Tag: path

The Cat & Dog Dream

I was at some sort of crowded little outdoor coffee. The business was wedged into a place not made for business. Small tables crowded together on a patio lined with low cinder-block walls on two sides, flowery weeds growing out of cracks, all on the edge of a tiny parking lot. A street is close by. The actual business, a rustic hole-in-the-wall offering is on the parking lot’s other side along with two or three other tiny businesses.

Pretty day and I’m a young visitor. A ginger and white cat comes to check me out. A woman who comes and goes says, “She’s begging for food. She’s always begging for food.” I try to accommodate the friendly feline. Fortunately, I have cat food! It’s cheese and something. I open the plastic cat food container and let the cat sniff. It’s eager, so I put the container down under the table, under a flowery tablecloth, so the cat can eat it.

The cat quickly returns. “You didn’t eat all that, that fast, did you?” I look below. “No, you barely touched it.” I laughed and scratched the cat’s head. “You just like being fed, don’t you?”

The woman returns with a small dog. Terrier type with curly beige fur. The dog is polite, with bright eyes, sniffing around but making no sounds.

“He’s looking for food,” the woman says. “He likes to eat the cat food.”

The dog finds the cat food and goes to town. Then the woman orders him to follow her and they’re off again.

I feed the cat again, laughing at myself for doing so. I open several of the plastic tins just to humor the cat. It licks and eats from several of them, then comes back in a quest for more.

The woman and dog return. I tell the woman about opening several packages for the cat. I realize that I’ve been sitting there for a few hours and worry about the food going bad. I ask the woman if it’s okay for the dog to eat them. The dog watches me with silent hope during the exchange. When the woman says, “Yes,” the dog jumps down and I give it some old food.

Then, in a dream shift, a friend arrives. She’s another writer. I know that she’s quit writing but she’s here to talk to me about it. So we go walking. She’s young, Black, and shorter than me. I encourage her not to stop writing. She feels like it’s become a waste. I ask her, “But if you don’t write, how will you know what you think? Isn’t that important to you?”

She repeats what I say. We’ve been walking on a trail. Now we come to a bunch of teens. They’re crowding around a bush. Dozens of tiny black insects buzz through the air. “The hornets are back,” one teen says. “Look, they’re building a nest.”

He indicates a space inside a bush. I look. Yes, the little black things are building a thing that looks like a miniature beehive. I’ve never seen anything like it. I wonder if these are really wasps. I don’t really know.

Dream ends.

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The Disasters Dream

Sunshine blazed down from a cloudless blue sky. I was arriving at a busy site ensconced in a valley’s flat green floor, either a fair or festival, I realized. Laughing and happy folks were everywhere. Waving to me, my wife and her sister called me over to their group, introducing me to others and then explaining in turns, “This is the Father Festival. You’ve never been to one? It’s put on every year. Free food, games, and prizes. There’s music and dancing later. Have a drink.”

Taking this in, I looked around and saw fathers of childhood friends and male teachers circulating, instructing, ordering. No, I’d never heard of this, but I participated.

Then, dream shift. The festival was nearing its end. A mountain hid the sun. Though the sky seemed clear, it was much suddenly much colder as shadows cloaked us and the light faded.

I’d been traveling and decided I wanted to change clothes. A group of us found a motel and got rooms. Entering one, I asked the others to leave the room so I could wash up and change. Talking and laughing forced me to raise my voice. “Will you all get out so I can change?” Laughing, mocking me, they finally acquiesced.

I found my long-sleeved blue shirt. That’s the one I wanted to wear. Just as I stepped toward the bathroom, the building shook. In another second, people yelled in shrill voices, “Earthquake.” Sirens rose.

A man broke into the room. “There’s a tsunami warning. We need to leave and get up the mountain.”

Dressing in my blue shirt as I left the room, I joined my wife, her sister, and a small group of people. “Come on, we need to go,” I said. “This way. We’re going up the mountain.”

We fell in with a queue of people also trying to get up the mountain. Peering ahead, I saw fire up on the mountain’s upper side. Pulling my group aside, I said, “It’s on fire up there. Come on. Follow me. This way. Don’t tell the others yet. There’s going to be a panic, and then getting away will be a problem.”

I led the rest along a narrow mountainside path that was going up. I heard them yelling behind us as they discovered the fire. People were re-directed to follow me.

Stinging black smoke descended down on us. Bending low, covering my mouth and nose with a mask, I told everyone else to do the same. We hurried on along the path.

