Little Fire On The Prairie

Wednesday night/Thursday morning (6/26)

I had two dreams from this night that I remembered very clearly until I was just getting ready to write them down, and somebody said something that annoyed me. Poof! The first dream was gone just like that and I haven't been able to remember anything else about it since. I was myself in it, though. So here is the second dream:

I am "Laura" in the "Little House" series. We arrive to the prairie for the first time. There is a long straight line of the edge of a woods with tall trees on the prairie next to where we are going to put our house, and I quite surprised. I point out this to my father (Pa, in this case), saying I didn't realize that there would be woods here. The woods is different though, the trees have no low branches and the space between them is clear, like the rest of the prairie.

A little bit later we become aware of smoke coming from a neighbor's house up on a huge hill nearby. We run towards it. As we get closer we join lots of other people running in the same direction. When we get there the house or barn is well on fire and we are all coming to help, although what exactly we are supposed to do I don't know. My mother (Ma) tells me to go get on a cart. There is a cart with a bunch of stuff and people in it pulled by two large tan oxen. She tells me to drive it over the edge of the hill, where it will be safe (this is both something I can do to help, as a young child, and a safe place for me, apparently). I climb onto the cart and drive them, they are eager to run and they go over the edge of the hill, which is a huge cliff. This is what I'm supposed to do, however. I am concerned as the cart tips forward rather than staying level and lands in a crash at the bottom, breaking a bunch of stuff. But everybody is happy, only one occupant of the cart was killed as a result of the fall, and I've gotten it away from the fire.

I remember being aware of several incongruities in this dream as it was happening, such as things that didn't match the actual books or even logically things, but I dismissed them because this "wasn't really the book". The level of awareness wasn't quite to the point of realizing this was a dream but it was more than usually occurs in dreams.

A Guilt-Ridden Situation

Tuesday June 17 - Monday night/Tuesday morning's dream

This dream is set mostly at the area my parents live. My friend K- is there as well. Earlier in the dream, I have been communicating and chatting with a guy from some other country (I don't think I am married anymore in this dream, and I'm kind of depressed and unhappy). His name is Michael, apparently he is married but is very unhappy in his marriage and his wife is some kind of terrible person. He wants to meet me. Normally I would never continue such a thing but for some reason I keep talking to him, although feeling rather guilty.

Then I am up in the woods behind my parent's house, walking with K- and talking. The guy (his name is Michael) suddenly shows up! His wife, Melissa, is also in tow. She is young with short very light wispy blond hair. He has decided he wants to visit me and just shows up unexpectedly.

I am totally flustered, and now feeling this is an even more horrible situation I've gotten into. His wife of course doesn't know that he is trying to get together with me in any way other than normal, and it turns out she is a really nice person, pretty and laughing and happy. I feel absolutely awful and I wish he had not shown up, I now have no plans to do anything with him and I want to get rid of him, and I feel very guilty.

I explain this to K-, feeling overwhelmed with guilt at having started anything with this guy to begin with. K- and I had been talking about going somewhere, possibly bringing Michael along, but of course I don't want him to come now or to ever see him again. I want to go with her and escape. The event is something called "Elf" and it's some kind of science fiction or fantasy convention. Now she says though that she doesn't know if I'd actually like it and I probably shouldn't go. I just want to get away. The whole dream is depressed, miserable, and extremely guilt-ridden.

Fleeing From A Plot Against A Different Mother

Monday June 16 - Sunday night/Monday morning's dream

I was in a hospital with my mother and brother. However, I think I may have been somebody else (or in a different family) as they did not look like the actual relatives. My mother was very old, with short curly gray/white hair in the manner of my maternal grandmother, and my brother was older, and stocky. My mother was near death from some disease. My brother and I were the only surviving relatives, and we were waiting by her bedside (or alternately wandering around the hospital) for the final moments. The hospital was very open with staircases, hallways, and shiny wood floors. Her bed was in a large open room, not secluded, and no other patients were visible.

I was returning from a walk around the floor when my brother told me that she had passed away, and I could see the machine had stopped making noise. I was upset but barely had time to react before two people in black (henchmen like) sort of herded me away. I was wondering what was going on. Then a man also dressed in black bounded out of nowhere and started fighting them off, I didn't know who he was but he told me hurriedly that he was "on my side" and they were trying to do away with my mother.

Driving off the others, he then took me over to a different room where my mother was in another bed, alive and well! The pulse monitor was going strong. I said "you're not dead!" or something like that, and she affirmed, and said that this guy had told he what was going on. Then here came my brother (angry, he was one of the bad guys and was trying to have her die (even though she wasn't really near death after all) using the machine she had been hooked up to. He and the henchman burst into the room, but I helped my mother out of bed (she was a bit tottery but seemed well) and with the help of the unknown man, escaped from the room. We saw in the distance another person who looked like my mother but the man said it was a decoy dressed as her to derail our pursuers.

We escaped to the outside and began a long journey to get back home and evade the pursuers who wanted her to die of the supposed illness so my brother could capitalize on what she had left behind, and also they didn't want the story to get out of course. First we crossed a rocky garden area on a hillside.

