Tag: choices

A White House Dream

I’ve always dreamed of houses, though I think those sort of dreams have tapered off in the last ten years. I had one again last night, though.

And it was confusing. A wealthy family was staying in this large and luxurious white house. My wife was with me, and we were young, and also staying there.

The house was for sale. It featured many layers set up in a cubist manner with steps connecting the square or rectangular rooms and halls. Exhibiting something of a mobious to the design (yes, kind of like M.C. Escher art), I found I could be in one end in a bedroom (there were many en suite bedrooms) and step one way and be on another level, in another room, on the building’s other end. Resolving to understand how it worked, I went about the house until I thought I’d gone through every room and knew my way around, and then started taking my wife around to show her.

Although the house was huge and way too large for us, I liked several of the rooms and rhetorically discussed with her which I liked. I speculated, too, on which room I would use as an office to write. Two really attracted me. I felt that both were too large. One had a bathroom and I thought that would be good to have. But because of the house’s design, people would sometimes need to walk through that room to reach other parts. Thinking that a disadvantage, I returned to the other room.

While this was happening, it was announced that the house had been sold. We wondered who bought it. The family staying there were’t the owners. We rarely encountered the parents, usually spying them walking through the house from a distance, but we frequently ran into the children. Early teenagers, they were rambunctious, mindless, wasteful, and destructive.

Going back to the other room that could be my office, my wife and I got in bed. The bed was just a mattress on legs, without head or foot boards, and there was no other furniture. I spooned her, pulled thick blankets up to our necks, and napped.

Some hubbub in another room woke us, pulling our attention. I went to see what was going on. Things had been damaged in another room. To be blunt, it was wrecked. I felt certain it was one of the male teenagers, because I’d seen him in that area with some of the damaged furniture, glassware, etc. So I told them what I’d seen before. He denied it but under questioning from his parents, with me pointing out some things, he confessed to what he did. As I walked away from this, I took more notice of that room. Its floor was white. I discovered one end had a raised circular dias, also white, and decided the room was set up as a party room, and that was a place where a small band could play. The room had a cutout running the length of a long wall and I speculated that the band could be playing on that platform or dias and be heard and seen from other rooms.

The dream ended with someone presenting me with a new car, a white Ferarri. Brand new, I admired the car but I dislike white cars. Thinking it would be rude to turn it down, I accepted the car. The last of the dream showed me getting into the car.

What intrigued me most about the dream when I awoke and thought about it was it similarity to a house I often dreamed of decades again. A recurring dream, I had a white house in a small town. When I explored that white dream house, I would discover doors to rooms and sections which I didn’t know I had. Sometimes other families would be living in those sections, leaving me confused about whether I owned it. But I also found myself in that house going to the house’s lowest realm, turning a corner, stepping through the door, and finding me back on the top, on the other end, just as in last night’s dream.

The other thing about both dreams is that these white houses were on the coast, looking out over blue ocean.

5

Lights Out

Light bulbs are so like cereal, ice cream, and bread. The range of choices sprawl along store aisles like invading armies staging to attack.

It’s been a period of lights out in our house. Light bulbs retired in the last several weeks all over our house. Kitchen, stove top, office, bedroom, garage, living room accent light have all been afflicted. As each burned out, I checked pulled it and checked it out for the replacement. Several of them hadn’t been replaced since being installed in 2006, when we moved in, so we got our mileage out of them. Easiest, in theory, was the office light, which had been first to go dark.

There are actually three bulbs up there. I pulled off the shade to take a look. One was burned out; one socket was empty. The third was almost an antique: 60 watts, GE, filament, frosted white. Poor thing.

“Can we get something brighter?” my wife asked. She’s had a lifetime of vision issues and compensates by turning on every light possible. When she uses the kitchen, she generally turns on four sets of lights. Yes, four. There are ceiling spotlights, under-cabinet work lights, and breakfast bar lights. The dining room is adjacent, just on the other side of the breakfast counter, so she always turns on it on to, adding the lumens from its five bulbs. There are basically 23 bulbs of different wattage going on when she’s in the kitchen.

