Tag: Dream

A Race Car Dream

I was a young man. And I was at some kind of car race where I was to be a participant. Several emerging factors swirled and fell and rose. Nobody was expecting me. I wasn’t sure what was going on. I then confirmed, gosh, I am in this race.

Employing strange dream logic, the race was sometimes played as a card game with a board track. Other times, it seemed like a slot car setup, but then it was sometimes full-sized race cars. I’d seamlessly skip between those motifs but the dream itself was mostly centered on race control where I’d check the time sheets, find out where I was on the track, and learn my position. The people populating race control were all tall, older, and white. Most seemed British. I never saw any of the cars so I can’t comment on their colors or livery. But I would identify them. Like I told some once that another driver was piloting a Porsche 917 and another was driving a P3 Ferrari. Someone else was wheeling the Silk Cut Jaguar XJ9.

I swapped cars. I don’t know what I was driving but I suddenly announced, grinning, “I’m driving a Ford GT.” This is a car which won LeMans and the world championship in the mid 1960s and helped seduce me as a racing fan when I was nine. I didn’t specify which variant I was driving.

I learned that I’d qualified fourth but some bureaucratic snafu shuffled me to the pack’s tail end. That didn’t bother me; I shrugged it off with a grin. I was confident that I would win, as I’d qualified fourth with minimal effort. Now, recalling, I actually did have one segment where I was in the car, on the track, during the race, passing clusters of other cars. I then left the car, blink, and was back at race control to check my standing. They didn’t know who I was. I was certain I was leading but they dismissed it. I was told that I’d done something incorrectly and my laps hadn’t been counted. I didn’t know I was supposed to do that, I protested, but that wasn’t their issue.

None of that fazed me. Grinning, I told them, “But I have all these chits.” The chits were small red paper rectangles, like the old-time ticket stubs given at movies in decades past. I received them every time I completed a lap. As I told them about the chits, I held up a fistful of them. Expressing astonishment, they counted the chits and announced that I was in the lead.

I met the news with a happy grin and readied myself to keep racing. Dream end.

I enjoyed discovering this footage of the 1966 LeMans race featuring the Ford GTs. Nice to hear the voices of Bruce McLaren, Dan Gurney, Denis Hulme, etc., and see them. Of course, the staged Ford 1-2-3 finish was made famous in the movie Ford vs. Ferrari, where Ken Miles (played by Christian Bale) was first across the finish line but was deemed not to be the winner because another car started further back, so it covered more distance.

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Soonday Morning

Mood: Soontobe

It’s Soonday, December 9, 2024. We’re enjoying a clear sky loaded with sunshine and an outdoor tempy of 28 F. Frost has shadowy places airbushed with white influences. A dense fog warning is percolating while 49 F is being dangled in front of us as a high. Should say that it’s my local system calling out 28; in other parts of Ashlandia, sunshine has cleared the forests and mountains and 42 is already being experienced. A friend’s weather setup, available via Wunderground, has his temperature at 31 F. Dress appropriately.

Moving slow this morning. That’s why I’m calling this soon day. Soon, I’ll get up and do things. Soon I’ll leave and get my hair cut. Soon. Night fraught with dreams and restlessness are keeping the go pedal from getting engaged, even though coffee and I have said our hellos. One dream featured me as a young man with young friends and relatives, traveling to another place. Along the way, I stopped to visit with others. There, I rested in sunshine and told people of other people’s businesses failing, along with places such as airports not being built. It ended with me trying to pull a nuisance weed, which then bloomed, leaped out of the ground and ran away, freaking us out. Then we laughed.

This cold weather and clear sky put me into a whirlpool of childhood memories. Once, while going outside to play football with friends when I was almost a teenager, I was accosted by mom. “Put a heavier coat on, for God’s sake,” she said. “It’s winter outside.”

Wise me replied, “It’s not winter yet, Mom, until the solstice, December 22.”

She answered, “It’s winter when it’s cold and the snow starts falling to me.”

We were living in Penn Hills, a Pittsburgh, PA, suburb. Snow had been falling since before Thanksgiving. Therefore, it was winter.

