Only In Our Dreams We Are Free

Flooded basement

2006-05-23T09:44:00.000-07:00

I know, it's been awhile since I've kept up with this but haven't dreamt anything interesting until this past weekend. I'm sure my one faithful reader has already given up at this point!

Last night's dream: I awoke and looked out of the bedroom window. I saw that the house behind ours and its backyard was gone. It had been demolished in the middle of the night. I yelled for Barrett to come look because what had happened was this: whoever demolished the house had not done it to build condos but had instead made a nice path bordered with trees that led down to the beach. Up until that moment, I never knew the ocean was so close to our house! I was very excited, as we now had this beautiful view of the ocean and a path to get to it. But then the situation started changing (or else I just started noticing)--the ocean was much closer than I knew and in fact, by tearing that house down, our backyard, as well as the backyards of all the other houses on our street, were filled up with the ocean. And in fact, our basement was submerged in water! I ran downstairs and yelled to my mom, sisters, and friends who were there that we had to get out, as the water was rising. It was seeping up through the floorboards. I was trying to pack up my laptop and my cellphone, pissed off and wondering if the City of Shoreline was responsible for this debacle. I couldn't understand why they would flood our houses without letting us know ahead of time or give us a say in the matter. I also couldn't understand why our house was the only one with a flooded basement. Then I awoke for real!

A dream over the weekend: I entered a bathroom in a hospital and laying on the floor were a group of sickly-looking women in hospital gowns, doing yoga. Turns out they were part of a yoga group for cancer patients. One woman suddenly stood up and I saw she'd left a pool of blood on the floor. She staggered over to the sink but couldn't walk very well. I wanted to help her but the yoga instructor assured me that this was normal.

Bill Gates, liver, and carjacking

2006-04-20T09:30:00.000-07:00

[Argh, must get down details quickly before they leave entirely!]

I'm standing in a very large, expensive kitchen with a group of friends, unknown to me in real life. This one friend and I are busy working a newspaper crossword puzzle that we'd laid out on the kitchen island. At that moment, the "paperboy" walks in--a young woman dressed in an old-fashioned newspaper boy garb from the turn of the last century. It's my old paperboy and I hadn't seen her in years! A joyful reunion ensues. Then Bill Gates enters the kitchen and I realize that this is his kitchen and we are guests in his mansion. He sits on a kitchen chair and we chat for a bit. I worry that we've awakened him with our loud talking but he's not upset. He starts to do that autistic-rocking thing that he's famous for and I note that he has a repaired cleft lip; I find it incredible that not only did I not know this about him but that the media has taken such pains to Photoshop this out of all the photos of him when it's so not a big deal.

I'm at a pool party with my friend Ben. It's another sort of reunion of friends. There are copious amounts of white, plastic poolside chairs laid out in a very very tight concentric circle that makes getting to a chair without stepping on someone almost impossible; I'm annoyed by this arrangement. I choose a chair far away from Ben because I see that he's with a female friend who I am on the outs with. But Ben motions me to sit next to him, saying that all is forgotten. Suddenly, I'm eating what seems to be some sort of liver dish that his female friend has made. In the interest of renewing our own friendship, I give her a thumbs up while all the time thinking how gross it feels in my mouth.

I'm leaving my old work building and walking toward the parking lot with my work friend Duane. We are going out for drinks after work and decide to leave my car there and use his car instead. We get into his truck and pull out onto Highway 99 but we are going the wrong direction, so he does an illegal U-turn. A large advertising vehicle with a Diet Pepsi logo on the sides pulls out from a sidestreet and turns its lights on--dang, undercover cops! Duane pulls off on a sidestreet, the cop gets out and walks to the truck but coming up on the passenger's side window. Duane reaches in front of me and rolls the window down. The cop, who has blonde hair and looks very scraggly, reaches in and yanks on Duane's hair. "Get out of the truck and give me all your money and valuables," he growls in the gravelliest voice I have ever heard. He's not a cop, I think, as Duane gets out on his side. The guy spreadeagles him on a wall to search his person for valuables while I am slowly getting out of the truck. I see that Duane has left the keys in the ignition and I wonder if I should take them out so the thief won't get them. I wonder what to do with my purse--maybe throw it far away from me since the thief isn't paying any attention to me? Then it occurs to me that this guy hasn't even shown us a gun and I'm standing right behind him. My brain races as I think what I can do to him to knock him out. I decide to kick him in the groin from behind but something tells me that if I do, he's going to kill me. I awaken with a start!

Nick Drake

2006-04-18T07:48:00.000-07:00

Again with the frustration. I awoke remembering much of my dreams this morning but then was distracted upon awakening by talking with BW in bed and playing with the cats. I vaguely recall being in Europe, a large fountain in a town square, and most definitely that Nick Drake was the soundtrack to my dreamscape.

