Daring Police Duo

Tuesday night 3/17/2011 – Wednesday morning 3/18/2011

I’m in part of this dream but I only come up occasionally, mainly it follows other characters.

At the beginning of the dream I’m milling around this town doing fairly mundane things, but it sort of maps out the town and gets the lay of the land as I go around. It’s a small-medium sized town that is not a real place, but in the dream I guess I live there. It’s sort of similar to a combination of Ab- and Mo- but with significant changes, I don’t think it’s actually supposed to be either but rather a new place.  In the dream I do things like go to a nearby grocery store. My parents have come to visit and I meet my parents there (possibly at a restaurant adjacent to the grocery store, it’s kind of a strip mall area) but they also need to get some things at the store, and then drive my mother around a little. They aren’t familiar with the area but I am somewhat. She wants me to take my car through the carwash after we leave the grocery store. 

About this time, luckily, action shifts to other characters in the dream and the real story, which I don’t really appear in again until one other time, and I’m not part of the story.  The main characters are much more interesting. 

The story centers around two police officers, a young woman and a slightly older guy named Sam. They are out patrolling the city as a duo. This isn’t their first outing as partners but the woman is still fairly new here. Sam is on the slender side, dark hair and a bit scruffy looking, not classically handsome but sort of attractive in an ugly way. He’s probably in his late thirties though I’m not very good at guessing ages. The female officer is a young, gorgeous woman, tall and thin with long pale blond hair. She has a somewhat mysterious past. As she explains to Sam later in the dream, she doesn’t know what her real name is. She was adopted as a child and they did not know what her name was before either. She’s tried other names but she can’t remember names so she immediately forgets them. She compares it to writing a name on a scrap of paper, and then dropping the paper. Then she doesn’t pick it up because she doesn’t remember what’s on it or why she should. So, she doesn’t think of herself as having any name. (Sam has a hard time imagining not thinking of yourself by a name at all… like an empty nutshell). Other people refer to her as Spirit. This is partly because she doesn’t have a name and partly because she comes and goes a lot… leaving one town without notice, showing up somewhere else. (She’s apparently been a cop in other places as well but is relatively new to this one). She also has a lot of trouble remembering other people’s names, including Sam’s, although she’s been working with him for a little bit already and they are developing a connection to each other.  This whole discussion happens later in the dream where they pause in the action but I don’t remember exactly where it fits in so I mention it now in order to refer to them by name.

Sam and Spirit are out patrolling the city, it’s daylight still when this starts. They visit the grocery store/restaurant parking lot area after being called because of some problem and talk to the people there.  Then they head over to a radio station higher on a nearby street, where Sam thinks there may be some trouble going on. It’s called AM FM or has that in the name. It is suspected to be a center of operation for some gang or drug dealers, though that hasn’t been clearly established. They go in and talk to the people, who are very friendly and open acting (covering up any suspicious activity) so they aren’t able to catch them at anything. They get a call again back at the grocery store area that the problem person has returned, so they drive back. There are some gaps here that I can’t remember that clearly and other things that happen, but somehow Sam identifies the bad guy who is a small unpleasant person. He puts the person in the police car but somehow in the struggle the guy locks him out. Sam tells him through the window that he can’t escape that easily, he has other skills. Then Sam proceeds to squeeze through the door latch (apparently very strange other skills!). The guy is freaked out and terrified. 

Another officer is also called out on the scene, I don’t remember his name but he works with Sam and Spirit sometimes. He is interested in Spirit but this isn’t really returned. He does something at this juncture that isn’t particularly helpful but ticks off Spirit, like letting the bad guy escape perhaps or causing some problem for Sam by the way he reacts to the situation (he and Sam aren’t really best buddies, possibly because of Spirit). In description he’s a slightly smaller/stockier guy, but still youngish, curly brownish hair, average looking.

I think it’s probably in here somewhere that there’s a quiet period and Sam and Spirit have the conversation about names and Spirit’s past, maybe while they’re taking a break eating. I know they are sitting outside together somewhere at the time and it’s afternoon light. It’s an intimate moment which pulls them closer together.

The details are vague in the next part but Sam and Spirit end up back in some business establishment and something happens to cause an argument between them, and Spirit stomps out. She is mad and upset with Sam over something he said or did that made her feel like he didn’t care about her. By this time, it’s dark out. Spirit walks away on foot along the side of a road, mad. Several cars pass by her. 