It was very chilly out and a strong wind was blowing. I saw something on the ground like a nut as we climbed up the hill. It was moving slightly, so I bent and picked it up. It cracked open in my hands and a small plant emerged from the shell and grew before my eyes, rooting in the shell. The shell also gradually grew until it was like two large broken coconut shell halves. The small plant inside matured and bloomed and then it faded and shrank back down and then other small plants in miniature started to grow out of the bottom shell, warmed by my hands. I kept the top shell canted over them to protect from the icy wind. As I watched them I realized they were rapidly going through the seasons inside the shell, and I could hasten the coming of "spring" by blowing on the shell with my breathe to warm it up mor. They continued to grow, flower, fade, turn colors, fall and then be covered by miniature drifts of blowing snow only to repeat again. I watched this as I walked along holding it in my two hands and spurring it on with my breathe.

The next place we came to, we went up a road over the top of a wooded hill. We seemed to have collected a few other people by this time. The normal road we wanted to take had a lot of junk along it in front of a house that it passed. A somewhat crazed guy with a head like a seed pod came out in the road and started shouting at us, saying nobody was allowed to come this way, and if we did we would regret it becuase the person who lived up the road at the house would come after us. We asked how we were supposed to get through and he pointed down a side road, laughing maniacally. It had a tree fallen across it. Frankly we were suspicious that he was trying to lead us the wrong way, but we didn't want to tangle with the bad people who lived in the house so we decided to take the side road anyway. Plus we knew we were still being pursued and any altercation would slow us down. So we climbed through the broken tree and continued down that road.

We came to a small roadside inn and I think spent the night there. There was a very young girl with black hair who was having to work there apparently as a prostitute, although we saw here performing in a bawdy play with another person. The man who was with us convinced her to come with us and escape from this place. She was wary of us as well but she wanted to get out so she joined our band and we got away the next morning.

Later we came to a steep hill with treacherous slippery cliffs to climb down. There was an old house at the top but it was stocked with supplies, so we stopped to feed everyone and get food for the last leg of the journey, climbing down this cliff and then finding our way out to a town again. My mother began preparing food in the kitchen for everybody.

At this point she started to look like my mother again, which confused me and sort of cast doubt on the earlier events of the dream when they were clearly different people. Possibly as a result of the realization of this discontinuity, I woke up shortly after we started climbing down the cliff.

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.

Terror at the Stadium

Friday night's/Saturday morn's dream
May 31 2008

My husband and I are at the top of a hill in a wooded area. There is a very steep dirt path down the side of the hill, quite long a rickety, you would basically have to run down it catching yourself on trees becuase it's so steep. We are in S. A. in an area I have not been to before. I have a bunch of things with me and I run down the hill, calling to him to come on. I stop at a landing part way down and call back, but he's taking his time (or not coming at all) so I scamper on ahead. When I get to the bottom I realize I haven't got my cell phone or wallet or anything, just a picture frame (with a picture of him) and I think my keys. I was going to call him and tell him I'm at the bottom but as I don't have my phone and it's now too far to shout, I can't.

I walk a little ways on across a small grassy area and now suddenly I'm in the middle of a city. There's a huge outdoor arena set up with stadium seating semi-circular around a stage, and there's a play going on. I walk around the base of the seating looking for a place to sit down and watch. It's fairly tightly packed. Finally I sit down on the right side close to the stage, on an empty space on a wide bench. There are people sitting on the other side of it but they are facing the other way with their backs to me, and there's plenty of room. I've only sat there a few seconds when the person I'm sitting back-to-back to turns around and grabs me, pulling me back towards him. He is a very large fat american guy with similar comrades and he tries to kiss me, I start struggling and hitting him, and moments later some S. A. policemen arrive. I tell them what he did and he makes some feeble excuse like I was sitting in their seat and he was just trying to get me to move. I am standing clutching the picture to my front but the policemen knock it to the ground when they pull me off the seat, and the glass in the picture frame breaks. They ask me for ID but of course I don't have any. One of the policeman picks up the picture frame, the picture is of my husband in traditional clothes, and I tell them he is my husband. They take the photo out of the broken frame and behind it are a few sheets of legal paper with my handwriting on it. It's something very old and I panic and try to get it back, not knowing what it is. Is it an old story I wrote? Will they decide it's incriminating? But they take it. Then one of the policeman leads me over to the side of the stage in the corridor between two curtains and asks me again what happened. I explain to him again but he also tries to grab me and kiss me, I fight him off and run out of the corridor, but the policeman are all there and probably going to arrest me now, and the other spectators aren't sympathetic either. I am trapped and am petrified of what will happen. I feel I should not have come here and ended up in this situation. I am wondering if my husband will catch up and be able to help, and why did I leave my things behind?

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...

Hiding in the Rain with my Past

3/31 (Monday night)

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

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

Captured by terrifying omniscient kidnappers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Missing a past and nowhere to go

January 26^th - Saturday morning's dream

My parents and family have been arrested for something and all taken away, and the house is barricaded off by the police or FBI or something. All record of their existence has been removed from public record, but I don't think they are dead, just being held somewhere. I was the only one not taken, but I'm not sure why this is (or what crime they had been involved with). I am driving around a small hilly area somewhere in town, in the old pickup I used to drive which once belonged to my parents. The gas is almost empty. I drive back and forth in a several block area, looking for somewhere, but I don't remember where I was trying to get. I don't have anywhere to go home to now. In the dream I was still working for the old company I used to work for, and apparently was living at home. I now will not be able to go back to work there, also I won't be able to get another job because the fact that I worked there has been erased (I think the entire company has been "removed" similarly, or if not that, the fact that I had worked there for 5 years) so I have no employment history or references.