I used to talk to her about her winters in Iowa. She loved those days, she said, because they would stay in the house, where it was cozy and warm, and play games, listen to the radio, talk, cook, and clean. Winter remains her favorite season for those reasons.

Those memories crystallized into two songs for me last night. Both are called “Our House”. They’re very different. The first was dropped into the morning mental music stream (Trademark frozen) when a television show featured it ysterday evening. This is the “Our House” by Crosy, Stills, Nash, and Young. My wife sang along with it; that stirred The Neurons up, and triggered that memory whirlpool. But a rebel group of Neurons countered with “Our House” by Madness. Two very different songs. The CSNY offering says, “Our house is a very very fine house. With two cats in the yard. Life used to be so hard. Now everything is easy cause of you.” Madness sings, “Father wears his Sunday best, Mother’s tired, she needs a rest, the kids are playing up downstairs. Sister’s sighing in her sleep. Brother’s got a date to keep, he can’t hang around.” The CSNY version is about a young couple’s domestic tranquility. Madness offers a portrait of hustle, growth, and noise.

Let’s get positive (sung to Olivia Newton-John’s “Let’s Get Physical) and move forward. 2025 is almost here. Here’s the music to help you along. Cheers

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Woundsday’s Theme Music

Mood: Reinvigorated

It’s Woundsday, December 4, 2024. The stagnant air seemed to have shifted a little, as the chill has abated. Although Ashlandia is claimed to be foggy, my perch’s view was fog free. Sunshine enriched blue skies took the vision field from end to end. Now, 11 AM, my personal weather sys says it’s 46 F outside. Alexa claimed it’ll be 67 F today but I don’t trust it. Other forecasts say 57 F today, which seems reasonable.

It’s Woundsday because I’ve been busy this morning licking my wound. Eww. Gross. Figuratively licking my wounds. The wound is the surgery site to repair my ankle. Much better today, thanks. Now I’m practicing my walk, trying to rid myself of my limp, regain some grace, and speed up my stride.

We’ve been following several news stories. One is that another Trump nominee has withdrawn. I’m not celebrating as I’m sure he’ll find a horrid replacement. My wife then regaled me with a few Buzzfeed anecdotes about people realizing what their support of Trump means to what goes on in their world. Trump nominees are surprising them. Examples include a business women who was planning equipment purchases being taught what the tariffs will do. Then there are parents with a child in Headstart just learning that Trump intends to shut down Headstart and now wonder what will happen to their child. In other words, they’re gettin’ woke by their vote.

Also following a story in Pennsylvania about a woman who fell into a sinkhole while looking for her cat in Tuesday morning’s cold, dark hours. I’m from that area and have family still living in the region, so it’s one of those six degrees of separation things. I hope they find her alive and well but I’m sadly doubtful at this point.

Today’s music in the morning mental music stream (Trademark okay) is “Feelin’ Alright”. I posted this song back in 2016. I wrote then: “I’d only recently learned that Dave Mason wrote this song. I knew that Traffic had performed it, but in my heart, this song always belonged to Joe Cocker. Whichever group or performer does it, the song always lifts me up. I loved it when he sang it in concert.” Still standing with that declaration. It’s my song for Woundsday because I’m going to have beers with my friends tonight. It’s our usual Wednesday setup. I haven’t attended for seven weeks. Haven’t had a beer in that period, too. I did have wine and rum with mulled cider on T-Day, though. Beyond that, I’m walking well and experiencing minimal discomfort and pain.

I woke from a dream this morning and remembered open lines from a Dylan Thomas poem.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The dream had been about reinventing myself and reinventing the world, so I can understand the connection with the poem. It’s one of my top five poems.

Hope you have a superb Wednesday, and the days beyond today are also superb as we count down the last of 2024. Coffee and I have rekindled our relationship once again. We’re good to the last drop. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Munday’s Theme Music

Mood: Mundacity

Yeah, it’s Munday, December 2, 2024. Just a couple notes on it. Temp is rising and falling between 26 and 28 F. Sun is kicking in. First strokes can be witnessed in the dining room’s southern window, which catches the sun’s approach from the southeast as it jabs through and around trees branches. Fog is doing a swirling veil dance. Alexa said it’ll be 56 F today. Same claim made yesterday and we barely topped 43, so I know where I’m putting my money.

