I was shopping at Trader Joe’s yesterday. As I considered blueberries and wondered how much I was willing to pay for my fruit, a loaf of bread fell to the floor to my left, about six feet away.
Nobody was anywhere near it. I walked over, reshelved it, and returned to the blueberries where I cursed high prices and selected my berries. As I did, a tub of yogurt jumped from the shelf to the floor on my right, about six feet away.
WTH? Nobody was there. I walked over, reshelved it, and headed down another aisle. As I did, a box of pasta leaped off a shelf and landed on the floor about six feet ahead of me.
WTAF???
This time, as I went to pick it up, a TJ employee overtook me. “I’ll take care of that, sir,” she said.
“Okay, thanks.” I then explained, “This is the third thing that fell or jumped from the shelf to the floor in front of me today. Some of it does seem like it jumped and didn’t fall. It’s like I’m following the ghost of a klutzy Trader Joe’s shopper.”
She chuckled. “Well, you never know what you’ll find at Trader Joe’s.”
My stomach often makes noises after eating. Dinner – my late meal – is the one that has my guts singing the most. Today, weirdly, though, my stomach began booing.
My stomach has never booed before. It kind of hurt. I wondered, is my stomach booing me? Of all the body parts which might have reason to boo, I never thought that my stomach would be the first.
I realized my stomach could be booing other things. I’d just eaten pasta for dinner. This pasta is made from chickpeas. I had garlic/lemon olive oil on it. Maybe my stomach disagreed with my taste buds and brain and wanted something other than that meal.
I’d also turned on the television. Coverage of Trump making hateful comments about former President Biden was on. Like, what’s new, right? I don’t usually watch anything in which I must be forced to hear or see Trump. My stomach could have been booing him or his elements of image and voice. I can understand that. I’m with my stomach on the booing if that’s what it was all about.
But, I’d also been thinking about having watermelon for dessert and decided against that because I thought it would make me feel too full My stomach may have been booing that decision, or the subsequent decision that I was moving from the news to watch Hacks.
I don’t know. Like My Neurons, my stomach has a will of its own. It’s also not afraid to speak up. I just hope that this booing isn’t something that it plans to do more often. I wonder if I can give it something which will make it cheer?
First, I dreamed that my ankle was completely healed. Such a real dream that when I awoke, I asked myself, did I dream that? Checking the ankle, I confirmed, nope, not healed. Yet.
Next dream had me dealing with space. A father was in space, apparently as an astronaut. It wasn’t clear if he was a private citizen, military, government effort, etc., but the news was full of his attempt. Then, boom, we were all looking up at a starry explosion on the edge of Earth’s atmosphere. Then the newspaper, electronic, and digital media is full of his disaster and death.
I wasn’t involved in any of this, just a spectator. Talking about the matter in a fractured dream process under a blue sky, my friends and I went off to get lunch. But while this progressed, I put forward the man’s daughter, a four-year-old, had been with him, and he was launching her separately back to Earth. I kept insisting that she was out there, coming back. All others were doubtful. We hunted down a tracking monitor. As we watched it, another object was being traced across the sky. There was a target arc and vector it was supposed to be following. As it veered off that, reports of a crash came in. Everyone agreed it was her and that her vehicle crashed and she was deceased. But I remained optimistic that she’d come down, and that what we’d seen was just a ruse to throw everyone off. Certainty remained in me that she’d made it back. Then I stated my belief that her father had also made it back, using the distraction of his spectacular destruction as a diversion.
That’s where the dream ended. Who this man and his daughter were supposed to be and why we cared is a complete unknown.
The night’s final dream found me with a power to make toys come to life. I could also make them grow larger. Once I learned of my ability, I tested it on a yellow toy dump truck and a green army tank. Finding my wife sitting on top of a tiny green hill, I demonstrated my new skills to her as my black and white cat, Tucker, watched.
In true dream strangeness, I then went to a cafeteria to find something to eat. Although the dining room was full, they were preparing to close. I got in line. Only a young couple were ahead of me. Cloying and loving, they were annoying and silly as they flirted and teased one another over their food selections. Seeing me waiting behind me, they apologized and offered to let me go ahead. I declined and they finished a few minutes later. Stepping up, I found that only pasta with a brown meat sauce and hot dogs were available. I piled some pasta on the plate and then loaded up two hotdogs. Eating one of the dogs, I thought, wow, that really tastes good. I was pleased with having it to eat and scarf the rest down.