Unbeknownst to her, Sam gets a call that there is trouble at the radio station and heads back over there in his squad car. It’s a trap though… they are not happy about his interference earlier and are luring him back to get rid of him. When he shows up they pretend to cooperate but once he gets the bad guy back in his car, the guy manages to distract him and the others setup a severe crash in the parking lot (to look like an accident) where his car is rammed and destroyed.

Meanwhile, Spirit is walking along the road, several people have offered her  a ride. Then, the other officer we’ve met earlier stops and she is talking to him as he sits in the car (she doesn’t want a ride) when she hears over the radio the radio station mentioning that there has been an injury accident in their parking lot. She immediately knows that Sam is in trouble and it must be him (and suspects foul play, since the radio station is reporting this before the police department has received an injury report from their own officer). She runs off on foot without explanation to go to the radio station, argument with Sam momentarily forgotten in light of the fact that he is in danger and probably injured.  The other officer doesn’t really know what’s going on or where she went but decides to go after her. 

When Spirit gets to the radio station and sees the wreckage, she is distraught. Sam is gone, she doesn’t know where, but presumably he was taken to the hospital as it’s reported he had serious or life threatening injuries. By this time other people are aware of the accident (though not the real nature of it which only Spirit suspects, that Sam was targeted). She is very worried about him, and immediately sets off to try to get to the hospital. By this time, it’s next morning. The other officer is trying to catch up with her and follow her, she doesn’t want his help. She gets on a train going to the hospital, he tries to catch the same train but loses track of her. At this point the action follows the other officer. He really does want to catch up with her and make good with her (and more, of course, since he’s interested in her) and can’t figure out why she’s avoiding him. He suspects she’s going to the hospital, so he also boards a train which he thinks is the same train, but it turns out she was on the one before so he’s slightly behind. The train is an old fashioned kind of train operating as an inner-city rail, it has dining cars and such inside which he pushes through, annoying the waiters, while he’s trying to find her. The train crosses the bridge which is in the middle of town to the other side of the river, where the hospital is located. 

Spirit gets off the first train, she doesn’t have any idea where the hospital is (or even if there is more than one) but she races around looking and finds a building not far from the train station that is labeled as some kind of hospital or recovery center. It is a big building with glass fronts and is run by some sort of religious organization. The nurses and doctors all have white uniforms and headscarves, but I don’t think it’s actually a Muslim hospital but rather some obscure Christian sect. The name of the hospital is long and complicated and I don’t remember it.  She goes into the hospital and is asking after the injured officer, the people working there present sort of a barrier to going in and don’t want to tell her anything. It’s a very private recovery center and they don’t know if they should tell her, or let her in. Also, she can’t remember Sam’s name now due to her problem with names so she doesn’t have the specific information to get access to see him or know if he’s there.  She is desperate to find out if he is okay. Somehow she manages to slip past the initial workers at the front who basically exist to prevent access from random inquisitors, and gets into a laundry area, where she attempts to disguise as a hospital worker between stacks of sheets. She is discovered pretty quickly by some other people working in the laundry area. When she explains what she is doing there, they act sympathetic to her plight, but they end up committing her as a patient (she has some other injury sustained in earlier events, coupled with her inability to give either her name or the name of the officer she is looking for, they decide she has a major head injury requiring recovery…plus she’s not in uniform anymore now which doesn’t help her credibility). She doesn’t resist this even after she figures out that they’re not really helping her, because it’s a way for her to stay inside and try to find Sam later. However, initially she is sequestered in her own room.

