed working for him. He was intelligent, insightful, patient, and good-natured, with good communication skills.

The dream is something to ponder as I go about things today.

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Another Flying Dream

My first thought was, “Shit,” followed by my second thought, “Shit!”

Going backwards, I struggled to grab anything nearby, a futile effort because nothing was nearby. As I went backwards, I was turning my head, taking in my environment, and processing information. This led me to a realization that I was falling backwards.

The sky was dark. It wasn’t night darkness, but stormy darkness. My dream mind split between addressing what was happening now and worries about surviving, to a more intellectual approach that wanted to understand how I’d come to be falling backwards and where I was falling from.

The where part seemed visible as a dark gray castle on a high mountain crag. Some trick of light played with it because I also saw it as a rain-whipped white concrete building with tall, dark windows. The image duality confused me, but they reminded me of ivory tower and Gothic horror. The background for both were thick, charcoal clouds that promised prolonged and violent storming. I seemed to think or recall, my dream self didn’t know which, I’d been climbing, it’d been wet, and I’d slipped. When I did, I lost my grip and the wind blew me off the mountain.

Meanwhile, I was falling straight backward, going down. Knowing that behind (below) me was a steep, treacherous ravine filled with fir trees and boulders, I didn’t relish landing, because it was sure to be painful.

Then, I wasn’t falling down. I seemed to be hanging in the air on my back. I looked left and right, enjoying that. As I did, the wind picked me up and righted me, an action that spread a grin across my face. “Thank you,” I thought to whoever or whatever did that for me.

The weather had delivered on the promised deluge. Winds roared around me as lightning ripped the sky and lightning boomed in best Wagnerian manner. But I was cool with it, calm, but wet, and weirdly, grinning and happy. The dream ended.

I still grin as I remember it, because I looked so happy.

After awakening and cruising through morning routines while drinking coffee and mulling the dream, I thought, this represents the past and traditional ways of doing things (the dark castle), and the intellectual writing process (the ivory tower), and my usual fears of failing (falling), with efforts to reassure me not to worry (floating and then flying).

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Another Car Dream

It was the second part of the dream, begun as I was exiting the first part. Walking across rich, deep green grass of a valley floor, with roads on the hillside above me, I met an elderly white woman. She said, “I have an opportunity for you.”

“Hang on,” I said. I briefly returned to the first part of my dream to tie up some loose ends, telling people, “This woman says she has an opportunity, so I need to go on,” and then resumed the second part.

The dream’s first part had left me satisfied and triumphant with the outcome. I had the sense that I’d made progress, and was continuing to progress, setting the stage for the second part. I was in a confident mood, meeting this woman. She said, “I’d like you to buy and drive exotic cars for me.”

I briefly thought she meant that she wanted me to be her driver, but she said, “I want you to thrash the cars, trash them. I want you to drive them without care and wreck them.”

I said, “You want me to wreck cars?”

“Yes, I want you to buy expensive cars like Ferraris and Aston Martins and drive them like you’re an average driver in an average car.” When she said this, I saw a red Ferrari go by on a hillside road above me. It was like she’d summoned the car.

Her suggestion that I was an average driver and that I’d wreck these cars when I drove them irritated me. “Why do you want me to do this?” I said.

“As a show.” While I thought, television, she said, “No, not like that dreadful Top Gear or those other ones. Buy these cars and live them in the real world and drive them hard. I’ll give you the money. You buy the cars and drive them.”

“And wreck them.”

“If that happens. I want to show what it’s really like having these cars and driving them.”

It was weird to me. I said, “I can imagine my friends’ reaction to this, when I say some lady wants me to buy expensive cars and drive them, and don’t worry about wrecking them.”

“What do you say?” she said.

“I have to think about it,” I said.

“Why? You’ll be paid to drive wonderful cars, without any concerns about what happens to them.”

“I know,” I said, “but it seems wrong.”

The dream ended.

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A Wishful Dream

There was a lot of action in the dream’s early acts, but I want to jump to the part that was sharpest when consciousness gained the upper hand.

Relaxing at last in the dream, free from the previous battles, I discovered that I had a healing power. By looking at someone, I could focus and heal them. When I did that, a light red beam flowed from my eyes and engulfed them.

The first beneficiary was a sick cat, but I soon started testing the envelope’s boundaries. Walking around on a warm, sunny day, I discovered my eyes’ healing powers worked on any animal, humans included, and any disease or injury. It also worked on plants, trees, broken shoe strings, broken windows, and damaged cars. I just kept walking around, healing and fixing everything. Pretty soon, I had a following and people asking me for help. I didn’t turn anyone down, healing everyone and fixing everything. Everyone was happier and happier.

Now, the two weird parts is that I was wearing a sky blue jumpsuit with a white dickey, and I looked like Gil Gerard as he looked in Buck Rogers.

It was a laugher of a dream.

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The Cleaver Greene Dream

Richard Roxburgh as Cleaver Greene of Rake guest-starred in my dream. We were on an asphalt path under tale trees. I was just arriving. Grinning at me, he said, “Hungry? Would you like a sandwich? We have cold cuts.”