My wife rushed in, interrupting my meal to warn me that something was happening to one of my toys. Her explanation was inchoherent so I just ran to where she indicated. As she said, my largest toy, a stuffed bull which was now a dozen yards tall, had fallen into a deep water. I ran over, trying to think instructions for getting out to the bull. But I was still assimilating the situation and didn’t have a clear idea yet.
The bull was running in a circle under the water. I thought he would drown. Then I saw that my black and white cat, Tucker, was riding the bull. As I gaped, I realized that Tucker was guiding the bull. Encouraged by that, I thought instructions to Tucker to help him, telling him to turn toward the shallows. Apparently receiving the guidance and applying it, Tucker guided the racing bull left and left again, and up and out of the water.
A long and greatly involved dream in three parts entertained me last night. It seemed like it was about hopes, expectations, and relationships.
Part 1: the Catholic family.
In this, Mom had to go away. Although I was an adult, she worried about where I was going to stay and what I was going to do, standard concerned Mom reactions to change. I ended up with an offer to stay with a childhood friend’s family. Neighbors. Haven’t seen the guy in almost fifty years, but here he was, in my dream, along with his parents. His parents have passed away some time ago, BTW.
In this dream, they had a huge home. I wouldn’t deem it luxurious but enormous with a byzantine layout. Some rooms were like huge cement auditoriums or gymnasiums; others were small but with multiple levels.
My friend’s mother told me, “Do whatever you want here. Just act like it’s your house. We’re happy to have you here.”
While I appreciated the sentiments, I was leery of making myself an unwanted guest, so I tried being circumspect. Weirdly I wore off-white pajamas with narrow blue pinstripes the entire time. I thanked her, of course. After casual exploring, I found a large room with a small student desk, the kind seen in elementary school, where I set up my computer and sat down to write.
After I set up, she came by with her family. Only she spoke, though, telling me, “We’re going out. We’re going to be gone a while, so the house is all yours.” It felt like a huge responsibility, almost a burden, but I thanked her for her trust and hospitality. They left; I kept writing.
At some point, I grew aware that it was pouring rain and the onset of dusk outside. I decided to leave.
Part 2: the Porsche rally and restaurant.
I went into my hosts’ garage and found a car. A small and older sports car of some kind, I knew it as mine.
I drove out into the rain and down a driveway to a busy, winding multi-laned urban street. Small sports cars were passing, dropping revs and downshifting, and sometimes sliding, drivers catching spins as the car’s back end swung out on the slick asphalt.
I recalled then, that’s right, the town was hosting a Porsche Rally, with special emphasis on older Porsches and the Porsche Spyder.
Well, that explained it! I also saw a circa 1970 Lotus Elan go by. I wondered if they’d allowed it to participate in the Porsche event, or if serendipity had brought it to this time and place.
Pulling out into the driving rain, I drove carefully, wishing I had a Porsche like the stylish little cars I saw. As I came up one hill, I needed to slow substantially because a Bugatti Veyron had spun across the middle of the road. I wondered, what is an expensive exotic like that doing here? I then saw three more going by in the rain.
Bugatti Veyron from the net — not my car.
It was almost dark and I reached my destination, a crowded old restaurant where I was meeting friends. The menu was American-Immigrant fusion. I began with pasta with tomato sauce and meatballs, and then switched to chicken fried rice. We stood as we ate, and my food tasted sensational.
As I ate, a tall, thin man walked by. “Guess what,” he loudly said, “I saw jars of Ragu in the kitchen. You’ve been tricked! This sauce is not made here.”
My friends and I shrugged it off. Wherever the food was from, it was awesome.
Part 3: the Revolution
I piled into a car with four other men. One of them was driving. One was armed with a gun which was part of his head. I could see that it was loaded with one round bullet, like something you’d fire from a musket. I was pondering the intricacies of how you’d aim a gun like that, especially if the target is moving.
