A Frantic Search For A Gift To Buy

Not really sure about the date on this one, I forgot about it until some time later.

In the part I can remember, I stopped by this place sort of like TESC campus. I was with some friends (possibly including K-) and we had to get a gift for some event we were going to. We were already late. We split up to go look for something and I ran across campus. There was this fashion clothing shop which I had been intending to get something at (although it was very expensive) but it was closed. But there were some people with an upright board out front selling knickknacks. I ended up buying a glass paperweight, one of the ones with a blown glass flower-like shape inside, which I thought was pretty. They also had weird colorful sparkly hair scrunchies and decorations of that sort. I rushed back to meet up with the others. They were somewhat dubious about my gift choice but I don't think anybody had found a better one. Throughout we were extrememly rushed and I felt anxious and worried that I had not been prepared.

Disloyalty and Longing

7/15/2008 Tuesday morning/Monday night

It's been a while since recording a dream because I've been having so much trouble sleeping through the night... when you wake up constantly it's very hard to remember the bits and pieces. But most of the one from last night stayed with me.

There are several parts to this dream, I don't remember most of the connecting bits.

I was with my sister and her boyfriend M- at my mother's office. We were coming down the back steps, but they were quite a bit more complicated than in real life. It was or had been raining and they were all wooden and slick. M- was making generally unpleasant remarks, and when I commented on the slickness, he gave me a push to slide on the steps! It was so slick I slid down the stairs to the next landing and slammed against the railing. I was very mad at him shoving me and said so, my sister was somewhat upset as well, and pointed out that I was pregnant. He wasn't particularly repetent.

Next segment (there was stuff in between but it faded)

I had returned to visit the EWU (I think) campus for some reason and was strolling around with my sister. We started to walk back to the car, where other people and relatives were gathering to leave. At the bottom of a small hill I realized that S-, my old (and unfortunately former) friend was there. He was in a wheelchair due to a broken leg (I knew the cause of it. He was sort of behind us. I don't know if he knew that we saw him or not. Maybe he did and he knew why We didn't say anything, but at any rate, he followed along behind us, slowly. We saw him but pretended not to. My heart was pounding. I wanted to say something of course, but couldn't. My sister and I talked and laughed loudly of other things and got to the top of the hill, he was still there. Now he was no longer in a wheelchair or injured. My sister went to get into the car and I had to notice him. We spoke, I think, but I mostly just remember hugging him for a long, long, time. Every time I thought I could let go, I couldn't again. We hugged each other. We touched on how it couldn't be, given my current state of life, but at that moment I really wished it could, and it seemed that he did too. I don't know what he was wishing for though, maybe to just be friends again. My mother and aunt came up in he background, loading other people into the car. My mother saw what I was doing and knew who he was, I think, but she didn't say anything. There was also our dog in the back seat (where I was to sit with four other people, including my brother and possibly even my husband, I'm not sure. Then there were 4 other dogs in the back (it was a station wagon). They were all full sized dogs, and the last one was pretty old, my aunt (N-) boosted it up into the back because it had trouble jumping. Finally I had to let go of S- and we walked over to the car, where I squeezed in by my brother, and wondered why he wasn't on the other side holding our dog.

I woke up briefly still feeling the hug and felt guilty.

Another part, it continued after I went back to sleep but I'm not sure how it go from point A to point B.

I saw my aunt N- with some guy, acting fairly intimate. I was shocked and eventually mentioned it to my mother, who said that it was okay, she had actually gotten divorced from my uncle some months ago, but didn't want to tell anybody yet. I wondered if my cousins knew, then decided of course they must. Should I say something to them? We had been acting normal all along. I decided not to.

Then we were up at my grandma's house. There was some kind of outdoor bazaar or something and my Aunt K- was there. We moved around talking to people. There was a girl probably around my age who was an exchange student. Somebody in my family gave us both some gifts of fabric or scarves. She wanted me to help her write something, a thank-you note I think, and I was trying to accommodate. In the meantime my aunt K- kept talking to this loutish looking guy about what it was like in S.A. She was very interested in learning more but he wasn't too forthcoming.

We went up towards my grandma's actually house, and I noticed that the (dry) swimming pool had been cleaned out. The bottom of it was covered with something like moss but it had been scraped back and colored to reveal a geometric decorative pattern covering the entire bottom of the pool. I was happy that somebody had restored it to its former glory.

There was more in between here inside the house but I've forgotten it.

