The Never Badly-Ending Story

April 4, 2008

Friday Morning/Thursday Night

The main part of the dream is actually a story that I’m reading in the dream, that I’ve sort of entered into. I’m associated with one of the human characters. There are a boy and a girl, probably around 12 or 13. When I’m in the story I don’t realize that it’s a story, it’s just the main dream.

In addition to the girl and boy there is a cat, he is sort of gray/brown stripy, short-haired, and a magical creature which appears as a human baby but can also fly and turn invisible, or appear as a bird. The four of them form a team. They ride together on a bicycle, with the baby/creature in the front basket, attempting to outwit a duo of evildoers.

The team rides down a road which looks like a road near where I grew up. By the “triangle” intersection of the road, they see the evil doers in front of a house. They look like R-, a previous coworker of mine who also appeared in this dream, and an old bald guy, and both are getting into an old red pickup truck. The kids prepare to trail them without being too obvious, so they ride further down the road. After they lose them, the cat jumps down from the bike and sets off down the road. The kids look into the front basket and see that the baby has vanished, leaving only its clothes. They understand that the cat and the baby/invisible flying thing are going to keep following the truck, while the kids will try to intercept the bad guys at their destination.

The kids are at a place like my grandmother’s house. There is an alarm on the wall that rings, indicating that someone is driving up the driveway. They go to the front window and see the bad guys unloading giant lemons from the pickup truck. Each lemon is actually a captured person. The kids have cornered, but the bad guys know they are there too (outcome is uncertain).

Switch scene back to down the road from where we left the cat and bird/invisible/baby thing. The “view” pans up over the bridge that is further down the road. White feathers are fluttering down the river, blowing down the river and falling from the sky, dotting the road and water.

The cat is standing on the other side of the bridge at an intersection, where I- road meets M- Hill Rd. There are two squished cats in the road and a small squished dinosaur. The dinosaur looks sort of like a cartoony version of a triceratops, but about a foot and a half high if it were alive. The bottom half of it is a single leg: it’s sort of like an elephant foot with a head on top of it.

The cat is distraught, these are friends of his that have been killed (it’s unclear what happened to the bird/magical thing, but the feathers fluttering everywhere don’t bode well). Some passersby drive up and take in the scene. The cat rails at them: “Do you even realize what has happened? What a tragedy this is?” He points to the dinosaur and asks them what it is. They are unsure, and say it must be a cat. The cat names the kind of dinosaur (I forget what it was called, some dinosaur sounding name) and berates the hapless humans who are trying to be sympathetic but are basically clueless. “You don’t even know what it was! It was a (name of dinosaur)” (they don’t know what this is either). “It’s not even supposed to exist today. You don’t even know how tragic this is!” Etc.

The scene switches to me on the couch at my parents’ house, reading a book. The previous part of the dream was the end of the book, and I have just finished it. I am somewhat unsatisfied with the ending: I quite liked the book but the ending with the cat standing there amongst his squished friends, and no loose ends tied up about the rest of the story, is just bothersome.

I am playing some kind of music on the television screen. It is currently playing something beginning with P (Persepolis, or Persephone perhaps? This is not a song/band I know in real life, but was apparently a favorite in the dream). A coworker, Ju-, comes in and asks what music it is, and I tell him. I say shyly smiling that I hope it wasn’t too loud and bothering him in his cube. He says No, no, he really likes it and would like to borrow it. I give him the dvd box with the program and also give him the book to borrow, or maybe I give him a movie version of the book.

I start reading another book and become the character again. In it I am a girl who is returning to some kind of riding camp (she actually does look like me in this one, although she isn’t me, I’m just sort of embodying her). I/she am in something like a grocery store but with horse equipment on the shelves, and have not ridden for a long time. Some other girls (who are members of the camp) come to the end of the aisle and say to each other “Who’s that? She’s new.” I smile and say Hi, how are you, or something along those lines, intentionally pretending to be a normal, friendly person. It feels very fake. But I tell myself, I don’t know these people. I can be somebody else here, a different persona. A man comes along and tells the girls to go saddle up and me to clean a saddle that is on the shelf. I understand that this is because I have only just returned and have to work my way back up, so I am not bothered.

