Category: Dreams

The Sale Dream

Another laughter-inducing dream last night.

I dreamed there was a Macy’s sale. Terrific sale. Found a sweater originally priced at $696, marked down to $70. What a bargain!

Some little old lady arrived. She asked me what was going on. I told her about the sale, and showed her the sweater. Then she and I walked around, looking for bargains for her and talking with the sales help and other shoppers.

They announced the store was closing and directed us to go sleep in beds they’d set up. The beds had to be shared, but they put pillows between people. After I was in bed, I remembered the sale, and stared writing a blog post in my head in my dream, in my sleep. But I couldn’t remember all of the dream’s details, so I got up and started the dream over. I knew the dream was repeating, but everyone else knew they’d already done the dream, so confusion ensued. The little old woman wanted to know why I was dreaming it again. I told her that I needed to remember the details because I wanted to blog about the experience. That bothered her; she wanted to leave. I wouldn’t let her go, because the dream wasn’t done. That interrupted the dream, so I made everyone start the dream over again. They weren’t very enthusiastic with this third dream performance. Many rushed their lines and movement, and some forgot what they were supposed to do. I laughed at that. Since that wasn’t part of the original dream, it annoyed my dream extras.

I awoke thinking, I need to dream that again….

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The Ticket Dream

This was an ironic, humorous dream for me.

I was in a huge airport terminal. It was day. I’d been traveling all over, mostly alone, as was my case during my careers. Now I was going home. But where was home? How was I getting there? I didn’t know either of these answers.

As others left, I searched through my baggage to figure out where I was supposed to be going. While I was doing this, a female airline employee walked up and talked to different people. I prepared to approach her to ask for help. But as I did, she turned and pointed to me. “You’re going on the eleven nineteen,” she said.

I was impressed that she knew that, and thankful. After she said it, I discovered a ticket in my baggage. The ticket was one of those antiquated styles, with a card back and several tissue-thin layers separated with carbon paper. Pleased and relieved, I had my ticket. I just had to wait for my flight.

It was apparently going to be a long wait. Flights were called; people departed, and I remained. I kept losing my ticket in my paperwork. Back in paper days, I would create a folder for my travel. It would have my boarding passes, tickets, baggage claims, agendas, orders (when I was military), et cetera. As others left, I became anxious. To relieve my anxiety, I’d check my ticket. Each time I pulled out my folder to consult my ticket, the ticket was gone. Then I’d go through a mad hunt, emptying my bags and searching for my ticket. Each time, though, I wouldn’t find it, until – surprise! – I found it in my paperwork.

I moved closer to the customer service desk where the woman worked. At one point, she saw me, pointed, and said, “You’re going on the eleven nineteen. Your flight is soon.”

My wife arrived, surprising me. “How did you get here?” I said.

She was smiling. “My boyfriend drove me.” Her expression told me she was joking.

Tired, I wasn’t in a joking mood. “Well, did you boyfriend give you a way to get home? I’m on the eleven nineteen. My flight is soon.”

She held up a ticket. “I know. I’m on it.”

“How’d you do that? The flight was full.”

She didn’t say. At this point, I slipped into enough consciousness that I knew this was a dream. It reminded me a lot of some of my travels, but the part that struck me as ironic and humorous was that my ticket kept getting lost in my paperwork. I thought, that’s pretty funny for a writer.

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My Character & Me

It’s apparently spring in my novel, because I’m experiencing a revolt. No blood has yet spread across anything. I don’t think it will. We’re pretty civilized here. Civilized people don’t kill one another to get their way, except in fiction…right…?

The main character and I are wresting with what’s going on in the novel. He’s moving into this new direction. Heavily dependent on technology, he insists on exploring how the loss of personal technology influences his behavior. He has become mentally, physically, and emotionally weaker. Although he’s staying fit and slender, he’s aging, and his energy level is drooping. He does not have the level of control with which he’s accustomed to living.

But he’s not seeing that in his people. Without technology, individuality is sprouting. His people see and hear better than him. Many have higher energy levels. Some are becoming bullies. While bullying had been psychologically and socially influenced over the course of time from now until the future, and diminished through socializing, technology in their recent history, those safeguards and safeties were removed when their nanotechnologies were removed.

Other emerging trends among his force are disturbing him. Binge drinking is becoming a problem. Without their sexes and free of their technology, people are becoming sexually active. Promiscuity is flowering. That’s causing jealousies and attachments that can affect discipline, good order, and the chain of command.

These changes, and how this unit copes with it, is the story, he insists. That’s what he believes should be written. I disagree; I sought more of an adventure story. I add elements of adventure, threats, and conflicts to increase that sense of adventure, but he keeps dragging me into psycho-analysis.