I drive up and down in the truck. I don't have enough gas to get up to a gas station at the top of the hill, so I leave the truck and start walking up to the gas station a short distance away. The path I take is through a flooded streambed in a nearby woods, clogged with fallen logs. I carry an enormous piece of driftwood (which I can somehow lift over my head despite its size) which I put down as a bridge across each flooded place, then pick it up and carry it to the next place to use again. It gets smaller and smaller with each use until it is used up. I arrive at the gas station. It's creepy and made of old concrete. I realize that I don't have any clothes on, so I can't buy gas, and also I don't have anything to put the gas in anyway. There is a Goodwill or similar clothing thrift store nearby, and I think of going there to get some clothes. But then I realize that when you have no clothes at all, it's nearly impossible to get any. It's very difficult to get any normal task done when you've lost your clothes, even getting new ones. People will freak out instead of just giving me some clothes, and possibly think I am crazy.

I decide to return to my parents’ house, which nobody is at but it's cordoned off with police tape and some kind of electronic security surveillance. I sneak into my bedroom past the security devices and pack a suitcase with some things. I think I might come back later but who knows if I will be able to. I can only take as much as I can carry, mostly clothes.

Then, I go to the house of my former riding instructor (in the truck, which I guess I got gas for after I got some clothes) not too far away and well out in the country. She and her significant other are somewhat surprised to see me but they know what has happened to my family. I have nowhere else to go and I can't get work or stay anywhere because my past has been erased, so I don't know what to do. They realize this. She mentions that they have a little room and there are a bunch of odd jobs that they've been meaning to get to, implying that I can stay there and work for her in exchange. I'm not ungrateful although I realize that they can easily take advantage of my situation in getting work out of me.

The house is extremely messy. I look around it thinking that I will clean it up and put it in order, like the protagonist of a book which I recently read (in the waking world as well as in the dream) who stays with somewhat messy foster parents. My riding instructor tells me that if I'm going to stay there, I should know that it was they who orchestrated the crime that eventually led to my parents' arrest, and they are going to continue doing these crimes (some kind of robbery I think). I accept this situation (what can I do, anyway?). Then she asks if they can take my truck to go to town, and I say sure. After they leave I realize that the authorities know whose truck it is, and so they will be tracked down and caught. I envision living here on my own, in this remote holdout. I'm not entirely sure if the authorities will eventually come after me, or not, but it seems best to stay out of the public eye.

A Meeting about Money in a Remote and Cavernous Building

1/5/2008 - Not last night but the night before... Saturday morning's dream.

I had received an offer for some kind of huge scholarship. However, I was a little suspicious of the conditions and I wanted to make sure it was legitimate. So, I drove to the specified location to meet a representative. It was several states away.

The place where we were meeting was a huge gray concrete building, with gigantic rooms and high ceilings, sprawling in a drippy temperate forest with tall trees, rhodedendons, and salal. I met the representative, an older woman with the sort of pale blond hair that comes from dyeing gray hair, cut into a bob. She was slight, dressed in the sort of semi-professional garb of an office clerk, with light slacks and a floral patterned black silky shirt. We had to go to another room in the building to answer my questions, so she led me through a veritable maze of rooms, the ceilings in most of them were hundreds of feet high. It was all dark and empty, without furniture, just bare concrete. As we got higher above ground level, I looked out a large window and saw a scattered few people far below starting to arrive up the front steps, which was a different place than we had come in. They came from a long trail up through the woods. I asked her if that was the way we had come in (we'd walked around for some time in the building until I was thoroughly lost), and she said no, they were going in the front door to collect theirs. She actually shuddered, and I got the impression that she was glad to have avoided them, although she seemed quite happy to see me.

We finally reached an inner room which was smaller and painted, with carpet, and a large file cabinet, from which she procured a file with information about the money. She spread it out and went through it with me, there were a number of smaller amounts mentioned for various purposes. It seemed that this company managed the application for the winnings, and I was one who had been selected to apply, but the amount was not yet determined. I asked her (this was the catch, I knew) how much I would owe them, if I won. She said that they would take 15 percent of the winnings, and outlined an example in which I won millions and then paid them back a small portion. I thought this was a pretty good deal, and felt less suspicious about the whole thing. Another thing I asked her was if I should get back her the same way I came. She gestured with the papers (perhaps they contained instructions), and said that it depended on how I'd come. There were two ways to get here, through Arizona or through Texas. I said I'd probably come through Arizona, coming from Oregon, but she shook her head, puzzeled, and said no, I would probably be coming through Texas then. I was a little surprised. Despite the fact that I had driven here, I had a very unclear idea where we were, even what state we were in, and now was even more confused about it.

I continued asking her quite a few questions about the scholarship and contest. At first she was eager to answer them, but then she gradually became irritated by so many questions, and began to move farther and farther away. I could see that she was starting to get annoyed with the questions, but I persisted, I had quite a few. She gradually moved out of the room into a place in front where elevators opened up. I could now see that there were people arriving who worked there, starting to move about the huge interior. A man in a business suit came out of the elevator and started talking to her, she acted like it was quite important that she talk to him, but I suspected she was just trying to avoid more questions from me. She continued intermittently responding to me (I stood in the doorway of the room we had been in). More business folks arrived. Three more of them came out of the elevators and stood waiting to talk to her, men in navy blue business suits. They were exact duplicates of each other, a cut and paste job, and I remember thinking at the time that this was a bit lazy (of whom though, I wonder now... me for dreaming it? :S).

She gradually continued to move away until she was standing down some steps on a lower level quite a long ways away from me, talking to some of the men in business suits. I had to shout to reach her. I called one last question, which she answered, and found that all of them had been responded to. In general I felt positive about the plan. Now it was time for me to leave, and I started making my way out. I had no idea how we'd come in, it had been long and complicated. I started out down a huge spiral staircase, extremely wide with a very high ceiling, that we had come up together. I think eventually I ended up going out the front door, because I knew where it was, although it was not where I had parked my car.

