Hiding in the Rain with my Past

3/31 (Monday night)

My old friend S- has come. He is staying at a small open shelter I have in the woods, it's like my parents' house but with open walls, perhaps it is broken down. I am the only one there anymore.It is pouring with rain outside and dark. We are both packing to go hide out somewhere else in the woods. I keep finding more small items we will need and putting them in my overnight bag. I don't know where everybody else is but there's some danger of being discovered by bad people roaming around, which is why we are going to hide.

We have to hide out in the woods, camping, from someone or something and probably stay there for a while, but we're going to do it together. We've sort of been thrown together in this situation by accident, not by design really, although he greets me in a friendly way. The whole circumstances are very unclear to me now. At first I am just happy he is there but throughout I become more and more aggravated and frustrated by his behavior of being stubborn, and trying not to get too close to me. It's depicted very realistically in the dream in a way that I'd consciously forgotten.

Daytrip to a Glacier

3/24 Monday night?

I am at a hospital for standard procedures, eye exam, etc. My husband is also there. It's irritating me becuase he is off in this game room that also serves food, like hotdogs, and not meeting up with me. I know he's somewhere in the complex, and I've found him there before, but I don't know where he is. I don't want to go look for him again. I may have to miss one of my appointments (I came in for a series of different things). I mention the fact that he's supposed to be there to one of the nurses, but I'm frustrated at him and i don't want to reveal the extend of the disconnection to a stranger.

My sister comes and I go off with her and possibly some other people. I am wondering if I should just leave in the middle of the day, as he is still expecting me to be at the hospital, but I give in and go. There's no point sitting around waiting and we will be back the same day. We travel around the country to sightseeing spots. A cathedral, a ruined castle, natural formations. Flying and driving from one far flung spot to another. I'm feeling kind of miserable and also ab it guilty about leaving, but defiant.

My sister and I arrive at a northern town. I'm still pretty depressed. It is the edge of a glacier, which we can see coming down through the mountains. It's a tiny town, mostly abandoned these days. Maybe once busy during the gold rush. I look for the name of the town, and see a ranch with a big wooden side, it's called 700 Rose. There was another town name I thought it was but then I realize this is the name. I am just with my sister now, we drive around this area looking at the glacier and rocks. There is a woman standing near the glacier, with her back to me, and as I walk away she doesn't recede into the distance properly, the perspective is all off. I realize this in the dream but I don't realize it's becuase it's a dream.

We walk down by some rocks that are carved by the glacier. They are tall thin shards, like those created flaking stone tools. They are many colored and very beautiful, the upright shards thin enough in places to see the sunlight shining through. I marvel at the beauty.

Dark Cage

Possibly 3/23, Sunday night?

Very unclear and confusing one...

All I remember is it was dark, there's some kind of futuristic cage like structures, like the skeletons of former metal buildings, I'm running around within it, escaping people. There were a lot of other people involved. I may have been living there, homeless. It might be in the future. It was long and complex but I couldn't remember it for a long time, and even now I still just have one or two images.

Seemingly Random Snippets

Tuesday/Wednesday night?

I've been having really disjointed dreams lately. There was another the day before this one but I don't really remember enough to go on, except that I was at home and was a teenager, and was involved romantically with a guy that my father wanted me to break up with, and I was upset and defiant about it. My brother was also in the dream.

The dream the following night was even more disjointed. I remember: Poplar trees. Me as a small child, possibly a boy, running away from somewhere (maybe home) and crawling down into a secret camp I had under a bridge. Someone else was with me who had not been to the place before. There was a trap door leading down to it, and a slow moving river. There were some brightly colored things, maybe jewels. I planned to subsist on my own for a while after the escape.

Also in this dream I read a news article about somebody like Halle Berry, who was a celebrity, but NOT Halle Berry, who had just given birth to a daughter. The baby was named something that sounded Indian, and contained letters like S, A, N, D (the name was not in that order though, and it was longer. It was not sand :P). I had read about this before, but in this article, it said that in addition to the Indian name, she was being brought up to that religion (maybe Hinduism?). I thought this was very strange, as the family was actually not of that religion and they had no cultural connection either, aside from the name they had chosen. I wondered if it would be another crazy celebrity trend that other people would start doing as well.

Dangerous Dealings and Adoption

3/18/2008
Monday night's dream

In the first part of the dream, I am in the car with my husband. He is going to some sort of meeting which might be dangerous at a clubhouse. It is set in the trees, and he parks the car up the road from there and tells me to stay in it, he will be back shortly and may need to leave suddenly. I wait in the car, watching other people drive by and turn into the driveway slightly up the road. They look like gangsters, and I'm somewhat apprehensive.

