Tag: Dreams

The Commercial Dream

It’s difficult to characterize and summarize this dream as anything except a commercial break between other dreams.

To my knowledge, this dream began October 21, because I posted about it that morning. Versions of it have been erratically but frequently recurring since then. It’s so short, like thirty seconds when I think about it, I’ve started wondering if I dreamed it or imagined that I dreamed it.

And it’s simple. I dream that I’m standing somewhere. There’s not really a background or place. I’m always younger. I look like I’m in my early twenties. Sometimes I’m bathed in a circle of light and I’m looking down on myself. Other times, I can see myself standing upright a few feet away, dressed, like I’m about to do something or leave. My clothing don’t really stand out. I just know it’s me. Sometimes, I see only my upper self, still dressed, from a few feet away.

In all cases, I then hear a voice. The voice is male and light. It doesn’t remind me of anyone. Sometimes it says, “Swaddle yourself in yellow.” Other times, swaddle is replaced by swathe, coat, or bathe. Yellow light then floods over me.

Only the first one that I remember in this series was different. In that one, I was spreading yellow butter on my forearm.

Then it’s on to other dreams.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music is “Havana” by Camila Cabello (2017).

A lovely song about a brief love affair, it’s in my music stream this morning, background to routines, but I don’t know why. I had a smattering of dreams that felt inchoate. Little is clearly remembered except for an instance of awakening in alarm with the urgent question, “What was I supposed to do?” occupying me. Leaping up, I hunted for clues in a blended zone of sleep and consciousness. Anxiety ebbed back as I realized it was a dream, but I wondered about its roots.

So how does the salsa-influenced, bouncy “Havana” figure into this? Call me clueless in the morning.

As I enjoy the song, I played the video after Cabello’s SNL appearance a few weeks ago, chuckling at the reality send-up that bracketed the song.

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

The sadness of aging is often not what happens to you but the losses of others, from friends who age and disease, to our heroes.

I, and my generation, has seen a lot of our heroes passing away. The inevitability of death can’t be denied. It happens, but we don’t know what goes on past the door. There’s a lot of guesses and conjecture, and some promises and prophecies, but most of us need to wait until we go through the doorway before we find anything, if there is even anything there.

These reflections came as I thought about my dreams last night. I didn’t remember much except one. As I went through the exercise, though, the first lines of the Cranberries’ “Dreams” (1992) entered the head stream.

Oh, my life is changing everyday
In every possible way
And oh, my dreams, it’s never quite as it seems
Never quite as it seems

Those lines reflect my life philosophy. Nothing is what it ever fully seems. We live on spectrums of seeing, remembering, sometimes understanding with a glint of blinding insight, but more often, applying hopeful explanations to what we don’t know, all in efforts to uphold and sustain this stubborn illusion of reality. But then, hearing Dolores O’Riordan’s unique voice in my head, I remembered that she’d passed on, slipping through the next doorway when she was forty-six. She’d drowned in a bathtub. Reading about it now on Wikipedia, I learn her blood-alcohol level was .33. Empty alcohol bottles were found in her room.

So, in memory of dreams and life, here’s today’s theme music.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Today’s music choice is another of those, “Out, damn spot,” selections; a song is stuck in my head and must be dislodged by being shared with others.

The song emerged during last night’s dream quagmire. Can’t call it a dream true stream last night. From my memories, the dream streams all torrented down pipes that burst, releasing the dreams into a big sloshy mess. So, boom, here’s a twentieth century Guns n’ Roses Sunday offering, “You Could Be Mine”.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Today’s song is perfect for the moment. A cat’s attentions awoke me about five this morning. Dream pieces stayed with me while I attended the cat, and since I was up, visited the water closet. Sometime during this period, ELO’s 1975 song, “I Can’t Get It Out of My Head”, started streaming because I couldn’t get that dream out of my head.

Now, like the title, I can’t get this soft, mystical, prog-rock song out of my head. Over to you.

 

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Ch-ch-changing

Changing seasons

changing times

changing clothes

changing rhymes

 

Changing mind

changing ways

changing hours

changing days

 

Changing tastes

changing drinks

changing food

changing links

 

Changing sea

changing skies

changing clouds

changing eyes

 

Changing hope

changing dreams

changing plans

changing schemes

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A Knowledge Dream

This dream could’ve been named a number of things. I first referred to it as the “Born to Run” dream. Then, as I remembered it, I decided the new title was more appropriate.