Escaping from a bookstore and recovering my car

1/2/2008 - This morning's/last night's dream

I had been captured by some people and they had also taken my car and my husband's car (his car was a dark color, mine was just like mine in the waking world). I was held downtown (a somewhat shorter version of downtown than in the waking world). The evil doers also had a company with an office downtown. I don't recall what their company did or exactly how they ended up capturing me. There were some other people involved as well, including my husband. We weren't being held together, but we were able to communicate by cell phone.

I was in a bookstore, somewhat like P-'s (in fact it probably was P-'s). I plotted my escape. I was loose, but there were people roaming about the store, and keeping an eye out to make sure that I did not escape. The bigger problem after I got out, in my mind, was how to recover my car, which I needed.

At the time I was to escape, I woke up at night in the bookstore. It felt like I was on the second floor. I moved very quietly to avoid waking up the other people. I had to find a particular book, which would somehow help me escape; I couldn't get out without it. I snuck through the lighted areas of the store, avoiding being seen by people, and found the book. It was fairly large, the size of a dictionary, with text and pictures on the cover. I wondered how I could smuggle it out without being caught (it was now morning, and light out): there were two problems, me being seen and recognized, and someone noticing that I was carrying the book. I somehow managed to hide it under my shirt, partly stuck in the waistband of my pants (this would have been fairly obvious to anyone looking closely, but it worked).

I escaped from the bookstore like this; then I had to make my way to the company office. Once out, I ditched the book somewhere, apparently I didn't need it anymore. The office was a small, first floor office of an ordinary type. There, other members of the group were fighting the main evil person who had orchestrated this. I think she was the head of the company. They had gotten the car keys back, which I ended up with somehow as a result. With them distracting the company headquarters, I went to search out the car. I knew that both cars would be parked in a parking lot nearby, but which one? I called up my husband on my cell phone, I think he was involved in foiling the evildoers to prevent them from coming after before I got the car back. I questioned whether we should go to the police at this point, but we decided not, because then the company would know that I was looking for the car before I actually had it in my possession, and could get it away from me again.

I went from lot to lot, it was a race against time becuase the evil people now knew I had escaped and they were trying to get the car away. At one point I called and reported that my car was missing, and gave the license number (to a police or tow truck company, I'm not sure). I didn't identify myself, but they told me which lot the vehicle had been towed to. I set off to find it. I scanned the cars in lot after lot. The evil doers were chasing after me at the same time. I managed to move my husband's car to a safe location (since I couldn't drive both at once) but when I went back for mine, they had moved it again. I finally found it. The key I used to get into the car looked like one of those classic "skeleton" type keys that aren't really used for anything anymore, rather than a regular car key.

I escaped out of town in my vehicle and ended up driving through a trail in a forest. It looked like it was May, spring but not as soggy anymore. Everything was mossy and green. The trail was wide and flat, but there were many fallen trees across it. I went over the trees in the car easily, like they were gently sloping speedbumps, slowly going up and over each one. There were other people driving over them in the woods too, and white horses jumping them, but I was no longer being pursued, I had shaken off the evil doers and gotten away.

Later on, I was walking on a logging road. The terrain was very hilly and uneven, and I was high up looking out over everything in the valleys and surrounding hills. I was in an unfamiliar part of the logging road system, but was making my way home. I'd come this way before, many years ago (and also in other dreams, I think). I realized, however, that the field I used to orient myself when I got close to home was no longer a field, it was grown in with trees. Would I still be able to find it and find my way?

I had three small devices with me, about the size of my cell phone or slightly smaller. they were shaped like an elongated half circle, or a rectangle that was round on one end. At least one of them had brown line symbols marked on the front. I used these devices for something in the dream, but I woke up while I was using them, and I now I can't remember what they were for, or what they were called.

Killer Bicyclist

12/29/2007
Saturday Night's dream

Towards the end of a long complicated dream that I don't remember, I'm going through a logging area. I'm not sure if I'm on foot or on a bicycle, but I don't think I walked all the way there. I have lost whatever vehicle I had. Towards the end of the road, I meet up with a bicyclist. She is sort of disheveled, with wild dark hair. We talk, and she mentions offhand that she's killed a couple of people in bicycling accidents (the others were also on bicycles or in cars). She speaks of it as sort of an unfortunate side effect; I feel slightly appalled by it, but I suppose that it does happen, we just don't hear about it that much. The continuing roads are closed, possibly by flooding, or don't go where I want to go, so I set off through the woods. I'm intending to cut through the hills to the town of R-. I pass a simple wooden shed in the woods, by the side of the road, intended for travelers to take shelter in. It's like a park building. A sign stipulates that the door to the "huckleberry hut" must remain open at all times. This has something to do with the weather conditions.

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.

Visiting a Park with a Holy Cliff

Last night's dream (Monday night/Tuesday morning) 11/20/2007

I went with my husband to a famous park and we spent a long time exploring it. It had beautiful thick woods and abrupt gulleys, and we found a small canyon cut 15 feet deep in the mud of the streambed, as if a flood had come through and filled up the valley with mud at the water had cut it down again. It seemed to be summer or spring time and there were lots of small plants growing and white flowers. To continue our exploration we got a guide. Several were available, ours was a young girl with bobbed blond hair and a red and white shirt. She was friendly but not flirtatious, and I did not feel jealous of her and was glad we had gotten her and not one of the male guides.