Now we are back with the other officer on the train. He gets out and locates the hospital (easier than Spirit did, presumably because he’s lived her longer).  The hospital workers react better to his pleas to get in than Spirit’s when he asks if this is the place with two injured officers.  They let him in, but they don’t tell him which rooms Spirit and Sam are in, so he has to go from door to door. There are numerous strange little cupboards, some numbered, most of them high up on the wall and only accessible by climbing up ladders or crawling across windowsills. The inside walls in this room and cupboard (room) doors are made of wood slats, somewhat like an old style barn, and very irregular. At this point, I reappear in this dream as myself, (with my son in tow) trying to figure out how to even get up to the cupboards, I start climbing one ladder but give it up because it’s fairly hard to do one-handed. Then it’s back to the other officer, he climbs up one of the ladders and opens a few doors, then he opens one door and it has a small opening into a room at about head height. You can’t actually go through the door because it has a screen over it, but you can look into the room. Spirit is in the room with another man, and this makes the officer very upset and shocked. She sees him at the window and comes over. She is mad that he is there and keeps following her around. She comes out and yells and him to leave her alone. The officer protests that he was coming to make sure she was okay, and asks why she is so mad at him and never wants him around. She reminds him of whatever he did to make things hard for Sam earlier in the dream (the details of which I can’t remember), he didn’t realize that this would make Spirit upset (because of her connection with Sam). He feels defeated and leaves. Spirit is now out of the room and goes looking for Sam again. She goes from one part of the large hospital building to another and walks through this open area sort of like the inside of a swimming pool building. There are separate pits of water in places, screened off by low walls, for treatment. In many of these there is also a doctor with a lot of electrical equipment, and the patient is in the water soaking, and possibly getting shock treatment or something (however, despite its diabolical sounding nature, everyone is pretty calm).

Spirit runs from place to place and finally locates Sam, who is soaking in a Jacuzzi sized small pool (naked or nearly so) not being electrocuted or anything at the moment. He sits up, she is excited, happy, and crying to be reunited and see that he is okay. He has mainly recovered from his injuries during treatment (several days at least have passed since the accident now, somehow, and all this time she did not know if he was dead or lying comatose or with serious injuries).  They embrace, he calms her down and comforts her, both are emotional.  He gets out of the pool, there is a small couch area with blankets and towels alongside of it where they sit talking intimately, and he starts tickling and kissing her feet until she is laughing hysterically and groaning, and writhing around, burying her face in the towels. Several bystanders nearby gather to watch, amused by their display of affection and her reaction.

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.

Unstable Airplane Pilots

5/23 - Friday morning/Thursday night

I've had dreams pretty much every night between this one and the last one I posted, but since I didn't write down the last one at the time of course I can't remember them now :P getting back in the swing of things again!

I am with my family and we are going somewhere up in the mountains or up north to go skiing. It's a ski resort and we plan to stay there a few days (in the dream, we've been there before, and I can remember what it looks like. It's all snowy at this time of year, I don't know if it's winter in the dream or we are just in a much colder area). We have driven quite a while when we reach a small town from which we will take a private plane to reach the ski area. Time has been running short so we aren't going to actually have that much time at the ski area, but I think we are going to stay overnight once we get there.

We reach the town where we will fly from and we go out to a small house where the pilot lives. It's located on the edge of a large, flat field, surrounded by a lot of trees. They all have their leaves off, it's cold and wintery although there is no snow on the ground in this area. I and my parents unload the van and pack our stuff into the plane with the help of the pilot. She is probably 35-45, somewhat drawn looking, with faded blonde/strawberry blonde hair about down to her shoulders. I think we may have flown with her uneventfully in the past on another trip to the ski place, because we seem to slightly know her, and where everything is. Her husband, who is your typical old, balding, somewhat stout guy, a little surly looking, is also at the house and sees us off.

We all pile into the plane, which is a very little one, and she takes off down the short runway in front of the house. Then she turns the plane around and makes another go at it. I wonder what's going on but decide she must just be taking another run because that one wasn't quite right. The plane takes off. She circles the small field, and comes back again low over the runway (I remember we had to move our van back out of the way where it's parked, and think, this must be why!). Then she turns the plane abruptly upwards. It starts to climb, then flips onto it's back and we do a loop-the-loop in the air. Up until this point I was thinking the weird behavior was just stuff I didn't know about, but at this point I'm a little concerned. The plane drives up and around again, and then it starts falling. Everybody is scrambling. I realize something is definitely wrong.

The others manage to bale out when the plane swoops close to the ground, but I'm still with it, and it's going up again, I fall or jump out. I am not falling straight down, but blowing sideways in my descent, away from the rest of my family and the house. I am going very fast, and I blow past some trees, trying to avoid their branches. The others are yelling that I am still up there. I realize that I am carrying a square of fabric maybe 2-3 feet wide, with strings attached. I don't think it's actually a parachute, but I decide to use it as one as I know I must slow my descent or I will crash either into a tree or into the ground. I throw it up, holding onto the strings, and it poofs out to cushion my fall. Then I drift ever so slowly straight down to the ground, and land on my feet gently.

