The Cleaning Dream

I was in a place where a female friend was holding a seminar. I don’t know its subject. It was being done in the woman’s home, in a great room area, combining living and dining room with kitchen on the end. Everyone present was known to me as family, friend, or RL co-worker. When the seminar ended, the woman said something like, “We need to do something about this.” I understood she was referring to cleaning up. I jumped up and said, “I’ll take care of it.” As everyone sat there watching, I collected all the dirty dishes, taking up to the sink as I did. Then I ran water, added soap, and washed the plates, silverware, and glasses, putting them in a rack to dry as I did. The sink was small and the area was crowded. The entire time, the rest sat in chairs, watching. So I started talking to them, telling them stories. Someone came up with a red and yellow cardboard label for some food item. The printing on it was bold black. I took this and announced to the others that it was a pass to take them anywhere they wanted to go, and then walked out, randomly selected one of the others and gave it to them. The rest laughed and applauded. I returned to finishing the dishes.

The end.

November 15, 2022 2

The Two Lions Dream

I was out on a shallow ridge. Alone, grasses blew around my thighs. I was planning to walk home when I looked across the narrow plain. Two male lions had just topped an opposite ridge and were sizing me up.

Panic shot through my body. I didn’t want to run, thinking, if I do, they’ll give chase and they’re faster. I grabbed a rock and large stick to defend myself and began trying to walk calmly but quickly — but not too fast — backwards to the house.

The lions were on me before I reached the house, nosing and sniffing me but not attacking. House doors were open. They went in as I did. I told myself to stay calm and think. The house was a large, white rambling building. Everyone was still in bed. All the bedrooms were on the upper levels. If I closed the doors to the upstairs, everyone would be safe. Then we could deal with getting the lions out of the house.

I successfully snuck around, closing doors as the lions walked around sniffing. Their presence attracked the house cats. I worried about the home felines but they insisted that they knew what they were doing. I retreated without them. Going upstairs, I decided I needed to sleep.

When I awoke, the others were up and the lions were discovered. At this point, people volunteered ideas for chasing the lions out. One man decided to take a bat and chase them away. We were all insisting to him that was a horrible idea but he stalked out with bat in hand, leaving the doors open.

The lions evaded him. Now they were into the upper levels. The house was a large and old, and had odd light fixtures and controls, along with a heater and furnace. Someone had turned both of them on, along with all the lights. The house was getting very hot. The furnace’s red heat was visible through the floorboards’ seams.

My mother-in-law (deceased in RL) came out to see what was going on. She told me the furnaced needed to be turned off because it was getting too hot. I agreed. The problem: the lions were by the switch.

I got everyone back upstairs by calling and talking to them. Going downstairs to the furnace control, I discovered that several of the cats were acting like they were lions, walking about with the lions. I reached the furnace switched and turned it off. The lions sat down on the floor, looked at me and disappeared. My MIL came downstairs and said, “Good. I thought we were going to have to call someone. Let’s have breakfast.”

Dream end.

November 14, 2022 0

A Friend’s Parents Dream

I was a young man, as I often seem to be in my dreams these days. Visiting at a childhood friend’s home. He wasn’t there. His mother, Arlene — who is deceased in RL — was hosted several of us attending a local school. While visiting, we were all watching television. I settled down on the blue carpet and went to sleep.

I awoke sometime later. Sitting up, I discovered that I was in a short-sleeved black dress. A little more explanation is needed. The dress was black, but see-through. It buttoned in the front. It had wide seams which weren’t transparent, and front pockets which also weren’t transparent. The dress came down to my knees, and I was fully dressed, in the same clothes as before.

