Tag: anxiety

The Maze Dream

This dream began as a military variation.

I was in the US Air Force in the dream, as I had been for twenty plus years in real life. Arriving at a new assignment, I was created warmly by new co-workers. They’d been looking forward to my arrival.

After settling into a room, I change into my uniform to go meet my new commander. My pants an shirt were crisply sharp and mustache and hair cut were aligned with regulations. Very satisfying. Putting on my highly polished shoes, I discovered I had no shoe strings.

No shoe strings. The situation flummoxed me. How could I have shoes with the strings to tie them?

It was late, I had an appointment, and nothing was open to buy new laces. But needing shoe strings, I went around fast, knocking on doors and talking to people, looking for shoe strings to borrow. I found a pair of shoes with purple shoe strings but rejected them; purple shoe strings with a dress uniform wouldn’t work. I’d rather go without shoe strings.

Co-workers came to the door, urging me to hurry. I told them about my problem with the thought one of them may be able to help me.

They laughed it off and urged me not to worry because I wouldn’t be needing my shoes. Plans were afoot (sorry) for me to wear different clothes and footwear.

Mystified by that, I went with them.

I met the commander, a light colonel. After welcoming me, he immediately asked, “Didn’t they tell you about your new assignment?”

“No details,” I answered, hiding confusing.

He chortled and gestured. “We’re going to make you big. Then you an help monitor the maze and guide people through it.”

Those words completely confused me but I reigned that it and responded with a respectful, “Sir?”

Seeing my confusion, he continued smiling and answered, “You’ll see.”

The next I knew, I was very large. I guess I was twenty-five feet high and proportionately as broad as a fit young man. No longer appearing as I had, I’d lost my mustache, and was very pale skinned, with short, razor-cut hair. My clothing and shoes were now tight black pants, a tight white tee shirt, and black canvas shoes.

And I was in a maze.

Lined with white cement, the waist rose to about my waist. The walls were about a foot thick. I could see people wandering through the maze. I then understood, oh, I’m supposed to be helping them because they can’t see where they are, nor where they should go. Others large individuals, like me, male and female, of various ethnicities were finding lost individuals and calling out directions abut where to go.

Finding a young woman near me in the maze, I began doing the same.

Dream end

I often have dreams which focuses on my military career. I always think of it as a subconscious yearning for that period of life, which was ordered and structured, but also full of purpose and direction.

The twists, of needing shoe laces, and then becoming a large person, helping others through a maze, were quite unique in my dream experiences. I arrived at the conclusion that I’m trying to tell myself that I’m worrying about something which doesn’t matter, and that I’m ‘bigger’ than that. It’s not others I’m helping through the maze, but myself.

Or The Neurons were yet again just messing with me.

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The Space Traveling Dream Again

2:58 AM.

I awoke. Alarm seizes me. I don’t think I’ve set the rechargers for the house.

Was I supposed to set the rechargers for the house?

Does the house — can the house be recharged?

But it has to be recharged. Its engines need to be recharged.

Does the have engines? No, it doesn’t have engines.

Then how does it move?

These were my thoughts as I sat up in bed, suddenly awoke, coping again, with the dream about the house flying through space. I’ve dreamed this seven times recently, posting about it a few times. In it, my house and plot of land have been lifted from the Earth. My wife and cats are with me, and I’m actually impressed and pleased that we’re flying through space. Aliens have done this, I know, but I don’t know why.

After awakening from the dream, I visit the bathroom and check on the cats. Papi, the ginger blade, is drinking from the water bowl on the front porch. Tucker, the black and white enigma, was on the back porch drinking water from that bowl. Interesting symmetry. I returned to bed, and to sleep. Other dreams were experienced but whenever I awoke, I thought immediately of the house flying through space, and whether I’d recharged the engines.

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The Space Dream

I dreamed I was traveling through space. My house and its lot had been lifted away from the Earth, and there we went, soundlessly zooming through space. After thinking in the dream, is that what’s happening, I was given a distant perspective that confirmed, yep, there I go, with the house, wife, cats, and yard.

I pointed it all to my wife, calling to her as she did something in another room. All I had no idea what our destination was and had questions — was I onboard a larger ship, and who launched us like this — I enjoyed being out there. I was exactly as I now am, as was my house and yard. I saw this from a temporary external position, as though I needed to see it, before returning into my body. Settling behind my desk in my home office, I resumed my typing.

I awoke abruptly. In panic, I thought, where are the cats? Where are Tucker and Papi? Did I put them out? OMG, did I put them out in space? But if I put them out into the yard, wouldn’t they be safe, because it’s — it’s — wait.

