Tag: car

An Odd Dream – Work, Car, and Cat

Yes, another odd dream.

First, I had an odd job as some sort of quality assurance or quality control inspector. Those dream job details never cleared enough for me to figure out. Guess it wasn’t important.

I was working in a small, old building where a business was undergoing renovation. It had been a coffee shop. Coffee drinks were still available, so I was happy with that as I walk around with my clipboard, observing and scribbling notes. The business owner, a man, was there, talking about the planned changes. He was in high spirits; so was I, and the few other people in there. When the business owner mentioned that he needed some minor help, I happily volunteered.

Then I learned that he wasn’t going to re-open his business as a coffee shop but as a fitness center. He went around enthusing where equipment would be located, where different fitness stations would be, fitness services that he would be offering. Well, good for him, but…I wanted my coffee shop. I was disappointed.

Meanwhile, my wife came by. She said that our car, a Volkswagen Beetle, wasn’t uninsured, but she was waiting for a call that would take care of that. (Please note, I’ve never owned a Beetle.) I was like, okay. She left again, errands to run. I continued my vague inspection job.

The business owner mentioned that he needed a car, did anyone have one that he could borrow? I offered my VW. As he thanked me, he told me that he would be driving to another part of the city, but he would be back later, if that was okay. Remembering that the car wasn’t insured, I asked with surprise, “You’re going to drive it?” He answered, “What else would I do with a car?” And laughed.

I didn’t want him to drive the car because it wasn’t insured. However, I wanted to help him. I questioned him. Would he be careful? Has he ever had an accident? What kind of driver was he?

My wife returned. She reminded me not to use the car because it wasn’t insured. I prepared to tell her that I’d loaned it out when someone came by and told me the owner wasn’t going to use it after all.

Then, though, came word that our dog was loose. (Please note, I’ve never had a dog.) I joined my wife out in a woody, muddy field, looking for our dog. As we walked around, looking, she started calling a name. The name was of a cat who passed away twenty years ago. I asked her, “Are we looking for a dog or a cat?”

She didn’t answer, going off. I was convinced we were looking for a lost cat and not a dog. I started calling the dead cat’s name as I walked through a meadow. Another cat came running across the meadow with its tail up, meowing at me. It didn’t resemble the dead cat at all, but I knew it was my pet. The deceased animal was a short-hair gray tabby, and the approaching cat was white with a torti ear and matching torti tail. Before the cat reached me, I turned and stepped back into the coffee shop under renovation to answer some questions about my work.

Dream end

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Another Mask Dream

Anyone need a dream? I had a surfeit of them last night. Convoluted and crazy. Too many to sit and remember, write, and analyze them. It would have taken hours that I don’t have. I instead stayed with one making the largest impression.

I can’t say where I was. Couldn’t make sense of it. In one part I was driving in a car with my wife. Darkness fell suddenly. The headlights didn’t go on as expected. It wasn’t a familiar car. Brown or tan sedan reminiscent of the old Chrysler K cars of the early 1980s, Lee Iacocca’s brain child. I started scrambling to find the headlight controls while verbalizing this to my spouse. Meanwhile, the ride changed from smooth to rough and bouncy. I immediately exclaimed, “We’re off the road. We need to find the road.” Seeing a clear space that could be it, thinking I’d simply veered off, I jerked the wheel left toward the opening.

We went over a hill through heavier bush and woods. Not the road! But, weirdly, POV changed; I could see the car from outside ourselves and the car, and saw that we were heading for an abandoned, weeded asphalt parking lot at the bottom of the hill. While it wasn’t where we wanted to go, it was good enough for now because I could also see that it was separated from the road we wanted by a small median strip. We could get to the parking lot, cross the strip, then drive to our destination, which I could also see in the gloomy dusk.

Now we’re in a room of some sort where we’re to wait. Narrow beds with disheveled blankets and sheets. Mine had cats burrowing through the covers as they played. A woman coming by said, “Yes, some of them have cats. Many don’t.” Okay. I asked her what to expect. She replied, “Find the script, read it, and wait.”