After this part of the tour was over, my mother, sister, and for some reason a friend of my husband and formerly of me, AM. I think there were some other relatives of mine as well. They parked their cars and we all gathered to visit the most important part of the park, which was a holy place. The guide showed us where to go, there was a sheer rock cliff with a small ledge wide enough to drive on, and we were supposed to drive out. Some of my relatives I think drove a vehicle, and the rest of us walked ahead. The shelf was only just wide enough for the car, and plunging over the edge would mean disaster (this had something to do with why it was a holy pilgrimage spot, you were supposed to have enough faith and bravery to make your way along the edge).

We came to a point very quickly where the floor of the shelf had a lump in it like a small landslide had come down at some point, and it would be difficult to drive the car over without it tipping off the edge, so we decided to leave it and walk on (it would have to be backed up along the ledge to get back too). I went out to the most important point, which was a finger of rock sticking out, and sat there for a while. The rock was sort of a pinky granite. It was very peaceful and yet exciting.

Then, we started to head back and I returned to a hotel room we'd rented nearby, but AM came back with me. My husband and relatives would be following shortly. I was uncomfortable being there with him and realized that when my husband came home he also wouldn't be happy with the situation. So, I claimed I had to go to the bathroom, and went in and stayed there until my husband and mother and sister came back, then I emerged after they walked in, and we all reunited. The sun was just setting at that point illuminating the room with a rosy glow.

The park was well-known in the dream but I don't know of any place like this or that looks similar in the waking world, let alone being some kind of pilgrimage spot.

A bad haircut and a trip to a remote house

11/9/2007
Last night's dream

My husband cuts my sister's hair, but he does a bad job: random chunks off the back. Then he braids it into a really messy braid. He thinks it looks fine but my sister is quite upset about it and unbraids it, she apparently thought he actually knew how to cut hair.

There is some interim stuff I don't remember, and then we are all riding in a van. My husband is driving and there are several other people in it besides me. I am filled with a feeling of suppressed excitement of the other people not knowing that my husband and I are involved with each other, much like when our relationship was just getting started and our mutual friends didn't know about it, but we were together in front of them. We share various glances and touches and such, the significance unknown to them. It's cold outside and everybody is bundled up.

Later we arrive at a house, far away from anywhere. The driveway/road ends coming out of the woods, and there is a lake to the left and a large house on the bank facing it to the right. It's some kind of safe house where we are going to stay, although we don't personally know the person who lives there, we know she is expecting us. There are only two of us now, myself, an older guy who is familiar with this system, and my husband. Or I am one of the men... I think only two go up to the door. Anyway, we go up to the door. We can see through the window an older woman with short white hair sitting in an inner room, reading or working on the computer or something. The house inside is simple and modern, very large but not that fancy. This is good, we say to each other, she is home. We knock on the door, but she doesn't hear us, and keeps on reading. We keep knocking, louder and louder. There's no sense of urgency, we've reached the end of our journey and she will likely hear us at some point.

In the waking world, I recently cut my own hair (making bangs) and my husband's hair, he was happy with mine but was not at all pleased with what I did to his because it was shorter than he'd anticipated. I haven't felt that excited feeling of a secret-but-out-in-the-open relationship for a long time, it felt good but scary and I can't tell if I miss it or not.

Hilarity at work and my sister wins a parrot

11/8/2007
Last night's dream (Wednesday night/Thursday morning)

I was at work, talking to my coworker L-. Su- and A- were also around, in their respective cubes. At one point, L- looked up through the corner of her cube (there was a roof on her cubicle), and I looked down into the same hole with one eye, surprising her. We both laughed. L- was feeling sick and coughing, and I commented that she really should go home. To my surprise, she agreed. First, however, we decided to disassemble her cubicle. We took all the walls apart and parked them in stacks around the room. When we were done, I realized that I had mislaid one of the walls, and we scurried about looking for it. It was a wall with a large window set into it. At first, I thought it had ended up on A-'s wall, but when I looked at her wall she had a smaller window in it, so it wasn't the same one. Then, I found that I'd accidentally put the wall with the window in it in my cubicle, leaning up against the wall. We giggled and laughed throughout, having a good time.

Later, I went to watch an event where my sister had a chance to receive a prize. It was somehow connected with her work. When I arrived, the people up for the prize were seating themselves, they were in four rows with about 100 people in each row, sitting in folding chairs outside. Only a certain number of the prizes were available, and they would go in order to the people who arrived first (it was a pre-selected pool of people who were eligible, not just anybody).

I sat behind the recipients, and was joined by both of my paternal cousins, my former neighbor P-, and another elderly woman, older than P-, whom I introduced to my cousins as (after tripping over my tongue several times to get the relationship phrased right) my grandmother on my husband's side. I was talking to P- and the grandmother-in-law before my cousins approached, and I made a lightly disparaging remark about one of them as we saw them approaching. Everybody had gathered here to take part in the special occasion for my sister.

The prizes were awarded and we could see this by the indication of a bright color for each person who got it along the rows - I don't remember if this was a piece of cloth or paper passed out or what, but it was evident from a distance as it rippled along the rows. It had the air of a graduation. I couldn't tell if my sister had gotten it or not. She came back and started telling us about it, however, so I guess she did. The prize was an amazonian parrot which was being taught how to speak, she would get to keep it or take part in the lessons in some way. We were all very excited. I asked if it was learning English, and she said no, they were being taught Arabic, because it was easier for them to begin on. They would start out with 4 letters only (R, K, L, and M I think), and they would be able to approximate most words this way. All of us were very excited about the whole thing.