Standing, I wondered what had happened and how I’d come to be wearing that dress. I attempted to take take it off but the buttons couldn’t be undone. It was tight, but with some maneuvering, I managed to pull it up over my head. Just as I am finishing, I hear a soft tearing sound. That stops me from trying any longer. Just then, my friend’s mother comes in with a tray of food and drink, telling me that it’s time to get ready. She goes on to explain that she put that dress on me to stay warm, sets the tray down, and hastens to help me. As she pulls it over my head and off, she tells me that she hopes she can get this off without tearing it because it’s special to her. We then hear it tear more. Looking at it, she sees that it’s torn and is dismayed, but then tells me to eat because I need to shave, dress, and go.

I eat an egg salad sandwich from the tray and drink coffee, and then start dashing around. My clothes are upstairs but the bathroom I’m to use is down below. As I hustle around, going up and changing clothes, then going down and shaving, others arrrive. I hear that my friend’s father will be arriving at any moment. (He passed away in RL a few years ago.) I want to be dressed and ready to go before he gets there. But then, he comes in.

I’m called upstairs. As I go up the steps, someone else tells me that Fred — the father — and Arlene want to see me. I step into the dining room where they are. Fred has a box on the table, and is opening. As he says hello to me, Arlene explains that Fred just purchased his first CD player and she wanted to know if I had any CDs for him to play because he doesn’t have any. I tell them that I have just the thing and dash downstairs.

I’m thinking that I’ll loan them several of my classical music CDs, which will surprise them, thinking that it’s more like the kind of music that they would like, rather than the rock I listen to. But I brought my little CD case, and there’s no classical music in it. I select a few blues CD and take them back up to them. Grinning, I explain the whole thing about the classical music CD.

Dream end.

I’ve not seen my friend since my late teens. Oddly, I’ve dream of him since then, as well as his parents.

November 13, 2022 0

Trees & Change Dream

The dream involved two pubs-café-coffee shops. Hard to say exactly what they were. Both were tiny places. One at the top of a parking lot, and the other at the parking lot’s bottom. The parking lot was rutted and in disarray, with a large sugar maple tree about midway down. The sugar maple tree is interesting to me because it reminds me of the one on my in-laws’ land when was younger.

I was younger in the dream but had my current panoply of friends. Among these were several friends who’ve passed away. They were drinking beer with me in the shop at the hill’s top. Well-lit, the place was elbow to asses with people, and we were squeezed in around a small table. In response to comments by one, I replied, “That proves that the other business is being set up to fail.”

A deceased friend answered, “You’re wrong.”

I began to argue back but checked up. “You know something.”

He nodded. “I know something.”

We finished our beers, rose, and walked out. Like that, I was walking into the parking lot the next morning. With me was my back pack with my computer. I was going to the place we’d frequented the previous night. On a whim, I decided to check the other place, which was the one we’d been discussing. Going down the hill, passing the sugar maple tree, I saw a large opening formed in the trunk by the roots. Inside was a large though muddy, comfortable space lit by a single white candle with a yellow flame. Thinking of how it reminded me of a hobbit’s place, I wondered who lit the candle, as no one else was there. It’d be a good place to shelter, in my mind, going on, leaving the candle lit.

The bottom shop was constructed from wood and painted gray. Ancient and splintered, the shop needed fresh paint. Large trees bracketed it on either side. Reaching the entrance required crossing a short but wide wooden bridge which matched the building.

Inside, I set up my computer and then met the owner. He spoke with me about my backpack, commenting that it looked heavy. I replied, it was dependent on what’s inside. When it’s just my computer, it’s less than twenty-five pounds but adding books added weight. He answered, “That makes sense.”

I told him that he needs to take care of his business. I met this as a warning, which I explained to him, based on what I’d seen and heard. I then left to go up to the other place. Almost immediately, I realized that I had my backpack but had forgotten my computer. Fortunately, a little girl who’d been in the shop chased me down with it. I thanked her and pressed on.

