First, I traveled by boat. I was traveling with a group but never saw more than one a a time. I think we might have been military but we didn’t wear uniforms or use ranks.
In the first stage of our traveling, we went by boat, but that was only mentioned; I was never on the boat in the dream. We arrived at an island spa resort. I was dressed very casually in jeans with a light pastel Polo shirt. A woman greeted me and told me that I would be in a villa but in a different location from the officers. She also told me that I was the only enlisted present. One of the others came by at that point to check on me and then told me I was invited to dinner that night.
Ferrari Daytona coupe; not my car.
Next, I left the resort. I was driving. In a weird sequence where the POV changed, I saw that I was driving a 1971 Ferrari Daytona coupe. This was a car that I greatly admired when I was a teenager. Red, it was in perfect condition. Other people pointed at it as I drove by, which greatly pleased. Abruptly, my wife was with me as a passenger. I found a place to park by a curb so we could go in and have dinner.
My 1993 RX-7.
Then, I was driving again. This time I was in a 1993 black Mazda RX-7 like I used to own. A cousin was with me. I drove along a beach at the ocean and then found a black to park so we could get something to eat. After I got out the car, I was speaking with him and told him, “Don’t lock the door yet.” But he slammed the door shut. Horrified, he said, “I’m sorry.” I replied, “You locked us out.”
But I then discovered that the car was a targa, with a removeable roof panel. So all I needed to do was reach in the car to unlock it, which I did. I then remarked, “I guess I should put the roof on if I want the car to be locked.” I put that on but as I did, I thought to myself in the dream, funny, but Mazda never made a targa version of this car.
I dreamed I had a very fancy sportscar. I knew it was quite unique, exotic, and expensive. It seemed dark in color but I never saw its color or make, and know little about its shape other than some brief glimpses. It appeared low and svelte with organic curves, along the lines of sports racers in the mid-sixties.
My wife and I were traveling in it. Along our way, we paused to submit an entry in a contest. Everyone was participating in it. My wife took care of that entry, going in and providing them some sample of clever engineering that we’d either found or created. Coming back to the car, she told me there was another opportunity to come back to give them an entry at three that afternoon. We agreed we would return and drove on.
We drove to our destination without incident. Then, with sunset chasing us, we headed back the other way. First we stopped to submit another entry. Since my wife did the first one, I volunteered to go in and take care of this one.
Inside this well-lit, austere place, it was chaos. I found a counter where a rotund white man with a thin mustache was supposed to be handling the entries. He looked like he was in over his head. I brought our device to him for registering and entry. The thing, whatever it was, was round, small, and lightweight, easily residing on my open palm. I gave it to him with the paperwork and watched to see what happened, wanting reassurances we were properly vetted. He did some things but seemed to lose focus halfway through. I made it a point to pester him to ensure our entry had been processed. Reassuring me, he showed me a pullback lid from a small metal can, the sort you’d find on a pet food offering. I was horrified and protested, but then decided, the hell with it, I had to go.
I returned to my car but didn’t see my wife. Picking it up, I carried it out of a crowd of people and around a corner, and set it down with a thump. Still looking for my wife and not finding her, I reasoned that she must have gone off and would be back in a moment. But she rapped on the car window from inside the car; she’d been sitting there the entire time and was indignant about the way I’d just picked up the car and carried it because it’d been unsettling for her.
That out of the way, we and five other couples began driving down a curving multilane highway into the gathering dusk. I could hear the people talking in their cars. Many were discussing my car and me. I gently accelerated, easily outdistancing them, though I knew they remained behind me and could still hear them talking.
By now, it was a moonless and starless black night. I reached a point where the road went up a vertical grade. The car handled it with no problem, but at the top was a ceiling. Reaching it, I stopped the car and left it. I was at the juncture between a white ceiling and white wall with a blue and black pattern. There was a crawlspace access. I knew from my journey there that I had to pick up the car and carry it through this crawlspace to the other side. I knew I’d done it before but I was a little more tired this time.
Nevertheless, I scaled the wall and entered the crawlspace. The other cars had arrived and were queued to follow me. Reaching back, I picked up the car with my wife inside it. As I began wedging myself and my vehicle through the narrow space, I thought, this is stupid, and stopped.
