Creepy Dogs and Murdering

Tuesday 9/2 (Last night's)

My dreams have been really fragmented lately, can't remember most of them. Judging from what I do remember, thank goodness!

In the first part of this, I was a guy and I worked at a hotel of a bed & breakfast type. One of my jobs was to murder somebody out of each group who stayed there! Then I quickly cleaned up the room and made it all pretty for the next victim so they wouldn't suspect and the rest of the previous group wouldn't't know what happened. I killed at least two people in this dream, and I didn't feel particularly bad about it either. I was thinking in the dream after I killed the first one (I don't remember how I did so, I may have had some ability to kill... it wasn't bloody but was quite fast), well maybe I should have thought about that a little more. Nah, that's my job.

Then in another part of the dream, I'm myself again and swimming across this bay in the middle of the night. Everything is pitch black. There are some other people, friends of mine I guess, who are also swimming across. I can't see a thing and the water is cold but not very deep, I keep running into slime covered sticks and logs with my feet, which is very uncomfortable. Then I see a dog/wolf-like thing swimming in the water, only it's head is out. It has an orangish cast to its fur. It swims toward me and I am trying to get away but I keep running into things underwater. I try to dive under to hide but it grabs my hand, which is still sticking out, in its teeth, and is biting and chewing on it. Then I wake up, and can't shake the image for a long time.

In the next dream after I go back to sleep, my friend H- is visiting me and we are driving around a town (I'm not sure which one) in my vehicle. We are hungry and looking for a place to eat, and I ask her where she'd like to eat. After some discussion we decide to try a place called something like "Kitchen Mama" which is a chain restaurant (not a real one to my knowledge). I have driven here before but am not familiar with the area, but I do remember there is on nearby. After driving around a bit I stop and use my cell phone to look up the restaurant online... there is an application where I can just search for it and it will show me the ones in the area. It asks me to choose which type of Kitchen Mama restaurant I want: Some of them serve chicken as their specialty, some don't serve chicken and some of them serve it sometimes but it's not guaranteed. I ask H- which one she wants and try to search for it. After some issues with getting the results to come up I realize it is just around the corner and we drive to it.

Very Peculiar Snack!

I had dreams all night long but I can barely remember anything! I will add more snippets if they come to me.

The part I remember involved my former boss Ch-, who I ran into at a fancy office building somewhere downtown. The other part I remember clearly was that I prepared and ate an open faced sandwich with peanut butter and jalepeños! (I think it also had pickles or pepperoncinis)! Definitely a weird "pregnancy related" craving. I liked it in the dream. It sounds disgusting to me now! :P

A Confusing and Uncomfortable Workout

Friday, 8/22/2008
Last night's dream

There's a lot that happens before this, but it's already disappearing.

In the last part of the dream, I drive up to some sort of festival or fair outdoors in a country area. There are booths set up to sell stuff. You are supposed to pay to enter it but I am not there for the festival. I park my car there anyway and walk up to S- Hall, which is on a ridge nearby (not in its usual place). I am early for Taekwon-do class. My instructor is already there, stretching on the floor. My sister is also here for class and possibly my mother. I am feeling tired and I don't know how my Taekwon-do suit will fit over my pregnant stomach. I go into the women's bathroom to change clothes. After I get undressed I discover that I don't have a tee shirt to go under my Taekwon-do top. I feel exhausted. There is a bed in the room with white sheets and a quilt so I lay down on it. After a few moments there I realize someone else is already in the bed! It's some guy! I don't know who he is, he looks maybe around my age, youngish, probably with some Chinese ethnicity. I kick him awake yelling at him, and attempt to cover myself with the quilt (he on the other hand is wearing something). He wakes up slowly, and I ask, "are you a man?" (He looks like a man but I've been mistaken before on occasion, and this IS the women's room). He says that yes he is. I point out that this is the women's bathroom and he should get out of here, NOW! He is sleepy and somewhat amused looking, and says that he knows it's the women's bathroom. After additional prodding and yelling he hauls himself out and leaves. My instructor and my mother come in due to the yelling and I point out indignantly that he was in there. They don't seem as concerned, like they thought my yelling was about a real problem, and indicate I should get dressed.

I go to put on my Taekwon-do suit. At first I decide to put on the top without any undershirt since I don't have one (I don't know what I was wearing before but apparently it wasn't suitable. I don't have a bra either though, so this will be uncomfortable. Then I see there is a rather ugly yellow and black patterned shirt in the bathroom with snaps up the front, made of a thin material. I actually think this probably belongs to the guy who was in here, but it seems clean and I decide to wear it anyway, and I put it on under my Taekwon-do top. I go out and join the rest of the class. My instructor calls out the first forms and I try to get started, but everybody is going every which way overlapping my area and confusing me, they all seem to be doing different things. There is loud music playing in the background too which starts when the form stops, and stops again when it stops. After some mistakes I finally finish, after everyone else. My instructor acknowledges that it must have been difficult with everybody getting in the way (as opposed to me having not done my forms in a while) and tries to space us out a bit more. We do the next form, the loud distracting music starts again although the people don't get in the way as much, so it's very confusing.

We take our Taekwon-do tops off, then I discover that the shirt I'm wearing under it has popped open in the front. It seems they aren't really snaps but little hook things. I call over my instructor and tell her that my tee-shirt has come apart. I am hoping she has a backup tee shirt but apparently she doesn't, so I decide to just go to the bathroom again and put on my Taekwon-do top with nothing under it. She is concerned that I will overheat with my Taekwon-do top on, in my condition, but there is nothing for it. I go into a stall and change. When I come out, I see my mother and instructor are there chatting with two older guys who have set up a little table in the main part of the bathroom with food. This is special stuff they've brought in for our class. There are three dishes: a pot of spicy chili with crackers on top of it, a milder sort of soup or bean dish, and a vegetable dish which is rather odd, it's made with several different whole roasted vegetables, one of each. The man who cooked them said he personally doesn't like to add the green pepper, but that is the way his parents used to make it so he still makes it that way to remember how. After I change I come out and sample two of the dishes (I avoid the spicy chili due to my recent reactions to spicy food). I also find a discarded bunch of slightly dusty but very firm green grapes and eat a handful of those. Everyone else files out to class. The cook of the food tells me that I need to talk to him about getting proper nutrition, in a disapproving sort of way. I say I will but will have to do it later, making excuses, and go back out to class.

There's another part of the dream slightly later which involves climbing into some kind of attic or loft, and my sister and her boyfriend are up there with me... but I don't remember exactly what happens.

A Reunion But It's Not Him

Tuesday night/wed morning (6/25)

I am at my apartment and my old friend S- and his brother M- are coming to visit. I am anxious and nervous about this. I have not seen S- for a very long time and I don't know if I still have feelings for him or not. His brother M- arrives first and sits on the couch and talks to me for a long time. He doesn't look anything like he did when I saw him before. He acts like he knows me but really I never knew him very well. His face is haggard and he is sort of melancholy, but tries to cheer me up. He talks about me and S- (who will arrive in a bit) and says that he always knew we would end up together, so I shouldn't worry, we will be together eventually. I say that I doubt that. He says don't worry, it will happen, you're meant to be together. I said you are forgetting, I'm married now, and show him my rings. This doesn't seem to change his mind though (or the fact that this may not be what either of us want).