My husband comes back and moves the car closer, so it's just outside the driveway. I can see the building from there, but just through the trees. He goes back in, warning me that I shouldn't come in after him (dangerous0 if he doesn't come back out, he will be back. I wait in the car some more.

He calls me to say to be ready to leave, and I move the car into the parking lot in front of the building, conscious that the other people might see me in the car and sort of hunkering down to avoid this. I think I end up going in to look for him after all.

Later...
I drive up to S- or somewhere nearby to pick up some children that I am adopting. We have decided to adopt several children, they are about 3 or 4 years old, and I think there are four kids in total, boys and girls. There's some talk of whether we will keep their existing names or give them new names, but they already know their names, so I think we are keeping the existing ones.

They are in different places, and I drive around to pick up two of them, a girl and boy (unrelated) with dark hair who I take home to stay in the house while I go get some others. Our apartment has many rooms now but is bare, it looks like somewhere new. Someone is there with them from my family, possibly my father or sister. I think there are still two other children to get.

Somewhere in the dream, possibly at this strange home (it might be in the future) there is a fat shorthaired grey striped tabby cat, with a short crooked tail. It's a boy, and his fur is very very silky and sleek. It doesn't look like any cat I know personally in the waking world.

After dropping off the kids, I go to a variety store of some kind, like walmart or fred meyer perhaps, but it has a lot of craft stuff and imports. I don't remember what I'm looking for, and I think I'm slightly confused about it in the dream as well. It's something to do with the children. I find myself wandering around the aisles trying to remember what it is. I look at a rack of bracelets. There are two fancily dressed muslim women in the store (apparently this is a popular shopping area for muslims, which I'm somewhat surprised to discover). They whisper to each other and don't look very friendly towards me.

A Very Unfortunate Cat (gross-out alert)

3/14/2008
Thursday night's dream

Warning for the squeamish: this one is fairly disgusting, possibly the grossest dream I've ever had, or at least that I can recall. But I don't describe the imagery in great detail... your imagination can probably fill it in.

I am at my parents' house, my father is also there. Several cats come up into the front yard (all now dead actually, but in the dream they were still alive and it was normal): there is Grey Kitty, Ibn Batuta, another cat (I think Pamplemousse) and a fourth cat which is Ibn's daughter; she is black. (All the cats in the group are dark, in fact, by odd coincidence). This kitten (which didn't exist in real life) is partly grown and has not been tamed, she is several months old. She's never been brought back to the house and has been living in the woods.

I go up to the cat and she allows me to do so. She's extremely sick and needs to be taken to the vet. It appears that (completely illogical as this seems once back in the waking world) a dog defecated on her at some point in the past when she was quite young, and it is still there on her back, and quite large. She has grown up this way, and somehow this has caused disease in her, scabs on her body and maggots coming out of them. It's quite disgusting and distressing.

Despite the fact that she is not tame she allows me to get close to her. I have to take her to the vet or she will surely die. We let the cats into the house and I try to capture her to put her into a carrier to go to the vet. I follow her around a bit from room to room as my father looks on and tries to block escapes, and eventually catch her. She doesn't try to scratch or fight me, which we think is impressive considering her lack of contact with humans (although it might be a result of her condition).

At this point I don't recall what happens next or if it just fades out, but the cat is in hand to be cured if possible.

The Bugs Kept Coming...

3/11/2008
Last night's dream (Tuesday morning/Monday night)

I only remember the last part of this, which was creepy and gross. I had a small wooden toy sort of like a threadspool with holes in it that was sitting on the bedside table. I was in bed, it was morning but I hadn't gotten up yet. It was some kind of cat toy, I think. As I was fiddling with it, I suddenly realized that there were some kind of bugs inside, they looked like a cross between a centipede and an earwig, and had long wavy antennas. One of them came out of one of the holes and started crawling around; it dropped on the bed and I jumped up and knocked it away, but then I couldn't see where it had gone. My husband asked what I was doing. I said there had been a centipede, but it was gone now, nothing to worry about. I knew there were more in the toy but I didn't' want to alarm him, also my skin was crawling already. He looked at the toy though, and said he thought there were more inside. One had crawled down to the entrance of the hole and was waving its antenna around. It dropped out and landed on the floor, and as it ran across the floor it started to grow until it was an lobster, several times larger than actual lobster size. My husband jumped out of bed and ran after it, hitting it with a shoe until he killed it. He dropped it in the kitchen garbage, asking me first (joking) if i wanted to eat it. I said it wasn't really a lobster, but a centipede, it just looked like one, and I didn't care more for lobster anyway.

