Tag: Dream

The Writing Dream

Man, it was something else. I dreamed that streams of words were flowing through the air around me. They flowed too fast for me to see and read them, except, weirdly, sometimes I could see mathematical formulas in them.

The streams came together and split apart in a random, haphazard manner. Sometimes they flowed on walls, but other times I saw them flowing across sidewalks, trees, parking lots, and the sky. At one point, I saw two streams running in parallel on a wall, and thought, they need to be brought together. Not knowing how to do that at the moment, I turned away.

Oblivious of the word streams, people walked among them. I was flabbergasted that they didn’t see them. Their behavior ended up exasperating me.

Aware of me, though, people would watch and talk about me to each other as they attempted to puzzle out what was wrong with me or what I was doing. Sometimes I tried telling people, “There are words streaming around you. I think they’re sentences and paragraphs. Can’t you see them?” Hearing that, many people said, “I think he’s on drugs,” or, “He’s crazy.”

My interactions with people were few and short, becoming less as I attempted to follow the streams of words. Then, instead of trying to follow them, I thought I’d go upstream to see where they came from. Selecting one stream, I traced it back along a street between two red brick buildings.

Paved with asphalt webbed with cracks, the street had cement sidewalks, curbs, storm drains, and doorways, but no signs. Although the street seemed old and unused, it was ordinary in every respect. The word stream rushed along the gutter, crossing from one side of the street to the other other.

I followed the stream up the street. Narrowing, the stream of words flowed faster, resembling black ink. The day grew darker. I wasn’t sure what caused that. Noting the increasing darkness, I tried to understand whether night was coming or a storm was imminent — or both. At that time, I realized the streaming words made sounds. At first I thought they rustled like leaves. Then, they seemed to burble like rushing water. Getting closer to the stream and straining to hear the sounds, they sounded like a crowd of talking people, but also typewriters.

Although nothing changed, the going became more difficult, like gravity fought to keep me back. I kept going. Exiting the space between the red-brick buildings, I saw that the stream came from a long, grassy hill. All the streams came from different directions, but they all came from that one stream of words rushing down the hill. separating into different streams at the bottom. Hidden by clouds colored like used charcoal, the hilltop couldn’t be seen.

I have to climb that hill, I told myself. It looked quite possible, steep and tall, but not impassible. That’s where the dream ended.

Despite all the details, the dream seemed short, but vivid and intense.  Even as I was in bed, awakening from the dream, I thought I saw streams of words on the bedroom walls.

Then they were gone, swallowed by morning sunshine.

***

I thought about the dream off and on all morning, and then typed this up. I thought about how I felt during and after the dream. After a long while, I realized that I’d felt intense, but otherwise emotionally neutral, as I feel when I’m in the middle of a project. There’s no hope or despair, bitterness or jubilation.

It’s just is.

 

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A Football Dream

I’d been part of the defense, set up to be an edge-passer on a high-school football team. Being a little guy, that surprised me, but I took to the role with the zeal I apply to things when I must get them done. Come game time, though, and I found myself lined up as a tight-end. Talk about confused! I had no idea about the offensive plays or blocking, but again, here I was, in a mess, so I would do what I had to do. Which meant, figuring it out as I went along.

They also weren’t including me in the huddle. Hello? Totally bewildered, I tried catching the coach’s eye to point out the obvious error of me being where I was. He told me to stay out there and do what I can. So —

I lined up, but it was an awkward position, because I was half-turned to see what the quarterback was doing. The ball was snapped.  Here comes the rush. I blocked a guy and cut into a middle open flat, caught a pass and was crushed in a tackle. Still, five yards were gained. On the next play, I saw a hand-off to the running back, so I picked up rushers and helped make a path for him, resulting in a first down.

The next play was bizarre. Lined up, I could hear the defense talking and see the quarterback. He planned to throw to me, I realized. I mentally set myself for the task. Then, the quarterback didn’t set. He kept standing up, moving around, and checking the defense. Time was passing, passing…I almost fell out of my stance. I kept wondering why the quarterback didn’t set us and get the ball hiked. I worried about delay of game.

Meanwhile, the defense had drifted off to the sides. There was a huge hole in the middle. If I released and the quarterback threw a quick slant, I could exploit this defense.

