Tag: Dream

A Weird Dream

My wife didn’t act like herself in this dream last night. Two things were most odd.

We were traveling and in a huge building. I wasn’t certain what the building was. Sometimes in the dream, I thought it was an airport terminal, but other times, I believed it was a mall, or an indoor military base. There were signs that it could have been any of those.

Whatever it was, the place was well-lit, clean, and modern. Wide halls with thick, white pillars dominated, with alcoves and shorter, narrower hallways off to either side. Wanting something to eat, my wife and I found some fake chicken (my wife is a vegetarian). It was in a green box. Acquiring it was only half of the problem, because we needed somewhere to cook it. We needed a microwave. I thought we could find one in a break room or snack bar, so we began searching.

But, for some reason, I opened the green box, laid out the fake chicken nuggets, and then attempted to eat one of the frozen, uncooked pieces. Repulsed, I spat it out in my hand and put it back on the back plate (where there were two rows of six pieces).

While that was going on, my wife took off. I didn’t know where she was, requiring me to look for her. I was carrying around the tray of fake chicken parts while I looked for her. There weren’t many other people in this dream, so I found it quickly and hastened to catch up. I reminded her that  we needed to cook the fake chicken parts. She seemed distracted, and after some back-and-forth, she told me she was looking for a car so we could drive somewhere.

We found a car and a microwave at the same time, but she went for the car. While she drives, when we’re together, I’m the primary driver. In this dream, though, she jumped in the driver’s seat. I think the car was a newer silver American sedan, like a Ford Fusion. We drove a short distance through the building, and then she stopped the car and left it.

Confused, I was asking her, “What are you doing? We can’t just leave the car here.”

She ignored me, proceeding to ramble around the aisles and alcoves. I followed, trying to make sense of what she was doing.

Dream ended.

I’m just not in control, am I?

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The Stairs Dream

Here’s a dream fragment from last night.

I was walking a carpeted hallway when I came to a doorway at the hallway’s end. Dark brown, it was a metal door, the kind found in office buildings in America as emergency exits. Not seeing any signs, I looked back and then decided to open it and go through. As I am in life, I was cautious when I use doors like this, and confirmed that it wasn’t locked, and that I could open it from the other side. I didn’t want to be trapped somewhere.

The other side was a well-lit landing. I seemed to be in the middle of a building. I didn’t see any signs, but I decided on an impulse that I’d go up.

Up I went, with my feet clattering on the stairs, which, I realized, were metal. Okay. After going to the next level, I saw a red sign that said in white lettering, “SECOND FLOOR”.

I paused to lean over the railings and look at the stairs above and below. I didn’t see how it could be the second floor. There were a lot of stairs below. It didn’t make any sense. If I was now on the second floor, than the floor I was on before was the first floor, right? Was the first floor the ground floor? I thought, well, maybe the steps going down past that level descend to a basement level or a parking garage.

I decided to go back down. Reaching that floor, I saw another red sign with white lettering, “FIFTH FLOOR”. That make no fucking sense. Facing the door to open it and leave the stairwell, I found a green door. I remembered that it’d been brown. The color change disconcerted me.

As I went to open the door, it opened. A young white male briskly came out. Dressed in business casual, with trim, short-brown hair, he smiled at me as he went by. Then he stopped and said, “Do you need help?”

I said, “What floor is this?”

Pointing at the sign, he said, “The second floor,” which was what the sign said.

As I tried to reconcile that with what’d already happened, he said, “Where are you going?”

“I’m not sure,” I said.

He laughed. “Are you looking for a particular office or person?”

I laughed. “I don’t know what the hell I’m looking for.”

The dream ended.

With a little surprise as I awoke, I thought that I remembering having a dream like this years ago. I thought of it as an ambivalent dream, reflecting my indecisiveness and uncertainty. Yes, where am I going? What do I want to do? I want to write, and I do write, but beyond that, I want publishing success, but I don’t want to market myself or jump through hoops to get published.

Yes, what am I looking for? Sometimes I rue being me.