My sister comes into the house where I am reading on the couch and I put the book down. I know she was reading the first book and I ask if she finished it and if she liked it. She is non-committal. I tell her that I liked it but I did not like the ending, because it didn’t resolve any questions of the plot, it just ended abruptly with the cat finding the other run-over animals.

Ju- comes back in with some movies including the book (or movie version?) of the same story. I ask if he is finished already, he says no, he only got up to this point (pointing to a picture of a colorfully dressed woman on the back cover, who apparently showed up at some point earlier in the plot---In the dream I remember this. There’s a long part to the story that wasn’t included in my actual dream, which just had the very ending.). Ju- says that he’ll finish it later, so I don’t tell him how it ends or that I didn’t like the ending.

There was another part where I was myself in the house and a fat mouse was running around and one of the cats caught it and killed it, and I was planning to relate this fact to my husband to prove the usefulness of cats. I don’t remember where this part fit in chronologically, if it did at all.

A Return To Inexplicable Teenage Angst

Sunday Night/Monday Morning (2/18/2008)

I am living at home again. My bedroom is just as it used to be, except there is a huge flatscreen TV under the window, which might double as a computer. There's something I'm not supposed to be watching on it and my father has gotten really mad at me about it. I am now in there by myself, and have smuggled in some movies that I absolutely have to finish (unclear why, I think it's not the specific movies that are bad but the fact that I'm watching anything). I quickly switch the screen when he bursts in at one point mad about something, he doesn't realize I'm watching them. I finish them up somehow.

My friend H- has come to visit. We both seem younger. She spills a bunch of small objects on the floor and I help her clean them up. She tells me something surprising about her that I never knew, but now I don't remember what it was.

In the morning, my mother prepares to leave for work. I ask if I have to come along. It seems that I still have this job, but perhaps not for long. I was under the impression that I was going to have to work for her at least part time, being back at home. She says no, I don't have to, unless I want to, and then she didn't know if she could find something for me to do. I stay home. I am at odds with both parents about something, and I'm in a bad mood and sulky about it. I grumpily decide that I will walk to my job, although I have a car. It's a very long walk but apparently I've done it before when I have to. I know my father will be mad at me for walking instead of driving. It's drizzly too, and the hardship and long walk makes me feel physically pained to match my mental anguish, which is somehow comforting.

Surprisingly, the dream doesn't leave me with a bad mood at all, although I'm fighting and angsty towards my parents in much of it. The part with my friend was longer, and was good, but I don't remember most of it.

Exciting Encounters

12/10/2007 - Sunday night's/this morning's dream
I went to stay for a visit at my parents' house. There was a house that was far up the hill in the woods which my aunt K- was selling as a duplex. She'd asked if I wanted to rent or buy one half of it, and I had agreed.

We hiked up the hill to look at the duplex. Others were trying to convince me not to go look at it becuase it wasn't ready, but I wanted to see it. The trail was lushly overgrown and very steep, but we came up to the house nestled in the trees. They also tried to prevent me from going into one of the bedrooms (either in the duplex or in my parent's house) where I planned to stay that night, but I went in anyway, there was nothing unusual there.

Then while I was unpacking my stuff and changing for dinner, my friend H- popped in! I hadn't seen her for a long time. I realized that she'd been there as a surprise and this was why they hadn't want me to go into the room, becuase they thought she was in there. We was very excited to see her, and we reunited happily and later went out and ate dinner with the rest of my family.

I was intending that my friend H- or my cousin would live in the other half of the duplex, but my parents let slip that my sister was planning to live there, possibly with my cousin. I was quite upset about my sister living in the other half along with me and tried to get them to stop her from doing so. She was unmoved and acted like it was my problem.

