Category: Dreams

The Help Dream

I awoke from this dream scoffing at my subconscious mind. Yes, I saw its point, delivered through a dream, but I wasn’t buying into it. Not yet, at least. Maybe after more thinking…and dreaming.

This dream found me in a large and busy city. My mother, wife, and sister-in-law (my wife’s sister) were with me. We were discussing my writing and selling books. While showing me what they’d done, the female triumvirate was telling me that they’d taken my books’ sections and created covers for each one. As I was looking at the foot-high high stack and what seemed like twenty books about three quarters of an inch thick each, they (I don’t know which, as they were rotating between explanation duties) said, “And then we combined them in one big book.” They showed me how they’d done that. The final cover was a blank, slightly shiny, tin piece.

Ummm.  I wasn’t appreciative. “Why?” I said, trying to look for other words. It wasn’t the sort of help I’d been looking for, and I didn’t know why they’d done it.

‘They’ continued explaining, “That way, people can take them apart and pass the books around.”

“How will that help?” I asked. “They’ll just buy one book, take it apart, and pass pieces around.”

“They’ve already bought two,” one of them said as people going by paused to look at the book.

I was shaking my head about the whole thing as the dream agenda shifted, with a change of scenery. Now located at Mom’s house (not any house that she’s ever lived in, BTW), in the basement, I’d come up with something. I don’t even know what it is now that I’m awake. In the dream, I called it a grill sometimes and a screen sometimes. It looked like a bed’s headboard, but none of us ever called it that. The others in the dream referred to it as a grill. I’d made them and painted them, and then added a saying. I’d done two like this. When I showed it to Mom and the other two, they were pleased and excited, going overboard with their enthusiasm. Could I make more? Of course, and I would.

Then they left me alone. I busied myself with other things. Mom came down to check on me. “You’re not making more sayings, are you?” she said. “We want to be there when you make more sayings.”

It exasperated me because she was hijacking my process and results, even though I’d done it for her (from what I understand). Plus, I preferred working alone. Always have. I was a bit short with her in my response.

Off I went to do other things.  When I returned, Mom proudly announced that they’d been helping. She led me along to show me the result. They’d painted grills that I’d already made. The results looked terrible. The paint was sloppy and incomplete, but had many runs and was too thick in many places.

I was horrified. Yet, I knew that expressing that would hurt her feelings. I said, “Well, thank you, but I think some of that has to be redone.”

She was saying, “I know,” but was meanwhile leading me to where my nieces and nephews were hard at work painting more grills. I felt helpless in the face of such a proud effort to help. My wife and sister-in-law came by, endorsing what was being done while I stood in the middle and wondered how I was going to regain control.

 

0

Circle Dream

I was with my dad and lost in brown woods

and then we were on a boat and rowing

 

I kept asking him but he wouldn’t tell me

anything about where we were going

 

Feeling down

I was looking around

and wondering about the scene

 

didn’t know where I was

or where I’d been

or where I wanted to be

 

I thought I knew

and I thought I could

but nothing

was what it seemed

 

It was a circle of thought

and a circle of hope

a circle

going around a dream

 

0

The TV Dream

Last night’s vivid dream placed me as a minor actor on a science-fiction television series. The show runner came in and made big announcements that we needed to create a special, kick-ass show. He was running around with hyperbolic enthusiasm that spread like kudzu.

I decided I would be part of that. Seeing him crossing a broad, carpeted room, I intercepted him and regaled him about my desire to be a part of creating this special show. He said with broad puzzlement, “Who are you?” I explained I was a minor character actor on the show but that I had ideas for it and wanted to write. Then I told him some of my ideas.

It was enough that he didn’t shrug me off or chase me out. Nor did he endorse me. But I accepted that I was now part of the writing and production team. They were having an off-site. Finding out where it was, I crashed the site.

The place was chaos. Groups were entrenched around tables. Food was being served on a buffet table. The head writer and creator was walking around talking to people, but he wasn’t talking about the show. None of them were, as far as I could tell. I circled around the tables, looking for an opening to join. A few people knew me and chatted with me. A couple even introduced me to others.