Then at the end, I am out in the mountains somewhere. I am climbing down hills and cliffs, avoiding the steepest part. It keeps getting steeper and steeper and finally gets to the point where I'm going to have to jump down and probably fall because it's too steep to climb down anymore. So, I wake up.

Moderately Bad But Vague Straits

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Ache of Emptiness and Comfort

Wednesday Night/Thursday Morning - Last dream series of the night

I am in college in class. One of the classes I've been attending, which is the one I'm in now, I've been kind of slacking off on. The teacher, who looks sort of like my old math teacher from CC (but the topic is not math, it's something to do with history) plays a movie at each class and at the last class we had a paper to write in class. As I'd totally been spacing out during the previous class and the paper related to the movie, I had done pretty badly.

Now I'm back at the next class, deciding I better start paying attention and taking notes during the movie, since I'm doing pretty badly. There are 3 or 4 other people who show up for class that day, and we are seated around a long table with the far end pointing at the TV where the movie will be shown.

One of guys in class has been really irritating me, he always makes smart aleck remarks at me or acts sarcastic, and it is annoying. This happens at each class. I can't clearly remember much about how he looks now but he had shaggy light brown hair that was several inches long at least and was probably around my age or slightly older. I knew him from the class at the time, and his name, but I can't recall that either. This class I am seated at the very end of the long table, with people scattered on either side, waiting for the teacher to come in. I am slouched down in my chair, with my notebook out, feeling very discouraged and kind of depressed and unhappy, presumably about the class, but really as I've been feeling a lot lately. All signs kind of indicate to stay away from me.

Shaggy hair guy comes in and sits down next to me at the end of the table (not a usual occurrence) and makes one of his "funny" remarks as usual. I am weary, but at some level I appreciate that he does talk to me each time, there's some level of affection there I realize. There is scattered talk about having to pay attention to the movie this time becuase we'll probably have to write about it. The teacher comes in and starts to play the movie, and shaggy hair guy leans against to me very softly and rests his head on top of mine. I lay my head on his shoulder. It feels SO good I almost cry. I feel so comforted in my misery and lean back against him and we stay like that, he rests his hand tenderly on my head or my shoulder and we just lean together for the movie not really paying attention after all, or to any remarks from the teacher or others. I am aching inside with how good it feels to be held like this. The fact that I previously thought he was annoying is completely gone, and that this is wrong doesn't even matter because it touches the pain so much.

Something wakes me up at this point and I feel so empty, and want to go back to that feeling in the dream. I go back to sleep trying to get back to it, and though I end up going back to school again in the continuing dream, I can't get back to that scene or the guy.

In the continuing dream, it's the next quarter starting, first day. I am still hoping to run into him again and recapture the comfort of the previous dream. I am back at my parents house, packing up for school early in the morning, and with my are my sister and either a cousin or my brother, I'm not sure. We all get our stuff together. As we are leaving there's some altercation on the road involving my aunt and uncle and our dog. We go down to see what's going on, apparently they think he was doing something wrong and are yelling at him. He barks and another dog, a female, comes running down the hill at his call. Apparently this is also our dog but relatively new. She is a German Shepard like him, but her coat is actually white with pink vertical stripes, much like a pair of pants I used to have. She has another name but our dog calls her Cornelius. My father comes down to the commotion and I ask her if this is really her name, and he says he guesses it's the right name, as that's what the other dog has been calling her and it seems to fit.

As my father is handling the dog situation, whatever it was, we get into the car and drive into school. It's unclear what college campus this is, really, it sort of morphs between CC and EWU and this other version of EWU that has appeared in some of my other dreams. It's quite early in the morning, about 20 to 7.

My sister and I part ways in a classroom and arrange where we will meet, after some discussion we decide to meet in the "blue classroom with the cartoon characters painted on the walls". Both of us can picture and remember this room but neither of us actually remember exactly where it is, but we are sure we will find it. I can't remember where my first class is, although I know it starts at 7:30. There is an enormous clock on the wall in the classroom I'm in, where my sister and I split up, but I can't tell if it says 6:30 or 7:30. At first I think it's 6:30 but then when I look closer it appears to be 7:30. I finally ask some other people in the room, and they assure me that it is 6:30 but the clock is set wrong. I hope this is true, and I hurry off the the library to print off my schedule so I can find my first class. Hopefully it will have the same guy in it (one of the classes I'm taking is the same class, continuing the previous one, so it should).