Many people don’t realize the Monday as a day of the week comes from Middle English mondeyne which itself is derived from Late Latin, mundanus. It all means ‘common place’ as in ‘nothing special’. Boring. Routine. Mundane. Monday. Munday.

Trump continues with his authoritarian cabinet o’ clowns. Mockpaperscissors shares a scope outta the New Yorker about the dishonorable Pete Hegseth. True grrrspiring stuff about his drunken leadership and how he sexualizes women. Nice note about his drunken chants, “Kill all Muslims!” Bet those Muslims who clamored for Trump over Harris are creaming their pants with pleasure over that. Who coulda known that Trump woulda picked such a piece of meat for a high-rankin’ gubment position. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

My wife asked me last night how old I thought Papi was. We reminisced about his interactions with us. He first showed up on a fence back when Scheckter, one of the original Orange Boiz, was still alive. Papi, then called Meep for his tiny meow (yeah, he’s grown outta that), showed up on the backyard fence like a little Scheckter mini me.

Scheckter

Meep aka Papi

Records show Meep has lived with us since May of 2017. While Schecter was warm and sweet, Meep, I mean Papi, remains guarded and wary. When I informed my wife of my research, she remarked the same about the two floofs. Scheckter was a cuddler and lap dweller; Papi has been on my lap once for three pico seconds.

Dreams inspired The Neurons’ music choice today. I was reflecting about a dream of a levitating train I was driving through an apocalyptic ‘Merica. Thinking about the dream highights, I noted that it was a simple life of travel in the flying train with a small group of people. The Neurons shook my head. Out came No Doubt with “Simple Kind of Life”. “And all I wanted was a simple thing, a simple kind of life” keeps circulating the morning mental music stream (Trademark freeze-dried).

Sunshine owns all the living and dining rooms’ windows now. Blue sky speckled with withdrawn clouds rule the view. It’s 30 F. Coffee and I have found common ground again. Look up and open your eyes. Take a deep breath. Inhale; exhale. Here we go, December’s first Munday. Hope it’s a wonderful one for you. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: sunpleastic

December 1! Here at last. Turn the page and count down the days until your holiday of choice and the end of this year as the majority reckon it here in ‘Merica.

That cold front from out of the Arctic is still dominating. Sunday, it’s 32 F out there. Cold air throws our valley. See, that doesn’t work there, does it? Although through is a synonym for blanket, it only works in that capacity as a noun, not a verb. No wonder we’re so often confused.

While it’s 32 F now, that’s up froom the 18 that greeted me at dawn’s start a few hours back. 56 is the whispered high. We’ll see. Yesterday’s projected high was never approached. I think we topped out at 40 F. We have a stagnant air alert going on, and that always affects the temperature’s dance moves.

From a dream comes today’s theme music, “Beat It”. The 1983 Michael Jackson hit is in my morning mental music stream (Trademark icy) after a dream began playing it when the dream faded out. No credits were rolled for the dream, though. I have no idea who produced or directed it. I did star in it but I don’t know the other stars. They weren’t recognized. That’s not to say that they’re not stars in their own rights; I only have access to my dreams. They may have starred in other dreams which were only released to the individual having them.

“Beat It” came out when I was living on Okinawa, an island that’s part of Japan, and site of a major Pacific battle in dubya dubya two. I was there for almost four years as part of my military service. My neighbor, Carol, was so excited about this song and its video. In retrospect, she was a Michael Jackson fan girl. I was okay with the song. Has some interesting vocal and musical elements and tones. I don’t know why it was chosen for the dream’s closing sequence. It didn’t seem at all related to the dream’s context and action. I queried The Neurons about it but they’re as transparent as brick.

Hope your Sunday is a good one and a fine start to December. Coffee and I have renewed our vows and I’m sipping in bliss. Here’s the music. This video shows Slash from GNR standing in to interpret Van Halen’s original solo guitar. Hope you enjoy it. Cheers

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The Dream Collection

First, I dreamed that my ankle was completely healed. Such a real dream that when I awoke, I asked myself, did I dream that? Checking the ankle, I confirmed, nope, not healed. Yet.