Back up the hill, I struggled to enter the shop. A large tree had grown close to their front door. Growing at an angle, the tree’s girth forced me to shift sideways to enter the business. All this surprised me, prompting comments to myself about not remembering the tree being like that. Getting in, I set up my computer and ordered coffee. People gathered around to ask me what I was doing. Writing, I explained. They began asking questions about what I was writing, prompting me to share and expand on what I was writing. Finding my coffee cup empty, I made to leave, but they insisted they wanted to hear more, and bought me another cup of coffee. This mug was much larger, which I joked about. As I took the first sip, I discovered that the shop was full with people waiting to hear me continue my story.

Dream end.

November 12, 2022 0

The Space Snake Dream

I was brought on to help create a new vehicle for people to travel. As I walked with the team, talking outside, I saw a small red and yellow snake. Ideas lit up my mind. I sketched out a plan for us to develop a design based on a snake. Objections quicky rose. Growing more excited, I explained how we would use small segments, giving the snake great flexibility. Each segment would be a living, working or storage compartment, etc. Our travel snake would be able to turn in multiple ways.

They told me it was supposed to be for space. I got more excited, telling them that we can develop multiple small segments, just like the other segments, which would be used for propulsion. They could be interspersed along the snake’s body.

While I was telling these things, the snake was being built. Without a short while, I saw it fly over some brown mountains and land nearby. I skipped through the sky to it. The snake’s segments were much larger than I’d suggested and its overall length blew away my expectations. Someone said, it’s getting ready to go.

By that point the sun was setting. The cloudless sky had grown deep indigo and purple. A few stars and satellites populated the zenith. Looking up, I watched the white snake, people visible in windows lit with a soft yellow-tinted light, climb into space on a blue flame.

November 11, 2022 0

A Writing Dream

It’s a disheveled dream, with a complicated cast and strange twists. I start out in a parking lot, a young man. My wife drives up in her gray Honda Civic, the one driven in yesteryears. I tell her to park and to make sure she locks the car. I point out a parking slot and she drives away.

Others are met. I tell them I’m waiting for my wife to park, but I’ll see them inside. I’m by my car of yesteryear, my first RX-7, a light blue vehicle that we bought brand new. My wife comes up. I ask her to park the RX-7 for me and tell her where. As she gets into the car, closes the door and drives away, I walk off toward a building. I pass her car; she’s left the door open. I’m dismayed, asking myself, what’s wrong with her? Her seatbelt is hanging out of the door, so I theorize that its position prevented her from closing the door and she didn’t notice. I fix all that, and then head on to building, a multi-story, long, white modern edifice with black windows, one of those places seen in business parks across the U.S. As I walk the loaded parking lot, I see my parked Mazda. Its door is open. What is wrong with my wife that she’s left doors open and unlocked in two cars?

In the building, I enter an apartment. Mom is there, along with her boyfriend, Frank. She waves hello to me. I find my wife in the kitchen preparing food and tell her that she left the doors open and unlocked on both cars. She mutters something defensive back. I answer, “That’d be fine if it was one car, but it was two. You have a problem.” I walk off.

Someone comes by to give me the book I’m working on. It’s a big, clumsy book, totally unfamiliar. When I open it, I discover nonsensical words and phrases written in a large, sloppy style using crayons. I recognize that it’s Frank’s book. I protest, “This isn’t my book. Where is my book?”

I go through the house to find my book. As I search, I find sandwiches overfilled with meat, cheese, and lettuce. No one else is there so I wonder aloud but to myself, “What’s with all of these sandwiches.” I continue going through, looking for the book, confounded, picking up a sandwich and eating it as I go. I begin noticing piles of coins on end tables, coffee tables, window sills, and the floor. Someone else is walking through the room. I turn and ask, “What’s with all these coins?” They reply, “I don’t know, you left them there.”

“I left them?” I ask back, but I’m alone. I realize that I’ve eaten my sandwich. It’s gone but there are plenty more. There’s also many more piles of money that I didn’t see before. They’re everywhere, growing taller and wider, filling with silver coins.

Dream end.

November 8, 2022 0

A Mom Dream

I was visiting Mom’s place. She was younger than RL, more aligned with the mom known throughout most of my adulthood.

