I think get this. It’s about letting go of yourself, releasing your ego and doubts, and permitting what is to come to make its way without ‘you’ hindering it.
Driving With Dad Dream
Another slice of the nocturnal mind’s workings to share.
To begin, I’m with my father. Each of us are similar to our real life appearances but I think we both were a little younger.
I’m getting an award. I don’t know what it’s for. Dad wants to attend. He tells me, “We’ll go together. We’ll drive there.”
He gestures toward a car. A silver behemoth, it may have been manufactured in the 1930s and features a long wheelbase — think of a large SUV here — running boards, an upright radiator, and spindly, narrow wheels and tires. Its condition is show-car perfect.
“What is that?” I ask. I see from looking around that he has other, more modern cars but still several decades old. All are well cared for. A graceful, polished gray model’s dazzling shine catches my eye from one.
In answer, he says, “You drive. We better get going. It doesn’t have a high top speed.”
I am floored. At that moment, two sisters arrive. They want to go with us.
Dad is against that. Telling them so, he finishes, “But I want you there. Take one of my other cars.”
A large steel garage door which was previously unnoticed grinds open. Behind it are modern sports and luxury cars. “Take one of those cars,” Dad says.
My sisters are already clamboring into a new red Mazda Miata. I say, “Why can’t we take one of those?”
Dad responds with non-sequitors. I interrupt him. “If you want to ride with me, why don’t we take one of those cars?” I see a BMW in the garage. “Like that blue BMW. Why don’t we take it?”
Evasive as before, Dad basically declares, “I want to take this car.”
We climb into his old car. I ask, “Is this a Bugatti?”
Dad doesn’t respond. Firing up the old machine, I keep looking for clues about what it is.
That’s where the dream ends.
I tote this dream down as another manifestation of unspoken worries and doubts about my life and where it’s at. Pretty standard stuff. Retired from corporate and military careers, I’ve staked a lot of time and hope on writing fiction. I’m driven to write, but will it go anywhere beyond my computer? Or, as the dream suggests to me, am I interested in trying another vehicle?
As I pass over the post again, though, the driving theme raises new questions. Writing = driving. Whether I want to or not, I need to go on. Some of my choices seem taken away from me by some deeper driving force within me.
Looking at it another way, though, I can point out, it’s a silver car I’m being forced into, a classic which is in good condition, and I’m driving off to collect an award. Looking at it that way, my subconscious is encouraging me to go with what I’m doing.
It’s amusing how these dream elements can be addressed. Even if I find success beyond writing for myself, I think that I’ll always be wrestling with the drive and need to write, and my doubts. Just part of my imposter syndrome surfacing again.
A Lion Dream
A lion dream that left me breathless was experienced last night. I was in a village which seemed to be on an island. Small cottages and huts were built in the jungle around a small stream that fed into the ocean. Going left, I’d come out on the beach, and then, there was the ocean.
Well, on this day, I walked around a hut alongside the stream, when I stopped in shock; on the other side of the stream, where the jungled abutted the beach, was a sleeping male lion. He was huge.
Terror and worry struck me like a lightning bolt. Backing up in a frenzy, I tried warning others about the lion, fearing it would awaken and attack us. Then children saw the lion and screamed. Awakened, the lion crossed the stream and headed for me. I at once wanted it to come after me so it wouldn’t get others but also didn’t want to be gotten. Trying to get away, I couldn’t get any traction in the sound. The huge lion came right up on me.
It began pawing my leg, but in a friendly manner. Then it sniffed and licked me. I calmed down but remained doubtful that this lion just wanted to be my friend, but that’s exactly what it seemed to be. Relaxing, I let the lion come up beside me, standing still as it rubbed its head and face on my hip.
Awakening reflections, I thought, I must be needlessly fearful and worried about something. Later, I sorted through what the could be, but it’s a long and complicated list, one I don’t want to share with the world.
Running Dream
First, my wife and I were in a department store, one like the late K-Mart. We were some variations of our real selves. She was shopping and I was just hanging around, hovering, waiting. As I meandered, hands in pockets, I spotted four young woman. Nothing remarkable about them, they were short young adults. Each was different from clothing to hair, except they were all dusky, with dark hair, and all seemed happy. I gathered they were planning some prank. Something overheard made me think of them as security, as in law enforcement, which baffled me because nothing in their appearance, age, or demeanor declared, Security!