S- comes in but he sits far at the other end of the couch, facing slightly away so I cannot see his face. Now that he's here I feel excited and a little scared, worried, with butterflies, like I used to feel when I was around him, but more nervous because it's been so long (and I'm not really supposed to be meeting him anyway). I jump up and prepare stuff in the kitchen, trying to clear away ants that have come in. Eventually he joins me in the kitchen. My excitement fades though as he goes about preparing some food, because he doesn't look right anymore. When I first saw him he did, but now he looks more like AM-, another person I used to be friends with, and I find him not at all appealing. I'm a little dismayed by this and eventually I decide it's not him at all, and I am not happy to see the other guy. He's acting all friendly and like we are still friends, and pretending to be S-, which makes me mad.

Moderately Bad But Vague Straits

First I am preparing with somebody else, possibly my sister, to go to a dance or some kind of party. This preparation takes a long time... adjusting hair, clothes, makeup, etc. I'm not really looking forward to it either and am very nervous.

Then after we get there I think, the dream morphs briefly into being about the house itself. There are two people in it, a husband and wife, and the house is somehow evil and possessing them. It talks to them, starting with the wife, and calls her on the phone. When it talks to them it uses the voice of the other person (but they know it's the house) and it causes them to start behaving strangely. The house is interested in them in a way houses normally are not, and it has sinister overtones.

Change of scene, I am now at college. I am moving my meager belongings into a small apartment (I guess it's dorm housing but it looks like an apartment). While I'm putting away things in a kitchen with lots of wood paneling, my assigned roommate arrives. She is a bit spacey and we talk a bit, I am hoping she will be nice. As we talk about ourselves to get to know each other it comes out that she is a party animal and likes to be fairly wild. I'm kind of disappointed thinking this won't work out so well. I offer to show her around the area, at any rate (the location seems to be somewhat like where I live now). I start talking about the grocery store and how good it is, then go into talking about the other grocery stores in the area and how they rank. Then I offer to take her next door and show her the grocery store, which is very close. I can tell after I say this that she is thinking a grocery store tour or any enthusiasm about it at all is fairly lame. She says that maybe she'll check out the store later. Then she goes out onto the front porch and runs into my sister, and I see them talking. For some reason she really likes my sister, and she pops in later to say that she is going to the grocery store with my sister. They leave. I'm somewhat bummed out about this and feeling sorry for myself, I wash the dishes.

Now I'm finished with college and I'm living at my parent's home again. This is the largest cohesive period of the dream. We are sitting out on the front porch when 5 or 6 people come up the trail, they appear to be Muslim. They call out asking if we have read the pamphlets they left here last time (before I came home from college) and if they agree or disagree with them; they would like to get together to discuss. One of the women walks up to me, grabs my hand and shakes it rather roughly, and tells me that my faith is suffering. I am quite offended by their methods, and I tell them so. I pat her roughly on the shoulder right back, resulting in rather wide scared eyes, and tell her is that anyway to treat another Muslim? And I tell her she should not be proselytizing and dropping off pamphlets, this is not the way of Islam. And she should not be marching up to people telling them they need to get their faith in shape. Is this any way to behave? This is not following Islam. She should take a gentle approach and they should not be proselytizing people leaving pamphlets, this is something that I despise about various christian relgions. I go on ranting for quite some time, although I don't know if I really get through. They ask again if any of us want to get together to discuss the material in the pamphlets, which I DO NOT, and then hurry away, somewhat afraid of my outburst. I'm quite out of sorts about the whole thing.

Later I am inside and I see a small book in a slipcover on the shelf. The cover looks like sort of an imitation (but not an actual imitation, just trying to look similar) of Calvin and Hobbes. I kind of glance over it and ignore it. My brother asks to borrow some more money, for a car or something, and I reluctantly loan it to him after he pleads about how he doesn't have any and he just needs this to get started. This is not the first time in the dream. Later (time has passed) my father comes in, he talks to me about how he has decided he has to add a children's book to his book collection to finally make a well rounded offering in order to sell pictures. He has already written one but nobody (relatives he's shown it to) thinks it's a good one to use. I ask to see it and he goes and gets the book I saw earlier. When I look inside I see that the cover was not related really and it's a sort of comic strip in color about some animal characters. One of them is a penguin, I don't remember the other one (maybe a small bear?). I take it to go read through it, quite enjoying it. Although I'm not sure if a very young child would appreciate all of the jokes, I still think it's good. I also use the computer for a bit. I have a spreadsheet which includes how much money my brother owes me back by now, which is 1500 (accumulated over several months). It's not really clear why I'm living at home again but I seem to be set up with my actual bed and a desk and computer, and have been there for some time now in the dream.

I am out in the kitchen later washing up and my brother and father are talking, and my father asks my brother how much he has saved up from his job. My brother says 4500. I turn around exclaiming, then why haven't you paid me back yet?? You said you didn't have anything. My brother is somewhat embarrassed and makes an excuse. Then my father asks me after my brother has gone, how much he owes me. I explain that he now owes me 1500 but I thought he didn't have anything, and now I find out that he does but hasn't paid me! My father says he will pay me the money and my brother can owe him, he doesn't seem to like the idea of my brother borrowing money from me, something to do with the situation I'm in now (again I'm not sure what situation that is but it seems to have resulted in me moving back home). I offer to show my father the spreadsheet on the computer, but he says there is no need. He starts looking through things inthe house, presumably for some money he has stashed away, but he doesn't end up finding it. Then he asks me to join him "down the stairs". This confuses me becuase there are no stairs and at any rate he's out on the porch. I try to get him to explain but eventually chock it up to not understanding. We walk down the trail. I tell him that I'm enjoying the book, although I haven't finished it yet, and I think it's quite good. We end up going over to my aunt and uncle's house accross the way, which is mildly surprising to me, but I decided he must be keeping some money there with my uncle from his book sales. This is in fact hte case.

It is quite early morning now, I realize, and my aunt, uncle, and cousins are getting breakfast together. I join them in the kitchen while my father talks to my uncle and goes upstairs, presumably to get the money. There is a large pan of flatbread in the oven and it is pulled out so everybody can take some. My uncle asks me about the money thing and I explain briefly to him. My brother is there in the kitchen too, somehow. He helps himself to the flatbread, but he is touching multiple pieces and biting some and putting them back, which I reprimand him for. My uncle hands me a piece of bread which he has eaten part of. I am confused. He points out that the edges are all burnt (he's just showing me, not expecting me to eat it, it turns out). He complains that nobody can cook the bread like he likes it here, they always burn it. It is indeed true and some of them are very burnt, but my aunt and cousin look grumpy about him mentioning this.

In fact my brother has never borrowed money from me but someone else does owe me that exact amount and probably is not going to pay it back, which has caused a lot of grouchiness from me, at myself too for lending it (again).