Sometimes the groups would get up and move around. Each time this happened, I thought, here we go, now maybe we’ll start. But, no. They just resettled and continued chatting. Then, weirdly to me, it looked like they were breaking for lunch. They hadn’t done anything, in my opinion. By then I felt like an outcast and was dejected by their lack of direction and energy. I decided to leave.

Some who knew me saw me leaving and started talking to me, trying to convince me not to go, but I’d made up my mind. This was clearly not my scene. I’d go elsewhere.

Leaving required me to walk up a steep hill to a pedestrian bridge. The pedestrian bridge spanned eight lanes of traffic. Businesses like restaurants, stores, and gas station  bordered both sides of the road. I could see a long way from here.

Some of the people from the show caught up.  Several tried to engage me. I didn’t put them off, but I wasn’t interested in their entreaties. From the top of the hill by the pedestrian bridge, I looked for where I needed to go. It seemed like miles way. I would need to walk. The sun was hot, and the traffic rushing below increased the heat. Finding my destination, I resigned myself to a long way, and began making my way.

 

4

The End

I’m reading Bill Browder’s memoir, “Red Notice”. Partway through, I’ve just finished the part of his life when the Asian markets tanked, tanking his Russian-based fortune in his company, Hermitage Capital Management. At this point, still in the first third of the book, he considers his options. It would be easy to sell off everything for what he could get, close the company, and leave Russia, but he disliked the impression.

His thinking reminded me of Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. Habit Two is “Begin with the end in mind.” It’s my favorite habit. When I used Covey’s book in team building, I led an exercise to imagine what you want others to say about you when you’re finished, when you finally say, I’m done. It’s one of those things that provides extra motivation when it seems like your tank might be empty.

I feel like I need to remind myself of this today. My muses are tearing me up with their pace. I’ve been reading a lot, which is a catalyst to dreaming. Dreaming fires up my imagination, and imagination stimulates my writing. Or something like that; I don’t know the exact connectivity between these activities, only that they seem to act on one another in me. Simultaneously, I sometimes worry that I’ve gone off the tracks and have begun pursuing a delusional folly somewhat like Professor Grady Tripp in Michael Chabon’s novel, “Wonder Boys”. Michael Douglas played Professor Tripp in the movie.

Intellectually and emotionally, I know that doubts like these aren’t uncommon among writers, especially while you’re an unknown author and working on a long project. Personally, I know my rhythms and understand this is part of my modus operandi and my untamed impatience to get done and move on to other activities.

You probably get tired of reading blog posts like this. As it is part of my normal cycles along my personal spectrums, I end up thinking, writing, and posting about them. I share it as much to help me think through my situation, but also to let other unknown writers out there that they’re not alone. Every writer that I know goes through these doubts. Some let their doubts stop them from writing. Others take Professor Tripp’s path, figuring that if it’s never done, it’ll never be read nor criticized, creating Schroedinger’s novel. Is it brilliant or garbage? Nobody knows because he won’t let anyone read it.

Looping back to the post’s beginning, though, I don’t want that to be me. The end for that is a writer who never finishes or publishes. Good or bad, I will finish and publish despite myself and my fears, worries, and neurosis.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

0

A Muse Rides In

A dream began and ended. I slipped between the cracks of being asleep and awake and considered the dream.

My muses rode in our horses. There were five, all women.

 

And David Bowie’s song, “Heroes,” began playing.

###

I’ve been having a series of nostalgic dreams about being happier and more contented. These dreams reflect my wry private observation about my life’s trajectory.  I’d followed an upward curve for decades, the kind that’s part of the mythology of working hard and being rewarded when really, it was partly being a beneficiary of being a white male with a modicum of sense in modern America. Sometimes there was a brief drop, and there were a few sharp spikes. Overall, it’d been up and steady. Now, I ride a plateau.

This dream was like that series, but sharper. It centered around me opening a business. I’d picked a location but was having buyer’s remorse and self-doubts. I walked around thinking, what to do, what to do. Was this really what I wanted to do? More, it didn’t seem like a good business idea. Friends, family, and business associates were present. As it grew clear that I was dissatisfied and bothered, they offered alternative ideas for the space and my business.