So I kept wandering, watching them, trying to understand what they were plotting. Each produced a toy gun. One noted my presence to the others. They talked and laughed about me — I could discern this although I didn’t know what was being said — and then, guns raised, they walked toward me and started shooting. Their ammo were small eraser like pellets. They didn’t hurt at all. Nonetheless, I hunkered down, turning my face away and covering my head with my arms and hands to protect myself.
Laughing, they walked away and I stood. My wife came up and asked what was going on. I explained it all, finding her one of the many pellets on the ground and showing it to her. She declared that I should turn them in. I didn’t want to, thinking them harmless. My wife returned to her shopping. I watched the girls more as they separated, then decided to leave. As I was leaving the store, going down a small set of steps to the door, one of the girls shoot me a few times in the back and laughed. I shook my head, dismissing her.
The dream shifted. Someone unspecified and unknown asked me if I was interested in some event. Details were sketchy. Bored, I agreed. I then met up with a young man, no one from RL, I knew him. He was tanned, with a thatch of thick, black hair, a wide, toothy white grin, short and pudgy. We went to catch transportation to the event. The running shoes I wore were new and hurt my feet. They just felt too narrow, pinching the sides of my feet.
We got on an old school bus with many others, all males, and were taken to a field, a short journey. There I learned that we were supposed to be taking part in a running event. I was annoyed because I didn’t know that’s what we were going to do. If I’d known, I would have worn different shoes. But I was stuck with us. Waiting, many of us took our shoes off. We were all wondering why we were waiting. I realized that most of the others were in military uniforms, variations of desert style camouflage. Unshaven, they were in the US Army. I held myself away from them because I as ex Air Force, but didn’t say anything.
I wanted to get running and get it done. Several others were expressing the same thing. My young friend was saying no, wait. I kept asking why, what are you waiting for. While he would explain, I gathered he was waiting for other friends, which annoyed me. Finding my shoes, I announced I was going to start running.
My shoes fit much better. I was surprised how comfortable they were and then realized, that was because they weren’t my shoes. Taking them off, I found my shoes and fiddled with them, pushing out the sides and loosening the strings to make them more comfortable. That worked to a moderate degree.
Feeling like the shoes would work for a distance, I announced that I was going to start running. Others were saying the same. A few began jogging. I decided I was going to run the entire route and took off running fast. As I ran, I heard others talking about how fast I was running. That prompted me to run faster and harder. I vowed that I was going to run fast the entire way. Everyone was going to be amazed by how fast I ran.
Then I was off, by myself, running.
Just In A Dream
Another hill to climb.
Sweat plagued his eyes. He sniffed and swallowed, wishing for water. He’d been going since sunup. Heat and humility built around him. It seemed determined to crush him like a grape.
Giving up was considered and dismissed. He was here and going to do it. Doubt about whether he was following the instructions kept bouncing through, confusing him about what the little thing told him. Half-asleep, he wasn’t sure if it was a robot, tiny human, or something else, like an elf or fairy. They hadn’t introduced themselves. Maybe it wasn’t even real. Just his imagination.
Without preamble, “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)” derailed his thinking. Didn’t matter. He’d reached the hill’s crest. Signposts were ahead. An intersection. Down this hill and up another. Stepping faster, he was there in less than ten minutes, perspiring with more vigor, and breathless. He didn’t think he’d need water for this. Not for a dream. Didn’t think it’d be sunny, or like a day in any way.
The signpost was in the center of a large gold-bricked circle. Arrow shaped signs. About a hundred of them. No, more than that. Maybe a thousand. Different colors, languages, and printing styles. Looked crude. Homemade.
His little nocturnal visitor sounded like an irritated teacher when they said, “I’m tired of you sitting around, whining, waiting, and wishing, so I’m doing you a solid.”
They pointed. “See that?”
Slow because he was half-asleep, he pressed to see what the little one meant even though the little one was still talking. “Get in there and turn left for the past, right for the future, or straight ahead to another existence. Whichever way you go, you’ll come to a signpost.
“You better hurry if you’re going to do it. The portal will close and fade, and your opportunity will be gone.”
“Wait, what?” He sat up. Yawned. Stretched. Rubbed his eyes. Massaged his genitals. Considered peeing. Frowned. “What?”
His small visitor was barely a fading memory. The opening remained where there was usually a wall. A portal? Thinking, I must still be dreaming and I’ll wake up at any moment, he entered the opening. Fearing the future, regretting his past – too many things to change there and who knows how it would turn out – he’d gone straight.
