Yeah. Coffee first, quote later.
A Wrong-way Highway Dream
The highway dream began with ice cream.
Bowls of fresh ice cream covered a small table. There were different flavors and colors. As I checked the ice cream, I realized that some of it was blueberry. I thought, that would be tasty.
Mom was there, and my wife. Mom said, “There’s more ice cream in the freezer. The freezer’s not working so we need to get rid of all this ice cream because it’s going to melt.”
Get rid of ice cream? Why don’t we just eat it, or give it to people to eat?
Nobody wanted ice cream because they’d had too much ice cream. Cats and kittens came along. I scooped spoons of ice cream out for them to eat, which they did. Then I gave them a bowl.
Time to go. My wife and I got into a car. (I didn’t see the car at all in the dream but knew it as mine.) We were immediately on an broad, convoluted highway with many lanes. Traffic was heavy. Following signs, we ended up a hill along a long curve that went to the right.
I passed a man on a copper-colored motorcycle with a sidecar. He was in the right hand lane and I was in the middle lane. I thought my car had bumped him, and I worried. Trying to check, I couldn’t see the sides of my car. I couldn’t see any of the car, in fact, so I didn’t know where I was in the lane. This unnerved me.
I stepped on the accelerator to go faster. We were still going up a long, curving hill. The man in the copper motorcycle began passing us. I didn’t want that, so I pressed harder on the accelerator. Still going up the curve, we began slowing down, going slower and slower until we pulled into a place where the highway ended and stopped.
I didn’t understand. The highway had ended. How the hell did we end up here? My wife and I got out of the car to ask questions and found ourselves with others in the same situation. We’d all been following the highway but had ended up stuck here, off the highway.
We were told, “You were all going the wrong way. That’s why you’re here.”
Going the wrong way? I’d been going straight, following the road. There wasn’t any other way to go. How could that be the wrong way? And, I protested, “It doesn’t make sense. The faster that I tried to go, the slower I went.” It frustrated me.
Another man agreed, saying, “Yeah, that’s what was happening to me.”
It seemed like I could learn more up a small hill. It was a paved white cement ramp. I started that way but people told me, “Don’t go that way. If you do, they’ll arrest you.”
But I wanted to see what was going on, and I thought that going up there could help.
“No,” others kept telling me, including a woman dressed in an official-looking uniform. “If you go up there, you will be arrested.”
A few others were going up there. From what I could see, they were being taken away.
I decided not to go up there. Staying where I was wasn’t working, though. I told my wife, “Come on, let’s get back in the car.”
“Where we going?” she asked as others asked me, “Where are you going? What are you doing?”
I said, “I’m going back down there.”
“But that’s the wrong way,” everyone said.
I said, “I know. But I’m going back down there, to where the wrong way began, and figure out how to get out of here.”
People were telling me not to go there, but I was adamant. I felt, being who I am, I could go back and figure it out, and fix the problem. With my wife with me in the car, I began driving backwards back down the road.
The dream ended.
Thursday’s Theme Music
Feeling like a bit o’ rut had overtaken me, I sought changes after leaving my writing time. Writing time had been productive and left me with that sense of magic, that anything was possible. Now, walking again, I faced the boring and mundane, the same old shit – trees, house, and streets. My mind is screaming road trip. Get thee somewhere with a fresh view. Been a while, I thought with first world sniveling, months since I’ve gotten away to somewhere else, which is the primary problem with being in a rut.
Out of this, or into this, streamed Green Day’s 1994 offering, “Longview”. Why not? It’s a song all about being bored and doing the same thing hour and hour twenty-four seven.
| Sit around and watch the tube but, nothing’s on Change the channels for an hour or two Twiddle my thumbs just for a bit I’m sick of all the same old shit In a house with unlocked doors And I’m fucking lazy Bite my lip and close my eyes Peel me off this velcro seat and get me moving |
Again
Remembering the past doesn’t do much good.
That’s what they tell me. The past is dead. Water under the bridge.