I asked him what we should do about the toy to get rid of the bugs... could we submerge it and drown them? or burn it? Then I was in my parents house, but I still had it. Another centipede came out, this one was very long, and it was running quickly across the floor. I wanted to kill it before it went into a crack in the floor, but my feet were bare. I stepped on it and the middle of it squished, but it kept running and disappeared into a crack. Another one squirmed out, also very long, and ran under a corner of carpet; I pulled it up but couldn't find it again. Another one came out and started running towards my sister's room door, I finally found a shoe and went after it trying to squish it. I was creeped out by all the centipedes squirming around and disappearing into corners of the house, my skin was crawling.

Then my father came out, he had the other shoe. I thought he was going to kill the remaining centipedes, but he had two cats instead and said he had to kill them. One was a brownish orange tomcat, who I don't remember the name of, and the other was a female with white and yellow splotches, who was called Lemon Cream. Both had short hair, and were not actual cats that I know. He killed them both by hitting them with the shoe. I was upset but he was strangely cheerful afterwards. I picked up a section of newspaper and read an article about it where he was joking about putting them in soup. I was mad and yelled about it, but it didn't phase him.

A Former Coworker Gets Creepy

3/10/2008
Sunday night/Monday morning's dream:

The only part of this I remember, I was in an office of some kind. It looked kind of like the FH. A guy who looked like a younger version of R-, someone who used to work at a company where I used to work years ago (but I never had much contact with -- he was known for getting angry about things and worked in a different dept), came out of the back room. In the dream we both worked at the place we were in, and knew each other slightly. It was after hours and we were the only people still there. We started talking. I found myself thinking he looked rather handsome. Then he kissed me. Suddenly he didn't look so handsome anymore, he looked like he was aging 20 or 30 years, looking old and haggard. He was interested in me but I was trying to think of a way to discourage this and escape.

He made some comment about how he didn't think I should pay so much attention to "that guy I talk to online," sounding jealous. I protested, realizing he was talking about my husband. I said he was going to come home back soon, in fact then I remembered, he is already back, and I told R- so. I was feeling bad about what had happened. He made more negative comments about my husband and how he didn't deserve me, etc, which made me even more turned off of him, and I was defending my husband. R- thought I should be with him instead, but I was now rather grossed out by him and wanted to leave. I didn't know how I had thought he was handsome earlier. He took off his clothes to show me these strange scars on his body, they were like yellowish brown splash marks all over his skin, and he was also horribly mutilated (looking like things had been "cut off" and healed in a nasty, ragged, way). It appeared he'd been through some kind of torture and been splashed with acid or something. I was truly repulsed, both by his appearance and his manner, although I tried to be sympathetic about the unnamed past ordeal, and I wondered how he could possibly think I would be interested in him over my husband, or for that matter, anybody else in the world.

Difficult Access Points

3/09/2008
Saturday night/Sunday morning's dream:

This was long and involved but I can only remember a few basic parts.
In the earlier part of the dream I was climbing up this vertical dirt cliff, which had some grass growing on it. I grabbed hold of this and other vegetation to help climb up, as the ground kept sliding out from underneath. The cliff itself was located on a hill above some part of town, because houses and gardens ended at a wooded area, and we went through it to get to the cliff above. Some other people were with me. It was some kind of contest or race to climb up it. I had been to the cliff before, because I lead the way, but I don't know if I had been up it.

Somehow I managed to crawl up the hill, as did at least some of the other people, and at the top was an old house, abandoned. We went inside, and looked through it, finding some old books. I don't remember what else we did up there but we may have camped out.

Later I was on a college campus, looking for a guy. I don't think I know him in real life, but in the dream I was close to him, but I think we'd had a fight. He was young and black, with fluffy hair. I went into the library to look for him, and possibly found him but then lost him again. The library had some kind of check-in/check-out system of glass doors in front of the main desk, so people could only get in under certain circumstances, perhaps if they had a card or paid. I went in and out a couple of times, and advised another person who was stuck outside that if they banged on the glass, the person at the desk would let them back in and then they could pay what they owed.

Then in a later part of the dream I was transported to a school that was like Hogwarts, but it was not Hogwarts. I was Harry. I was unsure where to go. The main hall area had students scurrying off to their different living areas, but all the names were different, and I couldn't remember which one I was supposed to be in. This was Hogwarts in the last year, apparently, when it was corrupted, and all the names of the 4 "houses" had changed, or else it was another similar school. I was very confused and stood there trying to remember the original names and figure out where I was supposed to go.

