Tag: Dream

A Soul-sucking Dream

I thought I’d made it through the dark tunnel once again. I endure the dark tunnel every month, a cycle of conspiracy between hormones, energy, genetics, and whatever else is in my frothy concoction of life. Last night’s dreams proved some tunnel remained to be traversed.

Bottom-lining one of the dreams without dwelling on details, I dreamed a younger self was being given an opportunity by a man named Rob. Just as he was celebrating that, another person came up with a better opportunity. That involved three positions (unspecified in the dream) but the potential was so exciting. I was pleased to be offered such an opportunity. The man offering it told me he had to make some calls, but that was just a formality. He’d get back to me, he said, and went off.

Meanwhile, I was working a job and doing a damn fine job of it – cleaning and detailing cars, a job I didn’t hate, but I was ready to move on. Off on the sidelines of my dream-life, I coped with a validation process. All males were required to be validated. We were given one inch cubes. They were different colors. A raised number signified the top. My number was four. My cube was green.

I stepped into line behind a few young boys. Another young boy was there. He didn’t know what to do. I told him I’d help him.

The process began. As we moved forward, a longer line formed behind us. The process involved us taking our cube up to a man in a lab coat. He put the cube on a reader, then he peered at something, made some annotations, and handed the cube back. He never said a word.

My turn arrived. Another man stepped out from the line’s middle, walked up to the lab man, and gave him his cube. “No,” I said. Marching up, I removed his cube and handed it to him. I pointed to the front of the line, and said, “That’s the order. We’ve all been waiting. It was my turn. You have to wait like the rest of us.”

I was seething, partly because the lab idiot running it hadn’t noticed or done anything about it.

Afterward, validated by lab-coat idiot, I took the boy out with me after he’d been validated, too. I told him, “We’re validated.” He didn’t understand what that meant, so I explained the word’s definition while admitting that I didn’t understand what it meant in this context. Then I found where he was to go and sent him on his way.

Afterward, I returned to another job I had. This was in a chaotic place. I decided to organize the processes. Part of this involved men pissing. They were pissing everywhere. I determined that if we pissed in one place, that piss could be collected and dumped, and everything would be a lot better. To that end, I found a small, square metal receptacle to be a pee-holder. Setting it up in a specific spot, I spread the word, piss here. As I caught others pissing elsewhere, I’d re-direct them to piss at the place I’d established.

When it was time for the piss receptor to be emptied, I discovered it’d been leaking. Piss was all over the dark carpet. This upset me, but I thought, I need to find a better location and receptacle. I was about to do so when the man who’d offered me the great position arrived.

“Walk with me,” he told me. “This way. Let’s get something to eat.” I told him that I’d just eaten but I agreed to walk with him.

We passed under an arch and arrived at an avenue. There he said, “I have some news for you.” I was optimistic and expecting to hear that I was due to start the new position, but hearing his tone and reading his face, I knew otherwise.

“It’s not happening, is it?” I said.

“No,” he said.

“Well, I guess I’ll go with the job Rob offered.”

The man gave me a silent look.

“What?” I said, but I knew the look.

“That dried up, too,” he said.

Heavy disappointment beset me. “I can’t believe this,” I said. “I don’t mind what I’m doing, but I was looking forward to doing more, to being more.”

“I know,” he said. “Sorry.”

He departed. I returned to polishing a car. I realized it was my father’s red 1969 Thunderbird. I’m not going anywhere, I thought.

The dream ended.

The dream depressed me (as all of last night’s dreams did). I woke up thinking, for whom does the bell tolls? It tolls for me, followed by a rant about facing facts about not having writing talent, being a miserable writer, etc., to the point that I encouraged myself to give up.

I know though, that I’m not the best judge of myself. I know that I can’t predict the fickle future. This is just some feeling sorry for myself bottom of the trash can crap. I can indulge in it, but I can’t let it guide me.

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The First Edition Act

This dream was in three acts. All acts are clear and memorable, but I’m only writing about a few scenes in the second act regarding a book.

I was in a classroom with seven others. It was the last day and we were almost finishing up. I’d been taken by the subject, about making improvements in how I live, as were my classmates. We’d become a close group, but after days of all-day classes, the classroom was messy.

Close to the final hour, we took a break. Two people came in. One was a cleaning person, a female, and the other was a young man. The young man was collecting books to send to a poor town in another country. In very high spirits, I helped the cleaning person, and then I helped the young man. They left. After a few more minutes, class was ready to resume.

When I went back to my seat, I discovered my copy of the book gone. I realized it must have gone with the young man and rushed out of the classroom to find him and retrieve my book.