Confusion mounting and taking over, I stumbled away from bed, thinking, where am I now? What should I do? If I open the door, would it — what would happen? But —

I’d been in space. But wasn’t that a dream? Or was I now dreaming? Neurons regrouping, we agreed with a laugh, being in space was the dream. Reality was that I was home, securely part of the Earth. But I went out and found the cats, ensuring they were really okay, just in case, you know, and then gazed up at the stars and moon for a few seconds with recollection of the dream.

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Wednesday’s Wandering Thoughts

He had a dream that he was going in the right direction. It didn’t feel like the right direction today. Maybe the dream was wrong. Or maybe going in the right direction was going to be harder than expected.

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A Dream About Loss

There were twelve of us. We were taking a two-day class. The was the second day. The class was being held in a business annex in an airport. As part of the class, we’d been writing a paper about what we learned. Everyone else was leaving. I was still writing my paper.

I was distracted because I was hungry and I was getting ready to go home. I’d been away for a while. Knowing I was the only one remaining in the class, the instructor began packing up and turning off lights. Other instructors, teaching other classes, came in to have an end of week celebration before they headed out.

I needed to check in for my flight so I sought the instructor to ask permission to send it in later. Not finding him, I packed my laptop and gear and rushed out.

The airport was hectic and unfamiliar. I was struggling to find my way. I briefly set my briefcase with my laptop in it. In a flash, someone picked it up and walked off with it. I was shocked, horrified, sick to my stomach. I tried finding that person so I could get my bag back, especially my laptop. I’ve had a laptop for decades. They help define who I am. Also, I realized, I wouldn’t finish the paper. My notes and the text book were in the bag. So was my plane ticket and wallet!

Distraught, I went back to the classroom. About a dozen instructors were milling in there. My instructor was in the back. I tried speaking but couldn’t. One male instructor noticed me and told the others, saying, “He’s upset. He has something to say.”

They fell quiet to hear me. He encouraged me to speak. I began but started losing it. Reining in emotions, I began again, telling them what had happened. They expressed sympathy and concern. Meanwhile, I bent and saw my briefcase sitting on the floor beside me. Picking it up, I discovered everything I thought was stolen was in it.

I was floored. I’d been carrying that thing around. I’d looked in it before. I was certain everything was gone, yet, I’d had it all along.

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A Short Mom Dream

Snow had fallen but now a sun blazed in the sky, transforming roads into slushy paths. All very picturesque, though. I was inside the house, waiting for Mom to return with my sisters. As usual, I hid from them when they first came in, springing out and surprising them, making them laugh.

We were busy with a multitude of things simultaneously. I went out and walked on the slushy asphalt, testing my footing. It all seemed safe.

A sister called my name from the house door, telling me that Mom wanted my help. When I went in, Mom was struggling with papers and stuff on a table. “Help me figure out my transportation, Michael,” she said. “I need to know who to call and where I need to go when I need to go somewhere.”

Sisters were in the mess, reading things. I picked up a few items and realized after reading that she only needed to go two places to catch transportation. So I marked the phone with bold black letters and began explaining things to her.

She immediately began firing protests back. “But what if I want to — “

I kept explaining that it could all be done with what I’d figured out. Press the 1 one the phone where I’d marked it to go to these places. Press the two for these places. The telephone numbers were programmed into the phone. Then she just needed to go to the place corresponding to the one or the two to be picked up. 1’s pickup spot was her house, so she didn’t even need to leave.

We went on in that vein for a few minutes before the dream ended.

It reminded me so much of being home last month and helping Mom figure out her medications.

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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.

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The Writing Class Dream

Couldn’t tell what my age was in this, as I never ‘saw’ me. Most of the dream was presented in compacted segments, which gave background info. I was in a packed writing class. I’d gone from being cold and aloof with my classmates to being cheerier and friendlier. We were toward the course’s end. I was panicking because a big assignment was due. The theme was, what’s it like to be a writer? I hadn’t started mine. In fact, I lacked a plan. Meanwhile, other students had developed theirs, and presentations were underway. Another writer, who hadn’t impressed me in the class to date, gave his presentation. Wow, the imagination and cleverness in the multimedia concept he employed blew me away. A few other students presented, and they were okay, serviceable but not special. The teacher — a teacher I took creative writing classes with in Germany thirty plus years ago — gave her energetic presentation. I didn’t quit grasp her point as she used a rake, shovel, and broom, dashing around. I thought about doing a silent presentation, walking around, observing others, staring at the sky, scribbling notes, pecking on a keyboard, but that seemed so basic and trite. I kept coming up and rejecting ideas. Meanwhile, other students crowded closer to me. One female sitting to my right said to me, “I’m really looking forward to your presentation. You’re so talented.”

I laughed. “Thanks, but don’t expected too much. I still don’t know what I’m going to do.”

She answered, “Oh, I’m not worried. You’ll come up with something. You always do.”

While her belief injected some hope, I still miserably searched for an idea as another student gave their presentation, walking around looking at things and writing in a notepad. I felt sick.

Dream end.

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