He stared up at the signs. Words emerged. Animals.
A frown creased his face. What was that about? He’d always liked cats and they liked him. He admired birds. Dogs were okay…
He stepped in the cat’s direction with slow, short steps. Shivers tickled him. Changes took place. His fingers were gone. Paws halfway through construction had replaced them. Looked like he’d be a black cat.
He backed up. More shivers traveling him, his fingers returned.
Did he want to be a cat? He looked back down the road he’d followed to come here with the thought, maybe he should have gone to the past to see what he could have changed. He might have been hasty.
The road was gone. Nothing was there. Gray nothing.
He walked toward it. The gray nothing stopped him from advancing. Like trying to wade through stiffening tar.
Well, what the hell. This was only a dream.
He turned back to the sign and read the offerings. No doubt, that’s what they were. Unicorn. Whale. Elephant. Dog. Kracken. Dolphin.
Dragon, he saw.
Dragon. It’d be so cool to be a dragon, even if just in a dream.
But bravery wasn’t in his personal inventory. He stood, staring, considering, flounder, eel, coral snake, eagle – eagle would be fun. Puma. Tiger. Heron. Emu. Alligator.
No. With all of his fears and hopes, the best thing he could become is something fantastic.
Happy with his decision, he turned and advanced, shivering and coughing as he grew and changed until at last he walked out of a high mountain cave into a purple dusk. Spreading his golden wings, he released a fiery roar and felt the world’s fear. Yes, being a dragon was going to be so cool.
Even if it was just in a dream.
The Ballgame Dream
Another bizarre dream. I was with a team playing football, except there were only five or six to a team. It was a tournament, with many other teams, but we were all in gym shorts — mine were navy blue — and white tee shirts.
One of my teammates came in, exclaiming with excitement, “We’re up next,” repeating this, and then going on, “Okay, this is what we’ll do.” He directed me to let another player piggyback onto me. The plan was that we’d give him the ball while I carried him.
While we practiced the play and the others were joyous with certainty that this was the winning strategy, I expressed doubts. I elaborated that I’m not large or very strong and I wouldn’t be able to do this often or for long.
But they were insistence, positive that this would work, and that’s what we did when it was our turn to play. I remember laughing as I carried him. Sometimes he urged me to run with him on my back as he carried the ball, but he also passed the ball from his position on my back or had me run a route, carrying him, so he could catch a pass.
The dream ended with me on my hands and knees in the grass with him on my back, my teammates running up as we all laughed.
The Alien Invasion Dream
It began against a scorched black and red sky. I was my current age. The sky was a backdrop as a group of us left one area, heading for a refugee site. We’d been fighting the aliens, and I’d gained experience and insights. My group was small: four. All survivors who had fought.
We arrived at the packed refugee center. An immense aerial battle was underway, with USAF fighter jets fighting invader ships. The AF seemed to be winning. Refugees cheered as invader craft went down with plumes of black smoke.
I knew better, shaking my head, warning the refugees, “It takes more than that to kill the aliens.” I’d fought the glistening white creatures. I knew how they functioned. They needed to be set afire and completely destroyed. If even a small piece survived, it would grow. As it grew, it would attempt to reconnect telepathically with other alien beings. As it grew, it would look for a host human or animal body.
I told the refugees, “We must find and destroy every piece of alien.” I described what to look for. Children rushed up. They’d seen alien pieces and stamped them with their feet. I was horrified. “Don’t stamp on them. Get your shoes off and burn them. The aliens will be clinging to your soles, and they’ll grow and take you over.”
The refugees scoffed. A young, short female survivor in my group said, “Listen to him. He knows what he’s talking about. Do what he says if you want to survive.”
Her words made the difference. The refugees believed me. I went around with people, organizing groups, making certain they had fire. We set up children to look for surviving alien pieces. They walked around in threes. When an alien was found, two stayed there to mark the place while the third went to find an adult to burn it.
The process seemed to be working. Then I saw a small alien piece come up out of the drain in a tub. Although I immediately burned it, more small pieces emerged. I burned them, too, then sent out the warning, the aliens are in the drains. They’re coming up. Check the sinks and tubs. Check everywhere there’s a drain pipe.