Next dream had me dealing with space. A father was in space, apparently as an astronaut. It wasn’t clear if he was a private citizen, military, government effort, etc., but the news was full of his attempt. Then, boom, we were all looking up at a starry explosion on the edge of Earth’s atmosphere. Then the newspaper, electronic, and digital media is full of his disaster and death.

I wasn’t involved in any of this, just a spectator. Talking about the matter in a fractured dream process under a blue sky, my friends and I went off to get lunch. But while this progressed, I put forward the man’s daughter, a four-year-old, had been with him, and he was launching her separately back to Earth. I kept insisting that she was out there, coming back. All others were doubtful. We hunted down a tracking monitor. As we watched it, another object was being traced across the sky. There was a target arc and vector it was supposed to be following. As it veered off that, reports of a crash came in. Everyone agreed it was her and that her vehicle crashed and she was deceased. But I remained optimistic that she’d come down, and that what we’d seen was just a ruse to throw everyone off. Certainty remained in me that she’d made it back. Then I stated my belief that her father had also made it back, using the distraction of his spectacular destruction as a diversion.

That’s where the dream ended. Who this man and his daughter were supposed to be and why we cared is a complete unknown.

The night’s final dream found me with a power to make toys come to life. I could also make them grow larger. Once I learned of my ability, I tested it on a yellow toy dump truck and a green army tank. Finding my wife sitting on top of a tiny green hill, I demonstrated my new skills to her as my black and white cat, Tucker, watched.

In true dream strangeness, I then went to a cafeteria to find something to eat. Although the dining room was full, they were preparing to close. I got in line. Only a young couple were ahead of me. Cloying and loving, they were annoying and silly as they flirted and teased one another over their food selections. Seeing me waiting behind me, they apologized and offered to let me go ahead. I declined and they finished a few minutes later. Stepping up, I found that only pasta with a brown meat sauce and hot dogs were available. I piled some pasta on the plate and then loaded up two hotdogs. Eating one of the dogs, I thought, wow, that really tastes good. I was pleased with having it to eat and scarf the rest down.

My wife rushed in, interrupting my meal to warn me that something was happening to one of my toys. Her explanation was inchoherent so I just ran to where she indicated. As she said, my largest toy, a stuffed bull which was now a dozen yards tall, had fallen into a deep water. I ran over, trying to think instructions for getting out to the bull. But I was still assimilating the situation and didn’t have a clear idea yet.

The bull was running in a circle under the water. I thought he would drown. Then I saw that my black and white cat, Tucker, was riding the bull. As I gaped, I realized that Tucker was guiding the bull. Encouraged by that, I thought instructions to Tucker to help him, telling him to turn toward the shallows. Apparently receiving the guidance and applying it, Tucker guided the racing bull left and left again, and up and out of the water.

Dream end

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The Swimming Dream

Awoke from a dream where I was swimming. Underwater with my eyes open, I Iooked up at the water’s surface from below and thought, that’s really scummy water. It was some sort of swimming hole and crowded with people. I broke the water’s surface.

I was young, in my teens, with others also in their teens. A girl my age was watching as I broke the water. She wore a red bathing suit. Grinning at her, I said something but she turned and moved away. I was with four or five other guys but none are memorable. We were talking about naming something. I had an idea about naming something and suggested it to them. They wanted more conversation about it. I told them, let’s get over in shallow water and talk about it, because we were all treading water and talking was difficult.

I tried swimming away then but dropped into the water. I thought I’d hit the bottom but the water was deeper than expected. I let myself drop and settle until my foot hit the bottom, and then kicked off hard.

I awoke groaning. I had surgery on my ankle a month ago and am still in recovery. It was now telegraphing pain and discomfort. I believe that while I was dreaming, I moved my legs and foot in real life, and kicked out, hitting something hard with my injured appendage.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Determoptimistic

November 20, 2024, finds us on a Wednesday. Gray and white clouds plaster the sky. 38 F and rainy out there. High will be four degrees north.