Then I came up short as I rounded a curve. The quake had opened a wide and deep crevice, and our path was gone, along with a chunk of mountainside. There was nowhere to go but back, but back wasn’t safe because the fire was engulfing where we’d been.

Dream end.

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Another Driving Dream

In this dream, I’d driven to a pre-arranged place where I met up with friends.

I was younger, in my twenties, I think, and the others’ age was in that same realm. While I knew everyone in the dream and considered them a friend, only one was a real life friend. This was my sister-in-law, B, who I’ve known since I was in tenth grade in high school.

We were meeting as a group to decide where to go. A brief discussion led to someone suggesting, “Let’s go to southern California.”

“Yes, let’s go to San Diego,” another said.

Further discussion changed our destination to La Jolla.

Pushback rose. “La Jolla? It’s nice but there’s nothing there.”

“There’s the ocean,” others answered. La Hoya was confirmed as where we were going.

I’d been to La Jolla a few times. Once on vacation with my wife, and three other times when my employer, US Surgical Corporation, sent me for trade shows. I like the small and picturesque place. Going there pleased me.

I asked, “Are we all driving?” Because we’d all driven cars there. It seemed to me that one reason we’d met was to share cars, letting us share driving, too, and cutting cost, not just in money, but in what our driving did to the environment. My car was a large black BMW hybrid sedan.

Nobody seemed to hear my question. All seemed busy just gabbing. I called, “Does anyone want to go with me?” Again, there wasn’t any response.

I went to my car to prepare to leave. Part of that was trying to attach an fabric doughnut pillow to my car’s rear. Even in the dream, I wasn’t sure why I was doing this, but, paradoxically, it was important to me in the dream.

The doughnut was attached. Onlookers were impressed, and thought my solution clever. Worries were rising for me that the doughnut would be dragged along the roads and ruined. So I worked on it more, becoming satisfied at least.

Returning to my group, I asked once again, “Does anyone want to ride with me?”

Damian, a young man, said, “I will, if you’re offering.”

“Great,” I replied. “I’m over there.”

I was walking, talking, and pointing as this went on. Damian was on his back. I noticed several others in the group were on their backs, awake and talking, but looking up. Possessions and cluttered surrounded them.

Eager to get on the road, I went to my car, slid into the driver’s seat, and waited for Damian to appear. Impatience growing, I finally got out and went looking for him.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he said after I found him. “I’m going to drive myself.”

Exasperated, I called out, “Does anyone else want to ride with me?”

“I will,” my sister-in-law answered. “Where you parked?”

After showing her, I headed back to my car to wait. I was pleased she was going to ride with me because I enjoy her company.

That’s where the dream ended.

My first thought was that the BMW isn’t a cheap ride. But does that signify anything? No, The Neurons replied, except is has value.

Most of my focus went to the frustration of trying to get the seven of us moving. Why seven, I wondered, and why my sis-in-law.

My SIL is someone who I respect. Things weren’t going well for her after high school graduation, but she changed directions and reinvented herself. I admire the willpower and determination she asserted in those years. She’s a confident and charismatic person.

As for seven, I undersand it’s supposed to be one of those spiritual, powerful numbers. Doing some research on the net, I saw that it can mean you’re on the right path.

From all this, I created an explanation that I’m on the right path for what I want to achieve, but I’m exasperated by my slow progress, and that it’s messier than I like. But if I focus, as SIL did, I can make it.

Either that, or The Neurons are playing mind games with me again.

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Three Dream Shorts

Three dreams recalled from last night.

Bottle of whiskey.

The stone-lined path.

Wanted.

Bottle of whiskey. I was with dreams friends — folks known in a dream but not in RL. My dream wife was with me, and we were visiting in one of their homes. It was the collection point, for we were going out to dinner and then have some drinks and fun somewhere. It was a small group, just six or seven people, and the place where we met was a tidy but small, modern apartment.

We were sitting around a table with a white cloth covering it. The host entered. Opening a package, he said, “I got this in the mail today. It’s a prize I won.” He unboxed a crystal bottle of whiskey.

All were impressed. He poured his each a tumbler of his prize for us to sample. I drank mine and thought was amazing. So smooth, and slightly sweet. He offered more, which I accepted. Then, time to go. We walked down to a restaurant with my buddy taking his prize whiskey along. When he reached the restaurant, he poured other fluid into his whiskey bottle, appalling me. I wanted no more after that. Then, the, the bottle changed, with the bottle’s bottom growing rounder, until it would no longer stand upright, but tipped over. After the bottle was straightened three times, it fell over and broke.

