Category: Dreams

A Blushing Dream

I’m generally self-effacing and prefer to hang around the edges, watching and observing. Being the center of attention, praised, or honored, is something that provokes all manner of winces from me. So last night’s dream is one of those that made me wince, not just for those reasons, but because it bumped up against my impostor syndrome.

Not surprising. Many writers feel like they’re on the verge of exposure, that they don’t have talent or much to say that others would find interesting. The dream pushed me against all of that.

I was at a huge writing conference.  I guess over two thousand people were present. We were in chairs in a ballroom. I was in the front row in a seat of honor. As the conference began, the organizer took a moment to note my presence and thank me for attending, and said all sorts of wonderful things about my writing. I was the only one she did this with. The rest enthusiastically cheered and applauded. I stood, gave them a quick wave, and returned to my seat as fast as I could.

We’d brought writing projects to read to the rest. Before reading them, we were being given time to make final edits. The woman beside me was nervous and asked me if I would mind editing and revising her work. I agreed and set upon it.

Well, anyone who writes knows how often writers feel the urge to change whatever someone else has written. It’s rare that I don’t feel that, even with many published books.

So it was at the conference. I made multiple changes to her manuscript because mine was finished and didn’t need changed (ha, ha). When the woman returned to me, I explained what I did. She was surprised but delighted. We agreed that the two of us would read it together, that she would read the female parts while I read the male parts. This made sense in the dream. She was one of the first up, and that’s what we did, to great acclaim.

Time skipped past. I knew others had read. It was my turn. Again, I was given an elaborate introduction. The praise made me uncomfortable. I got up to read.

People weren’t paying attention, though. A hubbub swelled through the room as others stood, stretched, and generally milled about.

I was perplexed, because I thought I was about to read. What’s going on, I thought, waiting for the others to settle.

Wearing shorts, I suddenly felt something amiss. Looking down, I saw my pecker sticking out of my shorts’ leg. Glancing about to see if anyone was observing me, I hastily turned away and made my adjustments so the devious creature was back in the house and concealed, as God intended.

Then I turned back around. A moment later, everyone quieted and returned to their seats. I was introduced again and asked to read. Great applause followed. I began by giving a brief summary of the history of what I’d written, and the dream ended.

0

The Mother-in-law Dream

My mother-in-law passed away in February of this year. I dreamed that I was visiting her last night.

It was a tranquil dream. She and her husband had bought some land and put a house on it in the early 1970s. That was where I visited her last night. My wife was there, too, along with her sisters and their husbands, and the grandchildren.

My mother-in-law and I were both about thirty years younger than now in the dream. While everyone was gabbing and laughing in one room, she was alone in the kitchen. I went down the hall to get some coffee. She called me over to the kitchen island where the stove top was.

Papers were in her hand. I recognized checks, dollar bills, and checks. She handed one check to me, saying as she did, “I want you to have this for everything you’ve done for us over the years.”

I hadn’t done anything for them of note through the years, so I was protesting that it wasn’t necessary. She insisted, continuing, “I’m giving everyone something.” She pressed a check toward me. The amount in her writing in blue ink, was eight hundred twenty three thousand dollars.

I was shocked. “You can’t give this to me,” I said. She insisted again. Going around the kitchen island, I said, “Give me a hug.”

Then I remembered, she had passed away, and I knew, this was a dream.

As that recognition sank in, my wife entered our sunny bedroom. “Hi,” she said. She was carrying a plate and a fork. “I brought you apple pie for breakfast.”

Still abed, I said, “Oh, boy, breakfast in bed, and it’s pie. Apple pie in bed.” Laughing, I sat up and reached for the pie, and realized, I was still dreaming.

Then I awoke.

3

A Short and Startling Dream

I rocked up from sleep to look around.

The house was quiet. Everyone, even the cats that I saw, were asleep. Everyone except me.

3:25, according to my Fitbit.

The dream remained a fresh flow in my thoughts. I’d been at some ill-defined place. I remembered green grass as well as glass and cement. Awake, I thought, school, office, cemetery, mausoleum, hospital? None quite fit.

Wherever and whatever it was, I was there, along with other people. Everyone else was on their backs with their arms at their sides. I thought they were asleep. I didn’t know any of them. I thought there were eight people.

(And there was eight in my dreams again, I noted in a sidebar. Eight frequently comes up in my dreams.)

