The Ant Dream

I dreamed I was an ant, but I had my own head and face. It was the face and head from a younger me, maybe one seen on me in the mid 1970s. I was running around, as were other ants. Seemed to be a frenzy going. I was confused because, I was an ant and I’m not normally an ant. As I saw the others running around with their human heads and faces, I wondered if they were going through the same process of self-realization.

A rough blackish wall was on either side. Although thinking like a human, I was acting like an ant, following the white ground beneath me, feeling things with frenzied antennae, following along the others in chaotic urgency. Same time, I’m thinking, “I’m an ant. Can’t I climb this wall and go up and see what’s up there?”

I do that but get up there and can’t make any sense of it. The view doesn’t help. My senses are limited. Then, epiphany, I’m a brick wall. I need to change the way I’m looking at things because up isn’t up, there really isn’t a firmly idealized up or down.

I awaken from that. Oddly, almost instantly, I thought about the novel in progress and experienced a burst of productive creativity.

The Rope Dream

It was hot, dry, and clear. I was on a broad and empty plain. Two riders on horseback galloped toward me. I watched, trying to understand, who are they? Nothing auspicious about them, they resembled cowboys out of a revisionist western. They were approaching at slightly different vectors, dust pluming out behind them. I realized with some slowness, hey, they have ropes. Hey, they’re going to rope me.

Out in the open, nowhere to go, I thought that I’d run toward them, separating the space. Yeah, that didn’t work. They lassoed me. I awoke with a start, heavily sweating, struggling against the ropes. Took several seconds to understand that I’d been dreaming — or maybe experiencing another reality.

The Waves Dream

I was at a rocky coast. Seemed basalt, reminding me of the central Oregon coast I recently visited around Yachats. Lots of huge rocks worn into curves, gullies, and humps by constant wave action.

Waves would crash on the beach behind me, sending streams of water up the through rocky gaps. The slopes made walking treacherous. I worried about sliding down in the water and also about getting smacked down by waves.

A couple – man and woman – were following me. They weren’t chasing me or anything, just going in the same direction. As I went through, I saw a short window set into the rock. The frame was yellow but the window itself was green. It was short but wide. I jumped up, thinking I’d hold onto the frame and peer through. When I grabbed the frame, it came right out of the rock. The place where it was set closed with rock. I put the window on the rock and went on. Looking back, I saw the couple behind me putting the window back into the rock. I wondered how they did that.

Continuing on, I worried that high tide was coming in. Concerns about becoming trapped rising, I moved on with more urgency as the rock walls became steeper. Studying the waters and their patterns, I realized that the tide was going out. Yet, when I turned to leave the area, waves rushed in. The walls were steep. I was forced to scramble but made it after some arduous climbing and jumping. Getting out of there, I looked back and saw the large basalt rocks shrank, becoming much smaller and flatter.

Dream end

The Jab Dream

I was at a gray counter. A white man was across from me. About my size, he was younger but balding, with thin hair slashed and slicked over that glistening pale dome. He wore a wide dark tie with a red pattern, a starched white shirt, and a white KN 95 mask. Leaning on the counter, I said something to him. In response, he jabbed an index finger into my forehead and barked, “Heal.” Did this three times. Each time, I reacted in irritation, like, “Stop jabbing me, that hurts.”

I awoke with a sore throat.

Four Dream Snippets

I recall four brief dream snippets from last night/this morning. In the first I was taking broken material and setting the edges together. After I did that, I’d fuse them into one piece. The materials were mostly like thick, green safety glass. After sealing them, I’d shape them. This was all being done with a little effort by using my hands. Strangers began coming by with more of the glass for me to use, but would also sometimes bring other materials that I’d blend into it. I passed out the fixed sections so people could take them to protect themselves.

The next dream segment found me wandering around this place as the sun set and dusk crept over the land. It was an outside venue. Other people were sitting and talking in small quiet groups. As I went around, I discovered a small stash of cut watermelon pieces. I took some for me and my friends, then went back and told my friends about the stash. I went back several times. The second time I returned, I used a different angle so I could see more of the stash, and discovered it was larger than I realized. The third time, I saw that the watermelon was different. Others were using it too, I deduced, but there was still a great deal of watermelon. As I investigated it I found a glass, which turned out to be a champagne flute filled with champagne. I then found a second one. I thought, well, if there’s flutes of champagne, they must be storing them temporarily, but it was odd, storing champagne like that. Removing them and setting them aside, I saw grapes and cheese. I put all of that back and left in, worried about being caught.

The whole episode caused me to think about where else things might be. I looked in another place and found a stash of candy bars. I didn’t see a name on them because they were face down, but they were large, in dark brown wrappers aligned in a row and stacked deep.