A Family Inheritance

Saturday 3/08/2008
3rd dream (3 of 3)

This came right after the previous dream but I don't think they were connected because nobody was chasing me, and it was set in the present (today).

I went to visit my family, as planned for today. When I got there I found that my husband was planning to call one of my grandpas' meetings (he used to have these family meetings for a short period of time to advance his philosophy. But he's been dead for many years). I asked why he was calling one when grandpa was dead, and he said it was actually about a family property.

He called the meeting at my grandma's house, with my family and also our neighbor J- and his wife. Then he outlined the problem. Apparently there was another piece of property (land) which belonged to the family, but somehow it had ended up in the hands of Mary somebody. Mary had died just recently, and at her death, J- was supposed to have reclaimed the property again for us (somehow it was his fault that it had gone to her instead of staying in our family in the first place). But he hadn't done so, and our family wanted it back.

I don't remember exactly what the upshot of the meeting was or if he was going to get it back, but the next day my sister, brother, and I went out to an old barn or warehouse, presumably a building on the property, to recover some belongings that had been there for a long time. We went through boxes of papers and piles of junk, and found a lot of old drawings and things we'd made as kids, collected in boxes by our grandma on our mother's side (who also passed away some time ago). We were supposed to sort out various items and bring them home, on our parents' instructions. I'm not sure if we were going to lose the property again or get it back.

Captured by terrifying omniscient kidnappers

Saturday 3/08/2008
2nd dream (2 of 3)

I was at home. Our house was sort of like our current apartment, but the bedroom was in line with the living room, and the sliding glass doors were in the bedroom instead of in the living room. It was on the ground floor. Also, I'm fairly sure it was a free standing house, not part of an apartment complex. I got a sense that the dream was set slightly in the future, but not by much.

At first, my sister, mother were there visiting and my husband was home. I took a shower but didn't finish it. I had some kind of dye and was planning to streak my hair in some way to make patches of lighter blond. I hadn't told anybody this but wanted to try something different. I started to apply a little bit of it, (it could go on in the shower, or dry, and then take a shower), but ended up stopping in the middle, with little effect. I kept planning to go back and finish taking a shower.

After everybody left, in the late afternoon, I was alone in the house and I decided I should go back and finish taking a shower and finish my hair. I noticed that there was a pickup truck parked sort of outside the living room window, with an old guy in it. I guess there was a road there or something because I didn't think this was too terrible strange, so I went back in and took a shower. I didn't put any more dye on my hair at the time, possibly forgetting. I was sitting on the bed in the bedroom, it was dusk and I noticed that there were headlights shining at an angle through the sliding glass door in the bedroom. I got up and went to the door, and then I saw that the truck was STILL there. I became alarmed by this, and I started to lock the door. It has this little lock (that frankly is probably ineffective) but it doesn't catch every time, as I fumbled with it, the guy who had been in the truck came up on the outside and pushed the door open, as I was trying to lock it. He had been waiting for me to come to the door. He grabbed me with his arm around the neck and dragged me outside. I started hitting him and screaming, but our house was in a remote location and nobody was around.

The guy took me in the truck to a waiting van, where there were several more guys (younger). They put me in the back with 3 other people who were part of the capture party. The back of the van actually had no seats, so we were all just sitting around inside. I kept hitting the people and making trouble and they eventually let go of me, although they kept trying to grab me. I debated smashing out one of the van windows and jumping out, but the van was going fast and I didn't think I'd be able to smash it out all the way and jump before somebody inside grabbed me.

We drove along through an unfamiliar part of a city. It was light outside again, possible the next day. I watched out the window, hoping to see and then seeing my husband driving in his car! He came up beside the van from behind. I banged on the window and waved my arms and he looked up at the noise (somehow) and saw me, and so he started following the van to help me escape. The van went into some kind of industrial area and made a lot of turns, and lost him. I kept watching but I didn't see his car behind us any more.

Then the van backed up to a big warehouse with a garage door, which was open. As we pulled in, one of the people in the back kicked an inside handle on the van door and the hatchback opened. I had been wondering if this handle would work, but hadn't dared to try. I don't know why he opened it early, but the van had slowed down and I took my chance and leapt out, jumping to the side so I wouldn't be trapped in the garage. The people started after me and I ran pell mell across the yard and city, jumping over small barriers and fences and anything in my way. We were in some part of a city which was up on a hill, with lots of warehouses. I came to a road going down the hill. When I looked back, they were not behind me, but I didn't go down the road. Instead, I crossed it and ran into the trees, which were adjoining. I didn't really know where I was or how far away my home was (or in which direction), but I figured I had a better chance of eluding my captors in the forest. I scrambled through the trees and came to a forest road running downhill, which was wide and paved with fir needles and such, and ran full speed down it, preparing to duck off to the side if they followed me.