I dreamed about this problem last night. In the dream I was a military member on shift again. I’d been lazy and hadn’t completed the shift checklist. Hell, I didn’t know where to find it. I hadn’t inventoried the COMSEC materials, read the log, closed out the last log for the Zulu day, nor started another one, and shift change was coming on fast.

Anxiety suffused me; WTF was I going to do? 

Well, I started scrambling to make it right. But I was quickly sidetracked with my environment. It was disorganized, and poorly planned. I was appalled. Although I knew I was running out of time, organizing that place developed into my primary priority. Of course, once I did that, I developed a focus. Having a focus revitalized my energy level and determination, and wiped out my anxiety.

Pondering the dream this morning, I developed understanding that it wasn’t about my life, but the novel in progress. That bifurcation I experienced was causing anxiety because I didn’t know what the character was coming up with next. And, I’d developed him as a strong individual. I didn’t like seeing him losing his way.

Ah, hah, I understood, oh, there we go. This is about writing the novel in progress. My conflict with my character  —

Let’s put this more correctly. The change of direction in the novel from my original intention bothers me. With that, I’ve lost focus and energy. Thinking about this – because I write to help me think – I think my character is correct.

I know from reading others that many writers wrestle with characters taking over. Some dismiss it; they’re the writer, they’re in control, and they decree what gets onto the pages. I live and work through my characters on the pages. We’re partners more than master and puppet. Perhaps it’s due to my organic writing style, which, on reflection, can look as complicated as layers of spider and cobwebs. And it’s not like I haven’t been down this path before. I often begin with an idea that grows into something else.

Although it makes me uncomfortable, I’ll probably write what the character wants. Then I’ll edit it down to find a compromise we can live with.

Characters; they can be the worse.

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

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Himself

He dreamed he was looking for himself.

The search began deep underground. Dressed in jeans and a shirt, he stood, trapped by the earth, mud and rock crushing him.

But he knew which way was up. Pushing back against the pressure, he lifted his hands and raised the earth above him, first by a barely measured fraction, then, as he kept pushing, by inches, and then by feet. As he lifted the earth away, he gained more freedom to move. With that freedom, he began swimming up through the soil and rock, even though it filled his mouth and he could not properly breath.

The last barrier was concrete. He slowed, but did not stop, though it took greater effort. The sounds he made attracted others’ attention. At last, the concrete broke enough that he could push pieces away. With them gone, he broke off more, creating a hole.

Fresh air washed in from a sunlit blue sky. Although exhausted, he worked more quickly. People’s voices reached him. “What’s going on?” people said. “Is that a person? Who is that?”

“It is a person,” an elderly female voice said. “It’s a man.”

Another female said, “Someone call the police.” Conversations swirled about why the police should be called.

Pushing concrete aside, he lifted himself out of the hole before a decision was found. A circle of staring people, most holding cell phones to videotape his emergence, surrounded him. They backed away at his growl.

Orienting himself, he began walking. The people scattered. He was on Ashland Street. He lived on Clay Street. It was less than a mile away.

It was time he found himself. Up on Clay Street, he awoke from his nap on the couch with a start. Elements of the strange dream buffeted coherent thinking. As understanding developed, he turned to the door. Watching it, he waited, bitter about what was coming. He’d betrayed himself before.

Now it was time to pay.

 

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A NASCAR Dream

It was peculiar.

My Dad, wife, and other family members – none of them ever seen, but heard in the wings of the dream stage – and I were watching a NASCAR race. It was one of the big banked tracks, like Charlotte, Michigan, or Daytona. I lean toward the last as the site. The cars were in roaring packs. It was the race’s mid-stage. Fans know this means the drivers were racing for position, but were mostly finessing the situation and vehicle to make a run at the end. Stock are mostly high-speed endurance races with a final ten-lap shoot-out, especially with the modern tendencies for the cars to wreck on the last, desperate laps. That stops the race and frequently leads to a green-white-checker situation.

I’d driven in with family in a white Chrysler Sebring convertible, with a beige leather interior. The car was parked right there.

Watching the race wasn’t the same as in reality. While watching on a huge screen, I (and everyone else) could virtually walk among the cars as they raced around the track. NASCAR encouraged this technology as a way for fans to get closer. Further, you could design a new paint scheme for the cars as they raced. The drivers and team could then review your scheme while the race was on, and adopt it for the car, again, while the race was on.

That’s what I was doing during the race. ‘My’ driver was a female (and not Danica Patrick). She’d was leading for most of the race, but there was a wreck. She was eliminated, and the race was red-flagged for track clean-up.