Next, I was signing my name to documents while seated at a desk. I was doing this in response to some vague demand; the papers were expected to be signed. A man came along and leaned over my shoulder and watched me sign.

“Just as I thought,” he said.

“What?” I replied.

“There’s power in your stars.”

That amused me. “What stars?”

“The stars in your name.”

“My name doesn’t have any stars.” As I said this, I signed my name again. My signature and name were just as I did in real life, and the ink was the thick black that I prefer.

He said, “The stars between your names. There’s a lot of space in those stars. You can do a lot more with them.”

I responded that I didn’t understand what he was talking about. He pointed to where I was signing. “You’re signing your name twice.” True. “In between them is a star.” Also true, which I hadn’t noticed. “Those stars have huge capacities. You should be using them”

The final snippet found me discovering a small cardboard box. I opened it. A kitten was inside. It meowed at me, so I picked it up. I immediately knew that there was another box with another kitten. After getting the second kitten, I took the two of them and put them someplace safe. I watched until they started playing. Then they saw food and began eating. I closed where they were, knowing they would be alright.

Idea Wall Dream

Weird little dream. I came to a wall of large beige tiles outside. It was a corner piece. Stopping with others, I looked at the wall and listened as some spoke. It was a small group of people. I knew about half of them. They were guessing about what the wall was about and I responded, oh, it’s an idea wall. Seeing the ideas (none remembered now), I started rearranging the ideas into an affinity grouping, laughing as I did this. The others began recognizing what I was talking about. Most of them then left as I stayed with it. One or two took ideas with them, which didn’t bother me at all. I was enjoying doing this work by myself, studying ideas and re-arranging them. The wall was by an intersection of two paths, and people constantly passed. Some stopped to ask questions. A few asked for ideas and carried them away when they left. Others arrived with ideas. A few placed them on the wall themselves, some after consulting me. Others were haphazard. Shrugging that off, I just correctly arranged the ideas again.

Dream end

The Car Mod Dream

Another short dream. I was part of some kind of team. Can’t say it was or wasn’t military but ranks and uniforms weren’t in use. I received a phone call about modifying a car for a mission. The car, a silver 2022 Corvette C8 convertible, belonged to another individual who was more senior in rank. I was to approach him and tell him we were going to use his car, and then make changes to it.

I approached as directed. The guy vaguely reminds me of Paulie “Walnuts” from The Sopranos, played by the late Tony Sirico. I give him the message. He stares at me for about five seconds, grunts hard, then tosses something up against the ceiling where it makes a resounding bang and sticks. As I protest that I’m following instructions, he storms off.

That’s the dream’s essence. Further instructions are received. More mods are needed. I tell ‘Paulie’ that they’re needed and I’m going to do them. His anger increases each time, but he does the same thing in response – throws something against the ceiling. Bang, and cracks. Glares at me. Stalks off. As this plays out, I’m getting angry, too.

But there’s never any cracks on the ceiling the next time it happens. And other than his reaction, I enjoy modifying the car and I’m eager to do the work, and gaining confidence that the team will succeed.

A Made-for-TV Movie Dream

This dream stretch started first with a vignette of me traveling. I’d just settled into my destination when I jerked awake. Paralysis gripped me as I saw where I was and reacted with shock, This isn’t where I’m supposed to be. Where am I? How did I get here? Within a fist of seconds, I knew that I was home. But dream imagery held a little longer, requiring more time for my bafflement to drain. Then, back to sleep and another of Morpheus’s deliveries.

I was not in the next dream at all. This was the movie dream. A man and woman, white, thirtyish, were traveling together in a narrow RV. Ragtag clothes covered them. The man carried a thin, cheap pink cotton blanket while his companion carried a blue one of the same sort. These were the same sort of blankets I saw on many homes in my childhood’s earlier years, when we lived in poorer surroundings, usually on a bed in a small room with sparse furniture.

The couple were stopping for the night and wanted to sleep in a place rented for the purpose. Strangely, not hotel or motel accommodations, nor a house, lodge or cabin. Just a room, twenty feet long and six feet wide (guessing at those numbers), all mattress, dark, with a door on either end. Lacking money, the couple didn’t want to pay for it but wanted to use it so the concocted a plan to sneak into the room, use it for the night, awaken early, and sneak out. They parked their long RV around the corner, where it would be out of sight.

Watching this sequence, I asked, why are they doing this? Why not sleep in the RV? Isn’t that the purpose? I also thought, they’re not going to get away with this. They’re going to get caught.

Yes, they were spotted as they executed their plan and tried sneaking out. The man distracted them, going in one direction as dawn was rising, allowing the woman to reach the RV and drive off. They would meet up on a road outside of town.