That triggered fond thinking about going to coffee shops and bakeries. I thought the space was perfect for that. Into the dream comes one of my old CEOs, enthusiastically reminiscing about life at a start-up, and coffee shops like this. Everyone was excited about that idea, and I awoke on the verge of a decision.

After thinking about that dream, I reordered myself to sleep.

Then the muses rode in.

###

The five muses rode in and stopped. I had a profile shot of them in a line. They were looking straight ahead. I don’t know what they looked at it. It was then I realized they were my muses. I recognized the setting from the scene I’m working on in my novel.

Bowie’s “Heroes” began playing. IT would play on a continuous loop in the background for the rest of the dream. The song  was a live version from one of Bowie’s last shows.

The woman in the center was on a light brown horse. She dismounted. Her horse and the other muses went away. She transformed into one of my novel’s characters. The story-telling commenced. As her story spread out like I watched a movie, she said, “No, further back. This series of scenes needs to begin further back.”

So back we went, resetting the start of her part in this series. She began telling it again. It was like I was in a movie watching her.

There’s a lot to write today.

###

As a final part of the dream sequences, I dreamed a dragon flew through me. Huge, it flew through my body and breathed fire, burning out any diseases in me.

As far as I know, I don’t have any diseases.

1

One Of Those Nights

It was one of those nights. My muse didn’t recognize my need for sleep and refused to issue permission to shut down my brain and close my eyes.

Such times are productive, even though I feel like shit in the morning. I’m exaggerating for effect, of course; I really don’t know how shit feels. I feel guilty, implying that shit feels terrible. For all I know, shit feels great.

Sorry for the shitty detour. I know, terrible humor. Hey, I just confided that I had a rough night. Grant me some latitude.

Back to the muses’ nocturnal gallop through my mind. I’d just been complimenting my muse (or muses – I think there’s a congress of muses within me) about the pleasant week of systematic writing established and reflecting on the progress made. When last I left off writing yesterday, I had a damn good idea of where I was next going.

I’m still going there, but the dark silence of night brought out the muses like they were in heat. Instead of allowing me to sleep, wake up today, and go walk and write to work out details, the muses began shotgunning details into me. The people look like these. These are their names. They’re all women, and —

It’s not polite to ignore your muse, and it’s rude to tell them to shut up. I obliged them by listening. When I thought they’d finished, I attempted to use one of my honored processes to engage sleep. I thought it worked, too, but then, the muses thundered out anew.

When sleep and I finally met, quicksilver dreams rushed in, flashing kaleidoscopes of scenes and words. Awakening, I had a lot to think about between dreams and night writing, and a desire for about four more hours of sleep.

Got a big ol’ cup of dark, unadulterated caffeine loaded coffee steaming in a mug to my right. Time to write like crazy and get all this stuff down, at least one more time.

0

Weird Tales

Into our lives come weird tales. Everyone has them. They don’t happen often for me, and I’m happy about that, and they’re not very weird. One happened last night.

I feel asleep reading and watching television in the snug. In the recliner, I was streaming “Case Histories” on Amazon Prime with the sound turned low. I’d seen it before, so I was also reading “The Lies of Locke Lamore”. We had a high-wind advisory in effect. I wasn’t worried. Two cats were weighing me down against getting blown away.

At two A.M., I awoke. The first thing I realized was that the cats had abandoned me. Second, I saw that the Roku had reset and was going through its update music. Interesting. Next, I saw with a glance at the modem that the network had reset. Well, I thought, the wind storm had probably caused some ISP issues.

Seeing the time, I decided to go to bed. Turning everything off, I left the snug, and then paused. The interior door to the garage was on my left. Not ajar, but not pulled tight, I could see that a light was on in the garage.

My wife or I must have left it on after going in there on an errand, I speculating, opening the door. But when I opened it, it wasn’t the garage interior lights that were on, but the garage door light. You know how that works? We have a garage door opener. When you press the button, a signal is sent. Receiving it, the garage door opener turns on a light and raises or lowers the door. That’s the light that was on.

That light wasn’t on before.

Being a cautious and paranoid person, I backed away from the door while keeping my eyes on it. Opening the coat closet, I took out the heavy metal flashlight we hang in there for emergencies. Not only does it provide a strong beam, but it has a solid heft to it, and can be useful as a weapon. See where my thoughts go?