Being laid up seemed to lure flocks of dreams. An early one was about cars. I often dream of cars so this isn’t something overly remarkable.
The featured car was one from my life, a 1985 Mazda RX-7 GLE SE. We bought it new on returning to the US from Okinawa. My wife went along with the purchase even though a two-seat sports car isn’t practical and the insurance was hefty for a 29 year old driver. My wife didn’t drive it as she didn’t like driving manuals. Wasn’t comfortable. But we had fun in the car.
Dream me could have been lifted from a photo of the period. So there I am, driving the car. I pull up to a long, wide table. Blonde wood with a silver metal edge all around. I reach down along the long table. Almost magically — or maybe I just overlooked it — I have a black cord in my right hand. A small black connection is available. It’s like the monolith at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
I connect it to charge my car. Charging is done in nothing minus one second. I disconnect the cable and move back to my car. As I do, I hear a man speak. He asks, “Why is he taking my energy? He doesn’t need my energy. He has his own. And he can make more.”
I knew he was talking about me. Another began defending me.
I waved them off. “No, no, he’s right. I can generate my own energy. That’s what I’ll do.”
Dreamed I came into a windfall of cash. The amount was never specified but I bought a new Porsche 718 spyder and paid cash.
Next, I purchased a Dior pewter gray suit. Though off the rack, it fit me perfectly. Oh, and this was a young thirtyish me. Along with the shirt, I bought new shirt, tie, and shoes. Wearing these things, I drove the car around. In one odd sign, however, I seemed larger than the car.
I stopped and exited the car to chat with some people I loosely knew. They admired my suit, guessing, “New?” Yes, I proudly answered. I realized I had the price tags attached. I fretted about my wife finding out how much I paid for the suit. I believed it was thousands but I couldn’t read the price tags. Each time I tried, something imposed to prevent that from happening.
I decided that I wanted to remove the price tags. I needed a knife or small snips. Looked for both, roaming around, but found neither. Did receive many more compliments about how the suit looked on me.
Getting back into the car to leave, I found that while the cockpit was as expected, the rest of the car was expanded to be an open-air bus filled with people. Didn’t surprise me. We were leaving a museum. I saw a woman who I wanted to intercept walking toward another vehicle exit. I decided I would circle around and chat with her.
“I just have one stop to make,” I told the rest. “Then we’ll be on our way and I’ll drop you off at your destination.”
I was driving down the road while making that announcement. Lovely day of blue sky, sunshine, and clouds. The roads were spacious and well-maintained, concrete with curbs, abutting parks, plazas, and museums. I circled right and went under an overpass and came back around to where I was.
That surprised me. I’d expected there to be a turn off that would take me over to the other road. I tried again — three more times in all — and met the same result. With the fourth time, my passengers said, “Oh, no, not again.
Asking for their indulgence, I gave it one more effort, but this time shifting over by one road which I’d noticed. That worked, taking me to where I wanted to be.
First, I was working for a friend I used to work for, Laura. She was a terrific boss, perhaps the best I ever had. Certainly in the top three.
I was injured in the dream and forced to wear a cast on my left arm. It struck me as an unusual cast but I can’t provide any details. Encumbering me, it was forcing me to do things in unusual ways.
Laura was at her desk, watching and talking. I suddenly had a brainstorm about how the cast I wore could be modified to make it easier to deal with the limitations it imposed. Laura began talking about it a split second after the idea came to me. We both started babbling about with growing excitement. Calling me to her desk, she said, “Take out the notebook from the inside pocket on the left side of my jacket.” I did, and handing her the small brown book. She opened it to a blank page and started writing.
With a dream shift, I was now in line. I needed a new vehicle. Five people were ahead of me. A female cashier was helping us. I saw a white Jaguar convertible with a red interior. It seated four. I decided, that’s what I’m buying.
The cashier told the first person in line, “We don’t have any small cars left.” Then she called out to the rest of us, “Is anyone in line interested in any car besides a small car.”
Raising my hand, I responded, “I am. I’m buying that white Jaguar.”