He gestured. I followed the gesture with my eyes and saw a huge plate of assorted lunch meat. The pieces were rolled up like fat joints. The variety staggered me.

“We have cake, too,” Greene said with another motion. I saw a huge, multi-layered cake. Each layer was slender and appeared to be a different flavor, as did the frosting flavors, things that I assumed because of their colors, but the cake’s overall appearance was that it was moist, fancy, and large. 

“There’s ice cream, too,” Greene said, drawing my attention to an enormous bowl. Scoops of different colors filled it, and again I inferred they were different flavors.

“Wow,” I said, seeing the amounts and flavors. “Wow.”

“You can have cake and ice cream,” Greene said. “Or sandwiches, or anything you want, if you don’t want that. There’s an entire table of food over there.”

He was pointing. Looking, I saw that out on a green shaded by trees under a clear blue sky was a long table filled with bowls of salads and fruits, and plates of breads and cheeses.

Greene said, “We also have a Lithuanian cake.”

“What’s that?” I said, imagining a white layer cake featuring pearls.

“I don’t know,” Green said. “But we have it.”

The dream ended.

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The Jewish Things and German Place Dream

I know as part of the dream’s setting that I’d bought a place in Germany. It seemed like a condo or apartment in an older building. The building was a mysterious maze of rooms and halls. Most were not well lit. Rain lashed the windows and could sometimes be heard drumming.

The place I’d purchased was filled with things, which were mine, now. I was exploring, mostly in darkness, to see what these were. Spotlights lit the objects when I came across them.

One object was a black box with raised, golden letters in another language. Someone with me,  a female who was never seen and whose role wasn’t defined to me, said with excitement, “That’s Jewish.” They went on about the language on the thing. The object looked to me like it could be a complicated metal camera or something that stamped other materials to form or shape objects.

Focusing on my guide’s explanation, I heard her say, “The Nazis took things from the Jews.”

I was trying to understand how they’d come to be in this building, which now reminded me of a Nazi building I’d toured when I’d been stationed in Germany. It had apartments inside where government officials lived, along with offices.

“It belongs to you,” my mysterious female guide said.

I was excited to own something like this but also disturbed, because it had been stolen from others. My guide was going on about being able to make money from it.

I left her to explore more on my own and ended up back in my living quarters, which was part of the same building. I discovered more objects. I also discovered my quarters and new building seemed to be poorly maintained. Down in the lowest level was a ill-kept garage area. I discovered squatters had been using it, accessing the area by raising the garage door. I learned this from seeing one squatter open the garage door, revealing pouring rain, slip out, and close the door. Making a note of that, I continued walking about. Most of the flooring was missing from several levels, and animals were coming in via tunnels in some rooms.

Yet, I was excited by what I found left behind by previous tenants. My guide reappeared. Showing me something, she said, “You can sell this and easily make fifty thousand dollars.”

That pleased me, but I told her, “I’m not selling anything that was stolen from anyone.”

She said, “We don’t know if anything is stolen.” She must have known I was recalling what she said before, because she said, “Many of these things were made before world war two, but we don’t know how they got here. They could have been stolen from the Jews, or the Jews may have lived here and left them behind. They belong to you, now. That’s what was agreed when you bought the building.”

I wasn’t mollified, but I became cautiously optimistic that I could sell some things and make some money. Returning to that first black piece with the golden writing, I stood and admired it, framed in white light and surrounded by darkness.

***

As I edit and revise the Incomplete States series, I’d begun to become optimistic. I thought, maybe instead of self-publishing this series, I can find representation and a publisher.

It’s part of my never surrender approach. My hope became stronger this weekend. My wife and I saw Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin. Listening to UKLG recount how difficult it had been to become published, how nobody got her when she sought publication, but how much she believed in herself, reminded me of my writing efforts and suspended publishing efforts. My writing, as she said about her writing, is not easily categorized. Yet, I thought, too, it’s arrogant to compare myself to her, for I’m in no way her measure as a thinker and a writer.

This dream, I think, reflects my doubts and concerns. Every day, as I edit, I enjoy what I’ve written. It excites me. But doubts haunt me.

It reminds me, writing is a lonely business, especially as a struggling novelist. That, I believe accounts for the dream’s darkness and the building’s dilapidated state, and the never ending rain, putting a damper on my hopes.

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The Knives and Rain Dream

I was back in the military once again, but this wasn’t like any military experience of my life.

As a senior NCO, I was standing off to the commander’s right, facing the troops. They were at attention. One troop, Ryan, a former co-worker (but not in the military), stood in front of the rest. At the commander’s order, Ryan pulled a knife from his clothing. About the length of a machete, he threw it at a target above my head and behind me. I was shocked by his cavalier approach and thought, this won’t go well.

The knife bounced back off the target, striking Ryan on the right side of his front. He went down.

As I expected, I thought. I ran to Ryan, took a knee, and said, “Call nine one one.” I looked over at the commander. He held up one finger. I nodded, indicating that one knife had struck Ryan. As this took place, I realized that Ryan had thrown two knives. As I said, “One knife,” Ryan said, “No, two.”