Of Waifs and Wafers

Tuesday morning 6/3/2008

A confusing dream with time loops: various segments sort of replay with variations as if we are going back and doing the same sort of things again and again, but not in time-sequential order. At some point I go to some kind of Bimart or Walmart type lower-end variety store. I am in a side room talking to a manager, or a therapist, or a dentist, or perhaps all of the above. I end up getting a prescription for something, I think tooth-related. The small office has a back door out into an area sort of near S- Hall in R-. It also has a side room filled with lots of random stuff and also the hidden "junk food stash", which I don't discover until later in the dream: lots of creme-filled cookies and such, set out for people to take but obviously in an out of the way spot so only workers in this office will see them. I keep trying to casually pass through with the idea of sampling some of the cookies. There is much driving back and forth to this store, with various members of my family at some points in time, and later with a girl several years younger than me (possibly even in her late teens) called Angelina, or something similar to that. She looks a lot like a girl I know (but not well) on a forum. She is slight, with lank black hair, a pale but pretty face, and a distraught look. She has had a hard life and is basically stuck and I am helping her out, guiding her through some issues. She goes back with me to this store and we go into the office. I don't remember what the point of keeping returning to this store was, but at any rate I get some prescription I need, possibly for dental pain. The Dr returns to this room and we decide we need to slip out. I try to slip out through the junk food room but we end up having to run away so I don't get a chance to snag a treat. We get separated (some of my family members are also with us originally and we all escape but then I can't find them. I give up on them (they will find their way) and go back to me car, and Angelina has returned to the car and is sitting in it waiting for me. Good for her! I was afraid she was going to run off and do something stupid. I get in the car and we start to drive home, but for some reason we have to stop again by the office and go get something, and that point she doesn't listen anymore but jumps out of the car and runs off. I call after her but she's scared of something and can't sit tight, so she's going to get lost somewhere.

Car Trouble on the Way to the Coast

Sunday night/Monday morning

It is the last day of work at the company I work at (which I think is not the real company I currently work at, but somewhere else). The company is shutting down so we are all ending on that day. I work there with my friend S-, my female cousin K-, and my sister, among others. When the dream opens, the work day is already over and we are leaving the building into the underground parking garage. We decide to "celebrate" or get together after work on this last day by taking a trip together out to and up the coast. After some discussion, we decide to meet up at "Mo's", a chowderhouse, and we'll stay the night at a hotel at the beach, then continue up the coast. Mo's only has restaurants at 3 towns so we try to remember which one is the most direct route from where we are (it will still be over an hour drive). We settle on meeting at the Mo's at Hecata Head (there isn't really one there in the real world, to my knowledge). My friend S- leaves first, in a very beat up old car. I was thinking we might all ride together, but then we realize that would mean somebody would have to drive me back here to get my car, so that wouldn't be good. So as it ends up we all ride separately.

Everybody makes their way out of the parking garage, I have some issues extricating my car but eventually make it out, behind everybody else. Skipping ahead somehow I am in a town somewhere along the way, having not yet reached Hecata Head, when my car breaks down. That is, I park my car outside some building, possibly to get an item of grocery for my journey, and when I come back out I realize that the back tire has disintegrated. There's sort of a foam tire insert left but the outside is all peeled away, in fact it doesn't even look driveable although I suppose I've been driving on it for a little while. Plus, it's a Sunday (why I was working or why it is now no longer evening is not explained, although I haven't actually reached Mo's yet to meet up with the others, and I don't think the drive there was supposed to be overnight... but of course this isn't an issue in the dream).

I am frustrated and annoyed. Everything will be closed, of course. I walk around for a while trying to catch a glimpse of a likely shop, a Les Schwab or something. An older woman stops in a dark car and asks if I need help, and I tell her about the car issues and if she knows of a tire shop nearby. She thinks over possible options out loud, most of which are closed, and then after some hesitation agrees to give me a ride down the street to look for one. I hop in and we drive along, we pass a Les Schwab but of course it is closed. I consider that I might be able to buy a new tire at a general store (or for that matter, put on the spare) myself, but I am hesitant to do so becuase I'm no longer with my car, but with my old mazda pickup. This truck is absolutely terrible to retrieve the spare from, it has this weird long crank that has to be threaded through a hole in the bumper to loosen a chain holding the spare underneath... it's quite a chore and not something I am relishing. Plus for some reason I think I don't have a jack.

We pass a small convenience store with a phone booth, and I ask the lady to stop so I can look in the phone book. While I'm looking at the phone book, she realizes there's some kind of tire shop just next door to us, the sign is visible through the trees. We go over and it is in fact open. Now some tire places might come and bring a tire to you but this isn't one of them, so I go back and get my truck and drive it on whatever is left, very slowly up the street and to the shop (which is not far away). The lady goes on her way, I am grateful.

At the tire shop there is a small boy running around in the parking lot, I talk to him and he runs inside. I walk inside the shop, and there is a man with 3 or 4 little kids playing around, all probably 3-5 years old and under (they don't all look like they are related to him, I don't know if they are actually his or adopted). It appears to me that business is quite slow. I tell him my predicament and ask if I can have a replacement tire put on. He says sure! It should be done by tomorrow noon. What! I am quite taken aback and a little outraged, as it's quite clear that it's not busy and it does not seem to me that it should take this long to replace a tire. Plus I need it done today so I can continue on to the meeting place. I tell him this is ridiculous, and can't he do it today. He says he can get it done today for an acceleration fee, and when I inquire as to what it is, he doesn't want to give me an estimate, saying it will vary. Eventually he comes up with $500 dollars. I am furious as he's obviously just trying to make trouble. I say I can change the tire myself in significantly less time than that, and he (unperturbed) says go ahead. Then I tell him fine, I will just buy the tire and change it myself... how much for just the tire? It is $36 and some change. I am surprised at how comparatively cheap this is considering the amount of time he wants to take for changing it, and the acceleration fee he was going to charge, but I am agreeable to this price of course.

I am expecting him to just roll out a new tire, but instead he brings out two tire pieces and a whole lot of what can only be described as random trash. He starts stuffing the new tire halves with this, and affixing them together. This takes a little while. The kids run around and try to "help." I am not exactly thrilled with the rebuilt tire, but I don't say anything. I wonder if other refurbished tires I may have purchased in the past are made this way? How long will it hold up? But frankly I don't really care, I just want to get going, badly constructed as it may seem. Eventually he finishes building the new tire and goes back inside after I buy it. I ask one of the kids if I can borrow a jack and a wrench from the shop, but the kid says Dad doesn't let people borrow them becuase they might not bring them back. I go in and explain that I just want to borrow it to put the tire on, I'm not going to take it off the premises. He agrees and gives me a jack and wrench, and assigns one of the kids to go out and watch it (so I won't steal it). I change the tire and put the new one on, but then I wake up around this time.

A new coworker, a new husband, and a new dimension

6/1/2008
Saturday night/Sunday morning - 3 dreams:

1.
A new employee named M- something (maybe Michael?) has been hired at the place where I work, which is a different place from where I actually work. We have a sunken room with computers around the edge, no cubicles (and different coworkers). M- is a rather obvious geek, and everybody else is sort of put off by him right away. He is tall and gangly, with a peculiar manner, being very particular and exacting and not given to the social graces. This bothers everybody, however it does not bother me and I think he holds great promise. I tell the others this as well. I take a computer across from his and try to help him get started with everything (he's not grateful or any nicer to me, but I still feel he holds a lot of potential value inside).

2.
This dream doesn't really have a clear plot that I can recall, however, I am back at my parent's house and walking through the woods above the house. With me is my husband but it's not my actual husband, in the dream I am married to a guy who used to be Jewish but converted to Islam. We compare various points we have learned. We're relatively newly married and not that familiar with each other, but we like each other pretty well. I am visibly pregnant, and later my parents, myself, and my husband talk on the road. They give me suggestions on which skirt looks better in my condition.