The purchase was done with dream speed. As part of my purchase, I was given a model of the car. They went off to get it ready for me to drive away. I went to a coffee shop and purchased a cup of coffee in a paper cup with a plastic lid.
A hard wind was blowing. I needed to set my coffee down but worried about the wind blowing it over, even though I was in an office. I opened a file drawer and set the coffee in there, thinking that the drawer will protect it from the wind. Then I set the little white Jaguar on top of it.
The wind immediately blew the little car off the coffee cup lid. I wasn’t surprised. I said, “That’s exactly how I expected that to go.”
Awakening this morning, I was surprised. Sunshine was flowing into the bedroom.
Where was the dark rain?
I listened to the house’s silence. Wednesday, I thought, considering my plans.
No, Sunday, I corrected myself.
I’d expected night, rain, and Wednesday because that’s what I dreamed. Alternatively, maybe that was a different reality embracing me — which I thought was a dream — and now I’m back here again, where it was sunny, daylight, and Sunday. It’s something to contemplate.
The dream had leaned toward the odd side. My wife and I were with many others. We’d gone somewhere where I was to receive a prize and she was to be honored at a dinner. Pretty exciting stuff.
Meanwhile, I was eager to continue writing another novel which I was working on. But first, the dinner.
We’d all parked. I had my black RX-7. It was night, pitch black, and pouring rain. Despite those circumstances, it was a boisterous crowd streaming into the festivities. I knew many and was busy waving, calling out greetings to friends, and laughing.
We got into the hall’s foyer, a lovely warm, tall, and pink marble place with thick carpeting and golden chandeliers. As I chatted with friends, my wife moved away from me, but I could still see her. I called to her so we could go in and find our table.
She turned back around. Shock was on her face. I went to her and asked what was wrong.
“Doctor D is dead,” she answered.
Others approached us, inquiring if all was okay. I explained to them what she’d told me and who Doctor D was to her. Meanwhile, I wondered how she’d received the news; I’d been watching her. Nobody talked to her and she wasn’t on the phone.
Using our coats to protect our heads from the rain, we hustled through the dark rainy night back to my black car. Many other cars were already started and moving, shiny dark shapes, filling the air with exhaust smoke and startling me, because I thought they were staying for the dinner. While wondering why they weren’t I started entering my car.
Another person called to me. Sitting in her car, her window partially down, she explained that she was trying to use her computer writing program but it was asking for a code. She didn’t know how to get a code.
“Yes, you need a code,” I said. She replied that she’d never heard of that, and I said, “I think I can get one for you.”
Returning to my car, I started it and plugged my computer in, then typed some keys.
A series of red characters came up on a black screen. I memorized them and ran through the drenching rain to the other person. “Here, put these numbers in.” When she was ready, I repeated what I’d memorized.
We had to do this twice. I worried that I’d gotten the numbers wrong but it worked after the second time. “Good,” I said, and she replied, “Thank you.”
Head and shoulders hunched, I dashed back to the car. My wife was inside it, waiting. The rain cut visibility like a sheet had been tossed over the world.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
She looked at me. “You’re not wet.”
The dream ended.
First, after dreaming this and thinking about it, I eventually fired up my ‘puter. When I checked Facebook for messages from friends and family, FB showed me a post under its “Memories” category; it was the photo I shared in this post. I thought it a stretch as a coincidence to dream of a car that I haven’t owned in over eight years and see a picture of it on the same morning.
I liked that car a great deal, owning it for almost twenty years. A 1993 Mazda R1, it’d been bought as a gift to myself in 1996 after I’d retired from the military in 1995 and landed a good-paying job with a civilian company, a medicial device startup in Silicon Valley. The car reminded me of that life era, and how much my life changed at that point.
All that rain and darkness intrigued me. Despite that, we’d been very happy. I was getting a prize, and my wife was being honored. The mood quickly changed with news of a doctor’s death, but I don’t know of that doctor in real life, so that left me puzzled.
Overall, I don’t have any strong grasp on any insights about the dream. As always, it could be Neurons just having fun, or some weird neural scrambling brought on by unknown causes.