Oh, thank you, BW! He just reminded me of a dream that I told him about that I'd already forgotten just 15 minutes later: I had absolutely no nipple on my left breast. None, just smooth skin. And I was showing everyone I knew, saying, "Did you know that I had no nipple? Isn't that weird? Look!" and then pulling out my breast. Very funny! I won't bother trying to pull up a photo to illustrate this one!

How frustrating!

2006-04-17T19:39:00.000-07:00

I know, I said I wouldn't post if I had nothing to relate but this is ridiculous! Almost a week with nothing clearly recalled is very unusual for me. In L. M. Montgomery's "The Golden Road," the children in the book having a dreaming contest every night to see who has the most vivid dreams. One of the kids starting winning the contest every evening by eating cucumbers and drinking milk right before bedtime. Maybe I'll have to try that (or at least wash my face with this soap!). I'll will myself into a cool dream tonight if I can. . .

No job & then delicious peanut butter toast.

2006-04-14T07:52:00.000-07:00

This is a dream from the other evening but I didn't want to post it until I had more news about my potential new job:

I got the phone call from the hiring manager at the new job I interviewed for. She was sorry to inform me that I didn't get the job and that she gave it to someone else. I was frankly very surprised and shocked, as I was sure I was going to be offered it. I wondered who they had hired instead and--thank you, Dreamland!--their new employee's resume was in front of me. I scanned it and noticed that this person was a carpenter, nothing more. Puzzled, I reread the job description and there it was: one of the tasks of this job was to put together an entire suite of IKEA office furniture. I suck at putting together IKEA furniture; they must've found this out somehow! "But this person is just a carpenter! After she puts together the office furniture, she's not qualified to do anything else! What about the other tasks?! WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER TASKS?!!" I yelled out loud, then awoke.

This morning's dream: I made four pieces of toasts and slathered a thick layer of peanut butter on each slice. It was yummy.

No cats in the pizza parlor.

2006-04-13T10:08:00.000-07:00

I was walking with my dad and my sister Heather from my dad's house to dinner at a restaurant. I had Colin, my cat, in my arms. He was a bit different than the real Colin; this cat was heavier, older, and very docile. I had decided to take him to dinner with us for some unexplained reason. We walked and walked, probably a couple of miles. The neighborhood had an East Coast/Cape Cod/right by the ocean feel to it and it was rather pretty. I remarked that I didn't know that dad's neighborhood looked like this. We finally reached the restaurant; it was a pizza parlor housed in a long, one-story log cabin with huge doors opened to the outside. There were lots of tables filled with happy families and I could see my own family in there, waiting for us. It was a family reunion, but it was filled with either dead family members or members I rarely see anymore. We stepped into the door and I saw the owner glance disapprovingly at me. I realized with dismay that I wasn't allowed in the restaurant with the cat. What had I been thinking?! I didn't have a leash for him, either, so I was forced to hold him and stay outside while everyone else ate pizza and caught up on old times. I tried to find a place to sit in the grass but there was trash everywhere. Colin started getting very heavy and I began to cry, thinking that I had to not only wait another hour or so while holding him, but that I had to walk all the way back with him too. And I was hungry!!

Polenta

2006-04-11T10:05:00.000-07:00

BW was in the kitchen to make some polenta. I opened up the cupboard and pointed out that the polenta should be made with the bag of bigger corn, not the finer corn used for corn grits.

Pretty exciting dream, huh? :)

Old job dream

2006-04-10T16:37:00.000-07:00

This is another dream theme I have--dreaming about my old workplace,which is rather funny considering that the eight years I did work in that office, I didn't dream about it once. But after I left in November, I've had countless dreams of returning (rather reluctantly) to the office, either to work again or to visit. Last night's dream was a visiting dream and not a very cohesive one at that. I'll just take the plunge and describe what happened without any explanations, since I can't make sense of it myself!

I was walking downtown and bumped into a woman who worked in the IS Department. I said hello and asked her if the "tech worker strike" was still going on. She said it was and I was shocked that this strike had been going on for five months now with no resolution. I then found myself in my old office--of course, it looked nothing like my old office but was a very cramped room with tons of furniture and TONS of people, coworkers from all different timeperiods and past jobs. I peeked into my former boss's office and saw that she was interviewing three people for my old job, one of whom was this awful lady that I used to work with in the Human Resources Dept named Pat. I stifled a laugh thinking that they could potentially get stuck hiring this crappy worker. I kept moving around the office trying to find a bit of empty space and found myself all alone in a corner. When a random woman walked over to stand next to me, I started playfully growling at her like a dog and she growled back. Everyone joined in on the growling game and amidst the laughter, I awoke.

