Category: Dreams

Dreams of Ineptness

What a night of dreams. Given scales of one to ten, where ten is the highest, these dreams were around eights on the vividness and intensity scales. They left me feeling emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted. Dreams of these types trigger speculation that I’m living in the dreams, and the dreams are the reality. So while I’ve been here, living with all of its entanglements and needs, I’ve actually been asleep there. Once I awaken there, I experience that life through my dreams.

Makes sense. In the dreams, I was bewildered about what was going on and expectations for me. Everyone liked me. Nobody was concerned about me. I was just there, part of the landscape. It was an incoherent landscape. Some others and I were in the back interior of a giant parked 1982 Camaro. It was so large, we were standing and moving around without being encumbered. Things were sometimes written on the car’s immense rear hatch window. But I knew I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing. Fueled by guilt, anxiety burned through me. I was going to be found out at any moment. 

Leaving the Camaro, I raced around in a covert frenzy, attempting to cover my tracks and do what I was supposed to be doing all along. The office made no sense. Everything had been moved outside. Meanwhile, new instructions were being introduced. I struggled to stay abreast of the new ideas. I was supposed to be understanding this stuff, using it and explaining it to others. I had little idea of what was going on.

I sought out the people in charge and the files. The files were supposed to be locked up. I didn’t know the combination. One of those in charge confessed to me that the locks didn’t work. They were a facade. She laughed as she explained this. As I tried catching up on my tasks and correct everything, I began learning through intimate encounters with others, nobody else knew what was going on. It was chaos with a veneer of normalcy and knowledge. Nobody else was doing it correctly. Most barely understood what I talked about and laughed when I mentioned it. A series of giggling confessions were shared with me to that end.

Understanding that I wasn’t going to be discovered because I was an inept fraud, I began relaxing. My errors and shortcomings weren’t going to be discovered because everyone else had shortcomings and were making errors. None of them cared about it.

Writing about them, I chortle with insight. Ah, yes, the classic dreams of inadequacy and our latent, perpetual fears of being exposed as a fraud. Do writers ever experience anything like this? I suppose not. Most writers are powerhouses of security and self-confidence.

I should just move on. I would, but I feel too tired. I need to sleep to recover from my dreams.

Now there’s a metaphor if I’ve ever read one.

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Dream Web

A caterruption broke my sleep. I’d been dreaming of watching a high school play. I was part of a large audience in a small cafetorium. Most of the dream attendees weren’t watching the play but chatting as the play went on. It was a light comedy and I was watching and chuckling.

But now, awake, I thought about the dream’s meaning. I found nothing but dream strands returned me to high school. I’d been the lead in our junior year play, ‘Brother Goose’. At one point I was supposed to enthuse about winning a contest and a year’s supply of cereal. I always broke character in rehearsals when I said the detestable, corny line, and then, in the action’s climax, I kissed the female lead.

In rehearsal, I was aware I was breaking character. I didn’t during the performances. My ex-girlfriend was in the audience during the production for the school student body. She said that when I kissed the other girl on stage, she looked down at the floor. She could feel others in the audience looking at her. They knew we were broken up. It was a small school, with a few hundred students.

I had lunch with her yesterday after our protest against Trump’s budget outline. We’ve been married since 1975.

Meanwhile, dream threads pulled me along from the play to a creative writing class in Germany. The teacher wanted us to do a 1940s radio script. I was selected as the narrator and decided to channel Gary Owens. That surprised and delighted the class but it was a natural choice, given the exposure to him from my years of watching ‘Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In’.

I learned a great deal about creativity and active writing in that class. I consider it a breakthrough class for me. Yet, I can’t remember the teacher’s name.

That’s going to distract me all day.

I blame it on the dream.

 

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The Reality

Khalvin rolled out of his bed with a snort and dropped to the floor.

Something had awakened him.

Everything seemed normal.

He moved to the reveal and transparented it.

Starry skies held outside. The ship still moved. Moonlight lapped the dark sea. He pinged his Backhand for the ship’s location. Systems confirmed they remained over the California Sea. Airspeed was ninety. The outside temperature was eighty-four degrees. Their destination was forty-nine minutes away.

Ordering a water bulb, he plucked it out of the air as it arrived, massaged his head against lingering sleep, and considered what to do as he sucked up water. He didn’t know what had awakened him. A dream’s wreckage drifted through his consciousness. He’d dreamed he wasn’t himself, Khalvin, but another person. He didn’t know that name, and he didn’t look as he now looked, but he knew it was him.

He’d been somewhere he couldn’t fully perceive. It seemed like a shop. Others were there, but he didn’t know them and didn’t speak with them. Music he didn’t recognize played above burbling conversations and crisp clacking and clinking noises. His dream self barely noticed. Sitting and bent over a keyboard, he was busy thinking, typing and talking to himself.

The image lingered with him, powerfully real. Wondering it meant, he considered the California Sea and thought of the ruins purported to be under its surface. In many ways, being here on Earth, about to explore ruins, seemed more like a dream than the dream he’d just experienced.

