Category: Dreams

The Shoeless Dream

I call it the Shoeless Dream, but it was an involved and multi-layered excursion featuring music, family, red ants, and strangers, besides the shoes.

I know exactly the shoes involved, too. They’re still in my closet, and I wear them once in a while. They’re a pair of coffee brown suede Oxfords.

Thinking about how long I’ve had them, I realize that it’s now twenty years. That amazes me. I can put them where I had them because I remember wearing them at work when I lived in Mountain View, California, and worked in Palo Alto, California. That employment ended in 2000, and I moved from Mountain View to Half Moon Bay in 1998.

I lose the shoes during the dream. The dream is taking place at a sort of muddy, outdoor fair and picnic that reeks of a dystopian movie set. The shoes are important to me because I don’t have much. Despite that, I take them off as I walk around. Then, I set them down to to something, forget about them, and walk off. A little later, after going through the fair – about ten ramshackle booths made of plywood, painted with white primer (sometimes) and sometimes decorated with a few Christmas lights, I realize that I’ve forgotten the shoes. I make my way back to them without problem. Finding and picking them up, I go on.

During this dream sequence, there’s a lot happening in my dream. I’m walking around a property that I own, doing a survey. I’m passing by many others who greet me. I’m busy and don’t have time to talk. I recognize aunts in the crowd. As I walk around, I have one shoe on, and carry the other one.

Once again, I put the shoe down and walk off without it. This time, a long period passes. I visit with my sisters, and talk with them about music, ending up singing Collective Soul’s song, “The World I Know” with my youngest sister, and then with my oldest sister.

Further walking around, I head for where I’d earlier noticed vomit. Passing it by before, I’ve decided that I need to go back and clean it up. I remember it was by the patio and go there, but when I get there, the vomit is gone. Instead, there’s a huge line of fire ants. Others are leaving the picnic/fair, so I warn them around the ants. Then I discover ant hills, and other lines of ants. The ground beneath is hard, dry and cracked. I remember that it had been muddy, so I’m puzzled.

Thinking about the mud of before reminds me that I’d lost my other shoe. Retreating my steps, I return to a muddy place, where the picnic/fair still goes on, but now under strings of bare yellow lights. I walk around. People talk to me. I know some of them but some are strangers. I don’t remember anything that’s discussed, except that I tell people that I’m missing my shoe, show them the one on my foot, and ask if they’ve seen the other one. Eventually, I find my shoe.

One thing that struck me as I remembered and posted this (very annotated) version of the dream. I was carrying the shoe and worrying about them because that’s all I had, yet, I was on my property, and inspected it. I thought the shoes were important, but I missed things going on while obsessing about them, and the world changed around me as I went back and forth with the shoes.

In a way, I think the shoes represent my connection to the past. I’m carrying them into the future, but it’s changing around me, and I think I’m warning myself, don’t get stuck in the mud of the past because the world I know has changed.

* All typing errors in this post belong to my cat, Quinn, who insisted that he help me type by getting on my lap and head-butting my hands, arms, and chin while purring, and sometimes trying to nibble on my ear. It can be very distracting.

1

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Laughing to myself, as I almost put Tuesday’s Dream Music as my post title.

Last September, I had a dream and awoke with “The World I Know” by Collective Soul in my head. This time, the song was in my dream, twice.

The first time, I was discussing it with my youngest sister and a cousin. We were talking about the words, and then we sang it. Afterward, I continued through the dream, and came upon my oldest sister.

My oldest sister can claim to be the shortest of our family, but she was taller than me in this dream. I mentioned the song to her, and she said, “Well, it becomes kind of maudlin, which isn’t what you want in a song.” I said, “That’s true, it does, but it ends in an uplifting manner.” Then we sang it together, and then I continued on through the dream.

So, here it is again. You can imagine my sisters and I singing it. It came out the year I retired from the military. Wonder if there’s a connection for me and my dream in that?

 

0

More Cars in A Dream

A hard rain pelted the road and darkened the sky.

We had three cars. All were Porsches: a 924S, 944, and 944 Turbo.

All were red.

I was driving on a four lane highway with a median strip of dark green grass in the middle, like an Interstate. I drove the 924S. The road was empty except the three Porsches.

This is where the weirdness begins. I was driving the car, but I was looking down on it from about one hundred feet above it. I could see all three cars, and I could see through them. While I was driving, and they were driving, the drivers and I were all talking as though we were in a room together.

I was telling the others that the 924S was more capable than they realized because of its light weight, and that while the original 924 didn’t have much power, the later 924S had power and excellent handling. To demonstrate it, I drove the 924S around the other two Porsches as we went down on a hill, into a sweeping turn, and up a hill.