I was traveling by airlines in America through multiple, crowded airports. After going through Duluth, Minnesota, I went through Fargo, North Dakota. After Fargo, I found myself in a huge building. We’re talking a Superbowl stadium size.

Old, the building was well-maintained, with cavernous but mostly empty rooms except for towering gray cabinets. A woman introduced herself as a director. I was at a knowledge warehouse. Speaking to the air, the director told her staff to assist me with whatever I wanted. She told me to fill out my requests on a request form. The request form should include a learning objective. Catalogs of learning objectives were in the cabinets. I could use them to expedite the process.

Six other students showed up. They’d arrived before me but were coming to meet me and continue with their requests. The director asked me how I got there. After thinking, I said that I’d come through Fargo because that was the best way to get there. After acknowledging that, she departed.

I quickly completed a half-dozen learning objective requests. The other students went off to continue their learning. Thick folders for the first learning objectives soon arrived. Within minutes, I had a stack of them in front of me. Perusing them, I selected one for attention and started reading it as I walked around.

I found myself with a microphone. The warehouse was lit like a stage so I decided to perform “Born to Run”. As I was doing my performance, I realized that security cameras were present. Embarrassed, I quit my performance. Someone was trying to raise me, but I ignored him because I didn’t want to be mocked.

Wandering the warehouse, I soon found myself in wooded thicket. Movement ahead drew my interest. After some investigation, I saw a squirrel, and then a cat, and realized that the cat was chasing the squirrel.

I was summoned back to a meeting room. The other students were there. We sat at a table and talked about our learning objectives. More folders arrived for me. The director called for a few of us to go into another room with one specific folder. It was our choice which folder to bring.

Aha, epiphany. I needed to decide where I wanted to go, and it was a journey to a different, isolated location. I also had the responsibility to educate myself but resources were available to help.

Now, weirdly, the dream ended with “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows” by Lesley Gore (1963).

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The Paying Dream

I slept fantastically well this week, but had so many dreams. One that stayed with me, though…

I was shopping. At first I thought I was in a department store like Macy’s, and then I thought I was in a mall. I was looking at clothing and shoes, and picked a few things up for myself. When I went to pay, I couldn’t figure out where to pay. That exasperated me. I debated with myself in my dream, should I put this stuff back, just leave it here, or go on? Watching others didn’t help. I didn’t see anyone paying, and didn’t see any clerks, cashiers, or registers.

Without embracing a decision, I wandered, and found myself in a grocery store. Hanging onto my previous selections, I found a shopping cart, and picked up some produce. Spying a register, I hurried to it to pay for everything, hoping that I could there. When I arrived there, I pulled out my money. There was a register but no cashier. Maybe it was self-pay, I thought.

Then, a nasally female voice came over the loudspeaker. “We just learned that you’re not supposed to pay.”

I paused to consider that announcement. Was that directed to me, or someone else, or everyone? As I pondered, a young woman came up and told me, “We’re paying for you. It’s already been taken care of.”

“Who paid for me?”

She was busy collecting materials and doing things, as store personnel often are, and scarcely paid attention to me. “It’s been taken care of.”

“Who paid for me. I want to thank them, at least.”

The young woman waved her hand. “Don’t worry. It’s been taken care of.”

I remained mystified. She went away.

End dream.

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Dark and Stormy Dreams

Last night was a serene, cool night but wild storms were on the dream menu.

One dream began with me outside, on a worn but mostly green hillock. I think I was in a park, as copses of trees grew around open spaces and statues.

Although bright afternoon blue associated with summer was overhead, dark clouds gathered, moving in like they were answering a whistle. People, including me, were anxious. Talking persisted all around me. All were strangers, though, and I couldn’t understand exactly what they were saying.

I was thinking that I needed to get inside and safe before the storm broke but I was worried about my friends and family. I was also puzzled; I didn’t see any of them but I was certain that they’d been with me. Looking for them, I became frantic as the temperature dropped and the clouds darkened into a fresh charcoal briquette darkness.