Flashlight on, I first flashed it around the house, and then turned on the main hall light, and checked the front door. Locked. Okay. Going into the garage, I checked the side door. Finding it locked, I went around the garage to confirm nothing was out of place or missing, and everything was in order. Everything was as it should be. My mind dislikes vacuums, so I guessed, there must have been a power failure. I checked the clocks on the kitchen appliances. They were correct. Nothing anywhere indicated a power failure, except, perhaps the network and Roku. Going around the house, I repeated the process of checking doors and windows to ensure everything was closed and nothing was missing. Everything was as it should be.

The garage door opener light is on a timer. It now went off.

I couldn’t recall the garage door light going on after power was restored before. Maybe I had a faulty memory. Sleep and I had parted company at this point. I returned to the snug and read until I fell asleep. Then, awakening at three, I went to bed.

The garage door light entered my dreams. I was investigating it and testing different theories of how the garage opener light went on in my dreams. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorganChase, showed up to help, but he was useless. In some weirder parts of my dream, the garage door mystery was discussed on MTV and everyone started eating jelly beans.

As an aside to the jelly bean part, we put up an Easter tree using pussy willows. They were placed in a glass vase filled with jelly beans to hold up the pussy willows. Now that Easter was over, I was allowed to eat the jelly beans.

The jelly beans, made by Brach’s, were pastel colors, and pretty. Their smell was reminiscent of sugar and marshmallows, drawing Easter basket memories up out of my youth. I tasted some jelly beans.

OMG, they were terrible. They tasted like sugar with a small effort to have a flavor like blueberry or cherry. I tasted different colors to see if I liked any. They didn’t have any black ones, which are my favorites. Of the colors presented, the orange ones had the strongest orange flavor, actually managing to overcome that sense I was only eating sugar.

Anyway, that’s my tale of the weird. It’ll probably be a few years before there’s another one. At least, that’s my hope.

0

The Writing Dream

Man, it was something else. I dreamed that streams of words were flowing through the air around me. They flowed too fast for me to see and read them, except, weirdly, sometimes I could see mathematical formulas in them.

The streams came together and split apart in a random, haphazard manner. Sometimes they flowed on walls, but other times I saw them flowing across sidewalks, trees, parking lots, and the sky. At one point, I saw two streams running in parallel on a wall, and thought, they need to be brought together. Not knowing how to do that at the moment, I turned away.

Oblivious of the word streams, people walked among them. I was flabbergasted that they didn’t see them. Their behavior ended up exasperating me.

Aware of me, though, people would watch and talk about me to each other as they attempted to puzzle out what was wrong with me or what I was doing. Sometimes I tried telling people, “There are words streaming around you. I think they’re sentences and paragraphs. Can’t you see them?” Hearing that, many people said, “I think he’s on drugs,” or, “He’s crazy.”

My interactions with people were few and short, becoming less as I attempted to follow the streams of words. Then, instead of trying to follow them, I thought I’d go upstream to see where they came from. Selecting one stream, I traced it back along a street between two red brick buildings.

Paved with asphalt webbed with cracks, the street had cement sidewalks, curbs, storm drains, and doorways, but no signs. Although the street seemed old and unused, it was ordinary in every respect. The word stream rushed along the gutter, crossing from one side of the street to the other other.

I followed the stream up the street. Narrowing, the stream of words flowed faster, resembling black ink. The day grew darker. I wasn’t sure what caused that. Noting the increasing darkness, I tried to understand whether night was coming or a storm was imminent — or both. At that time, I realized the streaming words made sounds. At first I thought they rustled like leaves. Then, they seemed to burble like rushing water. Getting closer to the stream and straining to hear the sounds, they sounded like a crowd of talking people, but also typewriters.

Although nothing changed, the going became more difficult, like gravity fought to keep me back. I kept going. Exiting the space between the red-brick buildings, I saw that the stream came from a long, grassy hill. All the streams came from different directions, but they all came from that one stream of words rushing down the hill. separating into different streams at the bottom. Hidden by clouds colored like used charcoal, the hilltop couldn’t be seen.

I have to climb that hill, I told myself. It looked quite possible, steep and tall, but not impassible. That’s where the dream ended.