My family wanted to leave. The race wasn’t going on, and the one we cheered was no longer in it; why stay? I was working on that paint scheme, though, and didn’t want to quit. I finally surrendered to their heckling. Then Dad wanted me to move the Sebring up. Although we weren’t in a garage, there was a closed garage door. Using a remote control, I moved the car forward, but resisted getting it too close to the garage door. Dad insisted, move it further forward. Irritated, I did, stopping the car with the nose right against the garage door. I then complained to him about it.

That’s all there was. I found interesting symbolism to move after I awoke: a white car, my father as an authority figure, and a female driver, in the lead. All of those seemed like elements of myself. After mulling it over for a while, I took it to mean exciting times were coming (the race) during which I would be pushed to the limit (the car against the garage door) but that it would be fine (my father), and that while I had control, I wouldn’t be in full control.

As if I’m ever in full control, right?

 

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Killing Michael

I thought, at first, it was an episodic dream. Those are the ones that feel like I’m in a television show. They’re usually police procedurals or adventure stories.

This one felt like that at first, but then shifted. It became an intense dream and included zombies, a macabre “Groundhog Day,” and the ever-unseen, half-remembered advisers. It began with me killing me in a bleak, yellow and gray landscape under a bleached out sky.

I, the adult, was the victim. The killer was a young version of me. I lacked clues about who he was and what he was doing at the start. Then, after he killed me, and it began again, I realized, that’s me. He’s trying to kill me. Again.

He did kill me again, and again. I couldn’t count how many times he killed me. I grew tired of it. So I killed my younger self.

That didn’t stop it. Other young versions of me came after me. If they killed me, the dream began again. If I killed them, more came to kill me. They were all named Michael, but it wasn’t just the English – Hebrew spelling used. I saw Polish and other languages on pieces of paper. The names were handwritten on line notebook paper. An short, elderly white woman, her hair in a bun, wearing wire-rim glasses, gave me the papers, one at at time. The names on the paper confused me. I asked her, “What’s going on?” She answered in a foreign language.

The advisers finally spoke up. I took them at first as F.B.I. agents or scientists, but now I think of them as advisers, someone there who is supposed to be helpful but not fully remembered. They prefer to be anonymous and in the background. This dream exposed them to the light, and they were uncomfortable.

They explained what was going on, that, yes, all these versions of me existed, and were out to kill me. That’s what they were driven to do, because, like in “Highlander,” there could be only one. Many of them came after me like they were zombies. I had to cut off their heads – my heads – to stop them. And I did, again, again, again, again.

I grew weary of killing them. The advisers told me, and I knew, I was winning, but I was tired of killing my other selves. As less of them existed, they became purified, and more in tune with me. They started knowing how I would think and act. They set up ambushes based on their knowledge and began working together. Meanwhile, as I killed them, I became stained, and less pure. I was enduring more than living.

Until it came down, at last, according to the advisers, only one other remained. He was almost the same age as me. I didn’t want to kill him. He was trying to refrain from killing me, but he was driven. Overwhelmed by his urges, he would attack me. I would take him to the point of death and stop. I didn’t want to kill him. I asked the advisers if there was anything else I could do instead of killing him.

No; they were sad. They understood. No; he must be killed.

He understood as well. He wanted me to kill him so we could end the day. Eventually, I did. The advisers confirmed, the other Michaels were dead. Only one remained, me, weary of death and killing to the point that I was tired of being alive.

I never knew the point of all of this. I was the only Michael remaining, on this bleak landscape. The advisers departed without telling me, and I awoke.

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Moving Dream Vignette

“We’re not living here any longer,” my wife announced. “We’re moving. Come on, pack up. Let’s go.”

I was bewildered. It was a dream, of course. I didn’t recognize our home, which didn’t matter. We were outside, on a busy street. So were our belongings. Cars were passing. It looked like San Francisco.

My wife was packing fast. A friend was helping. “But we don’t have anywhere else to live, honey buns,” I said, even as I began picking things up to pack.

That small matter didn’t slow my wife. She was like the a cartoon packer, collecting and putting our stuff into boxes with amazing speed. I was hesitant. A tray on a table still had my hot food. She wanted me to pack it. Instead, I furtively grabbed a handful of baby carrots in butter sauce and crammed them into my mouth.

“But hon,” I said. “Stop a minute and think. Shouldn’t we have another place to go before we pack up and go?”

No. My wife was emphatic, that this didn’t matter. We were moving. Let’s pack! So, like a dutiful spouse, I packed, eating my dinner on the side while I did. My friend, helping, saw this, and laughed.