3.
This dream is hard to describe and recall. I am in the city downtown, in a sort of desolate area. There is a place which looks almost like a mirror in the land and the part on the other side is sort of a mirror image of the city on this side, but not quite. Plus it's vary hazy over there. I walk to that side without thinking about it, then I run into a young, skittery person who lives there, maybe on the street. They pull me aside, and explain that I'm not supposed to be able to cross over to this side, it's like another dimension and only this other type of creature (people I guess, but not people like me) can go there, and they can't go back and forth. There's a feeling of mild danger and uneasiness on both sides. I'm not sure why I, of all people, can cross to this other part, I didn't realize I was going into something special. Somehow we determine that the connection may be related to these frozen fruits and vegetables that I got at the grocery store. Flash back to the grocery store scene, I am going through one of those horizontal freezers, picking out fruits and vegetables. I have brought them with me into this other dimension area and the person there is quite eager for them, I get the impression that there's a food shortage here. More stuff is happening but then I wake up and lose it.

A Cool Lunch

May 30 - Thursday night/Friday morning

In the first dream, I am sitting in the back seat of a car parked in the downtown area. It is extremely hot and sunny outside, and I am wearing my long tie-dyed skirt. One of my coworkers, B-, is in the front seat, and we exchange conversation. Unlike in real life, he is being quite nice and I am surprised but happy about this. I have some food with me, a carton of cottage cheese into which I have mixed some chives (I was reading about this in the newspaper last night, it sounded like an odd combination) and some canned fruit in a storage container. I get out of the car and walk down the street looking for a place to eat. I end up going into a store a little ways away which sells dishes. However, walking in you wouldn't know it sells dishes becuase there's a large empty entryway with a bench and two rooms. You have to go through them to get into the actual store part. My sister either comes by while I'm talking and I tell her this, which she did not know before, or I tell her later on the phone. However, I am not here to shop; I've just come because it's cool and air conditioned inside and blazing hot outside. I sit down on the bench and eat my cottage cheese and fruit. A guy might come by to see what I'm doing there, or I was thinking about what would happen if he did.

I had 1 or 2 dreams after this one but I can't remember enough to begin describing anything, although I did right after I woke up (but I had to get ready for work, drat it all). I think my mother was in one of them.

Tall Buildings in the Trees and Confusion

4/11/2008

I go up to the top of a skyscraper. Normally I only go up to a lower floor (is it the building where I work)? But my sister goes up to the top one time and takes me with her. I remember this happening in the past. There were forests and such up there, and it was very very high, I looked over the edge and was sickened at the drop. The tops of the trees reached all the way up and there were walkways between them. Now I'm back up there again and I remember the previous time. I go into some kind of gathering, people are displaying clothes and serving food. I'm taking someone with me to show him around, a guy. I've just met him recently and barely know him, but somehow we ended up on this date. I am showing him this because it's an interesting thing to do but in reality we aren't welcome at this party, it's some exclusive thing. Somewhere along the line I get found out and am ducking servers who are trying to call me out and have me kicked out. There were other details here but I don't remember them.

Got a letter from somebody I thought was my friend H-, but H- is actually visiting me at the time I receive it. After corresponding some time and addressing her as such I realize that can't possibly be her name. Then I go through friends from school trying to remember her real name.. is it Ay-? M-? Il-? It's someone whose first language is not English. At first I think she is Japanese but then when I look at the writing where she wrote some in her language and it's sort of like arabic but messy...I'm so confused and ashamed I forgot her name and have been calling her the wrong one (since I know it isn't the real H- who was right there). I've gotten several letters from her and written back. She tells me she is really sad and having trouble with her boyfriend, and has been thinking about killing herself. I don't know what to tell her... surely commiseration is not a good idea now. I wrack my brains as to what I can say that will be helpful. I might call her or try to call her but it's not conclusive.

There's some confusing part about ordering Chinese food and pizza, possibly with the guy in the earlier part of the dream.

Overall feeling is sort of a sick disorientation... the height, the uncomfortable feeling of getting into a party I'm not supposed to be at, my friend contemplating suicide somewhere on the other side of the world, my forgetting of what her name really is...

Froople!

4/10/2008

The dream had something to do with "Froople" which was a traveling spa of some kind and I think also the name of a type of sort of gelatinous (but good) food they served in it... very hazy.

Badly Planning a Vacation; Suprise Soup

4/2/2008 - Tuesday night/Wednesday morning

I am at my parents house. I am planning a vacation trip, flying to another part of the country, the next morning. During the trip I will visit my friend H-, and I call her and tell her when we will arrive the next day. My brother is supposed to come with me.

The next morning I sleep in accidentally and wake up late, around 2. I am irritated that my brother didn't wake me up so we could leave on time and consider this to be his fault. Now we are going to be late and our vacation will also be shorter. I try to call H- a couple of times and tell her, but I can't get reception. I finally get gravelly phone reception in the dining room and leave a message on her voicemail.

Now I talk to my brother about where we are going to go. We originally had more options, and could have taken our vacation anywhere, but now we are running out of time. Also we no longer have time to drive, we will definitely need to get plane tickets and leave today. My brother can't decide on where he wants to go. Finally I narrow it down to two places, Sp- and Ti-, because "I've been there before and will be able to find my way around." Except in the dream, Ti- is a town in central Washington.

When I think about having been in both towns before, remembering in the dream, I remember going with my sister to the beach. She had a small house on the beach, and is living there now. We might visit her if we go to Sp-. She is finishing up her degree. Either someone asks me in the dream or I imagine it in the dream, if I am also still in school. I laugh and say no, I graduated from college years ago. I can't remember how many years, I try to count but I mix it up. But my brother is still in it, I say, and my sister is just about to finish or she just finished but is still there. I remember another place in Sp- in the dream, a huge colorful and very fancy mall, with huge marble stairways and fountains and giant arched ceilings with bright neon lights. (This is a mall I visited in another dream quite some time ago, but it doesn't exist in real life. Neither does a seaside in either location. I realize this in the dream, since both locations are landlocked and some ways from the ocean, but I brush off the issue. Perhaps they are actually large lakes, I reason. I recognize the discrepancy but it does not bother me).

Returning to the present of the dream, I again argue with my brother trying to get him to agree which location to go to for our trip. I tell him to forget anywhere else we'd been considering, and just pick between those two because they are fast and easy. (How we will also visit H-, which seems to be a primary purpose of me going, when she is actually in S- , is not addressed).

We are sitting in the living room arguing, he is being typically lackadaisical. He isn't really interested in going but I think our parents have told him to do so. I leave him to decide and get up to make some soup, as I haven't eaten. I open a can of Campbell's beef soup in the kitchen and heat it in a pot on the stove, then pour some of it into a bowl for me and return to the living room. As my brother and I go back and forth about the locations, I stir the bowl of soup on the coffee table. I haven't had any yet. Then i notice something in the bowl, and lift it out with the spoon. It appears to be a used condom. I am disgusted and outraged, and also I consider suing the soup company. I fish it out and dump it, and go into the kitchen but then I realize I don't really want the remainder of the soup that was cooked with it either. I am not hungry anymore even though I still haven't eaten anything.

My father comes into the house and I run out and tell him about the soup incident and express my shock and disgust, and my consideration of suing them. I decide to ask my mother about it. Then I tell my father my brother still won't decide where to go for the trip, and my father says to pick something. He thinks we should go to Sp- because then we can stop by and see my sister as well, so I think we decide to do that.

The general feeling throughout is irritation at the delay and indecision, which I mostly take out on my brother, and the fact that we're going to be late and the trip is just sort of thrown together becuase we ran out of time, and not properly planned. I'm also annoyed at not being able to meet H- at the time when I originally said I would. The level of irritation is general annoyance and stress, probably about as much as if the situation happened in real life. Also there's the gross-out factor of the soup incident, which disgusts me and makes me want the soup company to pay reparations, which is more out of character.