That’s how it goes with my dreams. If anyone can tell me what it means, it’d be appreciated.
Let’s begin in the middle. As the dream seemed to do.
My wife and I were out somewhere. Broken down. Limited view of the setting, like, not important, but seemed like thin scrub brush, black asphalt road, and dry. Vehicle was a black sports car. Could have been a Jaguar XK-E or a Mazda RX-7. Its identity fluttered and shifted, always black, a sleek sports car, but different makes each time I looked at it.
Another man, in a faded yellow short sleeve short and torn blue jeans, was there, trying to go somewhere else. Seemed homeless, with little going for him.
Also present was a young woman, also with a broken-down vehicle, a sixties era white Volkswagen Beetle.
We needed parts and tools to fix the cars. I could get mine running. Plans were formed and tried. We couldn’t get all four people into my car. Should someone be left behind? Maybe her Beetle could fit into my car.
The VW’s body was removed. They tried fitting it in. Sort of got it in there but the consensus rose, that’s not going to work. We had to get it back out but it was wedged in tight. I told them, “Stand back. I got this.” I reached into the car, picked it up, and pulled it out using leverage. “Impressive,” everyone said. The woman said, “You’re really strong.” My wife said, “He’s always been weirdly strong.”
I decided, “This is what we’ll do. Leave the VW here. Get in my car. Go to the nearest town. Get the tools and parts needed, fix my car, then I’ll return and fix the other.” I finished, telling the woman, “You’ll go back with me to your car.” Everyone accepted the plan. I got into my car’s driver seat. Wife got into the passenger side. The car had a hatch. The other two got in there. We left the hatch open and drive the twenty something miles to town.
First, we met a group of other people. They needed help, rides, money, etc., to get elsewhere. For some reason, they thought my wife and I were there to help them. That surprised us, but we agreed we would.
Next, we decided we needed clothes, shirts and pants, and entered a crowded discount store. I found an orange pullover with green trim. After putting it on, my wife came up in a new shirt. “I went with a sports team on my shirt,” she said. “Looks like you went with something else.”
The others needing help were white haired, elderly, thin or thick, men and women. They followed me around. After raising the hood and fiddling, I announced that I’d fixed my car. Now the woman and I would go get her Volkswagen. The woman said that she would sell it after it was fixed and buy a larger vehicle. She and I got into my car and zipped away. Seconds later in dream time, I was back in town when she drove her VW in.
This was a surprisingly short dream, and all in blue with very low lighting. The framing for all of this was very tight, staying focused on me — young again, with long, thick hair — and just the car and our very immediate background, which was blurred. I’d just been bequeathed a dark blue car. Low and wide, shaped like a blunt wedge, it was built for speed and barely came up to my thighs. Its wheels were large, and its tires were fat, and its glass was darkly tinted. Dark, dark, dark blue, reminding me of the old Penske Sunoco blue on the cars that Mark Donahue drove at Indy, and Can Am, Trans Am, and sports car racing, I walked around it, looking for a manufacturer’s badge or logo, but found none.
I heard someone — and it might have been me, to be honest, because I think it was in my head — say, “Get in and go.”
Go? Go where? Get in? How?
I didn’t see any door handles. I couldn’t even tell where the doors were. There were no lines or breaks. The car was completely seamless. Its headlights were flat, narrow slits, as were its front air intakes. I thought it could be a BMW, but it could also be a Ferrari or Tesla, McLaren or Mercedes. It could be anything.
As I walked around, scratching my head and going through the question, how does the door open, the door just opened. It was a scissor type door, raising up instead of turning out. I peered into a blue interior that seemed both plush and spartan, built solely for two, and finished in dark blues that were even darker than the body.
Breathless with excitement and anticipation, I slipped in behind the wheel and looked around, sucking up details. The door closed as the seats embraced me. Arms wrapped across my waist and chest, startling and frightening me until I realized they were like seatbelts except they were part of the seat and sealed themselves, holding me tight in the soft seat. The steering wheel was small and moved toward me when I reached for it. A soft rumbling began. A dashboard with low blue lights lit up.