Despite all the details, the dream seemed short, but vivid and intense.  Even as I was in bed, awakening from the dream, I thought I saw streams of words on the bedroom walls.

Then they were gone, swallowed by morning sunshine.

***

I thought about the dream off and on all morning, and then typed this up. I thought about how I felt during and after the dream. After a long while, I realized that I’d felt intense, but otherwise emotionally neutral, as I feel when I’m in the middle of a project. There’s no hope or despair, bitterness or jubilation.

It’s just is.

 

0

A Football Dream

I’d been part of the defense, set up to be an edge-passer on a high-school football team. Being a little guy, that surprised me, but I took to the role with the zeal I apply to things when I must get them done. Come game time, though, and I found myself lined up as a tight-end. Talk about confused! I had no idea about the offensive plays or blocking, but again, here I was, in a mess, so I would do what I had to do. Which meant, figuring it out as I went along.

They also weren’t including me in the huddle. Hello? Totally bewildered, I tried catching the coach’s eye to point out the obvious error of me being where I was. He told me to stay out there and do what I can. So —

I lined up, but it was an awkward position, because I was half-turned to see what the quarterback was doing. The ball was snapped.  Here comes the rush. I blocked a guy and cut into a middle open flat, caught a pass and was crushed in a tackle. Still, five yards were gained. On the next play, I saw a hand-off to the running back, so I picked up rushers and helped make a path for him, resulting in a first down.

The next play was bizarre. Lined up, I could hear the defense talking and see the quarterback. He planned to throw to me, I realized. I mentally set myself for the task. Then, the quarterback didn’t set. He kept standing up, moving around, and checking the defense. Time was passing, passing…I almost fell out of my stance. I kept wondering why the quarterback didn’t set us and get the ball hiked. I worried about delay of game.

Meanwhile, the defense had drifted off to the sides. There was a huge hole in the middle. If I released and the quarterback threw a quick slant, I could exploit this defense.

The ball was finally hiked. I snapped out into the flat and looked for the pass, but the quarterback was running toward me. I turned to make a block, but no defenders were in the area. The quarterback raced thirty yards into the end zone for a touchdown.

I realized that the quarterback was planning this all along, and that I’d been part of his secret scheme. It impressed me. Looking at the scoreboard, I saw that we’d now scored three times, and the score was 21-3.

Dream end.

I awoke thinking, take the opportunity when it comes, and make the most of it, but create opportunities. The quarterback on done both.

3

The Management Dream

I dreamed I was in upper middle management with a large, international corporation. I was part of a team, and we’d just realized that we’d made a huge mistake. I don’t know what the mistake was, but major negative career, environmental, and economic ramifications were expected as a result of our decision and the corporation’s subsequent actions. It was going to affect the company’s stock price, bottom line, and people’s employment.

Worried, we were having meetings to work out what we could to do save ourselves and mitigate the impacts that we were projecting. I began developing an idea. As I explored it, I was uncomfortable with the moral and ethical side of it, because it meant sacrificing someone by using them as the fall guy. It would save my career, along with many others, and reduce the economic impact, but at a cost to my principles. I didn’t like that.

While exploring that option, I called and visited others, searching for another way. As that happened, I ran into the person who would be the fall guy. They were a young, positive, and optimistic person. They’d realized that blaming them would go a long way to helping many others, and was essentially volunteering to do that. “I’m young,” he said. “I’ll rebound.”

I was dubious. I didn’t want to be convinced. I felt his youth and inexperience was making him over-optimistic. Basically, as the dream progressed, the rest of the management team and this individual put the burden of decision on me.

Back in the building where I worked, I sat in a meeting with the rest of the management team. The agenda was about other things, and not this crises. They were speaking in low voices. I was by myself at the end of a long conference table. I was aware that they sometimes glanced my way. I was aware that they awaited my decision.

I decided. Placing a call on a cell phone, I told the person on the other end, “I have a way out.” I knew I was sacrificing the volunteer. I knew it would work. I didn’t like it.

Hearing me on the phone, other team members began passing on the word that I’d decided. Relief flowed through the room like water.

Turning away, I spoke on the phone and put the plan in action.

The end.

3

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