A thief and a snake

2006-04-08T09:12:00.000-07:00

I walked up to the door of the house that BW and I lived in. This dream house, of course, looks nothing like our real house, and it is a big house to boot. As I go to open the door, I can sense that something is wrong, as the deadbolt is locked; I recalled leaving it unlocked earlier. We walk in and I can see right away that our house has been burgularized, but very poorly. In this house, we have TONS of stuff everywhere--lotsa lotsa lotsa books, cds, comics, toys, trinkets, furniture, glass cabinets full of crap, everything on display (we're much wealthier in dreamland!). Only some of it is missing and not the good stuff either. Clearly it was a very hasty job. I run upstairs to my bedside table and am relieved to find all my credit cards and i.d. still there (yep, still practical, even in my dreams!). We take inventory of the missing items and find it amusing that really worthless stuff was nicked with the cool, expensive items left behind. As I walk through the house, I hear a noise coming from one of the smaller rooms. I tiptoe away, grab BW, tell him that I think the thief may still be in the house. He grabs a kitchen knife, I grab a tiny paring knife (heh!), and follow him to the room. There's nobody there, but a video game is left in mid-play on the computer and is making sounds. We chuckle as we realize that our thief was more interested in playing a computer game than getting down to the business of thieving.

Plot switch: I'm sitting at a cafe table with my sister Kari. Three people walk up to us--they are former co-workers (and that cool dream thing happens whereupon I recognize them fully as dream acquaintances while at the same time, I also know that I've never seen them in real life) (I love when that happens!). It's a birthday surprise party, they announce, and I'm delighted that they remembered my birthday (again, I also am puzzled that it truly isn't my birthday). The first woman hands me a 3 foot brown snake, which wraps itself inquisitively around my arms and neck. It's some sort of harmless, skinny snake, much like a garter but longer and it is quite pretty. I thank her profusely but telegraph with my eyes to Kari that I never asked for a snake, how wierd is that, what the hell am I going to do with a pet snake? The second woman tells me that the angelfish I wanted is back at my house in a little bowl; I thank her and again silently wonder when in the heck I said I wanted a pet fish. The third woman give me a large square box wrapped in paper. I open it and it is a hair accessory set, complete with curlers and barrettes. It's one of those very cheap sets for little girls that you find in a drugstore. I tell her politely that I've always wanted a set of curlers. She then presented me with a fourth present: a book covered with a JC Penney ad from 1974. I study it for a bit, then open it up. I see one of my high school classmates in it and exclaim with delight that it's one of my old missing yearbooks! I flip through the pages to find my photo--it's there but heavily distorted in the way that a funhouse mirror would distort an image. I recall that this distortion is the reason I never kept a copy of this particular yearbook and wonder why no one else's photo is distorted like mine.

[Note: two of my regular dream themes show up here--large houses/buildings and small pets, specifically not wanting them or being able to take care of them properly. The last theme must be a manifestation of the fact that I had oodles of small pets in my childhood and teen years and swore off of them about ten years ago because I felt I didn't have the time to devote to them.]

Nothing.

2006-04-05T09:57:00.000-07:00

I've just made the executive decision that if I don't remember any dreams, I won't post anything. Blogger is already too full of posts about nothing anyway. So there you have it!

Hard-boiled eggs

2006-04-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

Yep, this is the vague recollection I have of last night's dream when I awoke this morning. I bolted upright to the sound of my phone ringing and it's much more difficult for me to recall dreams when sleep is shattered as opposed to waking up slowly. I don't recall much else, however, except that I had one of my famous "dream within a dream" dreams and was describing that dream to someone else in my dream. This person was sitting on a huge pile of gigantic hard-boiled eggs cut in half. She was getting bits of chalky yolk all over her clothing and I was faintly disgusted but also envious because it looked like a nice, soft seat. Oh, Amy Storch a.k.a. Amalah was in my dream-within-the-dream too, walking with me in a parking lot!

It was an interesting mental exercise to try and remember bits of the dream before they fled pell-mell out of my sleepy brain. I'm hoping the more disciplined I get at this, the more vividly I will recall details.

Welcome to my dream blog!

2006-04-03T16:59:00.000-07:00

I don't know if anyone is actually reading this and I really don't care if they are. I simply want an outlet to record my dreams and this seems the logical choice, as I've given up keeping written journals. I've always had very trippy dreams and have loved whenever I've written them down. I have various dream logs written up here and there but never stick to them. I want to preserve some of these weird dreams of mine from here on out!

So here's my first--this isn't from last night but the night before:
I was with my friend Howard in New York City. We were looking for an apartment to live in together. It was just a roommate situation but there was also the understanding that Howard's girlfriend Mrrranda would be joining us at a later date, so we had to find an apartment big enough for the three of us. I vaguely recall walkin through the streets of Manhattan (or what passed for it in my brain!) and coming up on a "for rent" sign. We rang the bell, met with the landlady, and walked up a few flights of stairs to the most fabulous apartment! It was essentially an enormous artist's loft space, with giant windows and wide open spaces. The only drawback was that it was carpeted in Astroturf-green carpeting and I recall thinking that it would come up pretty easily, it really was hideous carpet. The place also had no actual divided rooms and hence no bedrooms, but Howard made some comment about creating private spaces. The best news was that it was only $750/month! In Manhattan! OMG! I turned to Howard and said, "This is too good of a deal to pass up." And then I awoke. Drat! I wonder how we would've decorated it? As Howard is an artistic genius, it probably would've been really cool.