I set off for the campus library. I am carrying a very awkward bag of stuff. In addition to my lunch and a pair of very dirty hiking boots, and school stuff, I also have 4 very large and awkward ceramic vases that I made in a previous class. I don't know why I'm hauling them around except that I'm hoping to show them to somebody, but I really am thinking I should have left them at home. I'm afraid they will break and it's very difficult to carry them all. I think I eventually decide to put them back in the van so I don't have to haul them around.

I wake up again before I make it back to the comfort of the shaggy haired guy, and I can still feel that loss in my chest. The emptiness was already there but he made me aware of it by comforting it, so when the comfort is taken away, I feel the ache more strongly.

Writings and Another Look at Long-Ago Love

6-9-2008 Last night's dream

Throughout the dream I was attending a class or lecture or reading group type thing in Oly-. I was at the time in my life where I had just graduated from college, and had moved back home and was looking for a job. My brother was somewhat older than he really would have been at the time, though. Also, I sort of could look forward and back in time in the dream. I remembered and talked about living previously in my apartment at college on my own , and trying to set up a computer network (the memory and attempt weren't anything like my actual experience). Now I was back in my bedroom at my parents house. I had two computers, with different version of windows (98 and 2000) and was trying to network them, but having some difficulties. My father offered advice.

In between I went to this class, I went up there several times, driving my brother. It had already started, I don't think it was one with a beginning or end, just one that people continued to attend. My brother was being required to go by our parents. Each session was lead by a writer with some small reputation in the area and they would lecture and lead the other people through discussions. Attendees had to write assignments from day to day; sometimes they had to turn them in, other times just read them in class. My brother had been attending this for some time, but I was just sort of stepping in now as something to do. Going to and from various sessions of this was the main substance of the dream, but we went so many times and the order mixed around, so I don't know how many times or in what order all of the events happened.

On one occasion it was morning I think and we were trying to get our assignments ready. I was telling my brother than he needed to finish writing his so we could leave, but actually I hadn't really finished mine either. That is, I had written one, and hand-written the other in my notebook but it was quite messy and out of order. I didn't know if we were going to have to turn them in this time, and it would take longer for me to re-write it by hand, so I decided I better type it on the computer, and was trying to do that, as time ran out. This notebook and another one were also a recurrent thread throughout the dream. I had two spiral bound notebooks. One was normal sized and I wrote a lot of assignments in it and notes. I also had a circular one with round pages, which I wrote smaller or shorter things in. Both of them I had crammed into my backpack with a couple other books or notepads, but I kept pulling them out, reading what I'd written, and adding stuff for the various assignments.

On that occasion due to my delay (although I was kind of blaming my brother), we ended up being rather late to the meeting. A woman was lecturing this time and she wasn't as nice as the guy who had been doing it before. She had me read aloud some passage from the book they were reading, and I stumbled over it a lot. The words sort of changed order as I read, so I would read it and it wouldn't make sense, then I would look again and they would be un-transposed. And there were confused parts like "'til Till's till arrived..." which I didn't know if it was intentionally written this way, or I was just stumbling over it.

Another time we went to the meeting I remember going next door afterwards waiting for my brother, there was a small pizza shop. The owner engaged in minor chitchat and I may have had a bite to eat. The room the classes were held in and the pizza shop were both old small buildings, not in the best condition. I drove to and from all the classes with my brother in my old truck.

Another time I arrived well before the meeting was about to start. I did it on purpose because I had seen someone leaving from the class before, whom I knew. It was R-, one of my most enduring crushes (or perhaps an early love, depending on what end of history you look at it from) He also appeared in this dream. I had not seen him since he graduated, as indeed I have not in real life either. I wasn't really planning to meet him, or not meet him, I didn't have a plan, I just came early to see if he would be there.

In fact, he was sitting at the table with his characteristic suitcase. He dressed much the same but looked a little older, unmistakably the same though. I felt a familiar catch in my chest. I was dressed peculiarly, with a weird vest, and my hair was sometimes pulled back into the sort of ponytail I always tried to avoid as child, where the hair on top is in ridges and not all smooth and round. Other times I was covered. I didn't think he would recognize me. He said a few things to me as I came in but without saying he knew who I was. The table he was seated at looked rather like my grandmother's. We were the only ones there as the next group (that I was supposed to be with) had not arrived.