The ball was finally hiked. I snapped out into the flat and looked for the pass, but the quarterback was running toward me. I turned to make a block, but no defenders were in the area. The quarterback raced thirty yards into the end zone for a touchdown.

I realized that the quarterback was planning this all along, and that I’d been part of his secret scheme. It impressed me. Looking at the scoreboard, I saw that we’d now scored three times, and the score was 21-3.

Dream end.

I awoke thinking, take the opportunity when it comes, and make the most of it, but create opportunities. The quarterback on done both.

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The Golden Egg Dream

I started out with a dream about eggs. Not surprising, given that Easter is soon. Coloring eggs was an entertaining annual experience when I was a child. We always had a big bowl of colored hard-boiled eggs for Easter.

But my dream eggs weren’t colored. I was looking for eggs, first in the kitchen refrigerator, which was an old, white Kelvinator model. Not finding the eggs in the refrigerator, I went out a side door to where I knew there was supposed to be a chicken coop.

I stepped out onto a small porch painted gray and went down rickety steps to a green hillside. Cumulonimbus clouds were mounding against a blue sky, partially obscuring the sun. A strong wind was blowing, whipping my jacket around me. People on the dream’s periphery were trying to draw my attention to other things going on. They had somewhere they wanted to go. It seemed like they were back in the house. Exasperated, I kept telling them, “Just a minute, I’m looking for eggs.” I was becoming angrier as they kept heckling me, refusing to be patient as I searched for eggs.

Entering a sagging chicken coop made of old graying lumber (I’ve never been in a chicken coop in my life), I finally saw some eggs, and then I saw a dusty half-hidden egg. It looked like gold. Disbelieving, I picked it up. Amazingly heavy, it taxed my strength. I had to use two hands to hold it. Wiping the dust away by rubbing the egg against my shirt, I confirmed, yep, it’s gold. The more I polished it, the shinier it became. As heavy as it was, I thought, it has to be solid. I couldn’t imagine anything being inside of it.

Unsure whether I should, I took the egg out to show the others. It was sunnier, but colder and windier outside. Nobody else was out there and the house was silent. I realized the others were gone. The dream ended with me standing alone by the chicken coop holding a golden egg. I awoke feeling isolated and alone.

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Stabbing

You ever have an annoying epiphany that just keeps stabbing into your thoughts, like that shower scene from the movie, Psycho, complete with the music, despite all the effort you make to shut it out?

Yeah. More coffee?

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Thursday’s Theme Music

I dreamed last night that I was driving a convertible with the top down on an oceanside road. I was alone, and the weather was gorgeous. The road could been the stretch of Pacific Coast Highway between Big Sur and Carmel. I saw myself and the scene from different angles, like I was in a movie montage, but I don’t know what kind of car it was. No one else was seen in the dream, just me, happily driving. (Almost seems like a pretty metaphor for my writing process.) This song, “One of Us,” performed by Joan Osborn was playing on the car radio during this dream montage.

Cheers

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The Sick Dream

I love how my mind works through my dreams. It often surprises me, and frequently amuses me.

This was a few days ago. I was sick and feverish. My head throbbed. I couldn’t breath through my nose. My lips were dry and cracked, and my nostrils were peeling and raw from tissues. Light hurt, and tears frequently blinded me as the cold hunkered down in my eyes.

Falling into a fitful sleep, I dreamed I was in a computer video game. While most details are sketchy, I recall that I was shooting things. The things were about eight feet tall. They had short legs, arms, and torsos, but a huge head with a plain, blank face. Black hair sprouted from the crown of their head.

Running across open fields, laughing as I went under a sunny but cloudy day, I would see those things and shoot, and keep going. Upon awakening, I thought, yeah, I was fighting my illness through a video game in my dream.

Not quite The Illearth War, but what a trip.

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A Dream Series

I would dream, awaken, and think, and then return to the dream. The dream series had so much detail, it was like immersive virtual reality. To capture it all would require hours of thinking and writing, so I give this sparse version.

The dream sequence began with me as an adult being invited into a special program. In the dream, I had the ability to see patterns and intuitively meld data, at times doing so as fast as people say, “Hello.” I can’t claim to understand the talent completely; it permitted me to almost instantly know people’s name and history. People were in awe of it.