The classroom was in a huge building and crowded with people. I hurried along, looking for the fellow and asking others if they’d seen him and where he’d gone. After some of this, a friend, Brent, told me that he’d seen the man leave by a side door several minutes before. I hurried there where another person said yes, the guy had been there, and he’d just driven off in his truck.

Upset, I wandered back toward my classroom, but I was obsessed. I wanted to keep the book for future use. Knowing that others had taken the course, I walked around to see if I could find another copy of it.

Dark blue, soft bound, with its title in yellow letters, I did find other copies of it. Some belonged to friends, and they were keeping the book. Nobody had an extra. I saw it alone on people’s desk a few times and thought about stealing those books, but that’s not something that I would do.

Continuing on my quest to find a copy, I entered a large work office. Everyone there was busy, and looked up when I entered. Embarrassed, I tried to slip through the classroom by staying close to the perimeter and get out without drawing too much attention or being an interruption. But doing that required me to pass the woman who was in charge. Calling me by name, she asked what I was doing.

I was impressed and pleased that she knew me by my name, as she was someone important in the company, so I told her had happened. Sympathizing, she offered me her copy of the book, and told me to keep it.

Her worn copy was black and smaller. As I declined taking it, I opened it and realized it was a signed first-edition. “I can’t take this, it’s a signed first edition.”

The woman waved me off. “Take it, it’s yours.”

After so more of similar back and forth, I left with the book. Outside the office, I stood in the hall to consider the prize that’d been given to me.

End of act.

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The Witch Dream

I caught what seemed to be a flash, white and gold, on the right side of my vision’s edge.

Answering some instinct, I didn’t move. A woman’s head filled my vision. She said, “I showed you mine, now you show me yours, you show me yours, you show me yours.”

I can’t describe her face or voice. Each evaded me, but I knew she was a witch. I knew that I was discovering something that was ending that had been going on, that she wasn’t talking to me, and that she was talking about power. She’d shown someone her power, and now she wanted their power shown.

I saw then that she was speaking to angels in white, but the angels had monkey faces. They reminded me of the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz, except their faces were alabaster white.

I wasn’t supposed to see or hear any of this. Knowing that I had, the witch vanished and the angels flew. I think someone might have said, “Hide.” Turning to look at that moment, I caught a fleeting glimpse of the angels going across grass and around trees, like a park, and then they were gone. They’d been very small, like dolls.

As I puzzled this, I heard a male voice say, “The healing angel wants you to know that you were heard.”

I awoke.

 

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The School Dream

I dreamed I was an adult, taking a college class. A long and full class, with probably sixty students, all ages, sexes, and races were in the class. I was probably in the top twenty of the oldest students.

The teacher was Billy Sheets. Tall, slender, and middle-aged, Sheets had dark green hair and purple eye shadow. He usually wore a white Oxford shirt. He’s not a teacher I had in my life, but he introduced himself as Billy Sheets.

Class was informal. We had a half-ring of desks. That wasn’t enough to accommodate everyone, so we also had rings of pillows to sit on. In retrospect, it reminded me of a few writing workshops I attended.

The subject here, though, was sociology. While presentations were made, and I attended them, I seemed to spend a lot of time going in and out of class, and looking for a place to sit. Four memorable points emerged from this pattern.

I was walking up the steps to go in. Wooden, and painted brown, the steps were old and worn. Another guy started up the steps as the same time as me, but then stepped aside to let me go first. He wore a denim jacket, and I knew from seeing him earlier that he rode a motorcycle.

After I went up, I turned and thanked him. When I did, I saw his key fly from his hand, land on the steps and slide across into a crack. I heard it clink when it landed.

I told him that his key had gone into a crack and that I heard it land. Smiling, he said, “That’s alright, I’m not worried.”

His answer baffled me. What was he going to do? How was he going to get his key back?

Still thinking about it, I entered the classroom. I found a presentation by outsiders in progress. I was surprised because I was apparently late, and I didn’t know about this presentation. As I sought somewhere to sit, I discovered that coffee was spilled on anything. Several inches of standing coffee was on one section of the soaked red carpet. More coffee was spilled across the desk tops and soaked the chairs. The pillows were wet with coffee.

I asked, “What happened? Was there a coffee explosion?” Nobody answered me. Just as I settled in coffee free space, the presentation ended and everyone began going out on break.

I tried talking to others and the presentations, and got an idea of what I missed. (I don’t remember any of the details.) Then I went on break.