Winds are smacking the trees around. Tall conifers take the worse, swinging back from each punch, drunkenly rebounding. Began yesterday afternoon. By dusk, the wind was crooning around windows and corners. Then came sounds of winds running like tractor-trailers down the Interstate.

8:10 PM, blink, out went the power. People reported a bang. Others saw a large blue flash. Investigating crews found a surrendering tree had taken on a major power line.

My wife and I were in the snug when it happened. We turned off our computers. I moved through the familiar dark house, phone in hand in case I needed a light, to get a flashlight in a cubby by the foyer. Armed with it, I fired up the gas fireplace. We dug out candles and lit them, and several more flashlights, then checked messages and learned the tale of the outage via emergency texts.

Unknowing of how long the outage would be, my wife bathed by candlelit. The bath water was saved in case it got worse and flushing water was needed. Then she dragged out the Trivial Pursuit cards. We spent thirty minutes answering those, then we each armed ourselves with a flashlight and read. Fortunately, the gas fireplace kept us relatively comfy at 68 F.

Texts sent at 8:55 PM informed us the power would be back up within two hours. 10:35 PM, and the house beeped, chirped, and lit up as the power was restored. We learned we were the fortunate; a small section didn’t get their electricity back until this morning. Hope they all endured the night well.

Papi the ginger blade did not like this storm. Comfort couldn’t find him with all the noise. He finally decided outside, in his patio condo, was his safe space, staying there until just after midnight. About that time, the wind reset to a calmer level but rain poured out of the darkness. Papi came in to escape the wet, staying until sixish. Duty as patrol floof called then. Tail up, he bravely marched out.

Locally, I don’t spy damage on my street. Snow resides on pines and firs on the upper ranges. News reports are in that they’d closed the pass for snow on I5 from our southern exit to the California border.

Without revealing their reasoning, The Neurons invested the morning mental music stream (Trademark damp) with “Folsom Prison Blues”. Johnny Cash wrote the song, then recorded and released it n 1955. That was a year before my birth. It’s literally — and I ain’t talkin’ hyperbole here — been around my entire life. And I heard it. Mom had JC albums, so it was on there. Television liked Cash, and he showed up singing the tune on the small screen. Featured in movies, the rockabilly tune was heard on AM radio in cars and houses.

The Neurons may have pulled this up in response to a dream. I had a caper dream. Working with two other guys, we were stealing something but we’d been forced into it. They were setting me up, I found, so worked to subvert their plans. At the end, after all successfully passed and I was leaving, I found that one of the others knew of my plans and used them to save himself, in effect aiding me as he did. Fun dream.

Alright, let’s muster some positive energy. Coffee is in mug, ready to wash down my negativity. Here we go. Cheers

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The Snow Pellets Dream

This was a weird and short dream.

I was sitting in sunshine at a picnic table in a grassy area. Alone, but relaxed, I vaguely awaited someone’s arrival. As thoughts wandered in the dream, I turned and saw a white substance. My dream reaction mirrored how my real-life self would have reacted, and I though, WTF?

Examining the white stuff, I found it to be shaped like small snow pellets. Unlike snow pellets, these were not cold.

I didn’t understand where they were coming from for several seconds. It piled up fast but wasn’t falling from the sky. Then it hit: oh, shit, this is coming from me. I leaped to a conclusion: these white pellets were my substance.

Then it got weird.

Needing to save my essence, I started piling it together, careful to ensure none slipped away. While I did this, I thought, I need to get this back into me; how do I do that?

Fortunately, my head zipped open across my skull’s crown. Thankful for the opening, I gleefully began shoveling handfuls of the white pellets back into me.

Dream end.

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The Black Cat Dream

One of our floofs was a big black cat named Boo. With a stub for his tail, he wandered into our yard one day asking for food, and we welcomed him. He was in good shape so we went looking for his owners. No one ever claimed him.

We lost him to cancer a few years ago but he visited me in a dream last night. He spent time laying beside me purring, looking at me, talking to me. Then he followed me around as I went through the house and out to trim the yard bushes.

Thinking about this dream, I realize there’s a lot of my recent dreams which seem to be about yearning for a time when things were happier, when I was younger, and when the future is brighter.

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