The only one no in use alone is the sink task light. The others’ switches are clustered together, four switches under one faceplate by the kitchen’s entrance. She just spreads her fingers, flattens her palm, and hits them all, usually simultaneously click. But the sink task light is by the sink, and she forgets it. Funny, because it’s my favorite, and the one I mostly use, usually the only one I use. Just for the record, there’s also the range top lights, which are part of the hood/fan assembly attached to the microwave’s underside. She doesn’t use them. I use them when I’m cooking or to leave a light on when we’re out of the house and returning after dark.

The office required a sixty-watt bulb. Easy peasy, right? But how many Ks should it have, and lumens? I want an energy saver but of what nature? These were things that I didn’t know that I needed to know. I ended up with 60-watt comparable LED daylight white 5000K bulbs boasting of 750 lumens. Three were installed and the shade installed. Then, click.

OMG. “Wow.” My wife sounded giddy. “I can see.”

I was overwhelmed. She often accuses me of being in the dark, scolding, “How can you see in here?” Under the force of these three bulbs, I felt that sunglasses would be suitable. And they only use eight watts of power, don’t emit much heat, and should last over ten years.

“So you like them?” I facetiously asked. “Do you want them in the bedroom?”

“Yes!”

With that done to her satisfaction, I turned to the kitchen. The ceiling spotlights, all old energy-savers, issued a duller light. “Want me to install daylight bulbs in here?”

She hesitated. “They’re awfully bright.”

Screw it; I did it. Well, there are four of them. I replaced three.

“Oh my God,” she exclaimed. “I can see. Wow. This place is really dirty.”

No, it wasn’t, but she’s fond of using hyperbole like that.

“Too bright?” I asked. They were 75-watt comparable LED spotlights rated at 650 lumens and 4800K clear daylight. Yes, indeed, they were bright. They also cost about eight dollars each but would endure for almost twelve years. Their specs also claimed their use would only cost about $.016 per year. The last coaxed doubt out of me. Surely that couldn’t be right.

After those bulbs, the rest were anticlimactic. 40 watts for the range. 35-watts LED with a G8 pin base for the under-cabinet work lights. A 50-watts soft white pin mini spotlight (L9) for the living room accent installation over the fireplace, and one of the 60-watt LED bulbs (I’d purchased a ten-pack of the FEIT offering) in the garage. In all, I installed fifteen bulbs, learned a smattering more about the world of lighting, and spent about $57 in light bulbs. But I should spend less on replacements and use less energy.

We’ll see. It was so, so different from the old days of finding a small hardware section and buying almost exclusively on their wattage. Like cereal, which now has what seems like a million choices. Or bread and all of its options over wheat, grain, multi-grain, gluten-free — well, you probably know the dealio. We’ve come a long way from sliced white bread.

Or ice cream. You better know what you want when you decide to buy ice cream in a grocery store. Low fat, dairy free, gluten free, etc. That’s just a start. Then there are sizes and flavors. Prices. Or are you going to go with other options, like frozen yogurt? Options and choices can be overwhelming.

Just like when you buy light bulbs.

0

The Custard Tart Dream

To set the dream scene, I was different in some ways to my real life self. Still white, I was tall and skinny with short black hair, and wearing a holey white tee shirt dingy gray with age. About nineteen years old, I was clean-shaven and despite my dirty clothes, I was clean. I knew I was poor but I was a happy and hopeful individual.

Walking among some dark industrial ruins, I came across a table. On it were about a dozen tarts. Six inches in diameter, they were custard, with cinnamon sprinkled across the top, and stacked about ten tall. Beside the tarts were a dozen empty tart pans in a stack.

Finding the tarts pleased me. I’d been walking for days, hadn’t eaten and was hungry, but more importantly to me, I’d been travelling alone and had not seen anybody the entire time. Finding the tarts, if they were fresh, was a sign that others still existed and could be close by.

I didn’t eat them, though, though I grinned widely as I looked at them. I didn’t know who owned them and refused to take them, thinking that would be stealing. Then, walking around, I found a cardboard sign with handwritten letters in red marker, “Free”.

I still didn’t take any. At that point, other people emerged from the shadows. Seeing them, I knew they were as hungry as me, so I called to them and started passing out the tarts. As I did, I found that there were more tarts than I thought. While I was surprised, I was also pleased because that meant that everyone could eat more.