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.

A Photographic Tragedy in Five Parts

Friday night/Saturday morning 2/16/2008

I'm tempted to record these separately because they were in distinct parts or chapters, but at the same time I didn't get the sense that they were different dreams, just a continuation. Some of the same threads continued throughout.

Part 1.

I am somewhat younger, a little kid but not too little. I am going up the old logging road, several others are as well including members of my family. It's some kind of race, plus people are after. If I get to the end in time, I can elude them. There is a large mechanical device at the beginning where the gate would be, like some kind of huge tractor or earth moving equipment. I think it might prevent people from getting through or catch them. I get passed it and run quickly to the end. At the end of the logging road there is an abrupt hill, very steep, down to the house. Some people are going down before me, I can see them at the bottom. I have to be quick. There is a walled garden covered with roses at the bottom. If I can get down there, it will be too late for my would-be captors to catch me. I scramble down the hill and into that garden courtyard. I am safe. I go out through the metal gate where the other people are. I think my grandma (my mother's mother, now deceased) is there, among many others.

Part 2.

It's the present day and age again. I am on a trip and I stop to stay at my Aunt K-'s house. That night there is a lunar eclipse (in the waking world, there will be one in a few days). The moon rises in eclipse, huge and orange on the horizon, many times larger than normal. There are dark markings on the moon, like lines in a ring around the middle, reminiscent of the pattern in an eye. I quickly retrieve my camera. I set it on "bar" which is like panorama but not as wide, and take many pictures. The dark pattern on the moon changes two or three times as it continues to rise, and I take more pictures.

Part 3.

We continue on (the same?) trip, out into the desert. We meet up with our guide, it is my husband (but he's not my husband yet in the dream), but he is bigger than my husband is in real life. After driving for some long distance, we come to our destination, which is a cluster of huge rocky mountains in the middle of the desert. An old guy we run into at the entrance takes my my right arm and looks at it. He says that I will soon lose it or hurt it (I don't remember what he says exactly, but it's in that wise mysterious prophet of doom kind of way).

We continue into the mountains. They aren't really big enough to be mountains, it's more like just a big rocky area with very tall rocks. We wind in between them, driving. Our guide warns us about the little blue and yellow snakes that live here. If they bite you, you will die immediately, they're very deadly. He stops the car and the others in my family get out with the guide and walk up a rocky slope to go look at something.

I see something else. There are several enormous black shiny snakes, bigger around than my arm, wrapped up in a pile on a rock shelf, very close by. They are rare to see, and I have to get a picture. They are so black they are blue, and they regard me impassively, unafraid, but also not moving from their ledge. I will go get a picture while the others are off looking at whatever they went after. When I walk towards the black snakes, I realize that there are tiny blue and yellow snakes all over the ground in between where I was and the ledge. They are only a few inches long and are spaced only a few inches apart on the ground, and are almost cartoonish in their garish appearance and eyes. They move in an upright manner.

I step between them to get close enough to get a good picture, and snap several pictures of the black snakes. But then the yellow and blue ones start biting me. I am bit three times on my left leg, on the top of the foot, somewhere else on the foot, and up my calf on the outside, right below the knee. They cling after biting. It hurts a lot and I yell and run up to the high ground again, knocking them off. Our guide returns and looks them over, then announces we have to get to the nearest doctor as soon as possible. I realize that he must have exaggerated how poisonous the snakes really were, since I'm not dropping dead, but am still somewhat worried. He asks me what limb the old man had warned about, but I tell him it was the right arm and not the left leg.

We all pile back into the vehicle and he drives out through the rocks along the road. We pass a small "clearing" in the rocks off to the right, and I look out the window and see a large grizzly bear, defecating in the clearing. For some reason this is very amusing to me, and I consider making a joke to the others about bears doing it somewhere other than "in the woods", but I realize after some consideration that nobody else is going to find this at all amusing (also nobody else saw the bear). A little bit farther one we pass a goat amongst the rocks and maybe some others as well, but this part fades away.

Part 4.

I am still on a trip with my family, but there are more people now, it's a huge extended family of grandparents, aunts, relatives, possibly even my husband. We have stopped to sightsee at some sort of significant place, and so we walk across a big valley of rocks, dotted with huge mounds like a mima mounds with no grass, made out of boulders much higher than people. When we get up to the high ground, I arrange everybody for a group portrait. Out comes the camera again. But I'm having trouble getting to actually take a picture on the "bar" setting. I keep changing the settings. It turns out I am using a laptop, not a camera, but this is okay, because it's the laptop that goes with the camera and that I will transfer the pictures to eventually, and it can also take pictures. The group is restless, and they only hold their pose or position for a few seconds, then they move and talk to each other, assuming I've taken it. I'm getting very frustrated with them and my inability to get it to take the right picture. Then I realize it's not my laptop, it's a red one. I switch out for my proper one. I'm still not able to take it. The group complains and still I haven't gotten any decent pictures. I finally locate my actual camera and possible manage to snap some, although they probably aren't any good becuase I couldn't get the settings to stick and people kept moving. But the group won't stay together any longer.

Looking down the valley of the mounds that we've just cross, I can see their pattern which I wasn't aware of when I was walking through them. I also see a plume of smoke from one and then fire. I realize all of a sudden that they are volcanoes (very tiny ones :P) and one of them is erupting. I exclaim upon this to everyone and they are all excited, and we quickly run down the hill to get a closer look, standing right at the base (this doesn't seem like what you do after realizing there is an erupting volcano nearby, if you are very smart, but it all turned out fine).

Part 5.

We are back at my parents' house. I am cooking a big vat of soup on the stove, possible corn chowder. There is a guy there, I think named Zach. He is tall and somewhat gangly, we're both teenagers or close to it I think. This is our first get together at my parents house, I guess he is interested in me and I've invited him over, but we don't know each other that well (or that is, I don't know him too well, as I will discover). I have constructed an elaborate dinner, including the soup, but I run out of some ingredient. Otherwise practically everything else is ready to eat. I'm under some stress from preparing the meal. He is hanging around the kitchen not doing much. He kisses me, and it feels like he has slime in his mouth. I am disgusted and tell him as much, scooping a wad of slime out of my mouth with my hand and showing it to him. He suggests that we serve the soup using some kind of excavator scoop (like from miniature construction equipment). At first I am not paying attention and what he says doesn't' really register. But when he says it again, I suddenly realize that I actually DID this, with another guy, who I dumped becuase he turned out to be a criminal or something, at any rate he and I didn't last long. I ask Zach, "what did you just suggest? Because I've done that before with somebody else..." I am very suspicious and he sees this and realizes that he has made a mistake. He excuses himself to go get some corn from the garden for the soup. Turning it over in my head, I realize that it's the same guy and he's reinvented himself in a new persona to get back together with me. CREEPY. As it turns out, he does know me better than he pretends.

I go out to take something to the yard. The yard is totally different than in real life. It's a sunny grassy knoll with apple trees and such, and a barn and rolling hills in the distance. It's a beautiful summer day. When I get back in, I realize that my family has started dishing up their food because they are tired of waiting, even though I'm just about done. They have loaded up plates, some with one item of food, some with two others, etc. None are laid out like I was planning, or with all the courses I created, they've just taken stuff buffet style. I pretty much melt down, after all the work I've put into preparing this dinner I am furious that they aren't going to let me set it out my way. Everybody else complains they just want to eat. I'm beside mad. Zach returns and realizes I've figured out who he is, and I'm mad about that too and want nothing to do with him. I sulk lividly in the side of the yard while everyone else picnics on the grass with the meal I've prepared, out of order and not as I wanted to serve it.