Then he said something to make me realize he did in fact know me. I said as much, do you remember me then? and he said he did, laughing at my assumption that he wouldn't. We talked a little. I said something to indicate a little of what I had once felt, as in fact I'd never told him I was "interested" in him, just basically stalked him. He knew! He wrote something cryptic in my notebook, to the end of that he knew that I knew that I loved him and it might have cryptically indicated that he felt something too. It was like a riddle, I can't remember it now. It made me happy. I looked back at it in the notebook several times later in the dream. I told him then, I'd fallen in love again in college and had my heart broken, and then I'd loved again and gotten married (or would get married...this part is difficult to describe chronologically because at the time the dream is set, I hadn't even gotten a job after college yet, let alone met the man who I would later marry, yet it seemed I knew about this, even though it hadn't technically happened yet in the dream). So in this way we sort of acknowledged our once-feelings, and I learned that they'd been reciprocated, but we also knew that we were on different roads now and didn't expect to make anything of it. Still I was filled with that giddy feeling whenever I thought back on it, which I did several times in the course of the dream, and looked at his note in my book.

The strongest feeling was realizing, but without bitterness of lost opportunity somehow, that he had liked me too, and he was open to it, even though things had changed for both of us. Only the sweetness of this revelation was with me in the dream, not the might-have-beens, and it made my heart happy and fluttery to recall. The writing and the notebooks went around and around everything else. I read and wrote in the dream, and repeated his poem-like shy statement over and over in my head to memorize it, but the morning light washed it away as always, leaving only a positive dull ache, a mere shadow of the feelings in the dream.

Building a College Fantasy

5/6/2008 Tuesday morning/Monday night

I arrive at my old college, EWU; I am going to start going to school there again (maybe for another degree?). For some reason, I am disguised as a boy. I have my hair styled so it looks like it is short and hanging over most of my face, with a bandanna and a white tee shirt with an illustration on it that is mostly green. This makes my eyes look green.

I walk up to the dorm from the outside, it's apparently my old dorm (although it looks nothing like it, but in the dream I am familiar with it). I have arrived on the very first day, and although I haven't made the necessary preparations in advance or picked up my key, I know that the door will be unlocked for all the students moving in, so I am able to get in. The door leads to steps immediately going steeply down, and then going up again on the other side, then up up up further. I follow them and when I come to the top there is a large gap to step across to the doorway, which if you didn't remember to step across would be dangerous to put your foot in. In the dream I remember needing to step over this gap when going out and down the stairs, from when I was there before.

The door opens out at one end of the hallway in the dorms. There are students wandering everywhere, moving their stuff in and out. In the first room on the left, the door is open and the occupant is seated at the computer, and another person is sitting next to him in a chair with his back mostly to the door. It is my old friend S-, who I haven't seen for so very long. I knew/hoped he would be here, but I wasn't sure. I suppress my excitement and walk past (he will not recognize me in the initial disguise, I think, plus he is looking the other way). My heart is pounding.

I go down the hall looking for an open room. Rather than having rooms assigned, people just choose them and move in on the first day, and many people are already moved in. I realize that this is a bit of a problem, since I am kind of getting back into this at the last minute (I haven't registered for classes either or anything). A girl that I apparently knew before at school recognizes me and says hi, how's it going, etc. and I respond in kind. I realize that my disguise is totally ineffectual if she recognized me anyway, so I may as well take it off. I duck into the nearby bathroom.

I look at myself in the mirror, I don't think I am recognizable in my disguise but apparently I am, so I take off the bandanna and put my hair back where it belongs. My eyes look very green, which I attribute to the influence of the green on the tee shirt. Even the whites of my eyes look tinted with an almost florescent green, apparently a reflection. I wonder if S- will recognize me like this.

I use the toilet, being in some gastric distress. It appears that I have consumed a lot of long plant vines like pathos and onion greens, and I'm in quite a bit of discomfort.

That taken care of, I go back down the hall. People have cleared out a bit. I stop in the doorway of another room near the end of the hall, but on the other side from where he was before, and S- is sitting there, waiting for me. He did see me go past before, and he smiles and is happy to see me after so long. We say hello and other small things. I want to rush forward but I hang in the doorway, unsure of his reception. Now I can't picture him exactly as he was in the dream, but it was very clear then.
I say "well, it looks like I may not get a room on this floor after all, I should have come earlier," or something like that, ruefully, since everybody is snapping them up. He says that he reserved one for me, just a couple doors down from his. I say "Ah you're such a sweety," surprised and pleased. He just smiles, but I see that he has tears sparkling in his eyes, he is, like me, choked up with happiness and emotion at our meeting again. I've never seen him like this before. I know now that it is not just me aching with the fulfilled longing of seeing each other again, and this makes me deliriously happy.

