His shoes were lined up in the closet. One pair had the sides reversed. He had to fix them before going on. The right shoe on the left side just looked too wrong.
‘Nother Military Dream
It was another military dream but with a marked difference. First, a friend, Jeff, who was also in the military was in the dream.
I was at some unidentified Air Force base. I was a chief master sergeant, E9, and was due to attend a conference of CMS that was due to start. (This is two ranks above my RL retired rank.) I worried about my hair, my uniform, and my shoes as attendees began arriving. But I slipped away and pressed my uniform, taking care of that, putting razor sharp creases in it. Then I stayed low until the barber opened. When I walked into the barber shop, there were two barbers and no customers, so either one could immediately cut my hair. Both knew me by name.
After getting my hair cut, I left the shop and looked down at my shoes. They were scuffed and old. I said to myself, those aren’t my shoes, and they immediately changed into highly polished new shoes.
I felt a lot better about myself. I ran into Jeff, also a CMS. He and I chatted. I ended up telling him about a cousin who died of cancer (a cancer did die of cancer in RL). We were walking around as we talked. Female military spouses were all over the place, and they kept flirting with me. The attention flattered me.
Jeff and I stayed together through the morning, sitting down and eating. Then the conference was due to start. Another CMS came up and asked if I was going, because it was getting under way. I told him that I’d left the military twice and came back twice, but now I’m done. I wasn’t going to attend. I was taking off my uniform and leaving.
I went off to find a bathroom. When I found one, I undressed and then peed and discovered that my pecker was half purple. One of the wives walked in on me. While taking a long look at my body, she apologized for entering. I replied, “I don’t mind. I’m just wondering why my penis is half purple.”
Dream end.
Mewsday’s Wandering Thought
His wife needed new shoelaces. Only one store in town sells replacement laces.
He realized that finding shouldn’t surprise him. When he was a child, it was commonplace to snap a shoelace, forcing imaginative knotting to keep your shoe tied. In these times, the shoes usually wore out before the laces. His wife’s laces were for new shoes; she wanted white laces instead of the stripped ones that came with her shoes. Yes, it is a little first world pain, isn’t it?
No, the store didn’t have the laces she needed.
Twosday’s Wandering Thought
Three young girls arrived. He’s not an expert in these matters, but their lithe size and small stature made him guess that they were probably ten to twelve years old. All were white and wore shorts, and four-to-five-inch-high heels with ankle straps. One of the pairs of heels had clear plastic. The other two were stiletto.
These, he was certain, were the youngest people he’d ever seen wearing high heels. He’d certainly never seen them on children this young before. It seemed like they portended something, but he didn’t know what.
Saturday’s Wandering Thought
Right-handed, when he put his socks and shoes on, he always did the left foot first. He wondered, has this ever been studied? Was a correlation between dominant hands and which foot you did first? A natural relationship was suggested but has it been studied? Did it need to be studied?
A Not-quite Military Dream
Ah, young again. I was with my wife in a luxurious apartment complex. The entire floor was shared with her co-workers from the advertising agency employing her. They were all excited, plans afoot! Preparations were being made for awards ceremonies and celebrations. They wanted me to be a part of that. Keeping to my normal personality, I remained on the edge.
In comes a guy in military uniform. He’s older than me, bald, dark red mustache, with specs on. He identifies me, verifies who I am, and gives me a sheet of paper. It’s ‘welcome information’ explaining where my new quarters are, where I go for various items, operating hours, etc., because I’m a senior NCO in the USAF. Just as in RL.
He explains that I have a roommate, contrary to policy, because the guy is trouble. They’re trying to remove him but he’s elusive. I thank him for the information and he leaves. Celebration preparation continues among my wife’s group. I begin changing clothes to leave. First, which uniform should I wear? I prefer the battle dress but, wait, I only have white crew neck tee shirts, so that’s out. I’ll wear the casual blue office attire instead.