What? I found dog-eared and torn papers stapled together. I began reading, not sure what to expect nor why I was doing it, and thinking, that’s how life is. Meanwhile, the cats were feisty. I thought they hungry. I went about finding food for them. I found food but then couldn’t find the cats. That raised concerns about them.

Then — not sure why — I decided to fashion a mask for myself out of paper towels. I pinched out two holes for eyes and held them over my face. The white paper towels were raggedly torn. I began searching for some way to fasten them around my head but then I saw one of the cats go through.

Then, they demanded I read. Who? Why, it was the director. They’re auditioning people, trying to fill roles. Pick up one of the scripts and read. I did while holding the mask up around my face. The director loved it. Don’t practice; don’t change. Just walk forward, pick up scripts, and read them when you’re told. WTH. I was confused but decided I’d go along with it. I discovered two young actors had been cast as Romeo and Juliet. I was reading other parts. Then they would do their roles. Oh. I tossed the mask aside, feeling that it was a hindrance. A woman rushed up and told me, “No, no, the director liked that raw touch. He thought it was unusual and different and wants you to keep holding the mask as you read.”

So I went forward, holding up my mask, reading scripts when, seeing cats, and trying to feed them.

Dream end.

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A Short Car Dream

Don’t quite know what to make of this dream. This dream was all close first-person POV. A friend was with me but I never saw them, just heard them laugh or swear. I don’t know who it was. I’d purchased a new car, a unique, exotic collectible of sorts. (I never did clearly see the car in the dream). I’d acquired it at a large outdoor option. After purchasing it, I was inside, driving it, following a similar car. The car ahead came to a stop sign. Like me, it was turning left, according to its flashing signal. Nothing was coming, but it didn’t proceed. Impatience growing, I beeped to get them to move. The driver flashed me the finger, but then drove. I pulled up to the sign. As I stopped, a second hot rod pulled up alongside me on my right, then ran the stop sign and turned left in front of me, highly pissing me.

I turned left, drove a short way, and pulled in to park in a designated slot. I saw the first driver and their parked car but didn’t comment or take action. Throngs of people were moving in both directions. After parking my car, I picked it up and started carrying it under my arm. As I did, I saw a young woman coming toward me. She had a strap around her shoulders which was attached to her car, which was hanging on her back. I said, “That’s what I need to get. I can carry my car with me and leave my hands free. I won’t even need to park. I’ll just take my car with me wherever I go.”

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Sean Connery, Me, and A Cat In A Dream

We were ordered into a car. My companion, a male, was up front in the passenger seat. Top down, the convertible car began speeding along.

I said, “Is it my imagination, or do I detect from the motion that this car is going backwards?”

No answer came. As I processed that null response, I said, “Is this a Rolls Royce?”

The driver was looking back over his shoulder. He was in the right hand front seat. Looking back as he did verified for me that we were going backwards — I couldn’t see over the sides of the car to be sure.

The driver was Sean Connery. As that registered, I debated, Sean Connery or James Bond?

I gathered that we were going backward around a cloverleaf exchange and then accelerated straight onto a highway. At that point, Connery executed a handbrake turn, reversing us 180. We now traveled in the correct position.

After a time, the car was pulled over. Telling us, “See you later,” Connery hopped out and waved good-bye.

My companion — a short, elderly white male — and I were relieved to be free of Connery and have position of our Rolls again, because we needed to turn the car in. Problem was, that wasn’t the car that was expected, and the company would be upset. We traveled back to the turn-in location where a tall, white man in a suit greeted us. After hearing our problem, he said, smiling, “No problem. I can make this go away.”

Some paperwork was processed. As that went on, I checked some physical records. These tracked my health and activities. I was shocked to discover they were marked SECRET in the standard stamp at the top. It flummoxed me to think that those innocuous records were marked secret. I then also discovered my CIA identification, a rueful reminder of the secret world I inhabited.