He realized he’d been Human in the dream. He was a Cat. He’d always been a Cat. To be Human….

He smiled. That seemed like the strangest dream of all.

***

Sorry for the shaggy cat story. Blame it on my dreams. Cheers

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Pieces

In last night’s other part of featured dreams, I found pieces of blue, red, yellow and white. Large but lightweight, they seemed to be plastic. As I collected them, I noticed some fit together. 

I next encountered a plaza. After some exploration, I noticed it was a huge board and realized the pieces I’d found could fit on the board. I began organizing, sorting and testing pieces in the way of puzzles, but building structures as tall as myself. Each was either red, yellow, blue, green, et cetera; the colors weren’t mixed in the structures.

Stepping back to gain a greater view of my work, I saw that the pieces I put together had formed people. I realized the pieces were from people and that I could use them, put them together and fix the people. 

The epiphany sent me into grinning delight. I began noticing others walking around and saw I was in a busy city on a sunny day. The people walking around were strangers of all races and classes of life. I could tell which pieces belonged to which person. So I began calling to them, “I can fix you. I know how. I have the pieces that can fix you.”

Then it was on to the other dream, where it took a weird turn.

Perhaps the weirdest turn is that I suspect I’ve dreamed these dreams before. 

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A Turn Into the Weird

Once again, my dreams took a hard turn into the weird. The one dominates my waking thinking.

There are six lanes of highway. I’m overlooking them with friends. One of these friends is Randy Moore. Randy and I served twenty years in the U.S.A.F. and were together at Onizuka Air Station, Sunnyvale, CA, in the early 1990s. He passed away from colon cancer the month of his sixtieth birthday.

He was alive and the Randy I knew in my dream. The six lanes of traffic have five ‘support lanes’. That’s the only way I can explain it. It’s a fast highway. But, while studying it, Randy and I (and others) realize there’s a huge gap in the road. Basically, it ends in a black chasm.

Then we realize we’re in an enormous cave. Then, we find, oh, wait, the highway continues on the other side of this chasm. The catch is, that’s several hundred yards away. That’s a helluva catch.

So we’re chatting, what a weird design, is it by design, what else could have caused this, and end by saying, “We should stop cars coming down because they can’t make it.” But we were also noting, “They see it. They’re stopping.”

But the driver of an old van guns his engine. Tires screaming, smoke billows out and the vehicle launches down the road into the dark sky. “He’s trying for it,” either Randy or I say.

“He’s not going to make it,” one of us say.

“Oh, wait…maybe it will.”

The van flies through the air like a scene from ‘The A-Team’. We watch.

“He’s not going to make it,” I declare. As I make the statement, a red Ferrari screams past.

“What the hell is he doing?” Randy asks.

I’m amused and appalled. “He’s trying to save the van.”

The Ferrari catches the van as both land on the other side. They bounce and skew sideways before slamming into the cavern wall in a ball of flame.

Randy and I begin wandering the cavern lanes. Examining the structure, we wonder, how will we ever get to the other side.

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Today’s Theme Music

I awoke with this song stuck in my head. It wasn’t the song I had in mind for today.

Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote ‘One Less Bell to Answer’ in the 1960s. The ‘Fifth Dimension’ had a hit with it around 1970.

The 1960s and 1970s was a great era of music. We had surfer music, blues, R&B, folk, psychedelic, country and western, and the British Invasion all being blasted from our AM radios. Many of the acts appeared on television and music shows, like ‘American Bandstand’ with Dick Clark, or ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’. 

Oddly, the song is connected to a time of transition for me. That gives me pause as I wonder why the song is stuck in my brain today. My family lived in the Pittsburgh, PA, area, having moved to that area in the late 1950s. We had lived in a brick duplex in Wilkinsburg. My aunt and her family lived next door to us in a like duplex. Her son, my cousin, was my age. We were best friends for a long time.

His family moved to a new housing development in Penn Hills in the 1960s. We also moved there a few weeks later. I ended up living about two blocks from him.

Meanwhile, though, my other friends remained in Wilkinsburg. I made it a habit to return to visit them. I usually rode my bike the miles between the two locations. Then my bike was stolen and I walked.

But my friends changed. I no longer felt a part of them and moved on. That’s why it’s interesting this song is stuck in my head this morning. Between my dream and my writing and this song, I wonder what conference is going on in my subconscious mind.

Here’s Marilyn McCoo and the Fifth Dimension, performing ‘One Less Bell to Answer’ on Soul Train.

 

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A Laugher

One of last night’s dream makes me laugh whenever I think of it.

I was working. I can’t say the nature of the work. Seemed like I was conducting inventory. Whatever I was doing, I was busy, happy and fulfilled. A manager came by. He wasn’t someone I knew from my life but he was known by the dream me.

Dream manager told me they — the rest of the office or work place — were leaving. I was fine with that. While they were gone, they were expecting two people to arrive: Major Record and a garbled, unintelligible name.

Sure, got it. Understood.