But we still spend a lot of time there, arguing about what happened in that particular moment (ah yes, I remember it well), trying to pick out the jigsaw pieces of memory that shows how we got here. (You’d think that weird shape would be easy to find, but the pieces are harder to place than you would have believed.)
Remembering the past can be entertaining. Like, remember how your football team used to win? Remember how skinny and good-looking you used to be? Thank god for photos, or no one would ever believe it, right?
Then sometimes, you pause, glancing up to see yourself coming in through a door in the future, then hold your breath as you look back to see who you were and squint at your self-image to know who you now are.
Then the present — which was the future and has now become the past — crowds in with needs about what you were going or where you were doing — oh, look how mixed up I am! — and then rights your direction until memory calls you away again.
The Broken Mirror Dream
Dreamed I was outside with lots of people. I could see myself among them. I was wearing a short-sleeved yellow shirt. All the people were my age, and I was younger than I am in real life, with longer hair, maybe twenty years old. I seemed to vaguely know a few of the other people. The area appeared to be a college or business campus. Sidewalks connected plazas with fountains, gardens, and buildings, bisecting swatches of cut green grass. Forest lined the edges. I don’t know why I was there. An air of excitement almost shimmered, giving me — and others — goosebumps. A few of us talked about it.
My vantage kept changing. Sometimes, I was outside, looking at myself with other people from ten feet away or so, or coming in for a close-up, but other times, the point of view was from inhabiting myself.
I’d been laughing and talking with others but ended up walking alone, and decided to check out the woods. After passing a line of mature trees, I discovered a stream and began following it. After some distance, I saw a clearing ahead on the right. Climbing the bank, I drifted that way. As I did, a flash of light caught my attention.
I headed there to investigate and discovered a shard of mirror on the ground. The clearing was all dirt. Wondering how the mirror had gotten there, I picked it up, careful not to cut myself, and glanced around for clues about its origins. When I did, I spotted broken mirror pieces littering the ground not far away.
More puzzled then ever, I tried putting some context around the pieces of broken mirrors in what was a clearing in the woods. I guessed there were more than a hundred pieces, thought about counting them, but then shrugged that off as irrelevant. I thought, someone would have needed to bring the mirror here and break it. Part of me guessed that children could’ve stolen the mirror somewhere, brought it here and broke it, but that seemed like a lot of trouble to go through, and an odd location to do that. There weren’t any clear paths into the clearing that I saw.
Going toward the pieces, I glanced at larger sizes. None of the pieces seemed to match to the other pieces, like they’d been separated after the mirror was broken. Dirt smudged some surfaces, making me think that they’d been somewhere else, and then brought here. Bending over pieces, I realized that they didn’t mirror the area. On the ground, they should’ve been displaying reflections of sky, trees, or something. Instead, each looked like an opening into another place, a weirdness that made me shiver.
None of them reflected me, either. I leaned down lower for a closer look at one, trying to see the place in the mirror. Seeing gray behind bushes, I thought it could be part of an old castle.
A noise like a large tree cracking and splintering came behind me. Standing, I turned to see what it was.
The dream ended. Or, that’s all that I remember. Remembering this dream feels creepy. I feel like I’m being watched.
Before, when I began recalling this dream, the song, “Touch Me” by The Doors, began playing. I wondered if my mind had created some connection to the The Doors and the pieces of mirror – the doors of perception.
It’s another dream mystery.
Monday’s Bumper Sticker
Dieting? Gaining weight, losing weight? Beer, marijuana, coffee, wine? Brain? What’s this about?
A Movin’ On Dream
I was visiting a wealthy male friend for some holiday. It was a stop during my travels. In the dream, we were in our late twenties. He was putting me up for a day and night. Had a big, fancy place with alabaster walls high above everything else on a mountainside overlooking the ocean, window walls with fantastic views. He lived there alone.
We visited, nothing special, had a good time. The next day, he went off to work while leaving me with things that I should do before going, if I could, as it would help him out, undoing things that he’d done for my visit. I planned to do them but kept getting distracted. Then, curious, I walked down a winding path to where he worked, to see what he did. He met me as I left the path and told me, “I just manage things.”