Then, a voice told me that they’d been watching. They were going to provide me tarts, and I could sell them. That confused and surprised me. I queried them about why they’d want to do that. They answered that they thought I’d be good at selling them.

I shrugged. If they wanted to do that, it was okay, I guess, I said, but I’d rather just give them away because so many people didn’t have money or food. The voice replied, you can do what you want, they’re your tarts.

Dream end.

0

Food & Growth Dream

It began with drinking a cup of coffee. I was at a place which I knew was my home but it wasn’t a RL home. I seemed about forty years old so younger than RL but otherwise the same. Drinking the coffee, I walked along the living room’s length toward the kitchen. A hallway which led to the bedrooms and bathrooms broke off to right. The floor was carpeted with a light China blue plush carpet. I was wearing shoes and I noticed all this because my head was almost brushing the ceiling. That amused me as I’m only 5’8″.

My wife comes out of the bedroom hallways and we chat. I then go back across the living room and back. This time, my ceiling is rubbing against the ceiling enough that I’m bending my head to avoid it. I point this out to her, laughing that either I’m growing or the ceiling is being lowered. She checks it out and agrees, I seem to be taller. I muse that it must be a practical joke; how can I be getting taller? Someone — one of my nieces, nephews, or cousins — must have inserted lifts into my shoes without me noticing. But then, going to set the coffee table down, I found that I’m even taller. They can’t be putting lifts in my shoes because I’m wearing them. I must be growing. How was that possible?

The dream scene changes. I’m having dinner with former co-workers from various employers. These are all RL folk that I’ve not seen in decades. Men and women are segregated. That puzzles me and I ask why but nobody gives me a reasonable answer. Most commonly heard is, ‘because they made the food’. I’m basically sitting alone at the end of a table, with others to the right. Food is being served. I’m making fun of some of the food because it seems unusual and I’m annoyed that we’re being served like the wives are our servants, but it’s tasty food and I’m eating it, and enjoying myself.

Friends call me over to another side. I respond, heading over there. One of the wives wants me to try this special dish which she made. Her husband sets a plate in front of me. It looks like a flat hotdog bun with a hotdog splayed open lengthwise, covered by what looks like dark green ice and a thin piece of steak. I want explanations for what I’m facing. For one thing, I don’t eat hotdogs. She tells me it’s not a regular hotdog, that she actually made it herself, and that it’s very healthy. Okay, I trust her about that, but what about the green ice? I’m not given an answer.

The thing is hard to keep together, but I do so that I can try it. I’m stunned by the flavor, especially the green ice. It’s an exhilarating, cleansing flavor unlike anything I’ve ever had and not anything like I expected. For starters, it’s not cold.

I exclaim appreciation for it, which delights her. She tells me that she knew I would appreciate it. She won’t tell me anything about what it is, but I don’t mind. We joke about it could and I thank her.

Her husband calls me in to join him and other men and women in another room. It’s like a round table setting. They’re having a conversation and he wants to know, what was I good at when I was younger, and gives some background to what he means. I tell him without hesitation, “Music, computers, and art,” then I shrug. They were always effortless to me although I never pursued any of them and regret that.

Dream end.

2

Three Dreams

Seduction, destruction, confusion, and security. Short summaries of sharply remembered dreams where I felt these things.

My first remembered dream from last night’s slumbering had me being seduced. This woman and I were traveling with others. All of us then got in bed together. She turned to me and told me that she wanted to have sex with me and moved her hands along my body. She said, she’d thought about it, and I deserved it. I was eager and ready but, hello, there are other people in the bed. She said that she’d spoken with them and that they’d agreed. As she said that, the other three left the bed. I kissed her and she reciprocated.

Dream censored.

Second in the dream line was about destruction being wrought by an evil baby head.