The special program was an experiment in three phases. First, an operation. Second, a test of complex data to evaluate results. Third, to let me out and see what happens.

The place was an old medical office building now used as a school. The halls were tall, crowded and narrow. There were many small rooms, and the sheer density of teachers and students created havoc trying to get around. I arrived looking slovenly, joking with them, pleased to be invited, and not at all intimidated. There had been one person like me who’d gone through the program. His name was Carrie. He’d done it decades before, before anyone was even sure what he was.

Put into a small, crowded bedroom also used as an office, I demonstrated my initial skills. The project members were amazed. I’d been through this before with others. People were always dubious of my skills and wanted demonstrations. They thought the data and situation was extremely complex but it was amazingly simple to me. My time for going through it was less than a few seconds. It was slow by my standards. I bragged that to them.

We agreed to go through with the operation.

The operation seemed to involve crunching down on my thumb nail hard with something that looked like a wired hole-punch. Two tall white guys, young and casually dressed, did the operation. It went off as specified but the results afterward weren’t overly impressive. Yes, I had an improvement in my ability to intuitively gather and analyze data, but the scale didn’t increase as much as we’d expected. I was disappointed, and so were the program administrators.

Another thumb punch was proposed and accepted. They found another place on my thumb nail and punched.

I felt stunned, both connected to the world and released to be outside of it. I could see the data in a way I never had, but I was exhausted and in pain. Bent over, holding my thumb, I crashed to the floor.

I awoke in the same room, but in a white hospital gown. I remained desperately enervated and in pain. I wanted to sleep. They told me that I’d been working in my sleep. They were amazed. I had no knowledge of it. I wanted to sleep  more.

I also wanted to know what was different about the second operation from the first. It had seemed exactly the same, only administered in a different location. The two male ‘operators’ wanted to talk about it, and began by explaining that they’d probably just found a sweet spot, but the administrators didn’t want them disturbing me. Everyone was whisked out of my room.

I slept again, but then, half-awake, felt the need to leave the room. No logic supported my desire. I just needed to go. The door was partway open; I went through. On the other side were the administrators and operators, along with other people. They argued about whether I should be let out, but decided that if that’s what I wanted to do, they shouldn’t stop me.

I left. My thumb ached. I held it out to one side and coped with its pain.

The rooms and halls were packed with children. Male and female were there. Most were between eight and thirteen years old. None were poor but all seemed dressed in a style I associate with middle-class America. White children dominated but there was a wide variety of ethnicities present.

The children didn’t know who I was, but they thought I was the guy, the special guest. They were too awed of me to speak with me. They became silent wherever I went, watching me as I went by them, through rooms, and up and down steps and halls. I noticed one child because he seemed different. Black, he had a narrow face, a tall, poofy afro, and wide solemn eyes. I saw him several more times, and sought reasons for why I was seeing him so frequently. Others spoke about him by name. I engaged in the conversation, and then decided to look for him.

I began walking around again. I was often noticed because I remained in my white hospital gowns. I didn’t like that, so I stopped off and changed clothing into my usual style. Then I resumed roaming.

Bulletin boards filled with photographs were on some hall walls. I stopped to look at them sometimes. The boards had hundreds of photographs of individuals and groups. Nothing was labeled but looking at the photos, I knew who people were.

One board had a small black and white photograph of the great Carrie. He wore a straw hat and appeared to be in an Hawaiian shirt. There were several photographs of me when I was younger. I didn’t know where they’d gotten them.

I kept roaming the building through crowds of students and rooms of teachers. Picking up data, I realized the projects full scope was to analyze the group patterns and assess and predict who would be successful. I knew I could do this. The more I walked, the more I learned. As I learned, I realized the children and teachers were arranged in a pattern.

Squatting against a wall, I paused to rest and think. This crowd of children weren’t sure of who I was. They mostly ignored me. But then an administrator entered. She walked around with internal mail. Calling my name, she passed me a thin folder. “Nine comments,” she said. “Impressive.”

I studied the comments. They were complimentary but not helpful. I resumed walking around. I thought about the black kid again.

I entered a room. Children were lying on the floor on their backs. I stood by the entrance, looking at them. One boy beside me kicked me in the leg.

I was furious. I grabbed his shirt and pulled him to his feet, asking the others who he was. He was unapologetic, unafraid and indifferent to me. He wouldn’t talk.