As we left the event, I was walking with P- and one of the others in the group, either a cousin or the grandmother-in-law, went into this large building that we passed. It was made of heavy wood, and looked old and solid, like a large barn. We only realizes that one of the party had gone inside as we walked passed and realized that person was no longer with us, they'd gone in by accident. We waited at the other end for a few minutes but they did not come out. P- said we would have to go in and get them. We opened the door on that end, which was large and closed with a mechanical metal latch, and went into a small dusty room, which led off to a hallway and a lot of other rooms. P- went into the interior while I waited there, to check it out. When she came back she was talking about what a terrible place this was, and how disgusting, and I got the impression that it was a house of prostitution. We would have to go in and get the person out as they must have been detained by someone else in the house. I spent a lot of time opening and closing the latches on the doors leading in and out of the room we were in, and observing how they worked, then I woke up.

In the waking world, L- has indeed been sick for a couple of days but never goes home when she is sick. I've never met my husband's grandmother and actually I don't think either of them are still alive. P- was a lot more active in the dream than she probably is now, and after I woke up I realized that I should call her again and give her my new address.

A leap not of faith - deeply affecting me

10/30/2007 - Last night's dream

Someone tells me that a former coworker of mine, who I thought had quit or gotten fired, had actually committed suicide. At first I think it is "Eric," a former coworker at my current workplace (who looks like an actual former coworker at my current workplace, who I didn't know very well), but it turns out to be someone called Billy Graham, Jr., at my previous job. (I didn't recognize him as an actual coworker from there in the waking world. Also he is apparently no relation to the famous Billy Graham, despite the name).

Apparently, over a year ago when everyone thought he was fired or let go, he actually had jumped off one of the 400-towers at my previous workplace, to his death. I am completely shocked to learn this. I'm also shocked that nobody told me this at the time and I didn't know, since it happened while I was there. In my recollection, he was a tall, somewhat gangly fellow, probably in his 20's, with light brown hair. He also taught classes on doing things in the outdoors (perhaps survival classes) at local colleges. I knew of him at work but didn't work with him directly, but now am quite caved in by the news.

A bit later, same dream, I am at a house, which I think is mine. It's not like any house I've actually lived in, and I don't think it's supposed to be. In the dream it is located near where I actually live now, although the terrain is more like SW W-. It is an old house, painted gray. A few people including my sister are with me, and we are hanging up wet clothes to dry in the house. It seems like we were out walking and got caught in a rainstorm and soaked. It's still drizzly out now and throughout the dream. There are so many wet clothes, I am afraid that they are going to steam up the inside of the house and not dry. As I am carrying clothes inside from the van which is parked out front, I realize that you can see through the large front window all the way through the house and out the back window, because I can see my sister in the backyard bringing clothes in. The windows each have a plain, white or light colored curtain completely covering them, which I thought prevented people outside from seeing in very clearly. Now I realize that they can see my quite easily when I am inside, which I don't like.

A short time later, I am riding in my mother's van with my mother and my cousin. My mother is driving, and my cousin sits in the back with me. They have come together to visit me, meeting at that house earlier in the dream, and we are now driving somewhere nearby, a wooded area. I talk to my cousin, mostly to have something to talk about as we haven't always gotten along in the past. She mentions that they had some trouble finding my house, and I agree that it's hard to find. If you don't turn at the correct spot, which is easy to miss, you have to keep going because you run into a bunch of one-way streets, and eventually 3 or 4 streets later you have to turn right and you end up at a small graveyard, where you can turn around.

Casting around for another topic, I ask her who used to teach the outdoors classes that she took a while back. I know already that it was Billy Graham, Jr., and it's not so much that I care to inform my cousin about what happened, as that I desperately need to tell SOMEone the news. She says it was Billy Graham, Jr., and mentions a few details about the classes. I am bursting to reveal the news, not in an excited way, but in the way it is when you have learned something bad or creepy and you have to tell someone so you aren't the only bearer of this information. I let some pauses go by and then say, Guess what? and tell her about the suicide. She is shocked along with me. It's just unimaginable thinking of how he killed himself jumping off the tower, and I was even THERE, and thought he had just quit or been fired, and everyone went along with it without much question when he wasn't there, and NOBODY TOLD me. It was like they were trying to keep it quiet, to keep the bad feeling away.

My mother then mentions offhand that my husband and I have such a wonderful marriage, the best one that she knows of among all the people she knows even herself. She is so happy for us. I feel extremely guilty knowing that it's not so great as it appears, but I can't tell her and don't even want to tell her and make her feel sad.

We stop the car and are preparing to go hiking in the woods, and we will visit someone on the other end. We take backpacks and my mother asks me to bring some dried fruit from the car, to give to the person that we will meet at the end of the hike. It's a man, but not someone I know. I get the dried fruit from the car, it is prunes and dried apricots in a coffee can. I take some new, freshly dried ones and place them on top to fill up the can. The new ones are enormous, one dried half being almost as large as the diameter of the coffee can. I think about how new fruit just keeps being added to the top, and likely when the guy we are giving this to digs down to the bottom, there are going to be some old moldy pieces of dry fruit, which will disgust him. However, I don't dig down to get them out, just add the pieces on top and bring it up to my mother to put in her pack.