I strip down and shower. Then I discover, damn, I left my undies in the other room. Further, people are coming in here, where I’m naked. I whip a towel around me. They don’t seem to notice me at all. I slip out to another room and find undies. I put them on but these undies are uncomfortable. I think they may be somebody else’s underwear.
As I decide to change, the door opens and people flow in, chattering away. I hold the towel up and do a fast-change under it, then drop the towel. I’m in my undies and a tee shirt but put on my uniform shirt and pants.
Red stache returns. He tells me that the guy, an E5, won’t leave my quarters, but that I need to deal with him. No problem, I’ll do that. I just need to put on my boots. I consider my jump boots but then put on my dress shoes, polishing them up to an amazing shine. In full uniform now, I prepare to leave.
People stop, look at me and ask, why are you in that uniform. I explain, because I’m in the military and that I need to leave to take care of business. I plan on coming back. All are amazed by my shoes’ luster. I shrug; just mil standards.
I go to my new place. Other military personnel see me coming and step out of my way, except one tall, large guy. He tries to tell me that I don’t have the right to be there. I warn him that he’d better watch what he says next because I’m in a mood. Apologizing the other gets out of my way. I continue to my quarters. The guy I’m to evict is there. A tall, young, white guy in white underwear, he’s a babbling wreck. I figure out, he has problems and tell him, you can’t stay here, but you’re coming with me, I’m getting you help. First, you need to dress.
Dream end. Hah – was this one fraught with psychological flotsam, or what?
A Shoe Dream with Alvin
I walked along a sandy path to get shoes. I had shoes on and was fully dressed in pants and a shirt. When I was walking, I discovered blue booties, like something worn at a crime scene. I put them on over my shoes, and then continued on to get shoes. This made total sense to me, that I had shoes but needed a different pair. When I got to the location, a window on the side of a light blue building with a glass front door, I was told that my shoes weren’t ready and that I needed to return a little later. I walked back to where I’d started but took of my blue booties. I’d been thinking about them and decided that they weren’t needed.
I encountered a woman after taking off my booties. With dark, curly hair, she reminded me of one of my younger sisters. She saw the booties in my hand so we chatted about the booties. She told me that she wears hers in her shoes, over her socks. I replied, my shoes wouldn’t fit it I wore the booties like that. Then I wondered about the booties’ purpose and whether I needed them at all.
I went back and got my next pair of shoes, which were military jump boots, all black and shiny. I was baffled about why I had them and why I thought I needed them. Setting them aside, I began looking for Alvin. Alvin was the man who was gave me my shoes. I’d seen him, a tall white man with short, dark hair. I told other that I encountered that I was going to play a joke on Alvin. They asked me who Alvin was. When I explained, they replied, “Oh, that’s Mister Simon.” I asked why they called him that and they said, “That’s his name.” I repeated the whole name, Alvin Simon, and wondered if we had part of it wrong.
That’s where it ended.
As an aside, a scene in a movie triggered recall of a dream where bees were flying in front of my face, teaching me by sending me information telepathically.
The Luggage & Shoes Dream
First, the dream was in two parts. I dreamed part one, awoke, returned to sleep and had part two.
Second, it again involved military. I understand more about myself, though, like I’m terrible at socializing. The military with its rank and structure gave me a niche where I was comfortable.
In both dream parts, I was in civilian clothes and traveling alone (which I often did in the mil and civilian life, because of my specialized roles).
Part one had me arriving at a hectic place lousy with Army personnel. They were arriving and staging. All of them were in uniform. Many had down time and were waiting to move on. It was all out doors, and it was a mess.
For my part, I’d arrived, found a place for my two bags, left them, and headed off to find food. Then I’d figure out where I was to next go.
Well, after eating (which happened off-dream, apparently), I went to use a can. All the cans were out of order, which pissed me off (no pun intended). I wandered for a while in search of working facilities. I did find and use a shower, and then eventually discovered a working but filthy latrine.
I’d wandered a long way and had lost orientation, with no idea where I’d left my bags. I began that search. After a bit, I went up on a hill.