Later I went with my husband back to S. A. His hair was longer than usual, combed back and shiny, and he led me to where we were going to stay for the time being in a very fancy hotel. We walked past a grassy hill which he ran up and down, he was very full of energy and excited. There were lots of other people around, mostly women. We went into a restaurant, and as he walked through he made a hand signal (similar to the one indicating that you don't want anymore coffee) to the person at the drink bar (non-alcoholic) which meant to prepare two of his signature drink--he was evidently well known even though he hadn't been there for a while. People greeted and acknowledge him as he went through. I was wearing several overlapping bandannas, black and white, and the rest of my hair was down. As I entered the restaurant, with him, I was given a wide, rectangular, black piece of fabric which was meant to be draped over the back of my hair from the top of my head, and then pulled over my shoulders to the front, like a shawl. This appeared to be standard, other women were dressed the same way and were given the scarf as they entered. I put it on in the same way, and I thought I looked nice.

We didn't actually eat there in the dream, but then we were outside again on the steps going up to the hotel where we were staying. On the steps, my husband put his arms around me from the right side and pulled my collar open to the right and started kissing me enthusiastically. There were quite a few people, mostly women, standing around. I was a little embarrassed, although I liked it as well, and giggling nervously I tried to cover the exposure and his head with my hand, fairly ineffectually since my hand wasn't big enough. I could tell that the women, who were staring openly, were a little jealous. After a while he continued into the building with a flourish and one of the other women said to me as I followed that some people (like me) handle such things better than others. She sounded both disapproving and wishful. I continued in after him, walking through a fancy lobby, and he showed me the room where we were staying, and said he would have to leave for a bit. It was a large well-furnished and well-stocked suite next to a workout room, with windows into it. The interior walls of it and our suite, and the others nearby, were mostly made of transparent glass. At first I thought it was a bit odd that you could see into the gym from the rooms (and vice versa). Then I realized then that he'd picked the proximity to the gym for both his and my benefit for convenience in working out, and it was a good thing. He had several dvds in the room for me to amuse myself with until he came back, and he mentioned another movie that we should see, and I agreed that he should pick it up.

2nd cousin and a strange night on the town

I fell asleep reading at 5 something in the evening and woke up at 9 when the phone rang.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the first part of the dream, which is less clear, I was going to meet my second cousin (in real life), H. In the dream, I recalled meeting her twice before and playing with her, once when I was about 8 and once slightly later. In real life I can actually only remember the second time. She was about my age and therefore it was most appropriate, I had thought as a child, that she be friends with me instead of my cousins. I knew she had a horse, named Comet. I was excited to see her again in the dream, but very anxious because I was afraid that she would not remember me. It is often this way with people I knew only slightly but who I remembered well, seemingly significant figures in my life when I was merely a passing face among many in theirs. There were many preparations along with other members of my family to meet the cousin, and we were in a green place, in town I think. I don't remember if it actually got to the point of meeting her in the dream, but I think not.

In the second part, which was much more detailed, I am in Port- near my work, but it is different than Port- in reality, much more like a small town. This is the first time I think I have dreamed about living in this city since moving here... it sometimes takes a few months for "dream time" to catch up with "real time" elements in my life. I am going to see a play or movie later at a small theater, which one of my former coworkers, R, (who I don't even particularly like), is also going to. We talk briefly about how maybe we will see each other there and if each other is going to stop at a cafe to have something to eat first, with me feigning interest but hoping I will not run into her. It is a late night showing, it will start after 9 p.m. It seems that several other people from work are also planning to go. This may be why I'm involved in it in the first place. My husband is around, but I don't know if he is actually going to it (I don't remember him ending up there later). My sister and brother are here, and we are at a house, perhaps mine, although it is not familiar. I decide to go to a cafe a few blocks away to get something to eat. I also need to pick up the tickets in advance for the movie. Since I don't want to walk over to the cafe and get something to eat by myself, I enlist my brother to go with me, which he does extremely reluctantly. We walk to this small cafe which is a knight's move away from the house we are in, block-wise, and I order some kind of chocolate-moussey-cakey kind of dessert. While we are waiting to leave there, I remember suddenly that I need to pick up the tickets, and off we go to the theater to pick them up. I didn't get to eat the dessert, and I think we are intending to come back for it but we forget and go home again.