I chuckled to myself, thinking, someone likes blue. The steering wheel was flat on its top and bottom and fit perfectly to my hands. The car smelled new. But, how was that possible, when someone left it to me or gave it to me?
I selected a gear with a small, black handle to my right and pressed on the gas. The car moved silently forward into a blue-black night as I grinned and thought, this will be fun.
In this dream, I was taking my Lamborghini Huracán (I think it was a Huracán) in to be painted. It’d acquired some chipping in its travels; I wanted it to look better.
I drove it into the shop — a quick drive through highway traffic — and discussed colors with the staff. Each time a color was mentioned, the car changed colors in the dream: lemon yellow, neon green, bright red, hot orange, merlot, white. No, not a white car! I chose to stay with its original electric blue.
The Lambo shop where I’d taken the car tried selling me a mother-in-law seat. I’d never heard of it. They showed me a red one; it looked like a cross between a booster chair for toddlers and a saddle. The explanation was that it fit over the transmission tunnel to add a temporary seat for a third person. Amused, I declined. My MIL (who is deceased) showed up to declare that she would never sit in that.
I checked into a high rise luxury hotel to wait. When I arrived, Alec Baldwin offered me champagne. He wasn’t drinking any. Alec and I walked about, looking out the windows, chatting and joking around. A young server came by with champagne flutes of apple cider on a silver tray. I was interested but he said, “It’s organic.” I replied, “Oh, I always drink organic.” The server answered, “If you always drink organic, you can have some.”
I accepted the organic apple cider. Alec asked, “You always drink organic?” When I answered, “Yes,” he said, “Then give me the champagne, and I’ll drink that.” I agreed. Then, clowning around, he stuck the champagne bottle up his ass, neck first, so it looked like he was blowing a bottle out of his rear. He thought it was hilarious but I thought it was strange.
They announced that my car was ready. I prepared to leave. The dream ended. Yeah, there’s a lot to unpack in this one.
Last night’s dreams wove and forth, like a fabric was being made, for large parts. Elements included a new, expensive sports car, someone misconstruing what was going on, and a first for me: wearing masks.
I dream about having new and expensive, exotic sports cars often. In this instance, the car was glossy black. Too precious to have anything like a roof, it featured two separate little seating positions with their own windshields.
While I was taking possession of that, driving around, admiring it and being admired, a parallel story went on. I lived in a fancy, wealthy neighborhood. One neighbor was a woman who was the classic helicopter mother. Doing everything with her two sons, she constantly hovered around them.
Well, the boys admired my car. I let them sit in it. She thought I was trying to take her sons. Dream parts were spent in me trying to explain to her what was going on, and her trying to avoid me because I was after her sons. Truly exasperating for a dream experience.
Exasperation was a dream theme. Next, I’ve parked the car and have arrived at this large gathering of people. We’re outside. Some friends are there, but most are strangers. My friends were telling people that I’m a writer, and then described my writing in glowing statements. This embarrassed me. It reached a point that I wouldn’t answer my friends when they asked what I was working on, but turned my back on them.
They stayed with me, though. We were all now wearing masks as we walked around, and I was trying to social distance, and telling others to do the same. Young people often wouldn’t wear a mask or distance, mocking me when I called them out on it. One male teenager, a redhead, was particularly exasperating, stupidly smirking when I told him to put a mask on and step back. He then made it a point, like a joke, to try to sneak up on me. He finally went away.
We had to go up to another level. I took the stairs to that. Halfway up, I discovered arrows pointing in the opposite direction. Then I found the way blocked with tape. I realized that they apparently had set the stairs up to be one way, but they’d only done this from the top. And they’d made no apparent provisions for people who needed to go up instead of down.
Yes, exasperating. Milling among people, my friends still behind me, talking about my writing, I abruptly realized that I wasn’t wearing my mask. Horrified, I pulled it out and put it on. Then I glanced around, checking to see if anyone had noticed.
No one had noticed, and I continued milling. Then, again, my mask was off. How did this keep happening? I wondered. I didn’t remember taking it off. My mask was in my pocket again. I put it on with a warning to myself to be more vigilant.
Michael Seidel, writer 