I thought everyone was sleeping but as I didn’t hear snoring, I began suspecting that they were dead. None of them moved.

It was cool. I was fully dressed in jeans and a polo shirt and shoes. Everyone I saw was dressed, too, and had shoes on. As I walked, I realized that I was in a small section of this place. Turning a corner, I saw thousands more people like that, all on their backs, not on beds, but on what seemed like stretches, like the EMT uses. There were orderly rows and rows of them.

I was shocked and concerned. Nobody was moving. Trying to puzzle out what was going on, I looked for documentation or equipment that would provide clues, but there were only massive rooms with white walls, shiny tiled floors, fluorescent lights, ceilings with acoustic tiles, and windows that revealed manicured grass lawns and a bright blue sky outside.

I started checking. Are these people dead, or…

It seemed like they were breathing, but everyone’s eyes were closed. Nobody snored. I touched a woman and a man and found them warm. Nobody seemed injured. I didn’t recognize anyone. Most were white and middle-aged. There were men and women. I didn’t see any children, and it was absolutely quiet. The only noise I heard the entire time was the sound of my steps when I walked.

Panicking, I thought, maybe this is a ward for a disease. Maybe these people were being quarantined. As I thought these things, I looked around and concluded that it wasn’t a hospital, but I didn’t know what it was. That didn’t mean that these people weren’t in quarantine, because they could be using a school or office for it because something big had happened.

Struggling to understand it, I tried recalling how I arrived there, and failed. I retraced my steps to see if there was a space where I’d slept. Unsure where I’d been, I kept walking and searching for where I’d started. I didn’t see any empty beds. Nor did I see any doors.

Realizing that, I thought, there’s no way out, and then thought, how did I get in here, then?

Then I awoke, sweating and alarmed. It all seemed so ill-defined that it bothered me.

It took some time before I went back to sleep.

1

A Scavenger Dream

I’d just begun new employment. I wasn’t the age I now am, but I was middle-aged and experienced in office environments.

The office building was one of those old San Mateo buildings used by start-ups. It was dark and cramped inside. I don’t know what the company was doing or what my position was.  Those things were being explained but a haze covers that part of the dream. Then my boss, a director, said, “Here comes the CEO.” All present, except for me, started gravitating around the CEO and his words.

Beginning to sort the situation, I discovered a huge collection of parts. Looking at them, I realized it was a stockroom of one part. I don’t know what the part was. Taking one apart, I found batteries inside. Then I found and read paperwork, and spoke to others. The gist of what I understood about the company was that it was struggling and going through a re-organization. Resources were scarce. Investigating, I learned that the parts were old stock. They’d set it aside to get rid of it. I decided I’d remove the batteries, test them to see if they worked, or recycle them. Then I go find something to do with the parts.

The CEO came along while I was in the middle of doing this. “What are you doing?” he asked. I explained my plan.

My initiative impressed him. “This is the kind of thing we need to be doing until we get on our feet,” he told the others in a little speech.

I shrugged all of that off and kept going about my business. In another room, I discovered food being thrown away. I couldn’t understand that at all. Like the parts and batteries, I decided that wasn’t appropriate, so I began going through the food, checking the dates and packaging, and organizing it by its food group. Others entered while I was doing that. Many asked, “What are you doing?”

I explained myself each time. People most often replied, “That’s too much work.”

I didn’t argue with them or explain myself. I was settling in and had the time. It was a unique time and exercise; once it was done, it wouldn’t be needed to be done again.

I knew that, so I kept at it. As I worked, the food, battery and parts disappeared, as though I was seeing it through a time-lapsed recording. The office became brighter.

In the end, I paused. I was holding an armful of food containers. Looking around, I thought, I’m scavenging energy for re-use.

Understanding that, I went on, and the dream ended.

0

The Direction Dream

Hartford, CT.

It seems like a strange place for a destination for a writer living in Oregon, but that’s where I was going in my dream.

It began as a confused melange of chaotic colors. A story emerged. I was with my wife, and a friend, Mark (not his real name), and his wife. We’d survived something and had come together. Now we were going to Hartford, CT. Then we’d fly out of there. I don’t know where we were flying to.

I said, “Okay, I know the way. Follow me.”

