Jumping From Old and Bad to New and Scary (and maybe Good?)

Thursday night's/Friday morning's dream - 6/27/2008

This dream is long with several "sections." I think the first section is "connected" to the latter parts but I'm not %100 sure... the other parts are definitely connected though. There was a lot more detail to the first part and it was much longer than appears here, but I couldn't remember enough of the minor details.

At the beginning of the dream, I am no longer married, and it's been a while. What has happened to result in this (divorce? death?) isn't really addressed. I am at my parents house. My cousin expresses interest in me and keeps inviting me over, etc, I find this extremely distasteful. Other people in the family seem to support this though and think we will end up together Finally I just tell him I'm not ready for anything (really I can't imagine anything more disgusting) he is disappointed but leaves me alone. There is more involving him preparing a room and loaning me a book which has been given to him by some relatives (I don't remember what it was called but it was something about sex) but I can't remember all the details.

In the same section of the dream, our neighbor B-, shows up and is visiting the family at Grandma's. He looks younger with dark hair and beard. He sits down on the couch squished right up against me which makes me very uncomfortable. My mother asks lightly why doesn't he come sit by here, as she can see that I don't like this, but he says no, he is going to sit by me because I'm the only one that is single. I really dislike this. Also for some reason everybody else is calling him Charles, and this confuses me because this is not his name.

My overall feeling in both parts of the first section is of distaste and disgust, unhappy with the way people are interacting with me, their approaches repulse me.

The middle section... I am walking across a high, open place, maybe on top of a hill. I come into a very large, white room. It has huge windows all across one wall which look out over a cliff, very high up. Another woman is in the room, maybe someone I know, I don't remember. She is also dressed in white. I may be as well.

As she turns away to exit at one side of the room, I walk quickly across the room. I don't want her to see me come in because she will stop me. I open one of the giant windows. I want to jump out. I am dreaming lucidly at this point, that is, I'm aware that it's a dream and I seem to be able to control my actions to some extent. I hesitate but I tell myself, this is a dream, I'm not suicidal, I can jump and I will not die. But the other woman doesn't know this, she will misinterpret my actions. So when her back is turned I quickly step outside the window. I stand on the edge looking down. I remind myself this is a dream, brace myself, and jump. I am falling, falling, and I can feel the falling and am a little scared.

Then I land at the bottom of the cliff, unharmed. It is a narrow strip of beach and the tide is washing in all the way up to the base of the cliff when the waves come up. I start walking along on the narrow strip of beach, dashing between waves, or wading through the shallow water when the wave retreats. There is a small beach town in the distance which I am walking towards. In between the waves on the beach I find a giant shell, sort of like a clamshell but very large, at least 8 inches across and 5 deep. The two halves are separated but they fit together. The color is amazing and like nothing I have ever seen before, it is metallic gold and shimmering with all different colors. After wondering at it, I stop and pray, please let me keep this shell once I wake up, just this one, that's all I'll ask for.

A short time later: I end up staying in the house on the beach, at the town I was walking towards.. I'm not dreaming lucidly anymore just regular dreaming. The house is sort of similar to my apartment layout except there are several floors. It's also more richly and nicely decorated. I believe it belongs to my mother or she is renting it, or it belongs to friends of hers. I come in in the evening and my sister is laying on the couch, possibly asleep. I don't say anything to her. When I get up again in the morning and go into the kitchen she is still on the couch, but I sort of pretend not to notice she is there and start puttering in the kitchen. Eventually I look through the "window" between the living room and the kitchen and see that she has her eyes open and is reading or something. I say, "Oh! I didn't know you were there. When did you get here?" She says she has been there since last night and I say sorry, I didn't know she was there (I'm not sure why I'm claiming this). She seems slightly annoyed that I didn't see her.

Later on, I have gone out somewhere with my sister and I go back to the beach house alone. Some cleaning people are going to come or are already there and I'm supposed to pay them. Somehow I have already looked up that they only accept cash, and they don't charge up front but they will charge you an hourly fee when the cleaning is done.

I go in a ground-floor door to get something, quietly, I don't know if they are there yet. I'm supposed to be keeping the floor clean, it has a white carpet, but I look back and see that my boots have made large, muddy, wet tracks on the carpet. I quickly grab some paper towels and try to sort of soak up the footprints, then I look up and see that the cleaning people are there and they are already almost done.

There is a woman probably 40 or so with dark hair, and a younger man closer to my age with brown curly hair. They are very friendly and tell me not to worry about the footprints, they will get them. I apologize profusely. While they are finishing up, I gather up the stuff I need, I have a white scarf with a bright pink pattern on it that I really like, and I put it on and dress to go out. I come out and also lay out another scarf I have, which has a multi-colored pattern on it with scenes of rivers, boats, and stylized jumping salmon. It also has metallic color patches in places.

As I wait, the cleaning people talk to someone from the house next to us. She pays them and the woman gives her some kind of gold pin. Then they come talk to me. The woman takes me aside and lays a very large gold and silver decorative pin on top of the metallic scarf that I have laid out on the table. It matches perfectly. I want to refuse such an extravagant gift but I know she gave a token to the last people they cleaned house for, so maybe it is their custom. She then explains the pattern of the scarf for me, explaining what it symbolizes in my life, sort of like a fortune teller. She mentions a trip.