I found myself in an empty old Victorian style home. Going through the rooms, I discovered a huge black trunk in a room upstairs by a window. I opened it. Line with gray inside, its only contents was a smaller black bag which reminded me of a bowling ball bag. As soon as I opened the bag, a baby’s head floated out. White but mottled, it had no body, a constant leer, and thin hair, and was alive. Dread emanated from it, soaking me. I was immediately dispirited. I quickly found it had master telepathic control of others and telekinesis as it threw boulders with its mind and created slaves of other people. Understanding that it had no good intentions, I managed to get behind it while it wasn’t paying attention and get it into the trunk. Slamming the lid shut, I locked it but realized that I could still hear it in my head. I realized it had been in that other black bag to block its thoughts and powers.

I fled, trying to get distance from the baby head, driving along old and narrow country roads, going up a mountain. I soon found myself lost with a black spirit. The baby’s voice was diminished but I felt its presence. Leaving the car to look around and figure out where I was, I decided that I needed to go back and destroy the baby’s head.

End of dream.

Finally, I had a dream about a wealthy old man. White, he was quite old and thin, and favored a monocle, black silk top hat, and a black walking cane topped with a diamond. Suited in a black suit with morning coat, he wore a white bow tie and traveled about in an all-black ‘car’. This car was essentially several rooms, like a narrow black land yacht with a design out of the 1930s. As said, extremely wealthy, he was in charge of everything, he declared, and he didn’t any changes. Large, serious expression men in black suits provided constant security.

I, a young man, was with him in this cluttered and narrow beast of a car. He’d chosen me to write his biography, so I was there to listen to him tell his life story and give me his wisdom so that I could compile it all. Like him, I was dressed in a white shirt and black suit, but with a black tie. His aide, an older man, was dressed as I was.

I was enjoying myself as others brought me tea and pastries while we drove around the city in the mechanical beast. Observing everyone, distraction set in, and I entertained myself by figuring out how the old man could be abducted, and then created a story concept around it. Pleased, I shared that with the old man.

Well, he was outraged, shouting, “Balderdash, that could never happen.” Then he stormed out of that section and into the car’s rear. I knew that he was upset because I’d pointed out a security vulnerability. The elderly aide chastised me in gentle, polite tones for upsetting the old man, who the aide revered. I explained to the aide how I was right, showing and demonstrating the car’s vulnerability on which I based my story. His expression told me that he knew I was right. He went off to comfort his boss.

Dream end.

Yes, I see how black dominates these dreams, as does power and desire.

0

Letting Go

Arising early in accordance with planning, as tested a few times during the previous months, I walked up through the trees and brush. The false dawn was giving new light to see. I kept climbing until I reached a cleft below the hilltop. I’d scouted this location a dozen times. It still seemed like the best.

There was nothing auspicious about this day. I’d said my secret good-byes and did all that I could to prepare. It really didn’t seem like enough. There would probably never be enough. I was preparing to break so many laws. The life I’d known would be gone – if I did this. But wasn’t that why I was here?

Yes, I told myself. Yes, that’s why I was here. Carefully, I unpacked and set up.

I settled into a comfortable position to wait. Dawn’s warm arrival awoke me an hour later. 6:59, my watch told me. I’d overslept by fifteen minutes. Not a big deal. The slaves had not arrived.

The wind stayed calm as hoped. Sunshine’s heat soon had sweat bubbling out of me. It could also be nerves. I wiped my palms several times. They kept becoming wet. Gnats and flies began finding me. Large black and yellow bees buzzed my scalp.

Punctual, the slaves arrived at eight, announcing their entrance with soft chanting. They are such simple, happy people. That is the curse, though, isn’t it? I’m sure it is. Is it my right to make them otherwise?

They might not become otherwise. They could stay happy and simple. I didn’t believe that. Everyone freed of the curse becomes angry when they learn what’s been going on. How they’d be used. But, but, don’t they, didn’t they deserve to experience the full range of being human, even if it does piss them off? Others disagree, but I think, yes it does. Yes. Look at who I was and what I’d become. I would not have been up on a hill with a rifle a year ago. I’m here now to free others as I’d been freed.

All the slaves I’d seen before were present, giving no worries. I counted them every day as they went to the different fields and orchards. The races began by working together in small knots, just as they’d arrived, but then males and females separated, moving on to greet people in other groups. Soon couples and quartets were developed, laughing, whispering, joking, and complaining as they picked. Snatches of their talking poked at me as I stayed in wait. Finally, moved by the spirit to do the thing I’d planned, I repositioned myself and raised my rifle.

