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.

Past Perfect Me

Awakening to light, slowly mobilizing brain cells and muscles to enjoin the day, I sensed something different. The sense catalyzed my awakening, catapulting me into a full upright position.

This was not my room.

But it was my room from…when?

Rock groups, astronomy, and Formula 1 racing posters, blue bedspread, simple small room layout were absorbed, an answer gained: this was my room when I was seventeen.

I was in my bedroom from when I was seventeen. I had to be dreaming.

Almost as I went through this, I heard a voice inside me saying something similar. As I endured my shocked understanding, I stood.

Almost as I went through this, I heard a voice saying something. Freaked out, I stood up. “Who are you?” I asked in my head.

Then I did something I never thought I’d do. I asked a voice in my head to identify itself.

They seemed to be doing the same.

They seemed more panicked. And younger. So I took the initiative. “My name is Marshall Chamberlain,” I said in a calm voice. “What’s your name?”

“That’s my name, too. Marshall Chamberlain. I’m Marshall Chamberlain.”

Although I’d almost expected it, my throat dried as realizations took over. I couldn’t accept them but logic forced me to say things, searching for truth and understanding. “I’m in my bedroom from when I was seventeen, living in Pennsylvania with my father. Do you know where you are?”

I turned and looked into the dresser mirror as I spoke, staring at my young, skinny self. Thin dark mustache and goatee, thick, brown curly hair, unibrow, muscles.

“No. I’m…I’m in a bedroom.”

I took a tight grip on my sanity. It was like one of those crazy movies where a parent and child have switched places, except I’d been switched with myself. I was back in time, as had happened to Kathleen Turner’s character in Peggy Sue Got Married, except I’d also gone forward as a youth to my present existence, and we could hear one another.

“Tell me what it’s like. Is it big? Blue walls? Light-colored carpet, king-sized bed? Sliding doors to a patio, and a large bathroom with two sinks, a garden tub, sauna, and shower?”

“No. It’s…no, I don’t know.”

“Is it a nice, airy room with large windows, French doors leading to a balcony? Can you see a big body of water?”

Shock rattled me. A third voice. “Who?”

I was thinking fast, realizing as he spoke, thinking it as he spoke, as the young me also thought it, “We’re all past, present, and future. We all have a past while we live in the past, and have a future waiting to be lived.”

Then the ‘old one’ from my future said, “This could go very good, or very bad. I don’t remember anything like this happening to me when I was young. I think I would have.”

A younger voice asked, “What’s going on,” as another said, “I remember this room.”

Several of us thought, past, present, future, past, present, future. It’s not static but dynamic. The future almost immediately becomes the present and then moves on to the past.

“I hope this doesn’t spiral out of control,” most of I said. Sounded like seven, eight voices.

With a common thought, we all caught our breath and waited.

The Paths

The children bellowed into the coffee shop on a wall of sounds and cliques, styles varying sharply among them all, a mélange of current youth culture. Their ages escaped him – anywhere from fifth grade to eight or ninth, he thought.  Several schools surrounded the coffee shop so it wasn’t impossible. Except, few of them seemed like young adults. No, these were children.

His study flicked through them, trying to glimpse their futures. Not the close history, no, but what they’ll be in thirty, forty, fifty years. No more possible for him to see in them than he’d seen in his friends. Few followed predicted paths. Surprises, disappointments, successes and failures too often changed the paths.

The Roger Moore Dream

I was given a DVD. “Review this. It’s your life.”

I don’t know who spoke to me. I took the disc and put it in a player and sat in a chair, feet on ottoman, remote in my hand. Surprise number one: I looked like a young Roger Moore.

Watching the video of a young child doing things outside in bright sunshine, I felt doubt. This isn’t my life, is it? Doubts increased when a blonde white woman in a red dress showed up. That’s not me. She was driving a red Lamborghini Urraco. Dream me drove a gray Urraco. She couldn’t be me, could she? My doubts began diminishing as a watched her driving around, walking around, attending classes, talking to people, all snippets, all while she wore various red dresses.