The end.

The stone-lined path. I was out with my father, who was with others. I saw him and decided I wanted to avoid him. I could do this because we were outside, under an Interstate bridge. Huge pylons were holding it up. I kept hiding behind them.

Dad was busy doing something. Curiosity bettering me, I craned out to see. He had made a three-foot wide path in the dirt. Now he was lining it with rocks which he found. Seeing me, he called out, “Come help me, Michael. You’ll be good at this.” I went and began helping him lay the stones. While I was doing that, he took me and held me close to him. I felt embarrassed. He said, “I know that you avoid me but I want you to know how much I love you and how proud you make me feel.”

Dream end.

Wanted.

My wife and I were living in a small and cluttered apartment. We delivered a disagreement about how things should be arranged, so I said, I’m going to live in another place.

I left and went down a broad staircase, looking for another place. Women began approaching me, appealing to me to have sex. Some became very aggressive, shoving themselves against me, grabbing me, or passionately trying to kiss me. I kept telling them, “No, this is not going to happen.” They would give up and others would show up.

I went back up to my apartment with my wife. She was happily going about, doing something, dressed in her sweat clothes. I remained irritated with her and asked why she was acting as she was. She didn’t answer, so I left in exasperation. Another woman, in a white sundress with auburn curls highlighted blonde, told me that she wanted to take my clothes off and suggested with go back to her place. I told her, “No. Just leave me alone.”

Dream end

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The Three Cadets Dream

A whirling dervish of a dream. The velocity and fullness reduced what I could record.

TL/DR, I posed as a young cadet to use a computer, got caught and left. I drove a big white pickup and was at a funeral parlor. I spoke with a friend about how he processed his wife’s death.

Main elements included being with three young men and sometimes pretending I was one of them. They were cadets in a junior military training program. Don’t know the service, etc. Punishment was meted out for small infractions; the punishment was ‘take a sip of water’ from a small glass of water. Observing the three of them, I surreptitiously saw their passwords so I could log onto systems under their names. The one I was doing this with most was Josh, a big, gangly white guy from Idaho.

I went with the three to a classroom. Located outside under a warm blue sky, the classroom was a square of computer terminals with chairs. Instructors in the old camouflage battle dress uniforms sat on a wall monitoring activities. I wanted to get on a terminal to write. I had nothing else to write with and it was urgent for me to write.

The three had white vinyl binders. Inside it, one to a page, was a required essay subject. They were supposed to practice writing these five-hundred-word essays and then go to the computer and write them in the system from memory. Figuring I went get in the system under Josh’s name, write one of his essays for him, and then use the computer as I needed, I studied the topics and selected one.

We went in. I began executing my plan under an instructor’s cynical glare. I worried about being caught because I was much older than the cadets and my grooming was not to standards. The instructor noted an immediate infraction in my posture and addressed it in cool, low tones. “Take a sip of water,” she told me. I addressed my posture and sipped, then logged on. I was writing Josh’s essay on what I liked where I lived when I was young at home. Josh was from Idaho. I’ve never been but thought I could take a stab about the land’s beauty, hunting with friends and family, something out of those veins. But progress was impeded by the instructor interrupting me every few with notice of infractions and telling me, “Take a sip of water.”

My worry meter was cranked up. I wanted to get done and get out. Longer I stayed, greater chance of exposure, etc. And with my state and age, greater time equaled greater exposure equaled greater risk of being caught, which means I would fail.

Yes, other instructors took notice of me. Visiting senior officers did, too. They began a passive-aggressive campaign, standing behind me and telling another cadet sitting to my side to tell me that I was out of reg, etc., a drip of constant criticism. I slowly fumed and finally had it, identifying myself to the commander when he came in and made a snide remark. One of my commanders from RL, his posture instantly changed. He replied, “I know who you are. I’m just having fun with you.”

I decided to leave. The commander cajoled me, “Stay, relax, lighten up. Sometimes you need to relax, Seidel.”

But I was angry and set. Good-bye. He ruefully answered the same.

I caught up with the three cadets I’d been with. One of them had been working on an essay and showed it to me. His essay was supposed to be about CADRE, an acronym and what it meant to him. He took it literally, explaining what each letter represented. I lambasted him for being so literal, telling him, this is not what they want.

We were talking and walking. They got into a shiny white new Chevy pickup with me, a huge beast of machinery. I drove through the town talking with them about how to write better essays. Then I pulled into a side road, dirt, green with grass clumps. A woman was with five dogs and a ginger kitten. I worried about the ginger kitten being hurt by the dogs or the kitty being hit by a car. But another man arrived as I did, corralled the dogs and let her pick up the kitten. It seemed like those two knew each other.