The manager left and came back. Still waiting for Major Record and the other, whose name he screwed up. Although I can’t remember the other name, I corrected it in the dream for him.

A little later: Major Record arrived, along with X. X was another name. I asked about the original second name. That’s who arrived, was the reply. They came by another way. They’ll be coming this way.

The manager had continuously screwed up the second name until it became a joke. Meanwhile, the Major Record we’d been awaiting had already arrived.

Waking, I keep laughing about that. I’m waiting for Major Record, but he’s already arrived. And I just kept working, doing the same thing, the entire time.

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Boring Dreams

Dreams have been boring of late.

I was reconciling with someone who’d angered me. I held my anger for a long time. Now I was being persuaded for the betterment of some project to make up. I didn’t want to but reluctantly agreed.

My seconds and I met with his seconds under an Interstate overpass. It was a dark, wet day. The terrain was brown dirt and highly sloped. Huge round pale pillars supported the highway. Interstate traffic thundered and roared overhead.

We approached one another. Words which I couldn’t hear were exchanged. I decked him.

Then, a voiceover: “Now let’s do it from his point of view.”

I was the other person. I knew I’d wronged me. I was sorry. I accepted that I would probably hit me. I walked into it knowing it would happen but accepted that it would.

And it did.

We were working on a project. Dad was involved. I’d done great on it. Everyone was congratulating me on my outstanding performance. I was pleased and excited but also uncomfortable with all the attention.

A celebration was set up. I was told I’d won a prize for my performance. A big white decorated sheet cake was brought in. People began taking pieces. I couldn’t get to it and get any. It was going quickly.

A new silver BMW convertible was brought in. I was confused as to whether it was my prize. I thought it was but others got in it to take it for a spin.

I was left waiting for my cake and my prize.

I was at a new military assignment. I’d just completed a prestigious assignment and had been recognized for my contributions. My OIC was a female, someone I didn’t know. She was young and I was teaching her how to set things up. Two other controllers were assigned to the location. A new one had arrived.

I was explaining processes to the new controller and explaining to him that one of the others – I think I gave a name – would be assigned to him to train him. Meanwhile, I filled out forms as templates to help him correctly process information.

I was almost done. The newbie was preparing to leave. So was I. The OIC suggested that I get an emergency number from the newbie. “Good idea,” I agreed, and called to him for one even as I thought, that would have already been done.

“How do we reach you?” I asked him. He was twenty to thirty yards away. “Do you have an emergency number?”

Walking back toward us, he replied, “I was born in Iowa.” He then began to tell us about his childhood.

The OIC and I were confused. Why was he telling us this?

The end.

So – it seems like these dreams reflect many facets. Of being recognized but not rewarded. Of needing to make up with myself and forgive. I don’t know what I’m forgiving. Past errors?

There seemed also an element of being confused about what was expected of me.

Ah, dreams.

 

0

Lost Dream

I held the dream in my mind when I stirred, rising half-awake to see what cat scratched where for what. Full and rich, the dream clung to me like deep mountain fog. I mused over its scenes and meanings as I returned to bed.

Now there are only shards of memories. It was about my wife and I. I was appointed a special position. Something to do with colors and helping people find their roles. Finding her for her, I discovered she was a prophet.

But that’s all that the shards come together to explain. The other fragments about buttons are pieces without meanings. Of them, I only remember that the buttons were red, green, yellow and blue, and that they were almost as large as me.

I remembered I was very happy, excited and pleased.

I wish I could remember more.

0

Up My Game

In what I must consider one of my strangest dreams ever, I dreamed I was a running back in the NFL.

It was the off-season, and we – running backs – were being tested. I didn’t know this, though. The whole thing was unfolding in the dream.

I was approached by a man in athletic gear. Holding a stopwatch and clipboard, he asked me to run a course. I didn’t know who he was or why.

The course was in a high school slash…ummm…hotel. I was to run the course through the halls.

It was a funny request to me. I was in my late teens in the dream. “Okay.” Shrug. It seemed strange, but what the hell.

Only after I ran it did I begin to realize that it was a test. Players, coaches, owners and sports announcers were staying in the high school slash hotel. Then I realized the test was about rating NFL running backs. With that, I experienced memories of being in NFL games. I didn’t have many touches but I had a high yards per touch score. Watching film in my head, I saw how I could improve.

Eventually, hanging around and talking with different people, I confirmed that I was an NFL running back and we were being rated from one to thirty-two. I was eight rankings from the bottom. Doing some dream math, I determined that meant I was twenty-fourth. Not a great score, but hey, I was an NFL player with no idea how he achieved that.

I immediately began visualizing how I could improve my rating by upping my game, how to better protect the quarter then cut into the flat as another passing option. I saw how I could change the way I see the field, watch for blocks, be more patient and cut more explosively. I was dismayed that I was only five foot eight and one hundred and forty pounds but determined I could gain weight.

Then I spilled a glass of water on a carpet in a room in the dream, and the dream ended.

The glass had been half full.

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