I was younger, but my sisters were their current agents. Their children were present, too, contemporary as adults to me.

Visiting Mom’s place was a process of exploring because she’d moved. On the bottom floor, décor in shades of gray, black, and white dominated. The building was long and wide. I went outside to check out her backyard. I discovered trimmed trees organized in rows. I wondered if they were fruit trees and looked for evidence of that but found nothing conclusive. While I was looking, I inadvertently broke off one branch. Embarrassed, I didn’t want to be caught and looked around for somewhere to hide the branch. Looking up, I saw Mom watching me and smiling from a window above.

I went back in. As I walked through this floor, I realized it wasn’t a house but an apartment building, and I was in the lobby. My sisters and her children arrived, and then their children’s friends. We started having drinks. Many of the children were talking about the Lockheed C5 Galaxy, a huge transport plane. A dream news story said only two or three remained. Some foreign government was quoted as saying that they wanted the aircraft but the U.S. wouldn’t give them up. Some of the children suggested that if they were the other government, they would steal them. I went into a pedantic explanation about security and how that would be difficult because C5s were labeled ‘Priority A’. I suggested that if the C5s were stolen, the U.S. would probably shoot them down so that others couldn’t have them.

We went outside, to the building’s front after this conversation, where the party expanded, becoming louder, concerning me about disturbing the building’s residents. People proposed going to other places. I said that I would need to change.

Then Mom called down to me on the intercom. I answered it. She was asking me if I could go get something for her, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying because her voice was very weak through the intercom. Others came over to help interpret what Mom asked for. I thought she was saying that she wanted some pills like the ones I’d gotten for her before, and that they were available at a store or locker in the building’s rear, but I couldn’t fully comprehend what she meant.

That’s where the dream ended.

November 7, 2022 0

The White Paint Dream

I’d been alone in some modern office complex and was pretty happy about it. Then three dour men in gray suits with matching hats arrived and announced that they were there to help. All were white, tall, in their forties. They were going to paint. First I needed to clean the areas to be painted.

I rushed about, cleaning white bathrooms with white toilets. Although everything was already bright white, they were painting everything the same color. What was interesting was that the white walls had sharply and deeply etched swirl patterns covering the walls. I thought the walls were already clean but then was appalled to see that dry urine stained some sections. I hastened to find soap, water, and a cloth to clean it. As I did, I found more such stains. Located in such strange places, I wondered how the hell they came to be there?

As I scrambled to clean, some of the first arrivals began painting. Other men arrived to paint. Some came in and watched me cleaning, making comments about the urine stains.

November 6, 2022 0

The Friend & Car Dream

A line of dreams stormed the night. One ended, a short time later, another stole in.

This one featured a friend and co-worker, George. We met during my civilian employment phase. We admired and enjoyed one another from the start. One of his people later came to work for me and commented about how much alike George and I were.

First, though, was some dream weirdness. I was in some non-descript place. Others entered, and we all came together to start putting a wall together. Unknown reasons were behind the wall building, yet we were having fun. With some surprise, I realized that we were building a basement wall. I kept building even as I pondered why that was needed. Finishing it, I curled up on an armchair to sleep and the others left.

My sleep was interrupted by others entering several times. I always knew the new people and found them a place to sleep, sometimes upstairs. Some lived nearby so I questioned, why did they want to sleep in my place, especially my basement? One young woman was particularly puzzling. I think she wanted something from me, so I was sort of leery of her and her intentions. She seemed artificially happy and wanted to sleep close to me.

Then George arrived, along with a fistful of other co-workers. Getting up, I expressed surprise at their arrival. We chatted about old times. George and I had never worked in the same physical location. He worked at the company headquarters, and I was across the country. He and the others were visiting my work location. Pleased with that, I started showing them different things, telling them about how it’d changed since the early days. We were outside now. There used to be a wall up there, which was where we blah blah blah’d, I explained. Asking him and the rest if he remembered aspects of the area and how it used to be, I told him about where people used to go to lunch in the old days.