I find a friend amidst a hostile homeland and prepare for a secret mission

Wednesday 2/13/2008 - Last night's dream.
After many tired nights of fitful sleep, not conducive to dreaming, I actually got to sleep last night. I was still totally exhausted upon waking.

After getting to sleep, I "woke up" again in the dream when I heard the washing machine running. I looked over to the side of the bed where there had been a pile of dirty clothes when I had gone to sleep, and it was diminished. I tiptoed out into the living room and saw that in fact, the washing machine was going, and my husband had come home. The light was on in the study. He had not come to bed. I was sad and crept back to bed (note: this didn't actually happen, the whole waking up scenario was part of the dream, as with the next one. When I woke up in real life he wasn't there and the clothes were still unwashed). I slept for a while longer and when I woke up again, it was early morning (of today, Wednesday, but still in the dream). I walked into the living room and looked out, it had snowed in the night and the tree branches outside the window and the porch were all covered with a fine perfect coating of snow. I was a little surprised that it had snowed as it had been warming up a bit and I hadn't been expecting any more snow this year. My husband was up and he asked me if I was going to stay in because of the snow.

I looked out again, it was only about 1/2 to 1 inch of snow, and I was not going to work today but to visit my parents. I told him that I was still going to go, it wasn't much snow.

Skip ahead to H- Valley, I am arrived to visit for a few days (there's no snow there). It seems like it's been a while since I've been home. My cousin K- is also there. As I walk up to our grandma's house, I meet him and we walk together. He has been home for a while. The lawn in front of her house is no longer a lawn, it's all stripped bare and mounded up in hills, and it's dry and sandy (rocky sand, not beach sand) and dark reddish brown like clay. I am suprised by this. As we walk over the sand hills, I see a small perfect seashell about the size of a wonton, reddish yellow, laying on the sand (it's one of the spiral snail kinds). I pick it up with an exclamation of delight. I see another one of a different kind and pick it up, but it's not as nice so I drop it again. My cousin is not impressed by the find, he tells me it's been like this for a while and there are lots of shells. It seems it has been excavated and the area was once underwater. I get the impression that my grandmother may have past on a while ago and not live there anymore (this isn't new news to me in the dream, and it's not really addressed, there's just that feeling).

Later my cousin, myself, and some other people (my siblings and/or other cousin) go out for a walk across the logging roads. A new neighbor has apparently moved in somewhere between two of our other neighbors on the road, and according to my cousin they are somewhat hostile. My impression is that we kids haven't been home for some time so they don't really know who we are. We walk down to the bottom of a logged area where the trees start again, and there is a small bridge over a creek and we can see a trail continuing on. We start across but a man appears, he has black hair and a beard and outdoorsy clothes, and doesn't look like anyone I know. He yells at us to get out of the area. It's clear that he thinks we are trespassers who are dumping trash on the logging road or hunting or something, not neighbors. We protest but he is gone without understanding.

I end up finishing the walk by myself (I think my cousin went down the trail the guy told us not to). I end up on the road and I am walking past another neighbor's house on the way home (the E-'s). I see Bob and say hello as I pass, he talks to me about something but now I don't remember what. When I get about halfway home, by a bend in the road and creek, I stop. There is a bunch of dumped junk by the side of the road, all sorts of equipment and computer stuff. It's mine and I have to stow it here looking like junk so nobody takes it, becaues I need to pick it up later. The creek is high. I muck about nearby, suspending things over the bank, and I see a kid. He has black hair and looks kind of like a fictional character I used to have called RH. He's younger than me by a few years, and smaller, and he is one of the hostile neighbors. I call out a greeting. At first he is suspicous of me and wants me to get out of there, but I try to calm him down. I tell him I live her but have been away, I'm one of the family that lives up the road, and I describe where my grandma lives (or used to live) on the other side of the logging area. He has heard of the family and is suprised that I'm one of them but he seems to accept this. As we talk I get the idea that he's had trouble with strangers trespassing around the area, and that he's also run into my cousin and gotten a negative impression from him (which doesn't suprise me, since my cousin wasn't exactly trying to proceed softly with the other guy). The kid's name is Riley, and we both take a liking to each other. They live across the creek from the E's, he says. We talk about the other neighbors on the road and who lives there. Although nothing else has really changed from when I used to live there, I really feel like an outsider come home here, like the environment no longer feels I belong (the others of my generation are also affected this way).

We arrange to meet later; as I have to get home for some kind of dinner party, and I have to come back later and get this stuff. I have been assigned a secret mission that involves the equipment, and will be leaving directly after we come back to collect it. Riley wants to come with me on the secret mission and I agree.

I go home to my parent's house and am preparing for some kind of dinner with lots of people coming over. It's unclear exactly when this happens in the timeframe of the rest of the dream. I start making vast quantities of tea and looking for various pots to store it all in, and I am concerned that it will go bitter before the guests arrive. There are other preparations as well but I don't recall them all exactly. I'm stressed about it.

The actual party is skimmed over. Next thing I am out walking again, back down the road from the same walk before. I am wearing a poncho and pants, but nothing else on top and the poncho is flung back over my shoulders. I see a guy and I think it's Bob. He greets me. When I get closer I realize it is not Bob but some other guy (who doesn't even look like him, and is kind of creepy). I pull the poncho down to where it belongs, to cover yourself. The guy seems to want to talk with me, making complimentary but creepy remarks, but I hasten past with few words.

I end up at the bend in the creek again. The equipment is still there, and I start the laborious process of hauling it all out of hiding and folding it up. Parts are suspended over or submerged in the creek, or hidden in an old desk, and there are also cables plugging various bits together. I am working fast becuase I need to leave soon on the secret mission, and I don't want anyone to drive by and see me or get suspicious. My cousin and siblings show up and want to know what I'm doing. I don't want to talk about the secret mission becuase I can't explain it here, of course. They are persistent and purposefully annoying with their questions, trying to get me to explain. Riley shows up as planned. He is angry to see my cousin there (having previously run into him) but I quickly explain to my family that I know who Riley is and he is one of the new neighbors, and is coming with me, and I explain to him that my cousins aren't really intruders.

Once they hear that Riley is going with me, of course, they want to come too. I am irritated but finally I tell them it's a secret mission and they insist that they want to come, so I give in. But I won't tell them any of the details now. I get all of the stuff hauled up and am ready to go when another kid shows up. He is small and pale, with buzz cut blond hair, and seems to be slightly mentally disabled. He tells me he wants to go on the secret mission to. He has a toothpick which he is playing with. He pokes me with it. I ask him about something to do with the toothpick, (like, does he want to take it with him) and use his response as a reason why he can't come. I feel a little mean about this but it's impossible to reason with him. He's unhappy but accepts the explanation. He ends up breaking the toothpick in half by accident. The rest of us are all set to leave on the Secret Mission, but then I wake up for real this time.

The overall feeling in the dream is somewhat despondent and depressive, although it has good moments like finding the shell and Riley, who I enjoy being with. I am having trouble sleeping even in the dream world. Also I am irritated a lot and stressed by preparing for things, like the party and the secret mission, and the other people except Riley annoy me very easily.