But the man needed to get there. He scurried among the shadows around tall buildings and narrow alleys, hiding, working his way out of town. The final hurdle required him to dash through a lobby occupied by the very people hunting him and then sprint across a rocky, open field to a gravel road and then up the gravel road. Dust and sun ruled that space, and five men warily scanned their territory.

Yet, he judged his moment, raced across the lobby’s polished marble floor and fled between two window. Yes, some strange design plan allowed a wall with open space between two tall plates of glass. He’d spotted that and utilized it to get away. Several chased him but he had momentum, distance, and speed.

“That’s alright,” the one man said. Portly, large, with graying hair slicked back over a predominantly bald head, he wore a flowery ‘Hawaiian’ shirt. He was in charge and spoke through guffaws, snorts, and snickers. “Billy gave him a gift. Ain’t that right, Billy?”

“That’s right.” Billy was a lean young man in tight blue denim pants just entering the lobby.

“What was the gift?” a third asked.

The leader said, “A concoction of chemicals that’ll at least make him sick enough to wish himself dead, if he doesn’t die from it.”

We don’t know what happened to our man, whose name was never given. He didn’t make another dream appearance. Instead, his traveling mate, the woman, came in. Dressed in a suit, she had several tall, large men in suits accompanying her. Holding up a badge, she identified herself as a police officer. She’d been working undercover to get evidence on their operation and now arrested them for multiple crimes, including poisoning people. She revealed that she’d come back after them because they’d poisoned her on a previous visit.

The dream began scrambling at that point but I have a sense that the final piece was a report that the man who’d been with her was found by a patrol car.

Dream movie end.

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Gonna be a hundred F here today, they tell us. I’m doubtful. Rum Creek smoke fills the air, making it unhealthy to breath, but it also blocks the sun and cools the air. I don’t think it’ll go over 95, 96 F today. It’s now 20 C.

After much discussion among replay officials, they’ve concluded that this is Tuesday, August 30, 2022. When I typed that 3-0, The Neurons said, “That ain’t right, is it?” But the replay officials say it’s so, so let’s move on, and play ball. First down.

Happy sunshine sneaked over the eastern mountains and winked through the leaves at 6:34 AM and will take its light and heat and stalk off, probably in a deep red glow, given this smoke, at 7:48 PM. The sun’s light comes through different windows now as the Earth’s relationship with the sun shifts via orbital mechanics. The eastern windows see less sunshine as the sun treks into our southern sky. By the time winter has arrived, we won’t see sunshine through most of the eastern windows.

I’d like to pause to mention folks in Mississippi, coping with their flooding, along with Pakistan. Here’s a call out, too, for the people around the Rum Creek fire here in Oregon, and for those enduring power outages from storms in the U.S. Midwest and South. Send positive energies to these people and places if you can, however you manifest it.

Music – that’s why we’re here, innit? – in the morning mental music stream is “You Only Get What You Give” by the New Radicals, circa 1998. The Neurons, putting their whimsy in the display case, plunked the song into the M3S after I struggled to remember a dream. The dream keeps poking its head out but whenever I shout — mentally or figuratively, right? — “There it is”, the dream ducks out of sight. Maddening. Perhaps after I’ve had coffee…

Better go get some. Duty calls. Stay posi, test negy, and so on. Here’s the music. Sing along if you know it. Cheers

Sunday’s Theme Music

It’s about 17 C outside. Minute haze dulls the blue sky’s purity. My wife looks out and says, “I wish it would stay like this for a month.” Welcome to Sunday, August 28, 2022.

It won’t stay like this today. 90 F is expected as a high. The sun showed up this AM at 6:32 and will vacate our sky at 7:52 tonight as the length of daylight continues shrinking. I do miss the ocean and beach where we spent last week. Oh, that lovely air, and the glory of hearing the ocean and watching waves hurry in and crash and then drift away. We had no sinus issues there, whereas we began experiencing sinus blockages and postnasal drip when we were still a hundred miles from home. Today brings me full stoppage and the need to blow a few times.

The Neurons are feeding Echosmith and “Cool Kids” (2013) into the morning mental music stream. I don’t know the course that brought the song in. I suspect it emerged from a spectrum of thoughts and slivers of quicksilver dreams at once reflective and amusing. I was a cool kid. Just sayin’, that’s how I was often described. When I pressed why that was used to describe me, people said, as the song says, that I seemed to get it. Yet, I had issues, loads of family matters, though not as heavy as many endure. At least I had shelter and food security. Nobody was abusing me.

Of course, I sang a slighter different version as I pet my orange buddy, the little ginger bear known as Papi. I sang, “I wish that I could be like the cool cats because all of the cool cats get all the kibble.” Papi was too cool to respond beyond disdain. It’s his standard M.O.

The coffee has landed. Stay positive, test negative, and so on. Dream your dream and pursue your hopes. Here’s the music. Cheers

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