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The Change Dream

Alone, I was coming down into a valley, leaving forests behind me. The end of an exhausting journey, I’d been walking through the mountains for a long time. It’d been stormy and chaotic up there. I’d been drenched to the skin through my clothes but now I was dry. Even though it was almost the day’s end, it was warmer down here in the valley.

Mountains edged the broad, green valley. A wide river wound through it. The sun’s final beams pierced the clouds in a space where the mountains were lower. Clouds still loitered but there wasn’t any threat of a storm. It was an idyllic, calm scene.

Weary, I slowed to regard the valley, although I still walked, not really thinking of anything but which the direction I should take and my next steps. With that happening, the sun winked behind clouds and mountains, making it instantly chillier. Past the clouds, stars began making their entrances.

Hearing a thunderclap, I started and turned to my left. A huge purple wave raced across the valley, It had a sole peak of amplitude that seemed about ten stories high.

Shock and alarm bolted through my me as I struggled to get a handle on the wave. I was thinking, “What was that?” I answered myself, “It was a wave. Yes, but why?” While I answered, the wave reached the valley’s far end and burst. A white flare arced into the night.

It was the wave that exploded, I thought. That’s a good thing, I decided, smiling to myself. Wasn’t it? Yes, I felt. It meant a big change had taken place. Not sure what had changed, or how, confidence surged into me.

I resumed walking, looking forward to the future.

The dream ended.

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The Friend Dream

I dreamed I was working for a friend. He was unreasonable and kept getting shunned by co-workers. Then he’d be fired and get hired elsewhere.

This happened multiple times. I’d always end up working for him again. We’d always be working in a clean, modern office environment, much like the ones I worked in in Atlanta and Foster City. Realizing what was happening to him, I started avoiding him. This often entailed me going around the hallways to avoid him, but the hallways formed a square, so he could turn around and confront me. Further, a co-worker who also worked for him informed on me.

At last, though, seeing that the inevitable was happening again and deciding that I wanted to break the cycle, I stole into the office, grabbed my gear, and ran out. Hearing him calling me in another hallway, I changed direction and quickened my pass. The co-worker spotted me and called to my friend. I found a stairwell and hustled into it.

Although I was now in the stairwell, I witnessed the co-worker tell my friend what I’d done, and then heard my friend tell her, “If that’s how he wants to play it, I’ll just cut him off.” I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but deciding that I needed to get away, I raced down the the steps and  out the building. As I left the building, I heard him shouting from the door. Looking back, I saw him waving at me.

The dream ended.

The thing is, I worked for this guy several times. We’d worked together in one place and then sought me out and lured me to another place. I enjoyed working for him. He was intelligent, insightful, patient, and good-natured, with good communication skills.

The dream is something to ponder as I go about things today.

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Another Flying Dream

My first thought was, “Shit,” followed by my second thought, “Shit!”

Going backwards, I struggled to grab anything nearby, a futile effort because nothing was nearby. As I went backwards, I was turning my head, taking in my environment, and processing information. This led me to a realization that I was falling backwards.

The sky was dark. It wasn’t night darkness, but stormy darkness. My dream mind split between addressing what was happening now and worries about surviving, to a more intellectual approach that wanted to understand how I’d come to be falling backwards and where I was falling from.

The where part seemed visible as a dark gray castle on a high mountain crag. Some trick of light played with it because I also saw it as a rain-whipped white concrete building with tall, dark windows. The image duality confused me, but they reminded me of ivory tower and Gothic horror. The background for both were thick, charcoal clouds that promised prolonged and violent storming. I seemed to think or recall, my dream self didn’t know which, I’d been climbing, it’d been wet, and I’d slipped. When I did, I lost my grip and the wind blew me off the mountain.

Meanwhile, I was falling straight backward, going down. Knowing that behind (below) me was a steep, treacherous ravine filled with fir trees and boulders, I didn’t relish landing, because it was sure to be painful.

Then, I wasn’t falling down. I seemed to be hanging in the air on my back. I looked left and right, enjoying that. As I did, the wind picked me up and righted me, an action that spread a grin across my face. “Thank you,” I thought to whoever or whatever did that for me.