Desert Stew

2/2/2008 - Saturday Morning's Dream

I had a series of three or four dreams this night, but I only remember this part of one of the early ones.

I was driving in a desert, possibly with my husband and/or others, but I felt alone. We were in an open jeep-like car, somewhat reminiscent of what Thompson and Thompson drive through the desert in Tintin. We drove and drove, we were somewhat lost I think. It was bare and flat, and somewhat gravelly. We could see the track of another vehicle, or maybe it was our own. Night fell and it started to get cold. We camped in a small shelter, which I think was already set up there. We had no supplies, but I found an onion on the ground and told the others that I was going to make stew. We did not have any meat, but I crawled around in the dusk, in the edges of where the tent was pitched. There were some other dusty vegetables discarded on the ground. I picked up a large thing which I thought was a large potato, but when I looked at it closely I could see that it was the head of an octopus. The legs were gone, there were 8 slightly wet looking pencil-sized holes in a straight line in the bottom of it, where they had been cut off. This is what tipped me off to its true nature. I discarded it with some disgust. I found some other onions, potatoes, and carrots. They were dirty but in good shape, and I went on to make a stew. I was pleased with myself managing to find food for us to make the best of our stranded situation and was looking forward to the hot dinner, although I don't think the others were as keen on my resourcefulness. I don't remember the rest of the dream or the ones that came after, although one of those took place on the bank of a river in a sunny park.

An ill-intentioned identity-switching boss

Jan 28th (The first Sunday Night/Monday Morning dream)

I am traveling to another country somewhere on a mission connected with my job. My boss has specially selected me to come along, and I am flattered. He starts out looking and acting like "Daniel", the boss on "Ugly Betty," but then quickly morphs into D-, one of my former team leads at my current job (the same one who appeared in this dream). I'm happy working with both versions of him. Then he later morphs into an old evil landlord I used to have, R-. During the time he is R-, I am working on mashing with my hands some kind of food (maybe bread dough?) in a big pot that is on the ground. I am bent over at the waist to knead it, and my hair falls forward touching the ground and falling into the bowl. It keeps being in danger of getting stuck in the food. R- is talking while I do this, and he makes me uncomfortable. As he continues talking I realize he is coming on to me and flirting, and expecting me to do the same in exchange for him getting me this role on the trip. I reject him, at first not quite sure that he's doing this, but then more forcefully. I don't like him anyway and he is also married. He puts more pressure on me and makes me more and more uncomfortable. I plot my escape.

Magic and too many admirers

1/24/2008 - Last night's dream

My former lead at work, who is now in another department, comes to talk to me. He's always been somewhat serious around me, now I realize that he knows that I too was going to be selected for some mysterious and magical mission, which I am now part of. He comes to tell me. He is also in this organization. People get chosen. He explains it to me, we go into a room at work and lock the door. I get transported somewhere else after he tells me, which is part of it. There's a gigantic black and white kitten and some other kind of animal. They will be in further contact with me, but I now know that I have access to these magical resources and will be going back and forth for their missions. I feel good and kind of excited about it, although he is very serious about it, it's not all fun and games. We also have to keep it a secret from those not involved. This is all very detailed but I can only recall the broad picture.

In the same dream, the other main thread is that I have about 5 guys who are interested in me but I am not particularly interested in most of them so I need to prune them down. I feel kind of bad about this but it's getting out of hand. There's one guy who is tall, thin, he looks sort of like a taller, blond version of the Betty's boyfriend on "Ugly Betty." He comes over to my room or apartment (which seems to be in an area that looks like R- near my mother's office) after I find out about the magical thing and talks to me, telling me that he loves me. I feel kind of indifferent, which I feel bad about. I try to think about who I have loved, and how did I end up with so many people interested in me (kind of funny since I've never had this problem in real life). I was involved with this guy for a while, then we split up for about a month and during that time I got involved with another guy, who is also still interested in me, also light hair but shorter than this guy and shaggier hair. I'm not particularly interested in him either, but have been involved with them both. Now I'm back with this guy, but trying to break it off with both of them. I tell him about the other guy but that doesn't deter him. There's also a third guy who's not present at the time, with dark hair I think, and then I remember J- (my husband in real life, though apparently just an interest here), and another person I used to be in love with in real life. I cross him off already since I had determined it wouldn't work out with him. When I think about it, it seems like J-, although I don't appear to be involved with him at the time, is the only one that I ever had really strong feelings for (except the other guy I loved but that was less so and he won't work). So, I decided to pare down the others. I try to break it gently to this guy, but he's crazy about me, and I know the other one is too. I've already told the other one I think. He tells me how much he cares about me and wants to prove it to me. I just don't really have many feelings for him but I go along becuase I feel bad about being mean to him. I'll keep trying to drop him. All these guys trying to get my attention tire me out.

I end up walking down my aunt & uncles driveway with my cousin K- and my brother. I am wearing a poncho. We are on some kind of mission. Someone (my sister? but then she's not there) comments that we make a pretty good team. I don't remember what we're going to do. When we get down to the road, facing the chicken yard fence/orchard area, we all make a wish about what we want. I know that my wish is going to happen, unlike the others, becuase of my new magic available to me through being chosen for this mysterious project. I wish for something to be able to make people stop loving me, since I don't care about them. When I open my eyes after wishing, I see the apple tree in front of me has grown some apples, and I know that they are poisoned apples, poisoned not to kill but to kill the love for me. They are huge and grotesquely deformed into weird shapes, although they appear healthy. I pick one which is large and awkward like a zucchini, but apple colored. I wonder how I'm going to test it and I think i try it, but it tastes normal. I decided to give it to the smaller guy first who I'm having less trouble with, and then the main boyfriend to make him stop mooning over me, so I'll have fewer of them to worry about and they'll be happier too.

The whole premise seems rather odd, not the me being chosen for the serious and mysterious magical project so much as me having too many admirers, that I'm not interested in (but going along with anyway), and wanting to get rid of them somehow.

Invasion by squirrel (amusing) and messy roommates (not)

This morning's dream (well, it was well after midnight anyway)

We are in bed in the morning and a large black clock or radio of some kind goes off. I pick it up off the nightstand and turn off the alarm. It's still making some kind of noise. When I turn it over, I almost jump out of my skin because a tiny reddish brown hand, very much like a human's but miniature, reaches out of an opening in the back. I exclaim about this to my husband, but he's still sort of asleep. I get up and pry the clock open partway, and discover there is a squirrel inside. It's somehow crawled in there, although how it managed this is impossible to know. My cats are very interested. I shoo them away and go over to a large sliding window. The apartment is like our real apartment, but one side which has regular windows and a couch against the wall instead has another sliding glass door with a screen. Then there's sort of a slanting roof, not really a porch. In the trees immediately outside, there is black plastic rigged up to be sort of a roof or awning, but it's blown aside and looks fairly messy, and also isn't stopping the water. There's random bits of garbage underneath it as well. I think about how this should be cleaned up and the awning fixed, but recall talking with the landlady when we moved in and she didn't want to angle the plastic differently, because it would look ugly from the driveway (this is not the actual landlady, it seems our apartment is in a different building than in the waking world). I plan to fix it later anyway, she probably won't notice now.

I open the sliding door and try to put the squirrel out past the screen, but it is scared and runs back inside. I spend some time rounding it up again, with little help from the cats, whose interest is not purely altruistic. Finally I get the squirrel put outside, for which I am quite pleased, and report to my husband, whose still in bed and still partially asleep. I might have a baby in the apartment too (of mine), that part is rather vague.