I remained hesitant. Worry’s last vestiges clung to me like cobwebs. But I’d shot others first, testing the magic bullets and the vaccine loaded in them. The slaves would suffer pain for a few minutes, but then they would be released. I was doing the right thing.

No, I wasn’t doing anything, yet.

I wanted to shoot as many as possible, of course. I counted on being accurate and silent. I’d practiced, practiced, practiced, always in furtive secrecy, protected by The Net. Forty-eight slaves were in the field. I hoped to shoot them all. I didn’t have confidence that was possible, but I would try.

The couple furthest from me, off by themselves in the northeastern corner, were targeted. Four hundred forty-two yards away, I found them in my scope, shifting my rifle with their movements until center mass was presented. Hesitation reigned for another fist of seconds, then two. Finally, almost as though my finger tired of waiting for me, it slipped onto the trigger and moved. The deed began.

The suppressor kept my work unnoticed for a bit. I worked from the northeast across the field, taking the farthest people down before moving back in the opposite direction, targeting closer slaves. Some noticed the others falling but couldn’t, wouldn’t, comprehend why. Their thinking was too stunted.

No, it was not the slaves who worried me.

Knowing they’d soon be on me, I quickened my firing. Fifteen were shot. Nineteen. Twenty-four.

A drone showed up on the horizon and began hovering.

Keeping to cover, I fired faster. Twenty-five, -six, -seven. The first woke slaves were standing, falling over again, woozy as the bullet’s magic worked and released them from their spells. Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.

The drone sped my way. I stood and raised a shoulder launcher into place. Its targeting system found the drone. Going green, the targeting system said, ‘beep’, and fired with a snug click. A yellow fireball took the drone’s place. Black smoke climbing, pieces showered down.

Taking a knee, I picked up the other rifle and resumed shooting slaves. Center mass was desired but by now, I was hastening to get whatever I could, telling myself, “Anything but a head shot, anything but a head shot.”

Lawnmower buzzing from above and behind told me of another drone’s arrival. Dropping one weapon, I went for the shoulder launcher.

Fumble.

The shoulder launcher slipped from my slick fingers. I lunged for it, trying to grab it and pull it in, bouncing the launcher into the air. Realizing it would go over the hillside, I stretched further.

Too much.

Flailing for a branch, I teetered on the edge of balance.

The drone’s sound changed.

Stopped, it was targeting me.

Feeling defenseless, I sucked in air and announced with suppressed desperation, “Here we go.”

I leaped over the ridge into the thickets below. Crashing through them, balance was lost. Branches raked my cheeks and stabbed at my eyes. My left ankle flared with sharp pain.

A small missile explosion marked my previous space with a deafening sound. Rocks and clods of dirt flew by. Twisting, fighting gravity, trying to protect myself, I fell and tumbled, rolled and bounced, grunting and grabbing as I went, finally snagging a branch with one hand. As momentum jerked to a stop, I hung on, sweating and gasping like a sprinter finishing their run, and looked down.

My heart quailed.

A thirty-foot drop was below me. Its spiked, rocky bottom offered bloody promises. If I’d gone over there….

Left of it was a man. Large, black, a former slave, one of the first who I’d shot. He’d gotten here so fast.

He stared at me. The shoulder launcher was in his hands.

The drone swept around to finish me off. “Shoot it,” I shouted, hoping he understood. Swinging, feet fighting with the earth as it fell away, I tried climbing the branch like a rope. Its smaller branches tore into my hands and interfered with my grip. I barely hung on.

Heat blasted out of the sky above me. The former slave had figured it out. He’d saved me.

I laughed for half a second at life’s absurdity. I would not be able to climb back up.

“Let go,” someone shouted from below. “We’ll catch you. Let go.”

Several were shouting that. I couldn’t see them. I had to trust them.

That’s what life is about, isn’t it, I rhetorically said to myself in an absurdly placid moment. Letting go.

Do it, I urged as they shouted from below. Do it, do it. One. Two.

Eyes closing, I let go.

4

The Dream, the Cat, the Boy

No people were visible in this dream. No bodies.