The weather had delivered on the promised deluge. Winds roared around me as lightning ripped the sky and lightning boomed in best Wagnerian manner. But I was cool with it, calm, but wet, and weirdly, grinning and happy. The dream ended.

I still grin as I remember it, because I looked so happy.

After awakening and cruising through morning routines while drinking coffee and mulling the dream, I thought, this represents the past and traditional ways of doing things (the dark castle), and the intellectual writing process (the ivory tower), and my usual fears of failing (falling), with efforts to reassure me not to worry (floating and then flying).

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Another Car Dream

It was the second part of the dream, begun as I was exiting the first part. Walking across rich, deep green grass of a valley floor, with roads on the hillside above me, I met an elderly white woman. She said, “I have an opportunity for you.”

“Hang on,” I said. I briefly returned to the first part of my dream to tie up some loose ends, telling people, “This woman says she has an opportunity, so I need to go on,” and then resumed the second part.

The dream’s first part had left me satisfied and triumphant with the outcome. I had the sense that I’d made progress, and was continuing to progress, setting the stage for the second part. I was in a confident mood, meeting this woman. She said, “I’d like you to buy and drive exotic cars for me.”

I briefly thought she meant that she wanted me to be her driver, but she said, “I want you to thrash the cars, trash them. I want you to drive them without care and wreck them.”

I said, “You want me to wreck cars?”

“Yes, I want you to buy expensive cars like Ferraris and Aston Martins and drive them like you’re an average driver in an average car.” When she said this, I saw a red Ferrari go by on a hillside road above me. It was like she’d summoned the car.

Her suggestion that I was an average driver and that I’d wreck these cars when I drove them irritated me. “Why do you want me to do this?” I said.

“As a show.” While I thought, television, she said, “No, not like that dreadful Top Gear or those other ones. Buy these cars and live them in the real world and drive them hard. I’ll give you the money. You buy the cars and drive them.”

“And wreck them.”

“If that happens. I want to show what it’s really like having these cars and driving them.”

It was weird to me. I said, “I can imagine my friends’ reaction to this, when I say some lady wants me to buy expensive cars and drive them, and don’t worry about wrecking them.”

“What do you say?” she said.

“I have to think about it,” I said.

“Why? You’ll be paid to drive wonderful cars, without any concerns about what happens to them.”

“I know,” I said, “but it seems wrong.”

The dream ended.

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A Wishful Dream

There was a lot of action in the dream’s early acts, but I want to jump to the part that was sharpest when consciousness gained the upper hand.

Relaxing at last in the dream, free from the previous battles, I discovered that I had a healing power. By looking at someone, I could focus and heal them. When I did that, a light red beam flowed from my eyes and engulfed them.

The first beneficiary was a sick cat, but I soon started testing the envelope’s boundaries. Walking around on a warm, sunny day, I discovered my eyes’ healing powers worked on any animal, humans included, and any disease or injury. It also worked on plants, trees, broken shoe strings, broken windows, and damaged cars. I just kept walking around, healing and fixing everything. Pretty soon, I had a following and people asking me for help. I didn’t turn anyone down, healing everyone and fixing everything. Everyone was happier and happier.

Now, the two weird parts is that I was wearing a sky blue jumpsuit with a white dickey, and I looked like Gil Gerard as he looked in Buck Rogers.

It was a laugher of a dream.

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The Knives and Rain Dream

I was back in the military once again, but this wasn’t like any military experience of my life.

As a senior NCO, I was standing off to the commander’s right, facing the troops. They were at attention. One troop, Ryan, a former co-worker (but not in the military), stood in front of the rest. At the commander’s order, Ryan pulled a knife from his clothing. About the length of a machete, he threw it at a target above my head and behind me. I was shocked by his cavalier approach and thought, this won’t go well.

The knife bounced back off the target, striking Ryan on the right side of his front. He went down.

As I expected, I thought. I ran to Ryan, took a knee, and said, “Call nine one one.” I looked over at the commander. He held up one finger. I nodded, indicating that one knife had struck Ryan. As this took place, I realized that Ryan had thrown two knives. As I said, “One knife,” Ryan said, “No, two.”