I go down to the room he saved for me to put my stuff there. I am thinking, feeling slightly guilty at our meeting and the fact that I am here with him and enjoying this time and feeling so good. But then I think, it's just a dream, after all. I don't have to feel guilty, I'm not really cheating because it's not real and it's out of my control. Strangely even though I actually THINK to myself that it's a dream and use this to justify my time with him, the dream doesn't become lucid and I can't control anything, plus everything still feels completely real. It's a strange setup. I feel a little sad thinking that it's only a dream, and I'm not going to be here with him all the time. But then I tell myself I should be happy it's a dream. If it were not, he wouldn't be all welcoming to me and certainly wouldn't have gotten me a room right next to him, he would be trying to drive me away instead, rather than acting like I'd always hoped for. Plus I would be cheating on my husband since I'm married now. I think, in real life this is impossible and I'm happy that I have such a better relationship with my husband than things went in the past with S- in real life. At least because this is a dream I can come back and visit it again and again and spend some of my time here, under the dream conditions of our affection. (Even though generally you can't just choose to return to and keep going on the same dream at will, in the dream I think this will work).

I leave my bag in my room and tell S- that I'm just going to go back out to my car and get the rest of my stuff, we will meet up then and go eat or register or something. I go back out to the parking lot. When I get to my car, I see that there is a NEW large dent in the side. It is quite large, and looks like somebody fell out of the sky and landed on the car crushing a dent the shape of their head and upper body. A person standing nearby in the parking lot points it out to me and says that some people were having a fight nearby and one of them must have been thrown against the car. Also for some reason my trunk is open.

I'm somewhat perturbed by this but still in a pretty good happy mood because of S-, so I close the trunk, and hop in the car to get my stuff. I think I will straighten it up a little bit in case S- and I go somewhere in the car later, I'm not sure if he has his car here or not. Then I realize that there is a person in the car, of an unsavory sort... dirty looking with long stringy hair and bad intentions. I don't think he was expecting to see me, just stealing stuff, but the guy pulls me in and locks the doors. I think he has some kind of weapon, but I'm not sure. He starts driving. I am being kidnapped! I am a bit panicky. He goes through my stuff but fails to find anything useful, although he takes my cell phone.

I grab a paper with financial information when he isn't looking and put it into my purse. He drives for a while, it looks sort of like the area near where I grew up, but it's not. I am thinking how I can get the cell phone back and call or message for help while he is distracted. He shows me the phone where he has downloaded additional ringtones and I pretend that I like one of the tunes and want to set it as the default on the phone. He buys this and I fiddle with the phone. Unfortunately while I'm doing this he finds the financial paper in my purse, and tells me so, but I pretend not to be disturbed. I have to call or message for help. He has rearranged everything on my phone though in the course of downloading stuff, and so the normal keys don't go to the same places. I pretend to be setting the ringtone but frantically search through and find recent calls. But S- of course is not in the recent call list, since I haven't called him. My husband is there but I don't call him becuase he is far away and wouldn't be of much help in this situation. I go to the address book on the phone, and S- is there (Not sure when he got there though). I was going to call and whisper but then I realize this will be really obvious and the kidnapper might retaliate, so I send a message saying I'm kidnapped, call the police. Then I just sit back and hope.

I end up being taken to some kind of farm that has dog kennels, and the kidnapper locks me in one of them, presumably while he makes off with the stolen goods. But in a very short time S- arrives with the police and rescues me. I'm impressed since I hadn't actually been able to say where I was. Then I wake up before anything else happens.

Somehow I'm able to enjoy the fantasy of this unrealistic reunion even though I know it's not real (and that I don't even want it to be real since that wouldn't work), and most of the dream I'm just indulging in that and the feelings that accompany it

Difficult Access Points

3/09/2008
Saturday night/Sunday morning's dream:

This was long and involved but I can only remember a few basic parts.
In the earlier part of the dream I was climbing up this vertical dirt cliff, which had some grass growing on it. I grabbed hold of this and other vegetation to help climb up, as the ground kept sliding out from underneath. The cliff itself was located on a hill above some part of town, because houses and gardens ended at a wooded area, and we went through it to get to the cliff above. Some other people were with me. It was some kind of contest or race to climb up it. I had been to the cliff before, because I lead the way, but I don't know if I had been up it.