I found a tub where a large alien piece had already come up. Approaching it to burn it, it shot out tongue like pieces of itself, trying to hit me. I knew that if it hit me, it would take me over.
Another person said, “They’re going after you. They know you’re a threat.”
I agreed. The conclusion implied scary ramifications about intelligence and awareness of these surviving pieces. Another arrived with the intelligence that more aliens were coming up the drains. “They’re coming up everywhere. We can’t stop them.”
I entered another bathroom. A large, white alien almost filled the tub. In the middle of it was a naked toddler. The child was looking at me and smiling. I said, “The aliens have taken over that child. We need to kill it.”
Intense dream. Really shook me.
A Long Melancholy Dream
AKA, the Four Cars Dream
It could have been known as the Big House Dream, as well. Although I was about forty years old at the dream’s beginning, I was twenty at the end.
It began with a search for car keys.
I was looking for the keys for a car I owned when I was twenty, a signal orange Porsche 914. The drawer where I kept the keys was shallow and white. Another set of keys, for my RX-7, was in there, but where were the Porsche keys?
I began going through the house looking. The house was huge, rambling, and one story, with many low stone arches. Every room was empty except for that first one, which had a desk. This was my house; I’d newly acquired it.
Unable to find the keys, I ambled around the house until I stopped in one long and wide, all-white room. One piece of white furniture, a sort of stand turned upside down, was in it. Finding a can of black paint, I painted the stand. Finding other cans, I spray-painted the walls purple. As I finished up, a large, rotund, bald man with huge, muscular arms came in.
“There you are,” he said. “I need you to come with me.” He looked around at the painted room. “Nice job.”
I knew he was my minder and followed him. I was thirty by now. My minder told me that there was someone to see me. My minder showed me to the door.
Walking up a residential street, I encountered my old friend, Jeff. I haven’t seen or heard from him in RL in almost forty years. Jeff told me he had exciting news. He’d inherited a classic Porsche 911 from a friend. The guy had completely rebuilt it, and the car was pristine. Truly impressed, I congratulated Jeff. Jeff then said that he had a car for me and gave me the keys to a BMW. He said that he didn’t need it and he wanted me to have it.
I was flattered. I tried to turn it down. Jeff insisted. I accepted the keys to the car. The car wasn’t around. Jeff was going to have it shipped to me.
We parted. He went back up a hill, and I returned to my house.
I was now in my mid-twenties, wearing a brown leather jacket which I remember owning from RL. My minder was there, along with a girl who I knew to be sixteen. Her dark brown hair, like the color of oak, was long and shiny, framing a petite oval face. She smiled often, shyly. She wore jeans and a white button-down men’s shirt. She never said her name that I heard.
The minder left us. We chatted, with her peppering me with questions. Hearing a noise, I went out through one of the larger stone arches. It was late dusk, and the light was low. This arch opened to a path that entered the woods. I thought I heard and saw people down the path. It was my property, so I was concerned about what they were doing. As I walked, I picked up several flat stones to throw, if needed, as protection.
The girl had stayed back. After I returned, she questioned me about what was going on. I told her about the people and stood ready with the rocks. Young people came down the path, but they turned away from my house and property and kept going. Not needing my rocks, I set them down. With the BMW keys in hand from Jeff, I returned to the search for my Porsche car keys. This time I found them in the drawer where I’d first search. There was nothing else in the drawer. I thought that they must not have been there before, and someone must have placed them there after I’d searched.
I was now twenty. The minder returned. He said that Jeff wanted to see me. I went to the front door. Appearing very old, sad, and tired, Jeff told me that he’d decided to give me the Porsche which he inherited. I tried talking him out of it. He told me that he drove the car and saw himself in it, and that he looked ridiculous. The car didn’t fit him, but he believed it would suit me. Handing me the keys, he left.
I went outside of my house and sat against one of its stone walls. The girl came out and asked what was wrong. I told her that I was thinking about my friends and how I missed them. She noticed the keys and inquired after them. I told them that they were to four cars which I owned, and then described them. I could see each one. My Porsche was an orange 1974 model; the BMW was also a 1974 model. The green 911 Jeff gave me was a 1971 model year, and the blue Mazda was a 1981, which I had bought. She was most impressed when I mentioned the BMW, calling it a Bimmer. She said she really liked them. I answered, “No, you don’t understand, this is a vintage car from the 1970s, a white 2002. You’ve probably never seen one. They stopped making them before you were born.” I remembered then that I’d owned a BMW 2002 in RL and became confused: was I dreaming or remembering?