The tale man returned. “Slide your company card through this card reader.” I smirked at the expression, company card, but did as told. “Your bill is twenty-four dollars,” I was told. As I reacted, he added, “It’s been paid.”

My original companion and I went off in another car. Exiting the building, a young black male stopped us. “You’ll need this to get back in.” He handed us a laminated blue card with black grease pencil writing on it. As he walked off, I called out, “No, we don’t need that, we already have one.” I held our original up, showing it to him, and then flipped the other to him. It sailed like a flying disc.

He caught it without effort. “That was impressive,” I said.

He shrugged. “I do that all the time.”

“How many times a day?”

“At least three.”

That impressed me. My companion and I drove off.

Dream shift. I was on vacation, walking toward a river. Bending down as I reached the roaring, turbulent river, I rubbed a cat’s belly. Wondering who this friendly feline was, I investigated and discovered it was my own ginger mini-puma. As I talked to him, he rolled around and then stood and stretched.

I was worried. We were over a mile from home. “What are you doing here, so far from home?” I asked the cat. In response, he trotted ahead of me, as though he and I were journeying together.

The cat splashed through some water. I crossed onto a natural rock bridge. Standing over the raging white water, I saw something scything through the water ahead. I couldn’t say what it was. Then a bird attacked me. I swatted it away. Another bird then attacked. This bird latched onto my leg. As its claws dug in, I beat it until it released me. Realizing that two birds attacking me was unusual and guessed, they’re probably protecting nests in the rocks around me. With that conclusion, I hurried on.

Dream end.

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A Dream of Five Things

It was an interesting, wide-ranging dream with several friends and family members. It also included the remains of a Roman city…in California; an overdue water bill for $53 dollars; returning rental cars; and picking out seats for an airline trip.

GT, an old friend I was stationed with in another country, was visiting me. I lived in Half Moon Bay, California, as I did for several years at the century’s beginning. GT was telling me about his experience in the town. He’d felt creepy and strange, like someone was watching him.

Yes, I explained to him. That’s because Half Moon Bay is built on Roman city ruins. Everyone feels the same effect. It affects some more than others.

“Really?” GT asked.

“Yes. It’s not felt as much on the main streets but it intensifies as you go down the narrower and smaller side streets. The further you are from a well-traveled road, the stronger it becomes.”

“What is it?”

“It’s the energy, spirits, and souls of the people who lived there before us. They still live there.”

I went on to tell him all about it. I then described how other common friends had visited me and experienced the same impact. There’d been articles about it. Everyone who lived there experienced it. I had, yes.

It was time for me to go. A group of us got into our five rental cars and drove to the airport to turn them in. My car was last in line. I had one passenger; I was giving them a ride. It was night, but when we were waiting in line to return the cars, we turned off the cars’ lights and engines. We were stopped on a hill. The car was facing up it. Sitting in the dark, I worried that other cars were going to come up around that last corner and hitting us. I kept checking the mirrors. For some reason, all the cars were to be backed up. I don’t recall this being communicated, but I released the brakes, put the car in neutral, and let it roll backward. As it picked up speed, my passenger began panicking. I decided I needed to turn on the car and lights, doing that as we stopped.

Inside the terminal now, I moved forward to turn in the rental car. I approached a counter where a man informed me that I had an overdue water bill. Some back and forth followed. I learned the bill was $53 and over thirty days overdue. I wanted to pay it then and there but he wouldn’t let me. Because it was overdue, it had to be paid elsewhere, which turned out to be a counter across from his.

My wife joined me. I told her about the overdue water bill. I was upset; paying those bills were her responsibility. She surprised me by shrugging it off. She knew it was overdue. She’d not forgotten to pay it, but decided not to for her own reasons.

I boarded a wide, modern jet aircraft. Five of us, all friends, were present. Five seats, all different — some were brown leather but others were cloth — were in a half circle. One friend, a VP and former co-worker, was trying different seats, grinning as he explained that he wanted one which reclined and swiveled. I already knew what each seat did. As soon as I could, I took the seat that I wanted in the front and center. My friend was disappointed because he was still trying the seats but I ignored him. I had as much right to the seat as him, and it was the one I wanted.