Another woman, Campbell, came on screen. Also white, brunette, she drove a white Urraco. White cars are not my preference, so it couldn’t be me, but she weirdly resembled me — she could be Roger Moore’s sister. Like the other, I witnessed her doing various activies always dressed in white but not always a dress. All of it was weirdly familiar, as if another person had been plugged into my life. These were dream memories, not RL memories.

Then I appeared in a dark gray Lamborghini Urraco, the car dream me drove. Okay, that is me, I was confident. But how could all of these be me when two are female? It has to be more about us than the cars. But the memories being shown were familiar. While I watched, I thought, the car represents my body. Why different colors, then? To present different aspects of myself? Sounded feasible but needed more research.

Stopping the video, I moved over to my desk and laptop, and searched for colors in dreams. A man came to the office door and said, “You need to finish the review. We have good things planned for you but you need to know yourself before we can go forward.”

I replied, “That sounds very new age-y.”

The man was short, white, black hat, black suit. “Finish your review. Get on it.”

I felt impelled to do as he said and rose, moving around the desk to continue.

Dream end.

A Shambolic Dream

Arriving somewhere outside, I was met by a man I knew. I’d worked with him at a startup after my military career. Now he was dressed as a light colonel. Greeting me and my wife, he said, thumb over shoulder to indicate direction, “Come on over here and join us. We’re going to review your records.”

So first, I acted like that was completely and totally normal. I said to my wife, “Oh, I guess I’m in the military.” She agreed and went off to do something while I went through my review.

Several problems immediately presented. One, no uniform. Two, haircut out of regs. So was the mustache. Three, I needed to get my records.

My records were to have been pulled and sent over for the review. I was directed over to an area where a table was set up like it was in a record store, but this was all outside under a sunny early autumn day. People were milling, going through the sectioned records, searching for their records. Someone offered to help me. As I went through them, I found my records and so announced. But wait; those weren’t my records. The first and last names were correct, but the middle name was wrong. On, no, they’d sent over the wrong records.

As I swore a bit about what had happened, I noticed another table to the left. It wasn’t set up in the same way. I stepped over to it and there were my records.

I rushed them over to the large card table where the review was being conducted. I knew several of those folks from both military and civilian careers. As I came up, I heard one chief master sergeant say, “But that’s how he aways is.” Others agreed.

I was mortified. Were they speaking of me? What did they mean?

They reviewed others’ records. When it came to be my turn, I joked with them and then explained that I was just back, I’d been visiting with my mother, who’d been very sick. They seemed disinterested. They looked through my records and commented on my haircut and lack of uniform. I told them that I was trying to get it together. One said, “Didn’t you come back from being with your mother a few weeks ago?” When I answered yes, he continued, “Then shouldn’t you have it together by now?”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Let me go get my haircut. My wife was just telling me that I needed to get one. And my uniform is in my locker. I’ll get it and put it on.”

I went off, with my wife joining me. We were mumbling to one another about the situation. She had my clothes, having gotten them out of my locker. Great, but they were horribly wrinkled. Where could I iron them or have them pressed? There was no time, no time.

Then, some young airman dressed in a black pseudo-NAZI military uniform insulted my wife. Overhearing it, I was furious. Confronting him, I wanted to hit him but instead warned him that I was taking action against him. Laughing, he told me, “Fuck you.” That pissed me off further. Another person attempted to defend him as the first guy stood there laughing. I told both that I was busting their asses before my wife pulled me away.

Stepping out of the locker area, I put on the wrinkled pants. Others, including the board members, turned and watched. I then tugged on the shirt only to realize that the shirt and pants were from two different uniform combinations and didn’t match. I thought, oh my God, now I’m screwed.

The guy who greeted me at the dream’s beginning came up. He said, “Don’t worry about any of this. We’re cutting you a break.” As I responded with astonished relief, he went on, “They reported that they found a spell on you, a curse. We’ve lifted that, but since you were under it up to this point, we thought we’d give you a pass.”

The dream ended as I was absorbing this.