I run back to wear the rest of my family is. They are now talking with the pilot's husband, who I think is considering flying us instead of her. She has gone down into the basement of the house, and he intimates that she is having some kind of nervous breakdown, which is why she couldn't control the plane. I go into the house and down the stairs, down several levels, and find her there. She is frantic and definitely having some kind of meltdown, and she clutches my arm, trying to tell me what is wrong. She appears to be very frightened as well. I try to determine what the matter is, which is difficult as she can barely talk, just managing to burst out snatches of speech. She finally gives me the cover of a book or journal she was writing in previously. She cannot write now due to whatever condition has seized her, but she wants me to write down what she says to take to my family and warn them.

Her husband is crazy and psychotic, and we should not go with him, she says. He seems normal but he is totally unbalanced, and we have to beware. He is going to ask us, she says, to kill his dog for him (as an example of his unbalanced behavior). We have to get away and not go with him. She has been trapped by him and I gather this led to her nervous breakdown.

I do my best to write down everything she says, but I am having a lot of trouble writing. When I write it comes out like a child's scrawl, I can't keep it in a straight line and it's barely readable. It's worse than writing with my left hand, although it feels a lot like it trying to control the pencil. But I get down as much as I can, and at her urging, I go up the stairs. My family is talking to her husband, but I manage to pull my father away, and show him what she had me write. This isn't very effective so I tell him what she said and that we can't trust him. My father is a little incredulous (especially on the word of the obviously debilitated pilot) but then I say, he is going to ask you to help him kill his dog. Sure enough he does ask that moments later, and my father is alerted to the fact that something is amiss with this guy. We decline him flying us for know and pull away to our vehicle to recoup and discuss the situation.

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.

Dangerous Dealings and Adoption

3/18/2008
Monday night's dream

In the first part of the dream, I am in the car with my husband. He is going to some sort of meeting which might be dangerous at a clubhouse. It is set in the trees, and he parks the car up the road from there and tells me to stay in it, he will be back shortly and may need to leave suddenly. I wait in the car, watching other people drive by and turn into the driveway slightly up the road. They look like gangsters, and I'm somewhat apprehensive.

My husband comes back and moves the car closer, so it's just outside the driveway. I can see the building from there, but just through the trees. He goes back in, warning me that I shouldn't come in after him (dangerous0 if he doesn't come back out, he will be back. I wait in the car some more.

He calls me to say to be ready to leave, and I move the car into the parking lot in front of the building, conscious that the other people might see me in the car and sort of hunkering down to avoid this. I think I end up going in to look for him after all.

Later...
I drive up to S- or somewhere nearby to pick up some children that I am adopting. We have decided to adopt several children, they are about 3 or 4 years old, and I think there are four kids in total, boys and girls. There's some talk of whether we will keep their existing names or give them new names, but they already know their names, so I think we are keeping the existing ones.

They are in different places, and I drive around to pick up two of them, a girl and boy (unrelated) with dark hair who I take home to stay in the house while I go get some others. Our apartment has many rooms now but is bare, it looks like somewhere new. Someone is there with them from my family, possibly my father or sister. I think there are still two other children to get.

Somewhere in the dream, possibly at this strange home (it might be in the future) there is a fat shorthaired grey striped tabby cat, with a short crooked tail. It's a boy, and his fur is very very silky and sleek. It doesn't look like any cat I know personally in the waking world.

After dropping off the kids, I go to a variety store of some kind, like walmart or fred meyer perhaps, but it has a lot of craft stuff and imports. I don't remember what I'm looking for, and I think I'm slightly confused about it in the dream as well. It's something to do with the children. I find myself wandering around the aisles trying to remember what it is. I look at a rack of bracelets. There are two fancily dressed muslim women in the store (apparently this is a popular shopping area for muslims, which I'm somewhat surprised to discover). They whisper to each other and don't look very friendly towards me.

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.

Forbidden Hero

Friday - 2/22/2008 - Last night's dream

I had a small black kitten, and was going to a vet's office somewhere in town (something routine I think). For some reason I was thinking that D- might be there, an old boss of mine who once worked at a vet's office I went to. When I got there, I went into the small entryway and I could see into the office and the one next to it, becuase the walls were glass or made with full windows and a glass door; but the door was locked. I checked my cell phone, it was about 10. I wondered why they weren't open yet. I gradually remembered that for some reason, the appointment had been for 10:15, not 10, so I had accidentally shown up early.