1983-porsche-944-white-wallpaper-8
Porsche 944

“You’re right,” one other driver said, and the second driver said, “I didn’t realize it had so much power.”

So ended the dream.

I dream often about cars, especially high performance sports cars, and especially Porsches. Porsches captivated me as a child. First, I loved the Jaguar E Type roader, and then the Chevrolet Corvette, and then the Porsche 911S. Porsches became more dominant in racing, with the 908 and 917 variants arising, so I embraced them with greater fervor. Porsches came to mean performance, success, and style.

I’ve twice dreamed about Porsches in 2018 and wrote about the dreams, calling each dream, “The Porsche Dream”. In each, I’d won, or was advancing, and was thrilled. In this one, I was demonstrating a capability that others didn’t know about.

So, good or bad, right or wrong, hopeful or silly, I take this dream as something positive.

 

0

The Dancer Dream

I heard violin music. It was a classical song. I knew it but I couldn’t attach a title to it.

With a personal POV like a camera was perched just over my right shoulder, I turned in search of the sound. The view around me was like I looked at the world through a misty gray light gel.

A woman came toward me, brunette, with creamy white skin, and large, dark eyes. Her hair was pulled into a tight bun. I could only see her from her bare shoulders up.

As she approached me, she sang, “I am here for you, I am here for you,” in a tone and rhythm that matched the violin tune.

Her eyes on me, she passed while still singing, turning away but then turning back to look at me again, still singing, with a hint of smile. I saw more of her. She’s dancing, I realized. She’s a ballerina, I saw, and then awoke.

0

An Inconclusive Dream

First, my sister-in-law was visiting my wife and me. She was upset and came to talk to us.

I can’t describe where we were at. My observations were limited to a very close personal point-of-view. There seemed to be a place in black and white, and seemed like it was night, but we were inside, so I’m not certain of much beyond those basics.

I don’t know what upset my sister-in-law, either, nor why she came to us. All of that is hazy. My wife and I were tired and got into bed to go to sleep, and my sister-in-law got into bed, too.

None of us could sleep. First, one of my cats (the ginger fellow) came in, walked up to my head and looked at my face. I tried pulling my covers over my head so that I could sleep.

Then, I heard voices. After listening and failing to identify who it was or where they originated, I got up and started talking about them. My wife said that she heard them, too. I went to find the source and discovered my nephew. He’s my wife’s other sister’s son. Sitting cross-legged on a bed,  he was engaged in a noisy phone conversation on speaker.

I went back and reported that and then left for downstairs. Downstairs was daylight. Part of it was a gas station, but there was also a junk yard, and other things that I couldn’t make out. The gas station owner turned out to be my lawyer. I was being tried for something. I don’t know the charges. He and I walked around, supposedly to talk about the case, but neither of us were interested in it. He thought I was going to be convicted, and I unconcerned. Strolling around, we were under lights, but outside, but remained daylight. Others were there. They distracted the gas station owner/lawyer, a big old white male with short brown hair dressed in blue overalls. He drifted off to talk to them.

Sitting down, I gazed around the pile of junk. It was mostly old cars, tires, pieces of fencing, and a few appliances. Across the way, I saw a Studebaker Hawk. Rusted and faded, it had lost its side windows and wheels, but was otherwise intact. When the lawyer/GSO returned, I pointed it out for confirmation that’s what I was seeing. Yes, he answered, and then launched into a meandering story about how it came there that I couldn’t hear or understand.

He went away ago. Turning, I discovered a red Ferrari Testarossa Spyder go-cart. I wanted to know if it ran, and what it used for an engine, whether it was electric or gas-powered. I put these questions to the lawyer/GSO when he came back.

ferrari-testarossa-spyder

“Sure,” he said, with a good ol’ boy laugh while scratching himself. “It runs.”

“Can we start it?” I asked.

The laywer/GSO looked around and said (I think), “Let me see if I can find him.”

My wife came down. I told her about the Studebaker and the Ferrari, showing her the latter, telling her that I was waiting to see if it can be started.

The dream ended on that note.

5

The Boxes Dream

Looking out a window, I saw an elderly white woman gesturing as she ranted. I couldn’t understand what caused her ire, and then realized she addressed the presence of two white boxes. The boxes weren’t large, about the size of a VHS tape cassette each. Her issue seemed to be that they were sitting by the side of the road, and nobody was picking them up. After she pointed the boxes out, I could see the boxes and the road, and see that she stood on a yellow field.

A friend from my military service, Derek, came in and left me a box. Closed, made of brown cardboard, it was about four by four by four inches, a cube. After some time of sitting around the place doing other things, and looking out the window at the ranting woman and the two white boxes, I picked the box up and tried, but failed, to open it. Setting the box down, I left the house.