A Three-fer of Dreams

I was traveling a long distance with a group. We reached out destination and prepared to return. I engaged the leader. He had a large, laminated map. Using it, he showed our segments of travel and the energy expended during those times. He planned to do the same for the return. We entered a back and forth about the energy. I insisted that the total energy should be considered a final sum and that we could then break it up any way we needed, that we didn’t need to use the same energy, time of travel, etc, on the way back, but were free to do whatever we preferred. After lengthy discussion, he agreed.

I was then with a group of ex-military. We’d been working on projects that involved previous military resources. No longer used or needed, we were repurposing them. This included buildings, furniture, vehicles, and sites. All of us were demoralized because the work we’d previously finished in this manner was each time then successively destroyed or plowed under. As our leader laid out the newest project and exhorted us, I asked, “What’s the point of this?” I pointed out in detail what happened to the three previous projects and asked, “What’s there to make us believe that it won’t happen to this project, too?” He couldn’t argue back. At my suggestion, we abandoned the idea and agreed to put our energies into something else. We began to search for that.

I ended up with childhood friends in one of their houses. The house was gorgeous, very impressive. It had an infinity pool, which really impressed me, because it looked like silver and some to go on, well, for infinity. We played and splashed in the water. Coming into the house, I was embarrassed for us because we were getting water everywhere. I ran into his mother who waved away those concerns, laughing while telling me, don’t worry about that.

We decided it was time to leave but needed to dress first. I put on a pair of blue jeans. Pain lanced down my leg. As I reacted, I saw a large white and black striped coral colored spider dropped onto the floor. It was about the size of my palm. I considered stomping and smashing it but didn’t. Checking my leg, I verified that I’d been bitten. A large purple and red welt was rising. There was pain but it had plateaued.

The spider scurred off to the wall. Others wanted to go after it but I urged, “Leave it alone. It’s not a threat to anyone.” Conversations mushroomed about the evidence to the contrary, that I’d been bitten. I pointed out that the swelling was already gone. So was the pain, and my skin was returning to a normal color. Therefore, that was all temporary and no big deal. I finished dressing and hurried out after my friends.

Dream end. All in all, very positive and energizing.

Ah, Another Military Dream

I was a younger man, actually my age when I retired from the military in RL. I was dressed in a common uniform of the day, the woodland camouflage battle dress that I often wore.

I’d been invited back for a visit. In most of my assignments, contact was limited to a dozen people in a unit; I worked in a command post, one to three people to a shift, locked in a vault-like space. No windows, one door, eight to twelve hours a shift. People weren’t allowed in without proper clearance, previous approval, and a reason to be there. We were often armed, in case someone who didn’t fit those parameters broke in.

But there was one unit where I worked regularly with aircrews, the training staff, admin, etc. Everyone had access to me, and me to them. This was the unit where I felt closest to my co-workers.

These were the people I was back visiting. We’d been a covert intelligence unit back in the day, but the Berlin Wall fell, the USSR collapsed, and our mission ended. I went back to the US to Space Command. Many in that unit went on to special ops, gunships, or on loan to do drug interdiction on behalf of the DEA. It was this last that was going on in the dream.

We were outside in a large field. I was back by special invitation to watch a military operation, and people from then were back by invitation to see me. Several came back and told me what they’d done since we’d last seen one another thirty years ago. One of the last, Capt. Z, said, “I think it’s time for me to go.” He was hesitant to speak. I said, “No, you’re too young. You still have more to give.”

He shrugged. “I think it’s time. I don’t have a choice.”

He left. The operation progressed. An officer said, “Now Priscilla will explain how the unit coordinates with other agencies to intercept and track illegal drug activities.” Priscilla began leading several squadrons of personnel in military uniforms across a wide street.

As I watched that, I realized that it was Priscilla, a RL friend from my current era, a college professor who had never been in the military. I thought, why is she here?

Dream end.

Charges

Charge the morning

Charge the night

Charge the day

Charge the light

Charge the phone

And the car as well

Charge it all

On the way to hell

Charge your buys

At the stores

Charge your donations

To the poor

Charge the present

With some crimes

Charge the past

With guilty signs

Charge the government

And politicians, too

Charge me

And I’ll charge you

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