Clutter Cleaning and A Morphing Baby

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

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

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

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

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

Moving Ultrasound Date

Just remembered another dream I had last night!

I was trying to schedule an ultrasound to tell if the baby will be a boy or a girl. I went to the doctor's office and the doctor said, oh, you can have it the day after your July appt. Then they took me into another room and looked on the computer to see when the ultrasound could be scheduled. But they were all booked up through July and well into August, so I couldn't have it for several weeks after! I was suspicious becuase they were using their computer to check the ultrasound schedules, and before, I'd had to schedule it with a separate office... so did they really know what they were talking about? Then I said why can't I have it with my July appt? The doctor said this would be too early to tell and I would have to wait until the next available opening in August, which meant that my husband would not be able to come after all.

Self-Examination, Missed Lunch Date, and Beach House

5/1/2008

I am pregnant with a girl and I go to the doctor to have her condition examined. The doctor isn't there and I wait around and finally decide to do it myself. This is relatively easy because it's in some kind of exterior womb, you can look at it on the table through sort of a transparent sack. At first it is tiny and I can see a pulsing heartbeat, but then it grows to a much more advanced stage that actually looks like a baby. I realize that there needs to be more fluid in the sack to accommodate the growth, up to 5 gallons, but I'm not sure how to get it in there.

During this time my friend H-'s husband has shown up. I'm supposed to be meeting him and H- later to go to lunch or something. I think I might be late and they came to find me. I indicate the problem and we go about trying to add more liquid, for some reason I think he is some kind of expert in these things. Then I go on my own to meet up with both of them somewhere across town. I think I end up being late or going to the wrong place, by the time we meet it's too late for lunch and we just part ways.

Then I go to a house on the beach where we are going to move. I stay in a sort of antique hotel nearby, by myself, to check out the area. There are several houses close together right on the sand, they are pretty nice. I walk around exploring. My cousin K- shows up and I am worried that people will come to visit all the time after we move there just becuase of our close proximity to the beach. K- alarms me by jumping into a large ditch nearby the houses and I yell her name, but she is okay.

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.

Seemingly Random Snippets

Tuesday/Wednesday night?

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

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

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