We are waiting until it's time to meet my mother and Aunt K at the restaurant, and suddenly two people are at the door demanding to be let in, police. I am not properly dressed to answer the door so we are all frantic. My sister refuses to get the door either; I push my brother forward and he finally goes and opens it while I struggle into additional clothes. My husband has just arrived and is wants to know what is going on with these people. As it turns out, apparently I left the cafe without paying for the dessert, and they have actually come to my house to collect the money. I tell my flustered husband that I need to return to the cafe to pay and go off dragging my brother along again. When I come back my husband takes me in the car to go to the restaurant. All of this happens in a fairly small radius of blocks. We pass a small organic halal grocery store, which I apparently knew about but my husband didn't (I didn't tell him about it for some reason). He exclaims over how it is close to my work, and I say yes this is great, I can walk over and get a sandwich or something easily. The people working out in front at some fruit stand extension of the store call back and forth to my husband, but now I can't remember what they were saying. We continue to the restaurant and I think my husband says he doesn't want me going to that grocery store.

We meet my mother at the restaurant. It is very old-fashioned and ornate, with lots of brass decoration, red velvet, and lace. I leave them at the table and go into the bathroom, which is connected to a curtained waiting room. The bathroom has an enormous sink, but no toilet, although there is a large chamber pot sitting on the edge of the sink, apparently for decorative purposes. I contemplate using this and pouring it into the sink but eventually decide not to. In leaving, I go out the other end of the room and notice a mirror which reflects down the hall to where our table is. I am pleased to see that my aunt has joined my mother and husband at the table. Then, when I walk back to the table (in the other direction) I realize that something is very off... The table I saw when I looked out the other end of the bathroom would have been located kitty-corner from where our table actually is (but it's definitely the same table). I exclaim over this to my mother and we talk about the apparent physics-defying properties of this restaurant.

After the restaurant, we go to the play/movie. There is a big star, I think a basketball star called Jamal or Jamar or something in the audience tonight, and so the place is absolutely packed with people hoping to get close to him. It's a fairly small theater in terms of how many sets of seats there are, though.

Before you get to the seats, there is this screen you can walk over set into the floor, and if you look down through it you can see the star's car parked below in the underground garage. The car is very fancy. I note that when I came in here earlier to buy tickets, the screen was taut and easy to walk across, but now, presumably because of excited fans standing/jumping on it, the panels of the screen are very saggy and it is more like walking across sections of an old screen door or a trampoline. The others in my party opt not to try walking on it for this reason.

When we get to our seats I discover my mother has reserved seats in the front row right next to the celebrity sports guy for herself and me, with the seats for my sister and brother slightly offset behind us. I am VERY excited about this. Let me just say that in real life this would be extremely bizarre, because I have no interest in sports or celebrities, and I have no idea who any of these people are anyway, let alone wanting to sit next to one. Anyhow, it dawns on me while my mother is talking about how excited she was that she had been able to adjust the seating arrangements to move me up to the front row (originally I guess we were all sitting together), that this is for my birthday (which in real life I don't celebrate). The movie, special seating arrangements, dinner at the fancy restaurant are all to make me feel special and appreciated (which I hadn't realized or the occasion for them, or that it was about me). It was akin to a real-life moment when I was four and my mother made muffins to celebrate me finishing my reading book. Until she told me what the muffins were for, I was completely clueless to the fact that they were for a celebration, or indeed, that there was anything to celebrate.

In the dream, we never actually get to the movie, I am just super psyched about being next to the big star, and everybody around me is jealous and commenting on it (he is not actually sitting there at the moment). I have no idea how my mother had the leverage to get these seats. About this time though, I wake up to a phone call.