My wife and I got in our car and started driving. Mark and his wife were in an eighteen-wheeler truck. Mark drove. His truck was glossy black with neon green trim. At first, I was leading, but coming up on two other eighteen-wheelers, I became stuck behind them. Mark passed us. The three trucks were aligned across the highway, blocking all three lanes. All three trucks were painted the same color and style, glossy black with neon green trim.

I managed to pass them with some aggressive driving. The highway entered a woods and then became an unpaved rough path that grew fainter and narrower. We finally stopped because it seemed like the wrong way, and we couldn’t go on.

Meeting up with Mark, he said, “I have GPS. I’ve mapped out the way. Follow me.”

I said, “Where are we going?” I knew we’d said Hartford, Connecticut, before, but it seemed odd.

“Hartford, Connecticut,” Mark said.

“Why Hartford, Connecticut?” I said.

Mark laughed. “Don’t worry. We’re going to fly out of there. Trust me.”

We drove in our vehicles, me following him. In a surprisingly short time, we stopped. We weren’t in Hartford, Connecticut, but in someplace we’d stay until we could go on. My wife went ahead with Mark and his wife while I stayed behind to help a homeless person, chatting with them while giving them food and money.

Then I went to the hotel. I told the desk agent who I was and who I was looking for, but they knew me, and said we were already checked in. I prepared to pay, but they told me it was all already paid for, and showed me into a luxury suite. It was gorgeous, with a private dining area for the suites on that floor that was on a balcony overlooking an amazing vista. That’s where my companions were sitting and chatting.

Mark had it all arranged. All I needed to do was to trust and follow him. I agreed to do that.

After buying some food for our trip, we departed. Two cats traveled with me. Sometimes they were in a kennel, but sometimes they wandered about freely. It seemed like we were traveling in our suite at that point, confusing me. I’d get in my car to drive, but the entire place would go, not requiring me to do anything but trust Mark. My wife and I socialized with him and his wife.

His wife had a birth defect that left her without feet. Instead of feet, her legs ended in two knuckles that she walked around on. She had several animals, too.

An issue emerged with her. She was eating soldiers. As this hubbub arose, I rushed to learn what was going on, and to basically get involved. What she actually ate were small plastic soldiers. While it appalled me because they were plastic, probably didn’t taste good, and lacked nutritional value, I defended her against the rest, and they agreed. They didn’t like it but she wasn’t doing anything wrong. 

After that, I fed my cats and found several extra sandwiches that I’d bought for the trip. They were in my car, in a compartment made to hold them. The sandwiches were of the kind called submarine sandwiches, or subs, like I bought at G.C. Murphy’s when I was a child. I didn’t eat the sandwiches, because I had food, but hung onto the sandwiches to eat them later.

That’s where it all ended, giving me a lot to think about on my walks today. We were still enroute to Hartford, Connecticut. It was the place to go, according to Mark, and we’d get there, if I just trusted him.

I’ve already taken some ideas from it. Chiefly, Mark is my muse, and I need to quit second-guessing him. If I do, I’ll get where I want to go.

Hartford, Connecticut? It’s not a matter of the name of the place, but rather a destination that I don’t know. It’s named, but it’s a surprise.

There was another dream, but I feel too exhausted from thinking and writing about that one to go into now. I’ll write about it another time.

Trust me.

0

Sketchy Superhero Dream

I only retain a few main points of a sketchy superhero dream.

I was a superhero but have no idea what my powers were. I was using my powers to do good but what I remember of that is basically see headlines mentioning that I’d done something. You know, the headline said, “Child Saved”, with a photo of me as a superhero beside it.

The superhero organization reached out to me to help me advance and explain how it works. Apparently, I could gain others’ superpowers by defeating them. These were superheroes beyond their prime. They could help others advance and become stronger by giving them their powers when they were defeated. These aging superheroes didn’t mind doing that because they’d recover their powers and do it again.

It was sketchy to me. I struggled to comprehend. To add more confusion, the man from the organization explained to me that these aging superheroes often had multiple names and entities so they could give their powers away more often.

Huh?

Yes. All they did was add a letter or suffice to the beginning. So, I could defeat the superhero Reinaman.

Reinaman?

I recalled Reinaman in his old red and yellow costume. I didn’t recall his powers or why I would want to defeat him and take his powers.

The guy said, Reinaman was also Areinaman, Ireinaman, Preinaman, and Zedreinaman. Those are the examples I remember. The last one, Zedreinaman, sounded like the name of a flower to me, I told the rep.