George wanted to see it. Calling my wife over to join us as the other employees walked on, I told George that I could take him in my car. We were immediately beside it, a gold tone sixties era convertible with the top down that I never quite fully saw. I told my wife that we were going to go see the old lunch area. By that point, George had entered the car and was behind the wheel. He wanted to drive my convertible, referring to it as a classic.

The three of us in the car, George driving, top down, sunshine covering us, drove off. George loved the car’s acceleration. That pleased me. I gave George directions about where to go, continuing to tell him about the changes we passed as we went. The road was smooth, a divided four-lane highway, the traffic light, with a matching mood. Along the way, I told him that people used to ride their bikes to come down here and get lunch, explaining that they’d exploited shortcuts.

We arrived at the lunch spot. Settled in the middle of a huge dirt and gravel parking lot was a large building, wood, painted dark brown. Inside was the same brown color. Fluorescent tube lights and windows provided light. The floor was bare cement. A few tables of aluminum tubes with Formica tops, with padded curved aluminum chairs, were lined against one wall, napkin holders, ketchup and mustard containers on them. Two or three workers in aprons were behind the short corner in one dark corner under work lights. George walked around, looking at the place, not saying anything, as my wife and I silently followed. Then we left.

We took another way back, to stop at another site I’d mentioned. This one was a low, narrow building with lush, exotic landscaping. It wasn’t the building which I expected and told George, but he insisted we go in anyway. The ceiling was low and the inside was dark. Within were a small Asian couple, husband and wife, we assumed. They offered me a glass of water, which I accepted and drank as George walked around. My wife said, “I wish you hadn’t taken that.” I confirmed that she meant the water, which puzzled me.

We decided to leave. The couple gave George a wrapped piece of gum, and then asked him for 10,000 yen for my glass of water. My wife, George, and I talked in confusion about what was being asked of us. When he understood, George laughed and said, “I don’t have ten thousand yen.” My wife said, “I knew you shouldn’t drink that water.”

We left without paying, but the couple didn’t seem to mind. The dream ended as we got into the car again. George insisted that he would drive.

November 5, 2022 2

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Wednesday’s first light on November 2, 2022, arrived about thirty minutes before sunrise at 7:45 AM, pulling the curtain back on snow falling on autumn leaves. The whitening backdrop emboldened the full red and golden leaves dominating our area. The temperature was 1 degree C. Hopes are that the digital mercury will find 45 F. Tonight will drop to 29 F. Winter seemed to be declaring, “I’m taking November.” Summer was off and didn’t care. I haven’t heard a word out of fall.

The snow stopped by 8:15. None stayed on the ground at our elevation. Running errands yesterday, though, the hills and crests surrounding our village was rich with the stuff.

I broke out of a dream while darkness still soaked the land. Not much of the dream stuck around. Memory of it amounted to me dressing a woman, telling her to wear pink because it’ll highlight her caramel complexion and raven hair. While she was nodding and dressing, I recalled for her how I’d build a model of a Corvette when I was a boy and painted the car hot pink on a whim.

The dream naturally titillated Les Neurons about their song ideas. They fired up Prince’s 1983 song, “Little Red Corvette”. “Pink, red,” The Neurons declared, “It’s just a difference of degrees.” I’ve already used the song before and recounted that it came out while I was stationed at Kadena Air Base, so that’s all I’ll say here.

Stay posso and test negative. Nothing is guaranteed but it might help you and your family and community. Coffee, as black as the snow is white — it’s falling again — snow, not coffee — (can you imagine that? “It’s coffeeing, it’s coffeeing.” People would be out there with their mouths open, catching the coffee flakes…) — is available. You know where I’m going with this, don’tcha?

Here’s Prince (or the guy who was formerly known as Prince but that’s a whole other story) with a recording of an acoustic version done at a concert. Cheers