I pulled into a large facility and back up to park. Difficult for me in this truck. Don’t know why we were there. I went into…confused miasma of things… I ended up with mud sticking to my shoes. I pulled them off to clean them, along with my socks. I was in a hurry to leave. When I parked, I thought I’d been to close other vehicles and thought I’d grazed a few, and I saw that a man was in one of them.

All the vehicles were white trucks like the one I drove.

The man got out and conducted a stony inspection of the trucks and gave me a look. I got into the truck to leave. The truck drifted back, scrapping more vehicles. I realized that my truck was too close to the others to move, so I got out and pushed it to one side so that I could leave.

We didn’t leave but went into the building. I discovered this was a funeral parlor. The man came in and met with family. They were in mourning over a loss. Don’t know who. I ran into my friend, Mel. I asked him how he’d coped when he lost his wife. He said that he didn’t handle it well, drinking too much and doing stupid shit, trying to sell computers.

Dream end

Dream note: Mel is a real life friend and looked exactly as I know him. His wife is alive.

1

The Map & Tiles Dream

A hodgepodge of dream remnants, like leftovers pulled from the refrigerator, made up the dream sequences last night. Most vividly, I was trying to install tiles. First it was on a floor, but, oh, wait, no, they’re on the wall. Well, did I think they were on the floor? People were walking on them. Were they walking on the walls?

The rectangular tiles were about the size of a brick’s side. First, they were clear; then they were white. All seemed the same shape. You’d think fitting them together would be easy, but I ran out of the wits to do it and kept starting over to get it right. Yet, it wouldn’t come right.

Then a tall and thin white man, bald and stooping, with sunglasses (and in a suit with tie) came by to inform me that I’m following the wrong map. He walked on even as I said with heaping bewilderment, “Map? What map?” I went to resume placing tiles but the stacks of tiles were gone. I began walking around, looking for them, because I was certain that they were right beside me. I hadn’t moved, so how did they move? Where did they move to? Someone must have taken them but that would have taken effort. Wouldn’t I have noticed that?

The tall thin man returned. Annoyed, he said, “Look.” He held a map on a clipboard up. I looked. The map was white with a bold red line. “This is the path that you’re supposed to be following. Follow it and you’ll be fine. Look at it. Memorize it.” Before I could do those things, he moved on.

I then saw the stacks of tiles. They seemed to be where I thought they were supposed to be. But the tiling was all done. I was left asking, what am I doing?

That segment ended but another began.

0

The Wife Dream

My wife and I were young people, in our early twenties, staying in a hotel in Korea. We had separate rooms; I don’t know why. It was a busy place, with chaotic rules that I couldn’t grasp. I was also constantly trying to change my underwear. Whenever I’d get somewhere private where I thought that I could, others would barge in on me, lighting up the high exasperation warning light.

My wife and I finally met in a crowded hallway outside of my room. We made plans to go see the sights and such but I first wanted a hair cut. I went down to the barber. One woman took money from me and gave me a chit. Another took the chit and gave me a second chit. A third took that chit and ushered me into a queue. I decided to wash my hair while waiting, thinking that would make it easier to cut. When it was my turn, they rinsed off my hair and sent me on my way. I asked my wife what she thought of it, and she replied that it was worse that before. I saw my hair in a mirror; it was long, thick, wavy, and black. I needed to have it cut but my wife was impatient to go on.

We heard people talking about going to Singapore. The way they talked, Singapore was an immediate neighbor. I was surprised; in my opinion, Singapore isn’t close to Korea and would take some hours of flying to reach it. I decided that my geography knowledge was wrong.

Acting listless and irritated, my wife kept wandering off and doing silly things, like snatching papers from other people to read, then throwing the papers aside. People were getting vexed with her, and so was I. We went outside to get a break from the crowds. Going outside, we ended up on a cliff path.

A gorgeous, lightly clouded sky was overhead. The path cut through thick green bushes that were waist high. She ran ahead when my back was turned. When I saw what she’d done, I ran after her. As I was catching her, she went off on another path, like she didn’t want me to catch her. Saying, “Screw it,” I kept running. Let her try to catch me. After running another forty yards, I stopped and looked back. I didn’t see her. I waited for a few minutes to see if she would show. When she didn’t, I shrugged.

It was time for her to start looking for me. Turning, I walked on.

The dream ended.

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