Then I talk to her and the young man about payment... I ask timidly if they will accept a check, as I heard that they would only accept cash. But I have just realized that I don't have enough cash, I spent most of it for lunch at a place which also only took cash. I am very anxious and somewhat ashamed as they have already cleaned. They both smile at me and say they will accept my check. I tell them it's not a local check (I don't actually live in this beach house usually of course) and they smile and say it is okay. I can't understand why they are being so nice to me, it's clear I'm getting special treatment, but I'm confused, though flattered. The guy is flirting with me too, and I like him but I'm not sure if they are for real. I ask them how much they charge per hour, and they say that I don't have to pay anything. I insist and they smile and ask what I think is a reasonable price?

I am flustered, I don't know what to say or what is reasonable, I don't want to name something too low... if I name something too high will they bring it down to what they want, or will they take it? Maybe this is a trick they use to get more money? They seem like they are being so nice to me, so I decide I will name a high amount that I'm sure is over (something like 50 dollars/hour) and if they don't bring it down I'll just eat the difference. But they laugh and won't take this price either, and they keep saying that it can be free, just for me.

My feeling in the later part of the dream here is of confusion and anxiousness (over the paying issues) but I'm also pleasantly suprised and pleased at how they are treating me and how nice they are being, especially the guy (even though I find this confusing too... do they really just love me or is there somethign else going on that I don't know?).

Clutter Cleaning and A Morphing Baby

6/20/2008 - Thursday night/Friday morning's dream

First I had agreed to look after my riding instructor's farm while she was away, but then before I got out there, there was a lot of severe flooding and the road became impassible. Also it was quite far away from where I live now so I don't know why I agreed to it in the first place. I drove out to where the flood waters were and contemplated going around them, but I decided it was impossible and went back to my parent's house, feeling guilty for not being able to get out there. I think I also went over to the chicken yard, it was still pouring rain and there were a lot of wet chickens and cats.

Then, I went to some very old house-combo-barn with my mother and brother. The owner of the house was selling it and they needed to get rid of all their stuff, and for some reason my mother had agreed to get it ready for sale (I think the person was a friend of hers). But getting it ready for sale really meant packing up ALL the junk that was in the house, presumably putting it in boxes, and doing something with it (selling it maybe? the person said she didn't want it). The entire place was top to bottom full of knickknacks, almost impenetrable, along with everyday living items like food and dishes in the cupboards and furniture. The furniture was staying to be sold with the house but the rest of it had to go. There was an adjoining part of the house that I think had people still living in it, but they weren't there at the moment.

We picked our way through, not even sure where to start. I stepped into one room sort of like a barn loft (maybe it was a barn loft) and the floor was so old it simply gave way, with me on it. It fell slowly, luckily, and I didn't fall off but fell with it and landed on the floor below on top of the piece of floor that had given way. I was without injury (my mother and brother yelled helpful comments as I fell, like "lean back to keep your balance!"). There were also a lot of cats in the house, of all shapes and sizes, sitting around on the furniture and in ceramic dishes and other knickknacky items. We weren't sure what to do with them either. Faced with the enormity of the tasks, my brother and I decided to find something to eat. We managed to locate some cereal in a cupboard and were looking for related items, but I wasn't sure if we were still in the half of the house where we were supposed to be packing (where they weren't going to care if we ate anything since it was all being got rid of) or in the adjoining part where people still lived. There were a lot of used dishes sitting out, which seemed to indicate the latter... we got our cereal and tiptoed back into the main part of the house to begin the task.

Then later on I am back at my apartment, I have given birth to a very peculiar baby. It is tiny, smaller than my hand, and I think oh no, it's really early, what if something is wrong? I also worry that there are some people I haven't even told I'm pregnant yet, and here I am giving birth! Then there is the appearance of the thing. It has wrinkled reddish skin as one might expect, but is shaped sort of like a dinosaur or an alien, with a long head and pointy snout and also it has long claws. I try nursing it anyway. It does not nurse very long but then it grows and changes. I nurse it some more and each time it nurses for a few seconds and seems to grow. I am happy about this and relax about its appearance because it gradually morphs into a normal sized and normal looking baby (not before my eyes, the change is not perceptible while watching it, it just seems to happen). But then, it keeps growing. It grows into a girl who is at least 8 if not older, and clothed. She has black straight hair bobbed at her ears and is slightly chubby. I am surprised that she looks so old already, and she talks to me in a matter of fact way.

Cleaning the house of the rising sun and dropping classes

This is from a few days ago on the weekend (Saturday night, I think). I don't remember it very clearly but I haven't forgotten it fully either, so here goes.

At the part I remember, my brother has gotten a job as a janitor in a hotel which is really a thinly veiled house of prostitution. Needless to say I'm not too jazzed about this. I go there and I also discover he had dropped several of his classes, one of which I "traded" to him somehow. I had been enrolled in a class about spiders, and I somehow gave my spot in the class to him, along with the reading materials I had from it so far. This included a pamphlet with a large spider on the front, and possibly some actual or fake tarantulas. I was most put out that he had abandoned this class as well.