More dream followed about taking a trip with other people, but this is where I’ll stop.
A Messy Dream
Although, it was in a military setting, I thought the messy theme provided the important aspect.
Young again, I was with a bunch of other military in a battlestaff room. Large and horse-shoe shaped, it had multiple phones, display panels, maps, flags, all that sort of thing. Unlike standard battlestaff areas, this one had large windows, too, showing that we were in the middle of the night.
I knew all the military there. We weren’t working, but just hanging around together. It seemed like a large party with elements of a sleepover. I had an impression that was never clarified that we were waiting for something. Plates, food, sleeping bags, and pillows cluttered the place, offending my sense of order.
Knots of conversation were going on. Laughter abounded, and pizza and vegetable trays were set up. Almost all the others were officers. They teased me about being serious. I walked around, eating food, looking for things to do, feeling isolated. Some were gathered around an older style television, large and square, full of tubes. They were watching red and black action and trying to figure out what it was. I joined them and realized they were watching the ‘TNT’ cable network, and then said, “This is a NASCAR race.” Bizarrely, the screen was almost all black; the cars were outlined in bright red.
I went on from that, shaking my head, and then decided to leave to get clothes. I hastened to my place. Getting there just required going down corridors and around corners. Reaching there, I found my wife all dressed up to go out. She said she wanted to go back with me. I said, “Why not?”
When we returned, I did a general introduction of my wife. I sat and she sat on my lap, flirting with me and kissing me. I enjoyed this but then she said she was going back to our place. That was fine. Whatever was going on seemed to be drawing down as about half of the gathered personnel trickled out. Walking around, I discovered phone lines blinking. I asked, “Why isn’t anyone answering any of these phones?”
One of the others replied, “We didn’t want to.”
Annoyed, I began answering phones. Nobody was on usually. Walking around, I discovered that they’d taken the hotlines off their cradles. Back in the decades I was in the military, these phones were red, black, and yellow. All were set off by themselves and were dedicated to specific purposes — one was the red phone which hooked up to headquarters and national command authorities. The black one was for the secondary crash net, for when a major accident was happening, used to pass information to many agencies at once. Beside it was a dark green one, used to connect with the Central Security Center. Another, which was green, was the AUTOVON system, a sort of military long-distance calling network.
All these phones were off their cradles, horrifying me. As I chastised the others, they laughed off my concerns. I also discovered that the UHF & VHF radios were turned off.
Oh, my God, I couldn’t believe it. They’d basically ignored all calls or disabled all communication systems. As I did, I found muddy foot prints all over the floors.
I went about fixing it all. Hard rain began pelting the windows. I looked around and discovered the others were gone, leaving only a mess.
Dream end.
The Cougar Dream
My wife and I were in an austere but large, yet old, cement apartment. The walls were deep pink. So was the ceiling and furniture but the floor was burnt gold. Furniture was scant – bed, table, one stick chair. The ceiling was low and the lumens from the few lights weren’t high.
It was night. Awakening and turning on the lights, I discovered a huge cougar prowling the room. The animal’s presence shocked and terrified me. The cougar was closer to me than my wife. I told her, “Go open the doors so it can get out.” Meanwhile, I made myself big to keep the animal from attacking me, raising my arms over my head. Extending that thinking, I climbed backwards up on the bed. Picking up the pillows, I held them over my head.
The cougar watched all of this with quizzical interest. It was an enormous, healthy, beautiful animal. Meanwhile, my wife was walking around and talking. I kept telling her, “Open the door, let the lion out,” but she seemed more interested in trying to make friends with it. The animal moved away from me. With its back to me, I jumped down and shooed it toward a door. Just as I got it out, two men opened the door and let it back in. They were joking about letting my cat out while I told them, “No, no, no, we were trying to get it out.”
I then left. Outside was bright and sunny. I was on a narrow, sandy beach. Turquoise water lapped gently to my right. Nobody else was around. I walked a while, enjoying the breeze, sounds, and sunlight, before stepping into the warm, tranquil water and bathing myself.
I shared this dream with my wife. She noted the cougar never threatened anyone. I agreed; I saw it as a threat, but it never threatened anyone. She said that bathing myself was a sign of cleansing myself. I told her, after encountering that cougar, I needed to clean myself off.
Michael Seidel, writer 