A deer crashed through the trees behind me and started running down the road too. I was startled but told myself this was nothing to worry about. The deer ran fast toward me but when it got to me it turned around and ran back up the road. I kept going, leaping over small trees that had fallen across the road. I adjusted my stride, trying to figure out if great leaping jumps or shorter running steps would make me go faster.

Then a raccoon came tearing down the road from behind me. It ran close to where I was, stopped, and turned around and ran back up the road. A terrible fear gripped my insides. Somehow, I didn't know how, the animals were working for the kidnappers and seeing where I had gone. As I ran on, a white poodle and a couple of other animals, in succession (the rest wild), ran down the trail after me, stopped, and ran back. I was petrified. I didn't know who I was up against or how they were doing this.

Then I heard a huge booming voice coming from above. I stopped and looked up but saw only the trees above me, I couldn't tell where it was coming from. The voice said something like, "You cannot escape us. We can track you wherever you go, and find you wherever you hide. We are everywhere."

I was absolutely terrified, but I kept running again, I wasn't sure what else to do. After I followed the woods for a long time, I cut back out to the city. I was trying to find my husband again, since I knew he was out there looking for me, but I had absolutely no idea where he was. Then I found him. We climbed between a barrier and down through a planting above a restaurant to his car. We'd hardly gotten going again when a policeman or sheriff stopped the car.

I was frightened that he might be working for them, but I decided to take a chance. I told him I needed help, people were trying to kidnap me, and I told the whole story from the beginning. But then he said, actually he was pulling us over for something else, and named some minor thing on my record (I don't remember what it was, but it wasn't something I knew about and it also was not important). He wasn't interested in helping me with the kidnapping people and I was very frightened because it meant he was in on it. He didn't try to arrest me for them though, we kept going.

I don't remember what happened next... it faded away into another dream or I woke up. This dream was a lot scarier than most of my capture/escape dreams, and was actually the most frightening dream I've had in a long time. I still feel anxious thinking about it.

Nobody grocery shops but me!

Saturday, 3/8/2008

1st dream (1 of 3)

I was living at home again, or actually at my mother's office, and I had decided that my job was to do all the grocery shopping. I had a special list. I went out and did this, and came back (it took a long time), but when I got home I saw that my sister and brother had also returned with some groceries. I was mad and told them that the grocery shopping was my job, and I had it all worked out to buy exactly what was needed, and if they wanted additional items they should add them to a supplementary list on the refrigerator. My mother came home and was happy that everybody had gone to the store, and couldn't figure out why I was annoyed. I don't remember a lot of details but this dream was pretty long and involved. I think there was a part with movies and pizza (sleeping at my mother's office) after that.

Swimming With Manta Rays

Thursday, 3/6/2008 (Last night's dream)

Okay, I know I haven't written any dreams for a while. I've had some, but I've just been so sick lately that they were for the most part totally fragmented by the time I woke up, and I was in bed all day anyway.

All I remember of last night, is what happened right before I woke up.

I was swimming in the ocean, completely underwater. It was dark and murky, although there was a little light filtering down so I could sort of see. I was swimming around with manta rays, and swimming down deeper to look at them. Most of the rays were not that big (so they probably weren't really mantas, rather the smaller rays that wash up here).

I guess I was holding my breath becuase I was not near the surface but I didn't need to come up to breathe. Although it was very dark it was not scary, in fact it felt wonderful to be swimming again, with my entire body submerged and supported by the water. The water must have been about body temperature, it didn't feel warm or cold.

Then as I left the manta rays, the water was even darker and I couldn't see anything. I felt something underneath me and I reached down and touched it. It was rougher and lumpier, it was not a manta ray, and had a small hole. I thought it might be a small whale. Then (still in the dream mind you!) I woke up and was talking to my husband about swimming in the water and touching the manta rays. I had actually been touching him, not a whale, and I was amused by this and the fact that I'd thought that's what I was feeling. I was still asleep really, I didn't wake up and say this! Actually I think it unlikely that I was actually even poking him, based on the position I was lying in when I really woke up, but maybe I was and he moved away. I may have even gone back into the water at that point becuase I was really enjoying the sensation of floating underwater.

Then I woke up for real.