I looked on his other side. Both knives had bounced back, striking and injuring him. An ambulance arrived. I left him in the professionals’ care.

The commander left. The troops parked their cars and assembled to take tests. They were at desks, but the desks were outside, yet arranged like they were in rooms.

I wasn’t testing, but overseeing the process. I discovered that one of the test-takers had parked in my parking space. I didn’t care, and was more amused by it, but the guy thought I was bothered. He went to move his car, telling the rest as he did that he was doing it because I was upset even as I tried telling them, I’m not bothered. When he moved his car, they went to another area of desks to take their tests. Shaking my head with amusement, I left.

I awoke up in my dream. I was in an apartment with my wife. I was worried about others outside, and open windows. Rain was falling, and the wind was blowing. Growing concerned about rain coming in, I went around, checking on the doors and windows, closing some of them. Waking my wife, I asked her, “What’s wrong with you? Why did you leave those windows like that?” Befuddled with sleep, she turned away.

I checked on our pets. They were all fine. Nobody had broken in. I realized that we’d been sleeping with the lights on.

The dream ended.

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Three Brief Dreams, One Night

The first dream was simple and peculiar. I was with male friends from different times of my life, but we were all young adults, regardless of how old I was or they were when I knew them. I think there were a dozen of us. All were people I haven’t seen in years. Some of them have died.

We were playing a game in the living that required us to bounce off the walls. I was watching, though, trying to remember the game’s name and the rules. One friend went into the kitchen. I went after him to ask questions, but the dream was interrupted, and that’s where it stopped.

My second dream was about land, property, and building. My wife and I had bought some property. The deal was set in motion, but was incomplete.

Visiting our property prior to taking possession, a sort of wooded country place of several acres and buildings, we encountered a group of young teenagers with a pile of remotes. They were taking turns hurling remotes at trees and rocks to break the remotes, an activity that fed giddy laughter. Talking to them about it, a smiling girl said that her father encouraged them to break the remotes like this to relieve stress and tension. Feeling that we could use a release, my wife and I threw some remotes and concluded, it is a great way to relieve stress. Meanwhile, I wondered how they’d collected so many remotes.

We went into a small house that was part of our new property. A balding, stocky man and several teenagers were busy working on it inside. An old building with white walls, tall, traditional windows made it a light and airy place. I somehow know that the layout was different than it had been. The man working on the place confirmed it, explaining what had been where and how they’d been moved. As he talked, I said, “That’s right, you’re the original building.” He confirmed that, but I knew that he wasn’t the person who sold us the property. He confirmed that, too, telling me that he’d been hired.

Then I remembered his name was Was, but then questioned myself on the spelling. Was it Was, Waas, or Wass?

In the third dream, I was flying in an aircraft. It seemed like it was an advanced technology. It lacked wings and was quietly traveling fast and high above a planet.

I thought the planet was Earth, but I wasn’t sure, and was collecting details in search of verification. A bright yellow-white sun shone in a blue sky. Only a few sketchy, high cirrus clouds marred the sky’s impeccable blue. The ground below was mostly sandy brown and flat with green and dark blue patches that sometimes looked black. I took the dark blue/black patches to be lakes or puddles. A haze-filled horizon seemed to veil mountains.

I tried understanding which way we were traveling, and the sun’s path, as a way to verify it was Earth. Therein was an interesting duality. I was in the dream with friends (although they’re nobody that I know from this life), discussing our plans (we were on a mission to find other people), but I was also aware that I was in the dream and was trying to understand the dream.

That’s where it ended.

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The Lion Dream

My wife and I were living in a pale stucco house that was part of a housing plan. It reminded me of the Kadena Air Base or Randolph AFB housing we lived in.

It was a sunny and pleasant day outside. I opened the front door, looked out, and saw an adult male lion, mane and all, about forty feet away. I said to my wife, “Look, honey, want to see a lion?” She wasn’t much interested, and I kept telling here, “There’s a lion out here.”

The lion became interested in me and the door, so I closed it. My wife looked out the window and saw the lion, but wasn’t impressed. I continued intermittently watching it. Doing that, I discovered it was moving around outside our house, and more focused on it.

Not seeing it out the front window after a while, I opened a side door. Yes, the lion was just outside. As soon as the door opened, it turned my way and approached at a brisk trot. I shut the door fast. Looking through another window, I saw the lion prowling along the house and knew that he was looking for a way in.

We had cats, and the cats were suddenly interested in going outside to see what was going on. I grabbed one as they started out the pet door and pulled them back in. When I did, the lion shoved its huge paw through the pet door and tried clawing the cat out of my grasp, but I kept the cat away. As the other cats ran toward the door to see what was happening, I managed to kick the lion’s paw. Roaring it withdrew the paw and I put the pet door cover on.

I heard the lion scratching at that door. I was a little alarmed but knew the lion couldn’t get in that way. But I was concerned that something else had been left open. As I thought fast about what could be open and hurried around, checking windows and doors, I heard the front door open. Shouting, “No,” I ran that way.

I arrived at the living room to discover my wife had opened the front door. She was stepping out. Running forward and shouting, I grabbed her and slammed the door shut just as the lion arrived.

The dream ended.

 

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