When I returned, we’d been moved to another room. It was a darker room, and more crowded. It was also the final class. Others were turning in projects and papers. I was horrified because I knew I didn’t have either to turn in. Frantic, I tried remembering if I’d already completed it and turned it in, but I couldn’t recall. I thought that if one was due, I was doomed to fall because I had nothing. I took some hope in that all my presentations had been highly scored, and I did well on the tests.

As the room became emptier, I approached Mr. Sheets and waited to speak with him. When he turned his attention to me, he greeted me with a smile. I explained that I didn’t have anything to turn in and apologized for not being sure if I was supposed to turn something in. I felt embarrassed.

But he said, “No, you weren’t assigned anything, Michael. You were a wonderful student and did a great job.” He shook my hand.

The class was over. Everyone began dispersing. I went out to a parking garage. A flowery cover was on one car. I thought it could be mine, but I was uncertain. Pulling the cover off the car’s back end, I opened a rear door and slid inside. I knew immediately that it wasn’t my car, as hundreds of medals and earrings were hung from squares on the ceiling. I couldn’t discern a pattern to it, and it baffled me why someone would do that. The car was otherwise immaculate and in excellent condition, with a plush interior.

I was confused about why I thought it could have been my car. My car was a different brand, color, and body style. With chagrin, I slipped back out. As I did, I saw the cover move at the front of the car. I realized a man was sleeping there, and as I realized that, a man lifted the over and sat up, revealing himself as Vietnamese. Neither of us spoke. I closed the back door and pulled the cover back down over the car. He laid back down and pulled the cover over himself.

Returning to the inside of the education center, I ran into my little sister, Gina, by the exit. A man my height, slender with very white skin and short white hair, and wearing flowery shirt, was standing with her. Putting a hand on my shoulder, he spoke to me in a very soft voice about things he’d like done. Now, weirdly, I told him that those were things that the command post would normally do.

We engaged in a longer conversation. I began to think he was the new commander and that I should be speaking to him with greater respect, because I was being very casual and flippant with him.

We finished speaking. He squeezed my shoulder and departed. I asked my sister, “Who is that guy?”

Gina said, “I have no idea. I’ve never seen him before.”

The dream ended.

There were many more details to this dream. I abridged things in the interest of time and space.

0

The Actors As God Dream

I was with my friend, Ron, sitting at a cafe table outside. Another friend of mine, Marge (who doesn’t know Ron, and lives across the country in Ohio), came up. She said, “Can you think of anyone who played God in movies?”

As Ron and I took in the question with a look at one another, Marge said, “I’ve tried, and I can’t think of anyone.”

I said, “Well, off the top of my head, I can think of Morgan Freeman, George Burns, Alanis Morrisette – remember? She was God in Dogma.”

Ron said, “Morgan Freeman played God?”

“Yes,” I said, “in that Jim Carrey thing. I think it was called Bruce Almighty or something. I’ve never seen the whole thing. I think I saw some of it in a hotel.”

“Oh, yeah,” Ron said.

I said, “Didn’t Whoopi play God in something, too?”

None of us were sure. Marge said, “Thank you.” As she did, Ron and I pulled out laptops to Google actors who played God in movies.

That was the dream, short, sharp, and clear. What’s not clear is what it meant and why I dreamed it. My guess is that it was some food generated neuron frenzy.

I never asked Marge why she asked the question.

0

A Manuscripts & Politics Dream

It began with my little sister presenting me with a manuscript. Handing over a large stack of paper, she explained that she’d written a novel and wanted me to read it and give my opinion. I agreed, but asked her to reciprocate: read my novel and give my opinion.

Gina’s manuscripts turned out to be a humorous mystery. I thought it had a lot of merit. That’s the feedback I gave her. Did she have feedback for me? No, she hadn’t read my ms. She started but then forgot.

Her answer frustrated me. I’d lived up to my end, etc. I was called away before we could finish the conversation. Gina and I agreed to meet later.

Going on somewhere else via dreamport, I was now in a hilly city. It had been rainy. I was standing on the corner by a street. A man in a dark suit and raincoat (who looked a lot like James Noble (the actor)) approached me. We knew one another and shook hands and talked. Within a few minutes, he was telling me that they’d just come out with word about who the new POTUS was going to be. He gave me a name. It as going to be announced soon.

The name surprised me. I knew the man’s name and so on, but didn’t know him. I expressed some concerns about him.

We started walking down the hill. He was  concerned about the choice, too, and was wondering where the man was. He didn’t know if the man had heard yet. As we walked down the hill, the other man mentioned the name again, and then said, “Do you know who he is?”