We parked and entered a small, dim theater. A small stage was set up on the far end in front of rows of padded metal folding chairs. About twenty people, mostly men, were present. All were early middle-aged or older, and all were white. I milled with a few people, chatting for several seconds, and then one man began talking. They were there to overthrow the government.
Well, hold on, I thought, uneasy. I’d been invited to this gathering, and it’s not what I thought it was going to be. Something about the way they were addressed struck me as a religious group. I eased myself to one side, thinking, how am I going to get out of here?
At that point, the man with the gun head fired. He pointed it somewhere else and not at me. I watched the round ball leave its barrel with a plume of white smoke.
Five dreams are remembered this morning. Takes a while to process them. I usually do this in bed, eyes closed, pulling out their sequences. What normally happens is that I have a dream and wake up with it in mind, process it, and return to sleep. Then I dream again and repeat the process. Later, I sit and freehand the dreams. Sometimes, when the dreams become larger, more involved and remembered, I type them up. And sometimes I post that result, usually without any insights I acquired, just presenting the raw dream. In this instance, because there were five sharply remembered dreams, I just wanted to share intriguing aspects of two.
I was with my father. It was Christmas. His third wife was there, too. I’d brought twelve gifts meant for my cousins. Several of those cousins are dead. I knew that in the dream. When I showed Dad what I’d bought for who, I actually said, “Even though he died,” when I introduced their gifts. Dad laughed at that and I responded, “They’re dead but they still deserve a gift.”
Gifts included beer, pastries, pasta, and books. I explained to Dad when describing the gifts, showing them to him, why I selected each present. Dad seemed particularly surprised by the beer, which was a German Pilsner with a flippy top, which were common in Germany when I lived there.
What happened next is that I went off for a bit, returning to find that Dad gave away several of the presents to the people because he forgot buy them. So instead of a gift for my cousin, Jeff, for example, Dad gave it to his nephew, Jeff. That left me speechless. In Dad’s usual style, he laughed off my protests and explained that he just said it was from both of us so what difference does it make? The people received the gift, which is the intent of the gift being bought.
I didn’t fully buy into Dad’s position but decided yes, the person getting the gift was most important, so why be an asshole about it?
He later asked me if I had other gifts to give people, because he didn’t buy gifts for others but he thought he should receive a gift. I laughed at him, mocking his lack of preparation and planning, but took him to a white chest freezer and began pulling things out. He asked me why I put them into the freezer. I answered, “Ask your wife. She gets it.”
The other dream had a segment involving a vase. I was in a dim warehouse sort of building, metal, with high, dull lights. Items were stacked on shelves, creating a labyrinth, and lots of shadowy places.
White and tall, with flowers and dragons painted on it, the vase had several cutouts. I noticed the vase and remarked on its beauty. When I did that, one of vase’s cutouts yawned wider and issued a black cloud. I jumped back, pushing the others with me back to avoid it. We discussed, “What is that?” Several, including me, believed it to be poison. We wanted to get out of there fast but there was only one narrow path out. The vase was up on a shelf at head level along the path.
We needed to pass the vase to leave, we found, because we found every other way blocked. Two attempts were made to race past the vase but it moved each time, growing larger and growling at us. Finding a hammer, I attempted to attack it. The vase counter attacked, growling more and growing larger again, issuing more scary black gas. The vase’s cutouts now had teeth.
Someone said, “You have to get rid of that vase.”
“I know,” I answered. Swinging the hammer, I knocked the vase onto the floor. It rolled toward us in a rush. I hurdled it, but it was trapping others. I rushed the vase. It spun around me. Jumping back, I dropped the hammer. Teeth bared and roaring, the vase charged me. Dodging it, I pulled a shelf partially over, stopping it from getting me. I spotted an old black, portable television on a shelf. Grabbing the television, I lifted it over my head and slammed it down on the vase. The television and vase both broke. Enough of the television remained for me to hit it again with the television.
The vase pieces were trying to come back together. Someone threw the hammer to me. It bounced on the cement floor. I seized it and hit the larger pieces of the vase. The vase hissed out wisps of the black cloud. I started kicking its pieces around, shouting at the others to run past it and escape. After the last of them had gotten past, I picked up the largest piece of vase, threw it across the warehouse, turned and ran.
Michael Seidel, writer 