That wasn’t important. Do you get the idea?

Yes, I got the idea but I remained confused. As instructed, though, I started doing this, and gained stature by defeating Ireinaman and Reinaman.

“Now you get it,” the superhero org rep said.

No, I didn’t.

0

Dreams of Change

Last night’s dreams were all about change. Of what I remember, one was a vignette where I made coin change for people, including my wife and other family members. Another sequence featured me searching for and trying to change my clothes, which originally were white and light gray, and then trying to change my shoes. That moved into me trying to change the cat kibble, and being totally confused about what I was doing and why I was doing it. An additional series had me helping others change things. In one, I helped my father and friends trying to change a tire.

They’re laughable in the morning light. I realized that each scene and story shared elements.

  1. I was confused about what I was doing and why I was doing it.
  2. In the end, nothing that I set about changing required changed.

It was amazing. I’d make change for peoples’ dollars, and then they’d discover that they had the right change and didn’t need anything. They’d thank me and move on, leaving me standing there with change. The tire that we were trying to change was okay, just a little low on air, giving us a laugh. My clothes were the best choice, so I ended up not changing them, and the people with the other clothes suggestion left, and the cat kibble bowls were full, and the cats were eating them, so, confused, I realized, nothing was required of me.

Hmm, I wonder what message I’m trying to convey to myself with this night of cryptic dreams?

2

Another Anxiety Dream

It was another anxiety work dream last night, and I don’t even work! I haven’t been employed for several years after working for IBM for fifteen. I’ve been doing nothing but pursing the writing dream since then, after postponing that goal for a few decades.

The dream found me with two co-workers. I don’t recognize them from my life. The three of us were dressed in business suits with shirts and ties, the kind of attire I wore when I was in marketing. We were at a big convention to get some work, the kind of function that I was forced to endure, and that I hated. It was a familiar setting, a large but crowded and noisy ballroom in a hotel or convention center filled with tables with white tablecloths and napkins, and pseudo-fine china and flatware.

I don’t know what business the three of us were in but we were there to network and generate some leads so we could have an income. While we were talking, they informed me that I’d paid for the previous night’s meal. They were dismissive when they told me this, without humor or sympathy. They said that I had insisted.

Well, the bill was for over five hundred and fifty dollars. I’d put it on my Amex.

Horrified and shocked, I couldn’t believe what I’d done, and I didn’t remember doing it. Panic and anxiety filled me. This is when it got twisted.

I don’t have an Amex. I gave that up a few years ago. I never wore a suit and tie while I worked at IBM. (My marketing roles were with a couple previous start-ups.) Meanwhile, in the dream, I now worried that my employer, IBM, wouldn’t pick up that tab. Hell, that was completely against their policies, and I knew it. But I didn’t understand why I thought IBM still employed me even while I was there as an independent contractor, trying to generate business.

I was also sick with worry in the dream because my wife would be furious, because she knew IBM wouldn’t pay for it, so I’d need to eat that bill and pay for it myself. Funny, but in reality, that’s the sort of thing that she would shrug off, should it have happened.

Anxiety, frustration, confusion, worry, and fear. This dream had it all. Waking up and thinking about it, I knew it stemmed from my writing. I’m reaching the end of the beta version of the series, and I’m worried that all this was for naught, that I suck as a writer and story-teller, and have no creativity.

You know, just the typical writing angst.

With all of its elements, I recognized what it was all about, and laughed at how my mind works. The dream was beneficial, because it feels like a storm has blown through, leaving me relaxed and ready to write.

1

That Nightmare

I was in conversation with the barista today when I flashed back to an early nightmare.

I lived on McNary Blvd in Wilkinsburg, PA. I think I was around eight or nine years old. I’d stayed up watching “Chiller Theater” with Bill Cardille on which I was able to see the original version of the movie, The Fly, which came out in 1958 (yeah, I looked it up). A horror film, I thought it was pretty damn entertaining.

Naturally, though, it played with my mind, resulting in a nightmare. In the nightmare, I stuck my toe into an outlet by my bed, shocking myself. Upon walking, I discovered it was storming outside. The lightning flashes did an excellent job of twisting the bedroom furniture into other beings. I was positive that the chest of drawers was a robot walking toward me.

I remember, too, Mom telling me to keep it down, or I’ll wake the baby. Ah, good times!

2

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