I wake up with "The only boy who could ever reach me, was the son of a preacher man" stuck in my head, despite the apparent lack of connection to Billy Graham, and find myself wondering what the suicidal guy is supposed to teach me... that the answer is jumping off a tall building? It seems like there are too many metaphors here for me to possibly sort through. The whole dream was laced with tenseness, guilt, hidden things being revealed, and a sad feeling. The dead guy in my dream doesn't seem to be a real person in the waking world, but I did learn about 2 months ago that someone I used to know recently committed suicide, and it had a big effect on me. His ghost showed up in another dream, shortly thereafter, which I didn't log here due to other disturbing content.

Escape As Angry Teenager and How to Respond to a Violent Death

Sunday, 10/21/2007 - Last night's dream

In the first part, I am at the beaver dam with my cousins and possibly siblings, at a younger age. We are escaping or hiding from some people, possibly our parents, but we are hiding separately from each other. I spend a lot of time crawling through several-foot-tall grass, sneaking away quietly from those approaching on the road. At one point, someone passing by sees me, but as it turns out does not capture me but points out that my hiding place is visible and I should move. I drop to ground level and belly crawl through the grass to a safer vantage point. I crawl out onto a bank from where I have a view of the road but can duck down into the grass again. My younger cousin is being taken past on the road by an adult. I wave at her somewhat smugly indicating that I have not yet been captured, the adult does not see me. She looks unhappy but doesn't give me away.

In the second, much longer part, I am at my parent's house. I am still living at home, and am much younger, a young teenager, and at permanent odds with my parents. I have just arrived to take my evening shower and am next in line. My father is complaining about how I have not been studying SAT paperwork for a big test (I don't think it's the SAT but something else which I'm using those materials to study for). I am mad and don't want to study it. When my younger brother arrives, my father tells him to shower next while I do some studying. I am extremely upset by the unfairness of it all, and decide to leave home in a fit of teenage angst. I stomp off afterwards.

I pack some possessions and take off on foot, setting up camp for the night in the woods by my grandparent's driveway, not far away. I am quite furious with my parents and am fed up with living at home. There is some interim part earlier where I am captured in a woodshed or barn with my cousins and/or siblings, and we escape. At any rate, my cousins and siblings come along and find my camp, and since they are also running away (from the captors, not from their parents), decide to stay with me. They have other supplies, so I grudgingly allow it and we set up a tent. It is going to be extremely close quarters, and I consider moving into a tree instead. My younger cousin cautions that this would not be a good idea, because I am pregnant and if I fall I could injure the baby. This is true, I consider. Apparently I have been pregnant all through the dream (showing quite a bit), this isn't new news.

Then, some friends and relatives of my cousins come down the driveway to our hiding place with my aunt N-, who says they have freshly escaped as well and are going to stay with us. This is the last straw! I do not want to share my hiding place with all these people, but the others want to allow them to stay with us. I announce angrily I am going off to make my own camp. I pack up my few belongings and stalk off. Dusk is falling. I hear coyotes howling and reconsider the tree idea. I pause on a hillside and see a wolf or coyote walking nearby. Someone, possibly my lover/future husband, is with me now and we change to look like mountain lions (or appear so to the coyote), it sees us lying together and passes by without approaching us.

Then I am alone again. I have more possessions than I need to set up sleeping quarters, so I decide to put them in my car, which is parked on the side of the road. I consider taking the car and parking it at the edge of the field and spending the night there, but I can't think of anywhere to park it that my father won't see it in the morning, and I want to be more hidden than that since I have told them I am going to leave home and live on my own. I put some items into a box in the car. While I'm doing so, my mother walks up.

She seems sad and asks me what my plans are. I am grouchy and say I am about to leave. She suggests a place several valleys over that supposedly has some jobs available right now. I am somewhat surprised, and a bit disappointed, since I was sort of thinking she would try to convince me to come home, but I don't want to show this. I grumpily say, "Well, maybe I'll go there then." My mother sits down in the car with me first to talk to me, and shows me a necklace that she got. It is made of many brightly colored strands of string, like a very vibrant hammock, and is very long. It looks like it is a stylized version of long elaborate hair. Halfway down there is a multicolored plastic ball which pulls the strands together, and at the end they all come together in a larger ball, which is like a comet with the strings as its tail. I comment on this similarity, and my mother says that she thought it would make up for her thinning hair as she gets older, and tells me about a shop in an open air market where she bought it recently.

As we are talking there, we see a guy who has just arrived in a small dark blue car. He is maybe 30 with dark hair, and is very agitated. His friend is lying injured by the side of the road just a little distance from my car; the friend has just been hit by a car (another car, apparently). He is freaking out asking us what he should do in terms of first aid. My aunt K- has walked up as well in response to his cries. We gather around. It is immediately evident that there is no hope for his friend. The injured person's head is sliced cleanly in two like a cantaloupe, and bleeding. The live guy is panicking and freaking out. He asks if he anyone knows how to apply a tourniquet. He reasons that cut off limbs can be amputated and people survive, right? My aunt makes gentle, reasoned responses to each of his queries, indicating that she doesn't think it will help in this case, breaking it to him gently that his friend cannot recover. Every time he says something, I want to blurt out the obvious--The guy's head is cut in two! That cannot be fixed or transplanted--but I hold myself back and marvel that she is able to respond without stating the obvious. I can see that stating the obvious would make the already upset guy much more upset, but I myself cannot formulate a response that doesn't include this pretty bluntly. He also asks about calling an ambulance. He says he tried to call M-, but he couldn't get through. "M- who?" says my aunt. I am surprised again (M- is the name of my grandfather, her father, deceased a few years, who would have been living across the street if he was alive. But she doesn't give any indication of this to the distressed person). He says M- was an old friend of his who lived nearby (probably the same person, but again my aunt doesn't say anything about this and I stop myself as well).