I never saw myself. I faced a wide and featureless brown plain. The sky was a striking crystal blue, like a clear sky seen opposite sunrise after the sun clears obstacles and takes the stage.

On the horizon were low brown mountains, the same color as the plain. A sense of dustiness was implied but no dust was ever seen.

Three objects equally spaced apart floated above the mountains. Outlined in jagged red, their interiors were hot white gold. Black letters scrolled within the white gold. I could see they were words but couldn’t read them.

A male guide was beside me; I never saw him. He said, “Those are your choices. You need to make a choice.”

Utter bewilderment on my side met this. “I don’t know what you mean. What are they?” Staring at them brought no elucidation. I half woke and thought of them. Drifting back into sleep, the scene returned, except I was much closer to the mountains and the three objects. They seemed larger to me. I still couldn’t read the words. The side boundaries were jagged but the top and bottom borders were smooth half-arcs. The guide mentioned choosing them. I replied, “Can’t I integrate them?” No answer.

I drifted from the dream toward consciousness, working on recalling what I’d seen and then returned to it. I was much closer. The objects were huge. Instead of being spread across the horizon, they were stacked. I said, “I think I can move them, but I don’t know what they are. I don’t know why I’d move them.”

The cat, Tucker brought me out of sleep. The dream stayed with me. Tucker did something he’d never done that I can recall. He laid down opposite me, his face facing mine, his head on a pillow. Purring, he stretched his front legs out, put his paws on my shoulder, and kneaded me. I drifted back to the dream. No changes manifested. The words kept scrolling, like the lines in a book. I still couldn’t read them.

That dream moved to my mind’s right side. The guide was with me but silent. On my mind’s left side, another dream arose. I was a young boy, sitting on the ground in a field of green weeds by a barbed wire fence. I clearly saw and knew it as me. The sun was rising to my right, and I turned and looked toward it.

I stirred myself into waking. Both dreams remained, one on the right, the other on the left, slowly receding. Both remain, faint and distant as galaxies in the sky, present on either side of my mind.

0

A Three-fer of Dreams

I was traveling a long distance with a group. We reached out destination and prepared to return. I engaged the leader. He had a large, laminated map. Using it, he showed our segments of travel and the energy expended during those times. He planned to do the same for the return. We entered a back and forth about the energy. I insisted that the total energy should be considered a final sum and that we could then break it up any way we needed, that we didn’t need to use the same energy, time of travel, etc, on the way back, but were free to do whatever we preferred. After lengthy discussion, he agreed.

I was then with a group of ex-military. We’d been working on projects that involved previous military resources. No longer used or needed, we were repurposing them. This included buildings, furniture, vehicles, and sites. All of us were demoralized because the work we’d previously finished in this manner was each time then successively destroyed or plowed under. As our leader laid out the newest project and exhorted us, I asked, “What’s the point of this?” I pointed out in detail what happened to the three previous projects and asked, “What’s there to make us believe that it won’t happen to this project, too?” He couldn’t argue back. At my suggestion, we abandoned the idea and agreed to put our energies into something else. We began to search for that.

I ended up with childhood friends in one of their houses. The house was gorgeous, very impressive. It had an infinity pool, which really impressed me, because it looked like silver and some to go on, well, for infinity. We played and splashed in the water. Coming into the house, I was embarrassed for us because we were getting water everywhere. I ran into his mother who waved away those concerns, laughing while telling me, don’t worry about that.

We decided it was time to leave but needed to dress first. I put on a pair of blue jeans. Pain lanced down my leg. As I reacted, I saw a large white and black striped coral colored spider dropped onto the floor. It was about the size of my palm. I considered stomping and smashing it but didn’t. Checking my leg, I verified that I’d been bitten. A large purple and red welt was rising. There was pain but it had plateaued.

The spider scurred off to the wall. Others wanted to go after it but I urged, “Leave it alone. It’s not a threat to anyone.” Conversations mushroomed about the evidence to the contrary, that I’d been bitten. I pointed out that the swelling was already gone. So was the pain, and my skin was returning to a normal color. Therefore, that was all temporary and no big deal. I finished dressing and hurried out after my friends.

Dream end. All in all, very positive and energizing.

0

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