It was dreary and busy outside. The ranting woman was gone. The two white boxes were still there. I crossed the yellow field to them and picked them up. Cars passed me on the road as I examined the boxes. They were flimsy and empty. I couldn’t understand why the woman was so upset about them and their presence. I looked for a place to discard them. Not finding one, I took the boxes to my place.

I left my place again and went to what seemed like a parcel delivery place. It was very busy. I found a locker with three boxes inside it. They were addressed to someone else, a man. I knew his name, but I didn’t know him, but I believed I knew what was in the boxes. I wanted to know, so I took the boxes to my place, and opened them.

I can’t recall what was in two of the boxes, but shoes were in the third. Feeling ashamed of what I’d done, I closed the boxes and left with them, meaning to return them. I ran into Derek and explained what I’d done, and that I needed to put them back. I didn’t want anyone else to know what I’d done, and I wanted the rightful recipient to get his boxes. Derek couldn’t help. I eventually took the box back to where I’d stolen them and put them there.

After returning home, I took the two white boxes that the woman railed about, and put them back where they’d originally been. Then I went back into my place.

Derek came in and took the box he’d brought me. “Sorry,” he said. “This wasn’t supposed to go to you.”

He left, and the dream ended.

4

The Food Dream

I awoke hungry from last night’s dream.

It was a simple thing. My wife and I were with many other people. I knew them all, but she’s the only one I recognize from my actual life.

After walking on a cement walk, we entered a hall or reception area. I smelled food as soon as I walked in. Huge, the place bustled with people hurrying about. I realized most were servers. Long tables of food were set up along the walls on either side.

My wife and I were confused, asking one another, are we supposed to be here? Neither of us knew. We were looking around. The people we’d been with were not with us. We couldn’t see them. We saw a lot of other people, but not anyone we knew. I decided, “We must be in the wrong place. We took a wrong turn. We’re not supposed to be here.”

She agreed with me. We were turning to leave when a young serving woman in dress in black, with a white apron, approached and said, “Let me show you to your table.”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to be here,” I said. “Is this a wedding or reception?”

The young woman looked confused. “No. This is where everyone eats.”

I was confused. “Who is everyone?”

“Everybody.”

“So this food is for everyone?”

“Yes.”

We went back and forth talking about it because I was sure there was something yet to be revealed about what included everybody, but it was a circular dialogue, with the answer being that we’re supposed to be here. The food was for us.

My wife and I looked at one another. “I guess we’re supposed to be here,” I said.

“You are,” the woman said. “Follow me to your table.”

We followed her but I remained highly doubtful. She took us to a table, one of those big, round ones, set with flatware and glasses for ten. A young man came up, asking if what we wanted to drink. He could get us anything that we wanted. We chose our drinks. He went off. We then realized it was a buffet and went off to one side. There was table after table with food parallel to the wall, with servers waiting behind the tables. I think I saw everything – turkeys, hams, steaks, and fish, along with bowls of vegetables, and potatoes prepared in different ways, like scalloped, boiled new with butter and parsley, and mashed. I saw an omelet bar, a huge salad bar, and pies, cakes, and cookies at a another table, and an ice cream sundae bar.

The sight of so much food floored me. I still didn’t think I was supposed to be there. I was certain there was a misunderstanding. Nevertheless, I ordered food, which is where the dream ended.

Writing this up today, I realize I’ve had similar dreams to this before. I derive a meaning from it that makes me grit my teeth, that I continue to doubt myself, believing that I’m not worthy, that I don’t belong to wherever I’m going.

4

The Shooting Dream

I dreamed last night that I was shooting people. Don’t worry, I hadn’t gone on a rampage; I was being told by others who to shoot and when.

They were real people, and not voices in my head, or ghosts. It was a beautiful day. I cringe to note this, but I was on a grassy knoll. Around me, though, was mostly country side. I had a rifle. A person beside me – not anyone that I know – would be given a piece of paper. They would read something and then look around, and point, and I would aim and shoot.

It didn’t bother me in the dream, but this is not me. I’ve gone hunting a few times, but didn’t like it and stopped. I was in command and control in the military, and controlled nukes, but I eventually grew to dislike that role. As I’ve lived, I’ve concluded that there are enough threats to life out there without us going about killing one another. Yes, I understand that life is finite, and we’ll all die, and killing another is simply advancing the outcome. But I also understand that killing brings waves of actions and reactions. Some of those waves never stop, but build and expand, creating more killing.

So, it was a startling dream for me to experience. But I was just following orders, right?

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