I began talking about that when the other said, “No, he’s my father.”

That completely surprised me. We went through a conversation about their last names, which was something like LaFontaine. I said, “Pierre?” The other said with a smile, “No, that’s the NRA guy.”

As I was mulling that information, others arrived, and the conversation went on again about the new president. Then the new president drove up in a little old white imported economy car. While it ran without any problems, the car looked like it was forty years old, something small, with petite chrome bumpers, like a Datsun 510 (see the picture?) from the early seventies. (I’ve never owned or drove a 510, btw.)

The others all went off. I trudged back up the hill and, via dreamport, returned to my sister and the manuscripts. She’d read my manuscript and had some suggestions. As we began talking about that, a second younger sister, Sharon, arrived to give me her manuscript. I was surprised. We began talking, and as we did, I said, “I need to add more humor to my novel,” and was excited by immediate ideas that came to me about how to do that.

Then I awoke.

0

The Era Dream

It was another military dream. Multitudes of military members were there. Almost all were Air Force members, as I had been. I knew many of them, but not all.

Some Army personnel and people from the other armed forces were in the group. They were very few. We were all attired in service-dress uniforms. My wife was with me, and my friends had their wives and children present. I realized it was a mass celebration.

It was in a huge, haphazard building with multiple levels. Some levels were connected by ladders. Others used stairs or elevators. Some of it was outside, or had rooms that were open to the outside.

Some people shunned me or were antagonistic, but others acknowledged and defended me. The first group disappointed me, and was the larger group, but the second group pleased me.

I didn’t stay with either group, though. With my wife holding my hand, I went up and down the ladders and stairs, passing between levels on my own. I said hello to friends, and some returned the greeting. As I did this movement and talked to others, I began understanding, this was a gigantic retirement gathering. With that, I saw a setting sun and realized, an era was ending.

Then I awoke and thought of the dream with sadness. A part of me reflected, the past is gone.

We’re going forward.

0

The Kinetic Dream

I dreamed I heard crashing waves and knew it was the sea, and then entered a place. I wasn’t alone but was with friends (yet there was no one I recognized from my life).

We walked grassy paths which sometimes had stone pavers. The paths were narrow. It was a haphazard arrangement. It seemed like the lanes wove around multiple small cottages.

A sense of age permeated the settlement. Made of rough stone, the picturesque cottages had small, red or green doors, low roofs and soft, amber-toned walls. Yellow light, like candle or fireplace light, was shining through their four-pane windows. Many windows had flower boxes with red or white pansies growing in them. Sometimes I saw people, mostly children, in the cottages.

As I walked about the place, I had a sense that they’d been separate cottages which had then had a roof built over them to enclose them. I made that comment, which incensed an older man (tall and white, balding, with a dark, disheveled mustache and goatee), who was apparently the owner. I didn’t know why he was upset; it wasn’t anything derogatory, but he seemed to take it that way. I tried to explain what I meant and why, but he brushed me off.

Meanwhile, a younger white woman with short, light-brown hair, told me to remember to say things from time to time. I gathered from her I was there to give a speech. I was to talk about energy. She was a teacher; she wanted to ensure that I explained kinetic energy correctly.

She and I separated. She was with one group and I was in another. My group were adults. They were all friends. Children made up the teacher’s group. She was talking to the children about kinetic energy and explaining examples, showing how kinetic energy held things up. I started thinking, that’s not what kinetic energy is. She said that kinetic energy was what made walls and chairs stand up. Hearing her, I’d look at her, and she would make fists and cross her arms and say, “Kinetic energy.”

Even though I nodded at her in agreement, I was confused because that’s not what I thought kinetic energy was. I tried remembering other forms of energy so that I could talk to her. We came across a large window. In it were two chairs and a table. I looked from it to her. “Kinetic energy,” she said, smiling and nodding, her fists clenched and her arms crossed.

I awoke.

After writing this and thinking about it, I see how it fits into the series I’m writing, Incomplete States, but more thought is needed.

3

Saturday’s Theme Music

I had a wild night of dreams. After awakening, feeding the cats, and thinking about the dreams, I began humming this song from 1972. Because the dream had large segments about seeing and trying to understand what I was seeing, I realized my mind had started streaming, “Doctor My Eyes” by Jackson Browne. The song came out when I was sixteen and straying along the hinterlands border between being a child and an adult. (Even at sixty-two, I still frequently reel and weave along that border.) I laughed at the connections my mind had managed to find between life, the dream, and memories.

I found this live version today and just went with the flow.

 

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