The end.

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Another Dream

I didn’t know what to call this dream. It popped about. The dream starts with my wife joining me in bed. Naked and in our twenties, we play grab-ass, laughing as we do. For some reason, it’s sunny.

Then… We’re at a play with audience participation. Don’t know what the play is about. I’m up by the stage. The audience, including me, are laying down. The light is low, with focus on the stage via yellow spotlights. During intermission, it’s announced that prizes are available. The prizes are up by me. I begin exploring them. One is of a pair of model racing cars: a Chaparral 2E and a Mclaren M8F. The Chaparral always raced as a white car while the McLarens were orange. In this model, though, the Chaparral body parts are painted orange.

Not all pieces are painted, I observe. The cars are models to be constructed, and small, maybe 1/86 scale, yet, there’s amazing detail. Some pieces are in chrome, and others are in brass. There are fittings for water and oil lines, suspension pieces, engine covers and headers, brakes, modular wheels… It’s mind-blowing the amount of details in these tiny models given away. The announcer is saying that these are for children but I say, “These aren’t for children. I’d never give these to children. The pieces are too small.” I look at the box, confirming that it states for children five and up. That has me shaking my head. It’d be a challenge for me to assemble.

We leave the theater, and are out on a sunny plaza. Many people are returning to work but I don’t need to. Because I was laying down at the theater, I have a pale yellow sheet around my waist. A red-headed young white woman is flirting with me. She’s talking about some safety procedures that I previously established for work, and how they’re still in use. They call them “the Seidels,” she informs me, which she implies is funny, but also implies that I should be honored because they’re still using the documents I create and call them by my last name.

She invites me to sit at a table with her. Drinks are ordered. Making chuckling noises, she’s reaching under the table. As the chuckling stops and the smile leaves her face, she finally looks under the table. I look, too. Her hand is up under my sheet. She asks with some indignation what I’m wearing. I realize that she was trying to get into my pants. I laugh. She huffs away.

There it is, all that I remember, although there’s a sneaking sense that I have some gaps.

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Airport & Parking Dream

Airports are another frequent feature in my dreams. I was in one again last night.

It was a lengthy dream. First, there was going to the airport. I was with my wife at that point and we just walked into the airport. Modern and friendly, the airport was as busy and hectic as a children’s playground. I met with a friend who sold us tickets. Business was slow, so he was also fishing and selling his catch. We laughed about that. Most interesting was that his fishing lines rose into the sky like he was controlling kites. We didn’t think anything of it.

After buying the tickets, I had time and busied myself shopping, eating, and walking around, classic time killing, airport style. While doing this, I saw a wonderful orb spider web. It was perfect. Just as I was about to comment on it, a woman ahead of me turned to it. Dressed in a red dress with red shoes and hat, this thin blonde woman walked into the spider web. As she did, I told her, “You’re walking into a spider web.”

She freaked when the web came across her face, and fell backwards. I was expecting that and easily caught her shoulders and kept her upright. While she expressed thanks, I helped her collect her purse, hat, and shoes. Yes, she’d lost her shoes. She joked, “I was scared right out of my shoes.” After helping her, I checked the spider web. It remained intact, which pleased me.

I encountered several friends. One was looking for me. She needed help with her math work for her college class. She showed me the problem. Hugely involved, it was supposed to be a formula for setting an item’s price. She was asking, “What should I do first?” I tried explaining math’s order of operations. She didn’t understand. Borrowing her textbook, I hunted for items in the book to help her, and then worked on the problem myself.

It took more time than I expected, and I didn’t solve it. Now I was two hours late and needed to rush. Going through the airport, I saw my friend again. Others near me wondered aloud what his lines were for. I explained to them that business was bad so he was augmenting his income by catching and selling fish. They didn’t believe me so I took them to him and verified it.