Later, we learn that two people are being installed in our apartment to rent along with us, courtesy of the landlady. Apparently she is allowed to do this. We are not too keen on the idea, less so when the people arrive. I come home from work and find them moved in. They are from another country, but I'm not sure where (perhaps pakistan or india?), and neither speak English especially well. Both are men probably around my age, with dark hair and somewhat dark skin, and beards. They are friendly, but they have made a total mess. They are cooking with something orange and it is splattered everywhere, all over the kitchen and bathroom (the guest bathroom). I am shocked. It looks like paint has been painted in orange dots over everything, including the counters, floor, wall, toilet, sinks. One of them appears to be making some kind of sauce, which is orange and the source of the splatters. There are tiny jars and beakers everywhere piled on windowsills, including chemistry-style ones with tubes leading from jar to jar, like he is distilling something. There's a strong smell of vinegar. The thought crosses my mind that he might be doing drugs, but upon smelling it, I decided that it really is some kind of sauce for food. They talk to me and ask a lot of questions and seem to be leading up to trying to get me to help them with getting settled into the area, which I am not at all interested in doing.

I gather up some things of ours, including our paper towels, and put them away so they can't use them. I am intending for them to get kicked out of the apartment because of the mess. When my husband gets home, I tell him this and question if we should go to the landlady and show her the mess, but after looking around, he advises that we should wait a few days if we really want her to deal with it by kicking them out. We also walk through the hall, possibly with our new roommates, and talk about the other apartments. There are two other in the building, one is larger than ours with 3 bedrooms, which I considered getting when we moved here but decided against. I'm not sure if we're trying to get them to move out on their own or what, but it doesn't appear that they have enough money to rent on their own.

I go out to my car. The outside of the apartment building and yard looks like my parents' house, yard, and driveway. When I get into my car, one of the guys comes down after me, and asks me if I am interested in selling my car. He needs one right away, he says. I don't want to talk to him, or sell my car, and try to answer politely but shortly while leaving. He keeps walking alongside, and pulls on my scarf to prevent me from going away, but then lets go immediately. I talk to him through the car window, trying to get rid of him. My husband comes out of the house and stands on the porch, and the guy eventually stops trying to talk to me and I pull off down the driveway. I don't particularly like these people. They act friendly but make me feel suspicious of their motives.

In another part of the same dream, I'm not sure if it's earlier or later, or it might be in the middle, my husband and I are reading about a park somewhere in town, which is pictured in a newspaper or magazine. I want to go there, perhaps at a better time of year. We also drive to a park we know, which is very dreary and damp at this time of year, and I get out and go for a walk. It has paved walkways along a steep hillside with bigleaf maple and a creek at the bottom. When I get down close to the creek, I realize that parts are flooded and some of the bridges are slippery with water. There are several other people walking down there who warn me to be careful, in a cheerful way that people do when they meet in a park.

Going back to school, thoughts of future and past

1/1/2008
Monday night/Tuesday morning's dream

Throughout, the theme is that I am going to go back to college again starting this coming summer/fall. I have somehow secured a scholarship for continuing studies, and am planning to return to EWU. I'm fairly excited about this. In the earlier parts to the dream, I'm under the mistaken impression that I originally got my AA degree there and am returning to get my BA degree. But later on I remember that I actually did get my BA there, and so now I have to decided what I will be studying... will I get 2nd bachelor's degree? Will I pursue Art, which I have always enjoyed but held off studying until the end, for foolish reasons? Will I get a master's as well? In what? The possibilities open up to me and I continue to think about this throughout the dream. I also remember the past and times I had there, and recall how long ago it was, 7 years really? Will I still remember things that I learned that I need to continue in my studies, like advanced math? I remember several returns to the campus that I have had in other dreams, which are actual past events in this dream. In fact, some undetermined work I was doing in another dream where I was back on campus comes up in this one, in light of the fact that I've actually been on campus recently for while. I speculate about people I knew back then, although surely they are no longer going to school there. I also tell people at work (I seem to be still working back in A-) and a number of other real-life acquaintances that I am going to stop working and return to school.

At one point, I am with my mother and we are travelling somewhere, possibly back to visit the campus prior to me moving back. We stop and have to wait in line somewhere, (at an airport maybe?) for a long period of time (we're sitting down on the ground). We end up next to a young muslim woman about my age, and we make our acquaintance. She is somewhat shy, and from another country recently come here, but I am not sure from where. Her mother or perhaps other relatives of hers are also there. She gives us tea and later some sort of meat meal which is sort of like teriyaki chicken and a Chinese beef stir fry. My mother talks enthusiastically and at one point mentions that we haven't eaten in a long time, at which point she hurries off to go find us some more food. I admonish my mother, saying that she's already given us a bunch to eat and my mother inadvertently made her feel guilty.

I follow the woman into other rooms, she apparently lives here. It's a sparse place, sort of like a laundry room, but with colorful accents. We chat in a friendly way and I discover that she is also starting studies at EWU. She already has a room lined up there. I tell her I will shortly be moving back there too, and I am quite happy to have met her. I share various bits of knowledge that I remember from my past there. Some of it, in fact, is misremembered, which I realize later in the dream. For instance, she asks me about one dorm hall, Morrison, and if it is really true that you can only access the outside storage when the water is low? I say yes, you have to go in by boat otherwise (remembering this and picturing it in my head) and my sister used to live there, I didn't recommend it. The only benefit is access to the Morrison cafe, which is directly above. I recall a place by docks which you have to row in and out of. Then I remember that my sister didn't actually go to this school. Then I also remember that this can't be Morrison, because that was the hall I lived in. So what is the name of that one? (In real life, there's no hall with water access). I'm a bit stumped at how my memory has gotten twisted around like this, and hasten to try to correct the stories, but now the misremembered bits bug me. She also mentions that the description said they all had outside storage, but she supposed she could get used to it.

In general I laud the campus and recall it fondly. I'm excited to be returning and going back to school. I wonder idly if I will be allowed to live in the dorms since I am married now. Will I have to live in the married student court? But my husband won't be moving there with me. In fact, should I have arranged to pay for a whole dorm room to myself, so I won't have a roommate? But I did have a roommate before, actually, which wasn't so bad most of the time... Chains of thought like this continue as the rest of the dream goes on, including interacting with the young woman. A lot of it is spent reminiscing over my recollections of EWU, and trying to correct misrememberances. This goes on for quite some time, most of which I don't recall in detail.

Later in the dream we are walking through an area of woods which looks sort of like the trail up to my parent's house. It's dark, but not completely dark... just past dusk. There is a large hollow tree, and there is someone who is somewhat dangerous or wild hiding inside, we keep trying to catch glimpses through holes and cracks. He has climbed up high inside, and we can't get him out. There's some talk of shooting through the holes, but I don't want him killed, it's not necessary. We go around and around this topic for some time, and circle the tree and look up inside, trying to see in and to determine a plan.

The main and very long part of the dream, which is about the return to college, is filled with a combination of excitement towards the future and nostalgia as I remember my previous time there, with a mixture of happiness and sadness. The actual events and preparation move slowly, and I don't remember most of them, mentally I'm not really keyed into them. Instead I'm thinking about returning to school and my thoughts on this, remembrances (both true to life and not), and imaginings fill up most of this part of the dream. There's also a connection remembering other actual dreams where I returned there (though not to attend) which factor into this dream.