A guy I knew, around my age, was also there waiting for the office next to it to open, I don't recall what kind of business it was. He was nice looking with floppy dark blond hair, glasses, and looked sort of like somebody who works at my company but whom I don't really know, S-, who has a rather abrasive personality and many people don't care for much. He also looked a little Johnny Depp with his Secret Window persona. I am not sure if he was actually supposed to be that particular coworker, but in the dream I knew him and I knew him about as well as I knew that guy, I think he was a distant coworker if not the same one. But the guy in the dream had a different personality, he was more soft-spoken and quiet, so I think he may have been a different imaginary person who just looked similar.

We said hi and stood waiting. I had something else I was carrying besides the kitten, maybe another better behaved cat, or just some other object, but I was having a hard time keeping the kitten contained. It was sweet and black and fluffy. Then it managed to escape. The guy, who hadn't been saying much up to this point, helped me corner it but then it got away again. I crept after it, meowing and calling here kitty kitty. Unfortunately at that age it wasn't really trained to come unless it wanted to, and it was both curious as to where it was and scared of the unfamiliar surroundings. When I would almost catch up with it, it would get away again. We were right on a street and I was very panicky. The guy helped me try to capture it. Then, it ran into the street. I was petrified that it was going to be hit by a car, as they were going back and forth. He ran after it and managed to catch it and brought it back to me.

I was overcome with gratitude and thanked him profusely. He brushed off the thanks, pleased but a little embarassed. I kept telling how much I appreciated him catching the kitten. Then I felt that I just had to hug him, thanking him wasn't enough, and I was just too happy that he'd helped, also I was recovering from being really upset about the kitten almost getting run over but getting saved, and I needed a hug too. (note: I am not really a huggy, or even touchy, person with people I don't know!). I hugged him tightly, thanking him. At first he wasn't sure what to do but then I felt him respond to the hug and he hugged me back in a real hug, very gentle and comforting. It felt really good and neither of us broke it off. Then I felt guiltily intimate as I could feel how tenderly he held me against him, (and how much I liked it) and we slowly drew back a bit. He asked a little shyly if I would like to go out for coffee or something, sometime. When I looked up at his eyes I could see he was looking at me differently now, with hope and the fearful anticipation of wanting someone you don't have yet. "Oh, I'm so sorry," I said, realizing I had given him the wrong impression, "I can't; I'm married." I really was sorry, and sad. I knew that he'd only ventured to ask because of my warmth towards him, which had started innocently and ended up feeling like more, this was my fault and I felt terrible (it didn't help that I felt tempted too, if I hadn't been married). He was sad but didn't venture anything else, and the dream ended.

Why do I always end up married in these dreams and unmarried in some pointless ones? :P But I just realized something when I thought back over this dream. See, I abruptly lost the ability to fantasize 2-3 years ago, and I couldn't get it back, which I found very frustrating especially when my husband was gone for a year. I had the rest of my imagination and I could relive memories and stuff, but I couldn't weave a romantic fantasy/rescue scene/etc. like before. It's back (consciously, not just in dreams)! I have to think this is a good thing :).

A Photographic Tragedy in Five Parts

Friday night/Saturday morning 2/16/2008

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

Part 1.

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

Part 2.

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

Part 3.

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

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

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

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

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

Part 4.

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

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

Part 5.

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

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

Finding crystals in dangerous ground

Last night's dream

I was the father of a young girl, probably between 5 and 8. I was a young man, with dark hair, thin. We were on the old logging road, the way it used to be. Our work was gathering small crystals from the ditch, which looked like amethyst or some kind of tinted quartz, this was how I made a living. I had a ball and played catch with my daughter; teaching her how when she caught the ball repeatedly I praised and encouraged her heavily, telling her that when I was a kid I had been pretty bad at this (too true, although in my memory of that time I looked like a little girl).