Then, really, I needed to go because I was late. But I couldn’t recall where I’d parked my car. Then, thinking I knew where I’d parked my car, I needed to figure a way to get there because it was far. I learned a shuttle was available to reach it. I purchased a ticket for the shuttle. It showed up after a few minutes. I put my things in the trunk and rode with the rest. At the other end, I got off, collected my stuff, and looked around. I knew right off that this wasn’t where my car was parked. I went to the man and told him. He said I needed to take a second shuttle from there, and to put my stuff back into the trunk. When I went to do so, that car had left without me. I was surprised and a little upset but immediately started working on another plan to reach my car. Looking around, I started figuring out where I was and then decided I could walk to my car.

That’s where the dream ended.

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A Loaded Dream

This dream held so many elements. They happened in parallel but I broke them out to think about each nugget.

  1. I was preparing to travel and return home. I was visiting Mom and other my sisters in the east. Throughout, I was trying to determine what time I needed to leave. I was driving and flying. As I thought about when I was leaving, I thought in terms of minutes and had a stack of dimes. Each dime represented one minute. Did I have enough dimes? Stacking them, I had more than enough.
  2. My youngest sister (often referred to as my ‘littlest’ century, though she’s been alive for over half a century and have two sons in their teens) and her friend were missing. They’d gone on a walk. A storm was coming in and hours had gone by. As time passed and our worries increased, I tried calling her on her phone and sending her text messages. By the end, the messages were, “Call when you get this. We’re worried.”
  3. I’d bought land on top of cliffs. Located on the coast, growing ocean waves were pummeling it. I was thinking about building a seawall on top of it to protect it. I had a view out my window of the cliffs and the waves, which were about a half mile away.
  4. My car was located in a parking garage with others’ cars. At one point, heavy machinery came by and started tearing the parking structure down. Accosting the foreman, I said with some outrage, “My car is parked in that structure in a lower level, along with others.” The others had come out and were nodding and agreeing. The foreman mocked and laughed us while talking about how strong the structure was, that nothing would happen to our cars on the lower decks, but he stopped further activity and walked off looking concerned.
  5. Mom kept finding clothing and items left behind from other visits, such as a gray leather wallet, a black belt, and a pale gray sports coat. The coat was so pale, it was almost white. As I collected these things, I was trying to fit them into my luggage. Remembering the jacket, I decided that I would wear it on my travels home. The gray wallet was in excellent shape, but was empty. I knew it was mine, however, recalling when I bought it in Korea.
  6. A high school friend was present. He kept making suggestions about things to do. When he came up with something, he wrote it down and dated it so it’d be documented when he’d came up with the ideas, so he’d get credit. One of the ideas he’d come up with was building a sea wall on the cliff. I’d already come up with that idea, I explained to him, but it slide off like soft butter on a hotter knife. I started writing things down, too, backdating some of them, so I had proof that I’d thought of them first.
  7. As I packed, I kept trying to decide where to put things and what I wanted to have on me while traveling. While I did that, I found that I had three wallets. How’d I get three wallets? What should I do with them? Having three amused me but I wasn’t surprised.

A lot to think about with this one.

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A Sisters-in-law Dream

The sitcom dreams have cycled out. Back to casual dreams, as I categorize them. This night featured a dream with my two sisters-in-law.

First, I’m facilitating a small group of people. I don’t know the group’s objective, but it did involve having to use clever means to bridge a fast-moving creek. A bridge was there but incomplete. I found a stretch of fencing and employed it. When others came, I had to show them what I’d done, laying out the fencing to bridge gaps, hold it up, and yet walk across it. That impressed them.

The older of my two sisters-in-law was there and requested a ride home. She was feeling ill. I wasn’t going that way but then discovered another who was. SIL had a baggie of treats. Some of it looked like white cake with raspberry jelly center layer and a coconut whipped cream top. Looked good! She said that I could have it but it wasn’t what it looked like. I took it and discovered it was hard candy. To which I was, bah, no thanks. She then went to get into a yellow SUV. I raised the rear for her. She put her things in but the woman driver started leaving with the rear still raised. I was incredulous but the woman turned and stopped. A short conversation ensued. Clarification achieved about what was going on, SIL entered the vehicle and it departed.