I find myself wondering at the back-and-forth play in this conversation, obviously she (and my mother, who is also responding in the same fashion) want to help and calm the guy, and their responses are working, but I can't figure them out or what I would say to get that effect. I can only tell that my blunt statements that come to mind should definitely not be spoken, and I am able to restrain myself from saying anything since they are doing a much better job.

A mysterious teacher and a gifted girl

9/13/2007 - Last night's dream ( Wednesday Night)
Dream 1
A young teacher returns to a place that she taught before, in order to pay special attention to one student in particular. This student is a small girl between 7 and 10. She has short black hair cut about to mid ear all the way around, and has much potential. But, she has been difficult for teachers to work with and is now labeled as a problem student, and possibly delayed a level.

The young woman who has returned is probably about my age, also dark haired. She remembers the girl from teaching here for two years or quarters, etc when she was much younger. The teacher has some sort of special abilities herself, in a mary poppins sort of way, and will pull this girl into her full potential.

She only tells the girl that she is here to be the new teacher, and tells her she used to teach her when she was much younger. The girl doesn't say anything, somewhat shyly. Not sure if she remembers this woman (but she likes her already). She goes to play with the other few students in the school. It is set in a somewhat remote area in the woods.

The new teacher observes them playing outside, and begins to formulate her lesson plan. She will be teaching all subjects. Rather than teaching each one for an hour or so each day, she devotes a different day to each subject (or most of the day).

The girl is fascinated by two large old airplanes that are landed in the clearing. They seem to be antique, and are very huge and heavy flying machines (not built like typical airplanes here, but on a large X shape). She is fascinated by them and filled with longing to fly in them, climbing on them and gazing at them.

The teacher watches all this, smiling to herself. When she goes into her cabin that evening, she places a small bowl of simmering green liquid, like a candle, in the corner of her cabin on a small table by the bed. A local man with sandy brown hair, who is smitten by the new teacher, watches this and asks her about it. She explains that this will make the little girl comfortable here. The liquid smells like the wet outdoors and the airplanes, and fills the cabin with this smell. When the little girl stops by to talk to her, while the teacher is formulating her plans, she does smell it but doesn't know where it's coming from. This is some of the teacher's magic.

That morning the little girl and the teacher awaken to the sound of chainsaws. The girl looks out her window to see that the large stump outside is being cut into pieces. There is also another stump at the next house which is being cut up. The view is blocked by the first stump, but she can see pieces of it roll out. The problem is, the stump blocked the view of the toilet. As she goes to sit on it, she can see that once the stump is gone, the toilet will be visible from the next house. It's not an outside toilet, it's part of the house, but it doesn't have walls all around it.

I am "inside" the heads of both the girl and teacher in this dream, like they are characters in a story I'm writing. I felt very attached to it in the same way, as well, although once I woke up (as is often the case) the storyline seemed less coherent than it had in the dream

Dream 2
This one is quite a bit murkier in my memory...

There are some shoes and a tree, or branches of a tree, that I carry and put on a bed, which has a light pink bedspread. I am spending a lot of time there, either in the bed or just in that room. They are branches of a sensitive plant (mimosa), and I have picked them from a larger version of it. I am explaining to someone, a boy around my age, that you have to be careful of the vicious thorns in these branches (true!), but the ones I am carrying don't seem to have many of these. They look more like they are off one of the tree relatives than the actual sensitive plants. I think that I may be in this room because I am sick with something. I think that I enlist the boy to sneak more things up to me, which he doesn't follow very well.

Taekwon-do & chicken yard part 2, and me as a guy on drugs

Last night's dream: Wednesday Night 9/5/2007
In the first dream I was up at my parents house. Some relatives, possibly aunts, drove up in a car. My best friend from childhood, S-, was there, but she was only 8 or 10 years old. My sister had painted S-'s face blue and was trying to make sure that she didn't touch it and get it on her Taekwon-do suit.

I went down to the chicken-yard, my father was there cleaning it up. One side had been disked and plowed to make it all flat (this is beginning to sound like a strange sequel to this dream... maybe it is?). The sidewalks and inside were all clean, and the chicken's were enjoying pecking the tilled up earth. On the other side of the yard, I helped him move some boards against the bottom of the fence, which had been moved to cut down weeds and grass growing there.

Then I went to Taekwon-do with my sister, as we used to do when I was younger. By the time we got there it was absolutely pouring with rain, although I was not wet. We went inside and took our shoes off, I was wearing my black wooden clogs. When I took off my shoes, I discovered that the socks I was wearing were filthy, and I rolled them up with the clean cuff on the outside and stuck them into the shoes, feeling ashamed. My teacher came up and we bowed several times, she seemed happy to see me (although not ecstatic). Then she told my sister some kind of joke about God (I think it involved God's gender) which they both laughed about. I did not think it was funny and felt uncomfortable.


In the second dream, which sort of overlapped, I was a young man about my age who was addicted to (and on) drugs. My girlfriend was also addicted to drugs, including cocaine and heroine, and she disappeared and was found in the woods... dead in one version, and alive in another. In the ending in which she died, I did not feel sad or shocked, just sort of complacent and accepting of it. This faded back into the end of the other dream, with the pouring rain.

It was not pouring rain at all when I woke up, which was a little disappointing, although it's probably what allowed me to still get to work on time.