I started walking fast. Others were running. Growing drumming like a drum and bugle corp was approaching announced the storm’s beginning. Lightning licked from north to south in long and spectacular prolonged, brilliant slashes, captivating and frightening me. With a sharp suddenness, a wind howled through, knocking me over. After rolling and tumbling, I struggled against the wind to stand.

I heard rain hammering the ground. A deluge like a fire hose was being sprayed began. As lightning struck trees and thunder shook the air and explosions boomed, the wind tossed and slammed me, eventually shoving me against a tree trunk. Arching with pain, soaked and cold, I managed to hang onto the tree as the wind tore my clothes and hair. I was shivering with cold and fear.

With lightning striking everywhere around me, I thought, I can’t stay here. I need to get out of here. Nothing was visible for the heavy rain and dim light. I didn’t know where to go. Desperate for movement, I struck out blindly.

The wind drove me forward and then lifted me. I tried grabbing the ground but the wind took me on a ride toward the trees. As I spun and spotted the looming branches, I was sure that I was going to be impaled and killed, but the wind carried me above the trees.

In seconds, I was out of the storm. The wind calmed but still carried me. Feeling its energy dissipating, I was sure I was going to plummet to the Earth and die. As I looked down to see where I’d land and  what I could do about it, I realized that I was over the storm, and flying above it. 

A cat hissing awoke me then. Scrambling out of bed to confront the situation, I saw that Boo was telling Papi that he couldn’t come in through the pet door. Boo ran out of the room and down the hall and Papi sallied in. Since I was up, I went to pee and think about the vivid dream, as my mind stayed wrapped in it.

It’d been a shockingly vivid dream.

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A Writing Dream

A dusky, beautiful young woman approached me. Wearing a short, light-blue skirt and high heels, she seemed like she was sixteen years old, but trim and gorgeous, with a doe’s large, dark eyes, and long, black parted in the middle framing a heart-shaped face.

Solemn and reserved, she stopped before me. She was holding a paper and pencil, and held them out toward me. “I’m from a writing class. We’re writing novels. We’re supposed to ask you for help.” Puzzled, I took the paper as she explained that the paper was a checklist of eight things to do to write a novel.

I asked questions to clarify who she was and where she was from. During that exchange, she indicated a large building at the top of the hill. Other classmates approached. All were young, with clear, clean skin and groomed hair. I knew several of them. They, like the first girl, were there to get my help with their writing assignments. They were writing novels and had the same checklist that she had. One boy, who was familiar to me, explained to me that they were on the first step, and needed help to write their novels because they didn’t know what to do.

I felt flattered and told them that I was happy to help them. Meanwhile, I became obsessed with the building that they were supposed to be going to school in. A dark, spicy mustard color, it was set into the top of a green mountain. It was the backside of it that intrigued me most. A floor rested at the very top. Its windows seemed broken and it seemed like it was empty. I wanted to know what was in it. I felt like I’d always wanted to know what was in it.

I asked one of the young men who I knew well if that building was where they went to school. He confirmed that it was. “Then you’ve been in it,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Have you been in the back?”

“The back? I’m not sure.”

“I want to know what’s in the back of the building.”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure what you mean. I need to go.” He took his checklist from me and stood. “But you can go into the building yourself and check it out.”

I went with him to the building. He went off to class. Climbing stairs and taking elevators, I went up as high as I could. One door was in the last room. It was a modern space, but didn’t have any windows. I went to the one door and tried opening it. It was locked but the young woman who I’d first met opened it. She wouldn’t let it open more than the width of her slender body.

She was holding a large mug of coffee. I tried seeing past her. “Can I come in?” I asked.

She shook her head. “But I can give you this coffee.”

“Thanks.” I took the coffee. “I can help you with your checklist, if you’d like.”

“No, thank you. We’re okay.” She closed the door.

Dismayed and frustrated, I stepped back. I wanted into that other room but didn’t know how to get there. Returning to the outside of the building, I contemplated the place that I desired to enter and confirmed, there was movement behind the windows. Something or someone was in there. Sipping the coffee, I plotted ways to satisfy my curiosity, determined to find a way.

The dream ended.

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