Ten years old, he was white, slender with a thick bush of black hair and dark eyes. He wore blue jeans and a sweater. I wanted to know his name, demanding it off of the other children present. I was angry that he’d kicked me, but there was more.

I couldn’t get anything off him.

He was outside the data. That was how I’d begun, I realized, as a person outside of the norms.

The dreams ended.

 

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Nesting Dreams

I dreamed my mother was sitting at a table and telling me of her dream, in which I was telling her of my dream, in which I dreamed she was saying, “Michael is gathering his energy and purging his disciplines.”

Don’t know what it means, but I dreamed it before. I recall thinking, what an unusual nesting dream. What are the Russian dolls called? Matryoshka dolls?

That stream triggered a search of old dreams, and there it was, December 7, 2016. I didn’t share the bit about Mom in the post, but posting about other dreams (which used the title “Matryoshka Dreams”) enabled me to do a search of my dream entries, where I found it.

I dreamed Mom and I were sitting at a table. She was telling me about her dream, which was a dream about me telling her about my dream. In my dream, she said, I told her, “Michael is gathering his energy and purging his disciplines.”

I don’t know what she/I meant about ‘purging my disciplines’. That doesn’t make sense to me.

I don’t know what Mom was wearing in that first dream, but in this dream, she wore a light blue shirt and was thirty years younger. She was the only person seen or heard in the dream, but I knew she was talking to me.

After I meditated about the dream’s meaning while traveling, I decided this was about thinking deeper and drawing deeper energy. It’s an intuitive leap. I can’t explain the intuition, except that it’s because the dream is about layers, and about both male and female energy, and mother and son energy. Now, writing that, I think, it’s also about balancing deep thinking and drawing deeper energy. Purging disciplines is about re-shaping paradigms vis–à–vis effort and expectations.

Or maybe I’m just tired.

 

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The Control Dreams

Little late posting about this, as I dreamed it on winter solstice. 

It was a simple dream. I was driving one of three vehicles. Other people were driving the other vehicles. One vehicle controlled the others. I wasn’t in that vehicle, so I lacked control. But I wanted it. Lack of experience with the vehicle and ignorance about what was transpiring hampered me.

The cars were impressive. Closed cockpit, but definitely road cars, they were extremely low, powerful, silent and fast. They were also identical. I knew the other two drivers in the dream as people from earlier years of life.

We took off driving. I was third in line. In an interesting twist (maybe interesting only to me), I went from a close, over the shoulder point-of-view in which I saw myself, my controls and the road ahead, to a long, wide shot that featured the three sleek, silver vehicles silently racing along an elevated white highway.

Back in the car’s cockpit, I decided I wanted control. So I took it with by flicking a switch. Now I was the one driving as the other two chaffed about me taking control. But I had it and didn’t relinquish it, and they accepted that after their brief complaints.

That’s essentially the dream, but subsequent activity was interesting. First, I awoke on the day after solstice feeling like a tremendous weight on been removed. I felt lighter, stronger, and more energetic and optimistic.

Two, among several dreams was a repeat of this dream a few nights later. It went almost exactly the same way.

I thought it a good omen for a new year, but then, I’m an optimist. Have a good day.

Cheers

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The Superhero Dream

Dreamed I was a superhero, and had special powers. I could loco-levitate, rising up off the ground to about twenty feet, and propelling myself forward to over one hundred miles per hour almost instantaneously. I could only levitate for a short period, and propel myself for three or four miles.

But that was a side dish. My primary power was the ability to make things cease to be there, like buildings. I always ensured I employed my power cautiously, unwilling to hurt innocents and bystanders. I’d usually just create a hole in the side of a building. I could then put it back into place.

In the dream, though, I was being chased, and was out of my red outfit. It was late evening, in a large metropolitan area. I don’t know who chased me, but they were persistent and organized. I developed increasingly desperate and clever ways to employ my powers.

I was spotted by others, of course. One teen-age girl was thrilled to encounter me unmasked, and pointed it out to others. They became my boosters, cheering me on. My supporting nation grew as the chase continued. The cheering fans then involved themselves to slow down my pursuit, allowing me to escape past the city’s lights, and into the night.

Great fun.

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