It was growing close to my time to depart. I had flights to catch. He told me to take one of his cars. A short and confused discussion followed because I thought I had my own car. I did, but it apparently wasn’t available, I discovered, because he’d taken it off to be worked on, cleaned up, and detailed. That took me aback, but I was grateful and pleased, too.
Something about a container followed. He had this container that he used to do things. He did it surreptitiously. I got hold of one. It was a light green square. My impression was that it was a box for getting a burger from takeout. I opened the box and verified that it was empty. Residue inside it was from a cheeseburger, showing traces of cheese, lettuce, onion, and tomato.
I was running late by then, so rushed to depart. As I did, driving away in his fancy car — don’t know what it was, except it was white and luxurious — I saw that I’d forgotten to do something that I’d promised to do for him. I wanted to go back but realized that I couldn’t, so I went on with the intention of calling him from the airport.
Got to a busy, bustling airport. It was more like a city than an airport that I’d ever visited, with multiple highways and flyovers connecting busy commerce centers and terminals teeming with people. After a bit of confusion and disorientation, I found my way, parked his car, and called him, telling him where I’d parked and what I’d forgotten to do. He reassured me that it was okay, don’t worry about it. Disconnecting, I went on to catch my flight.
Monday’s Theme Music
Time for a little Neil Young. Call out to him for being naturalized as a U.S. We used to live in the same neighborhood, broadly speaking, on the California coast. A friend was his primary supplier, so the story goes. A little club wasn’t far where he liked to play for small crowds with no announcement, so the story goes.
1989 saw him bring out “Rockin’ in the Free World”. The song provides so many mocking lines drawing attention to our cultural hypocrisy:
We got a thousand points of light
For the homeless man
We got a kinder, gentler,
Machine gun hand
We got department stores
and toilet paper
Got styrofoam boxes
for the ozone layer
Got a man of the people,
says keep hope alive
Got fuel to burn,
got roads to drive.
Yeah, that’s rocking in the free world. That Trump used the song during his POTUS campaign without irony nauseates, but then the Trumplicans bastardize the meaning and intention of everything that they touch, subverting without sparing, heavy of hand and cruel of ideas.
I’m part of the hypocrisy in my comfy white land, something the feeds my perpetual self-damnation. Too weak to walk away from the cushiness, I’ll just do some marchin’, protesting, donating, and votin’, hoping to change things, even though that’s not been working for lo’, these many years since Bush I.
Guess I’ll just keep rockin’. Pour a little CBD into my coffee, please. My joints are hurtin’. “I try to forget it, any way I can.”
The Game Dream
First was a non-related prelude.
I was with my wife at home. We had a large ginger tabby. He was grooming himself. I thought I saw a flea on his back. I attempted to pluck the flea out, but it moved away. The cat became agitated. After I calmed him, I attempted to get the flea again. Spreading his fur, I saw three fleas. I realized his issue was more pressing than thought, and went to get some tick and flea control. That segment ended.
What I remember of the main dream is pausing from other activities to kill time by playing a card game. I don’t remember anything of the game. Me, my wife, and a friend were playing.
The friend was teaching us the game. In real life, he’s a retired spokesman for Oregon Department of Forestry, dealing with wildfires. He’s a big guy, bearded, with a deep, booming voice, memorable in the dream.
We played the game, and he won the first hand by using all of us cards. He was then dealt cards from the remaining pile. When no cards remained, he played the last of his cards and won the game. He then explained, “Normally, when one person wins by going out, the other people pay them a dollar a card for each card in their hand. What do you guys want to do?” He was smiling as he spoke, and said, “I’m alright if you guys don’t want to do that.”
I only had a few cards but my wife was carrying twenty cards. My personal (dream) opinion was that we shouldn’t play by that rule, not because we were new to the game, or that she had so many cards, but because there were only three of us playing.
That’s where the dream ended.
Michael Seidel, writer 