The girl found a large crystal in the ditch, several inches across. It was purple, with sort of a streak in the middle that faded towards the outside. We were very happy about our discovery, but then an evil guy rode up. He had a private mine area at the top of the logging road where these stones were usually found, and thought we had stolen it. I had sort of suspected this would happen. An argument and fight ensued, I think I might have gotten injured or bloodied in some way. Then his horse stepped on the stone and it was crushed into several pieces. He was angry, but only wanted the big ones, so he rode away. I reassured my daughter that I was okay, and it was not her fault for keeping the stone, it hadn't been his anyway. She picked up the larger pieces that were left of the big stone, which were good finds for us anyway.
Later, we walked down the road, alongside the creek.

A dangerous market for me, attacks and poison

Monday night/Tuesday morning's dream -1 of 3

In the first part of the dream, I accompany the rest of my family to some sort of huge market. There is a $20 per car fee to get in. We have multiple vehicles. There is me, my sister and brother, my cousins, my aunt and uncle, someone who is either my husband or another guy (it changes), and one of my cousins' cousins from the other side of the family, a girl with dark hair called Jane or Jean or something like that. We negotiate the fees and the driving and eventually all make it there. We park our cars in some big garage parking area and split up into pairs of two. I think I'm with my aunt, but I get separated or don't want to stay with her and go off on my own. My husband/the other guy volunteer's to go with the cousin's cousin, who doesn't know anybody else there. This makes me jealous. I want him to go with me (if it is my husband, I think it's before we get married). I go through the huge market, it has many stores and goes in and out of huge warehouse buildings. There are tons of people there. Some of them make unpleasant comments to me or stare at me. I end up sort of lost, wandering around by myself, feeling rather uncomfortable. I run into one of my cousins, at one point, he is listening to a concert or band playing. Part of it is a huge dark warehouse with lots of open vendors, and other parts are like a mall, still others are open air market areas.

After some time, I climb back up stairs out of the bottom of the warehouse part, somebody is grabbing or harassing me in some way. I find my mother going through a jewelry section in the mall part. We meet up with my aunt at the open air vendor part, and everyone ends up gravitating back to the same area near the beginning, at the same time. Everybody else has been having a blast. It's unclear how we all managed to come back to the beginning at the same time, since it was not prearranged. Everyone drifts in except the cousin Jean/Jane and the other guy/my husband. I think about them off by themselves and am bothered.

We all stand around waiting to see if they will show up for a while, then go off looking for them. We go sideways from the mall area and there's sort of a canyon area, with hills and gullies with small trees and red crumbly clay. The females of the party decide it's time for a bathroom break and the others move away to wait. I climb the side of one of the clay hills, when suddenly an old guy in an orange/yellow checkered shirt comes after me. He looks a little loopy. I am afraid he is going to try to rape me. He pokes me with a wooden skewer with some sort of substance on the end of it, in the shoulder I think, and it hurts acutely. I wrestle it away from him and jab him with it several times. Within moments, he rolls over, dead.

I realize that the skewer had some kind of poison on it... will I die or become ill from the small amount I got? Some of the others come over but in my opinion they don't seem concerned enough about me and I am also irritated that none of them came sooner to help me. The unrelated cousin and my husband/other guy are also there now. Nobody seems to think it likely that I'm going to die from the poison or that it's anything to worry about, despite the dead guy lying there, only I am worried. We eventually make our way back to our cars, and I find mine (I'm traveling alone now, apparently). Overall I am bothered and disturbed by several things in the dream and everybody else seems happy and enjoying themselves.

Creepy People Everywhere

Earlier and fainter in my recollection, I am at some kind of taekwon-do tournament. There are a lot of creepy people there, and I end up having to pay a fee which I sorely need, even though I was not intending to participate, just watch. The whole thing is very uncomfortable, although I can't remember exactly why. There are some people there from my real life taekwon-do past, although changed, and there is some (I think negative) conversation amongst the others about my recent marriage to my husband.

Afterwards, my husband and I are driving through some kind of mall parking lot, I think leaving the dojang, and there is a scary guy who keeps hassling the car. First we end up driving away to escape him, and the parking stub blows away. Then there is another guy (in cahoots) who won't let us out of the parking lot without paying 15 bucks again for the parking. We don't have any more than that (and we already paid, but thanks to his buddy we don't have the receipt), but finally with him yelling and putting a gun to the window, we give him the money and tear out of there.

Then we are in a movie store and a new movie is playing on the TV inside, people are muttering about it. Rumor has it that embedded in the story (which I think is a cartoon) are directions for some kind of terrorist plot.