Act Two found me just completing another facilitating session, at a different location, with another group. I’d procured some treats for them. From where, they asked. We talked about that a bit, with me explaining that there was a candy store in a shopping center out on the highway. They said they’d gone there but didn’t find the treats that I had. I realize that they’d gone to another candy store, and then explained to them that there was a smaller shopping center in the corner of a larger shopping center. I’d gone to the candy store in the smaller shopping center. It helped that I could look out the window and see portions of both places, and put it out to them.

The group, probably two hundred people, arrived and settled in chairs. Although leading it, I was at the back, with my other SIL. I was showing an old movie to the group. My SIL wanted a ride home with me, which I agreed to do. The movie didn’t start as planned. I had to walk up as everyone watched, fix the equipment, return to my seat, and begin the film. Afterward, my SIL and I went to my car, the light blue 1985 Mazda RX-7 that my wife and I had bought new when we’d returned to America. I asked SIL if she minded if I removed the sunroof as it was a nice afternoon. She was okay with that.

The dream ended.

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A Dream Snippet

I’ve been having many dreams each night. A short source yield three to six dreams a night, so I’m average. Maybe it seems like more because they’re vivid and intense, and I remember a lot of them — or so it seems. Remembering dreams always brings a challenge. Trying to remember them usually causes me to remember more of them, but then I get into this cycle of dreaming more, remembering more, dreaming more, until it seems like I’m taking a lot of conscious time thinking about the dreams. As with everything, a balance must be found and maintained.

I’m just going to highlight a series of scenes from one dream last night. Friends and I had gone to a club. I wasn’t in the military but many military peers were in the dream. They weren’t in the military any longer, either.

We were talking about DJs when we arrived. I’d heard one on the way while in my car, and thought he was great. I learned that he was going to be at the club. That excited me. I wanted to meet and speak with him, if I could. It was late in the afternoon/early in the evening. The club had only opened a short while before. Staff was still setting up. My friends and I were some of the first customers. As we walked about looking for a table, I heard the DJ’s voice. Saying, “Hey, that’s him,” I went to find him.

He and I almost ran into one another, earning me a resentful look from him. I apologized to him but he blew me off. Well, okay. Shrugging that away, I returned to my friends, who had now selected a table. A waitress came around with typewritten menus. Although there were many pages, there wasn’t much on them as offering, one or two items per page, and nothing that called to me. I thought I’d just order an appetizer and a beer.

Asking about what beer was available, I discovered that a young Penny Marshall was my server. My question about what beer was available seemed to upset her. As I preferred dark beers, I asked her what darks were available. Looking sour, she responded, “I’ll check.” Then she turned to take others’ orders.

She suddenly reverted her attention to me. “We have some new Sam Adams in.”

“Oh, okay, I’ll take a Sam Adams Octoberfest, if you have that.”

Penny looked upset again. Her companion — a young Cindy Williams — said to Penny soto voce, “It’s okay, it’s okay.” I was like, WTH? Why is Penny so upset? My friends and I joked about it after she left the table.

Some conversations took place about different topics. Then I was watching some people. Some were previous military I worked with. They were out now. Some were belligerent toward one another. Turning to comment to my friends, I discovered that I was alone at the table. There was silverware, and my beer, but there were gone.

Picking up the silverware and beer, I walked around. Finding that they moved to another table angered me. I tossed the silverware onto the table. It slide across and fell on the floor. That caught their attention. I then put my beer down and set six dollars on the table to pay for it. They were asking, “Something wrong?”

I replied, “Yeah, thanks for telling me you were moving. I appreciate it. I turned around and you were all gone. How did you expect that to make me feel?”

They were sort of chuckling and stammering apologies about pulling a bad prank, but I walked out, deciding that I didn’t need friends like them.

Outside, I entered my car. It was a cool, sunny evening, still early, Putting the top down, I took a drive, enjoying myself as the air flowed over me.

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