A person who used to work with me waved to me from up there. She came down to chat. She was traveling on a separate mission. I told her that I’d lost my bags and had to go look for them. Bored, with time to kill, she volunteered to come and help.
We went down the hill to a sort of ad hoc intersection. While there, she spotted a piece of paper fluttering on the ground. It looked like a set of orders. Picking it up, she read my name off it. She realized that it said something about what’d happened with my bags. With her leading, we went to see a man. She gave him the paper, and he (complaining as he did) gave me one of my bags. I was thankful, but she had to go. That was okay, though, because suddenly I completely knew where I was and went right to my second bag.
Awakening at that point, I thought about it all. The dream setting’s chaos and messiness bothered me, as did the fact that I couldn’t remember and find my bags on my own. I went back to sleep.
I was back in the same place, but order had been established. With chairs set up, all the troops were sitting in order. I had my bags, and the toilets were working. I also had food. We’d been provided with box lunches on the long flight over. I’d not eaten mine, so I had two big sandwiches along with other things to eat in a clear plastic bag that I was carrying.
On arriving, my feet hurt, so I removed my shoes and set the to one side. I had a rental car so I was basically going to eat and use the facilities and then hit the road. As I walked around, though, I worried about my hair not being in reg (I was notorious for that back in the day). I found the barbershop but it was busy. A commander and his staff passed by me. After deciding that I couldn’t do anything about my hair, I decided to eat and leave.
First, I wanted my shoes. I knew where I’d left them but they weren’t there. Irritated, I started searching for them. I spotted them in the middle of a wide, beaten dirt road. As I went to get them, an army PFC (female) was crossing the road and kicked one of my shoes. I yelled at her for that; she gave me a dirty look. I then got my shoes (loafers, as I was still in civies), put them on, and went to a table, where I sat down to eat.
End dream.
General Intelligence Dream Trend
Before last night, I had a dream with the same theme three nights in a row. The theme for them was one, back in the military (again), two, going to see a general about an intelligence matter.
In the first dream, I’d received information via a white paper. I was distilling the information for use in something else. Some of what I read wasn’t clear to me. I took the unusual step of calling the general for an appointment to clarify what he meant.
Real life background. I was enlisted in the military, retiring as an E-7. General officers are a big deal. I worked with several but I would never directly call one to ask for more information.
Intermission over. The general was accommodating and set up an appointment for mid-afternoon on the next day. The dream was then sort of a scramble between the call and the appointment time. Things kept going awry. Uniform items were missing. Yeah, classic anxiety dream.
Awakening, I thought, geez, another military dream. I also thought, humorous, isn’t it? Calling a general (a higher authority) for more intelligence (ha!) and then scrambling to meet the requirement levied on me.
I was comfortable with that, but the next night, I dreamed that something had gone wrong. A messy situation had evolved (details were murky and ill-defined, but I knew with the dreamsense that often takes place that I needed to take action) and I determined that I needed to call a general to get more intelligence. Those were actual words used in the dream.
Two in a row, I thought the next morning. Feeling a little inadequate, are we?
The third dream carried on most of the theme from the second dream. Call the general, get more information, but now pursuing a mad scramble to ‘get it all together’. My hair needed cut to be within regs, I couldn’t find a clean uniform, and then raced to find shoes. Yeah, clear messages from me, to me, about feeling inadequate and stuck in place (which was reflected in my writing energy later that day).
Then, walking and reflecting yesterday, along came The Traveling Wilburys with “Heading for the Light”. Well, I’m hoping that I’m heading for the light. Last night’s dreams included being on a television quiz show, but it was mostly backstage action of getting ready. I was being coached but I kept getting lost.
The dream ended with a production assistant (a young, short woman wearing a headset) finding me in a dark area back stage. I was speaking with others. She rushed up and said, “There you are. It’s time.”
I replied, “Okay, I’m ready.”
Hope I’m right.
Michael Seidel, writer 