I looked on his other side. Both knives had bounced back, striking and injuring him. An ambulance arrived. I left him in the professionals’ care.

The commander left. The troops parked their cars and assembled to take tests. They were at desks, but the desks were outside, yet arranged like they were in rooms.

I wasn’t testing, but overseeing the process. I discovered that one of the test-takers had parked in my parking space. I didn’t care, and was more amused by it, but the guy thought I was bothered. He went to move his car, telling the rest as he did that he was doing it because I was upset even as I tried telling them, I’m not bothered. When he moved his car, they went to another area of desks to take their tests. Shaking my head with amusement, I left.

I awoke up in my dream. I was in an apartment with my wife. I was worried about others outside, and open windows. Rain was falling, and the wind was blowing. Growing concerned about rain coming in, I went around, checking on the doors and windows, closing some of them. Waking my wife, I asked her, “What’s wrong with you? Why did you leave those windows like that?” Befuddled with sleep, she turned away.

I checked on our pets. They were all fine. Nobody had broken in. I realized that we’d been sleeping with the lights on.

The dream ended.

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The Lion Dream

My wife and I were living in a pale stucco house that was part of a housing plan. It reminded me of the Kadena Air Base or Randolph AFB housing we lived in.

It was a sunny and pleasant day outside. I opened the front door, looked out, and saw an adult male lion, mane and all, about forty feet away. I said to my wife, “Look, honey, want to see a lion?” She wasn’t much interested, and I kept telling here, “There’s a lion out here.”

The lion became interested in me and the door, so I closed it. My wife looked out the window and saw the lion, but wasn’t impressed. I continued intermittently watching it. Doing that, I discovered it was moving around outside our house, and more focused on it.

Not seeing it out the front window after a while, I opened a side door. Yes, the lion was just outside. As soon as the door opened, it turned my way and approached at a brisk trot. I shut the door fast. Looking through another window, I saw the lion prowling along the house and knew that he was looking for a way in.

We had cats, and the cats were suddenly interested in going outside to see what was going on. I grabbed one as they started out the pet door and pulled them back in. When I did, the lion shoved its huge paw through the pet door and tried clawing the cat out of my grasp, but I kept the cat away. As the other cats ran toward the door to see what was happening, I managed to kick the lion’s paw. Roaring it withdrew the paw and I put the pet door cover on.

I heard the lion scratching at that door. I was a little alarmed but knew the lion couldn’t get in that way. But I was concerned that something else had been left open. As I thought fast about what could be open and hurried around, checking windows and doors, I heard the front door open. Shouting, “No,” I ran that way.

I arrived at the living room to discover my wife had opened the front door. She was stepping out. Running forward and shouting, I grabbed her and slammed the door shut just as the lion arrived.

The dream ended.

 

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The Thriller Dream

This dream was like a Hollywood-produced thriller. I thought of the Jason Bourne series of movies, or Taken.

The dream began with a friend being abducted. I was an operative as slick as black ice. Determined to get them back, I abducted an enemy operative’s ex-girlfriend. While she insisted she had nothing to do with the other man or the abduction, I kept her away from weapons and under constant watch.

Meanwhile, with her as my negotiating leverage, after a brief shoot-out, high-speed chase on snowy, slushy roads at night, and hand-to-hand combat, I coerced the enemy operative into an alliance. With him helping me, we started the hunt for the abductors.

Fast-paced, there were setbacks and fights — all taking place on a dark, icy night — it went well overall. Just as my ragged team cornered the abductors, the police showed up. As I argued with the police about what was going on, with me holding a gun on them, and they refusing to back down, with my enemy ally in another room, and the abductors holed up in another room in the building, my hostage turned on me. She’d acquired a gun and now revealed herself as part of the abducting gang.

They’d been five steps ahead of me, orchestrating everything to put me at their mercy, it seems, so they could force me to do what they wanted. She began describing what they wanted from me —

And then a cat awoke me.

Although I tried getting back into the dream when I returned to bed, I failed, instead going into another dream.

Bummer. I wanted to know how it ended.

Funny, but in thinking about the thriller dream, no names were ever used that I can recall. So, if I wrote this, I think my working title would be No Names.

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