Warning? Hope? Meaningless?

I woke up thinking, ah, we’re moving into the unknown. She’s pushing us forward, but I’m less sure, a reversal of our usual perspectives. It’ll be fun seeing what happens next.

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The Future Dream

I’ve endured a surfeit of dreams this past week. Many stayed with me. I can’t say they all did. I don’t know if that’s true.

One particularly striking dream dominated. The dream setting was simple. Basically, um, me. Not the whole me, either, but head, neck, a bit of torso, and shoulders, the traditional bust sculptor. I knew I was sitting, and dressed in a light blue Oxford shirt, like the sort I favor. I don’t know where I was. The background was a favoring blue sky rich with sunshine over a calm ocean. Green hills sloped down to the ocean. Some of this strikes me as Mediterranean in retrospect.

Others were there, never seen, but sometimes heard, males and females. They could have been one of each, or more. I never saw them. They were commentators, commenting on me, and my activities. On my part, I was looking into the future. In the first stages of this, it troubled me, because I wasn’t correctly seeing the future. The commentators, in their dry, pithy way, said, “Okay, that’s fine, you’re just starting. Take your time. Try again.” Sometimes they spoke of me in the third person, “He’s fine, let him try again.”

Arms crossed against that background, all I did was sat, look, and listen. A soft breeze tousled my hair as the future was fed to me. As that happened, I assimilated it and explained what I saw. Part of this, my dream-self knew, was to make it my own, but I was also explaining to gain feedback and improve my comprehension.

It went thus for a while, with the commentators speaking more often as my visions clarified and my confidence waxed. Like teachers, they would sometimes say, “That’s right.” A female more often told me that. The dream ended with me happy, with a male commentator saying, “Okay, he’s got it. He knows how to see the future.”

Naturally, awakening, the dream pleased me. But I was also dissatisfied, because I couldn’t remember any of the future I was purported to see. That fits better with my personal philosophy; I think the future is wholly malleable. There’s probably more than one future in my future. I may skate between them, but chances are, I’ll mostly travel through one.

Even if I’m wrong, it was such a pleasant, powerful, and affirming dream.

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“Seinfeld” On Mars Dream

I dreamed I was watching the old “Seinfeld” television show, but I was on Mars, in my ship. Awakening from watching the show, I experienced a panic attack, because I wasn’t in my Mars ship. My airlock and cockpit, which should have been to my left, were missing. I freaked. Where the hell were they? Where am I? Then, it was like someone had removed a camera lens filter. The light changed; the room darkened. I recognized that I was in my office recliner, on Earth. I’d fallen asleep watching “Seinfeld,” and dreamed I was watching it on Mars.

Which made me chuckle. It was the same episode on Mars as the one that I was watching when I awakened, “The Parking Garage,” from the second season, I think. This episode is where Kramer bought an air-conditioning unit, George is supposed to be taking his parents to a play for their anniversary, and Elaine has goldfish in a bag. Nobody knows where they’ve parked their car, so they’re wandering around, searching. I guess as they wandered, I took off for Mars.

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Game Dreams

So many dreams last night. One involved me driving a silver Dodge Charger. It’s the third time that I can recall driving a silver Dodge Charger in my dreams.

In this dream, I was driving it in a race. The race wasn’t on asphalt, but was on a white plastic track. Each race was only one lap. I was having fun, in a good mood, and doing excellent, placing at or near the top. I wasn’t at all concerned with the results. The race was always run with only two cars on the track. I didn’t know anyone else competing. I looked forward to the finish. I was younger, with thick brown hair, and much better looking than I actually am.

Oddly, though, another race was proceeding in parallel. I was informed that during my race. The other race in parallel involved animals. No animals were being harmed, but I took it that some animals were being raced. I was assured that I wasn’t involved, and it didn’t concern me. I didn’t feel concerned. The races between the animals and my series alternated. I didn’t see any of the animal races, though.

Then, in a shift, I dreamed about Chakras. I don’t know much about them. In the dream, they were like stations, and I was going about cleaning and re-charging them. It was all very matter-of-fact. The Chakras were like red cylinders mounted in a row on white pavement. Green grass surrounded the pavement under a cloudy but blue sky. A pleasant warm breeze accompanied my activity. The Chakras were labeled. I read the labels and learned they were about energy. One Chakra, for example, was about my creative energy. Another was labeled “Physical Energy.” I went to each Chakra to check their progress, humming as I did. When checking them, I’d check to see if a black hose was there, and confirm it was connected to the Chakra. I don’t have any idea what the other end was connected to.

Neither of those dreams ended with anything conclusive. They were just done.

 

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