Somehow I managed to crawl up the hill, as did at least some of the other people, and at the top was an old house, abandoned. We went inside, and looked through it, finding some old books. I don't remember what else we did up there but we may have camped out.

Later I was on a college campus, looking for a guy. I don't think I know him in real life, but in the dream I was close to him, but I think we'd had a fight. He was young and black, with fluffy hair. I went into the library to look for him, and possibly found him but then lost him again. The library had some kind of check-in/check-out system of glass doors in front of the main desk, so people could only get in under certain circumstances, perhaps if they had a card or paid. I went in and out a couple of times, and advised another person who was stuck outside that if they banged on the glass, the person at the desk would let them back in and then they could pay what they owed.

Then in a later part of the dream I was transported to a school that was like Hogwarts, but it was not Hogwarts. I was Harry. I was unsure where to go. The main hall area had students scurrying off to their different living areas, but all the names were different, and I couldn't remember which one I was supposed to be in. This was Hogwarts in the last year, apparently, when it was corrupted, and all the names of the 4 "houses" had changed, or else it was another similar school. I was very confused and stood there trying to remember the original names and figure out where I was supposed to go.

A Detached College Girl, a Tsunami, and a Magic House

Wednesday 2/20/2008 - Last night's dream

I was at college, whether back to school or originally I'm not sure. There was an auction being held for airplanes, and my sister and cousin K- were both there. My sister wanted to buy a particular plane, and wanted us both to pitch in some of the money. When my sister stepped away to bid, I said to my cousin that I wondered why my sister was getting a plane, when she gets height sick. She laughed and I got the impression that the plane was really for my cousin. I didn't put in any money in the pool, and when my sister bid, she ended up accidentally buying a different plane than the one she wanted (there were four or five small planes available, the one she wanted was I think yellow but she ended up with a black and red one, or vice versa).

Next, I was hanging out with some other girls, who I thought were muslim, trying to make some friends. I eagerly tried to converse with them. One of the girls who I initially kind of liked had two white dots on her forehead, slightly overlapping (somewhat like the mark that some hindu women wear). She looked vaguely Indian. I wanted to ask her about the dot, since I had thought she was muslim, but I couldn't figure out quite how to phrase it without seeming rude or accusatory. I talked with many of them about various things, but now I can't remember the details; I felt very detached from them although I was trying not to be. We may have arranged to go somewhere.

I went to the beach where all the college kids were going to hang out that afternoon. Shortly beforehand, I had realized from the weather or the TV report or something that there was going to be a tsunami, but I decided to go anyway since everybody else was going. I parked my car with some difficulty in a large parking garage on the beach, and walked out. Lots of people were hanging out. There was a long stretch of hilly dunes between me at the parking garage and the water. Somebody said let's go down to the water, and I replied that I thought the water would come up here, or something along those lines. The others didn't take it seriously. I wondered how they could not have noticed that it was coming.

The tsunami waves started coming up, but we were so far up the beach that they weren't that high when they got there, just water flowing all the way up through the dunes to the garage. The others were surprised but I was not. I watched it with interest. By the time the first wave reached where I was at the entrance to the garage, the water was gentle and only about a foot high, but I could see higher water further down the beach between the dunes. Another wave came, higher, this one had a jello-like consistency. People ran out playing in it and exclaiming over it and its strange texture; I just watched. Then the bigger waves came and we took cover inside the parking garage. The water washed up against the outside, preventing going out on the beach side. People discussed how we were going to get out in our cars. A large grid was brought and attached to the inside of the wall, and I understood that they were going to bash a huge hole in the wall to drive out through, and the webbing would hold the pieces of concrete together when they fell, sort of like the safety glass in a car windshield. I was not riled up during any of this, just interested in a detached way. The others were excited and scared by turns.

I went back to an old house in town and climbed up inside, it had several stories. By this time it was dark. The house belonged to one of my former bosses, C-. He was happy to see me and decided to give me the grand tour, showing me around. I don't think we'd run into each other for a long time (although in real life, I didn't work for him until many years after college, but I think I was younger in the dream... time was twisted up anyway). Anyway, in the dream he was also my former boss and we hadn't seen each other for a long time. He took me up to the third floor, up slanty stairways. There were lots of old knickknacks, and big windows and skylights and telescopes and a kitchen with lots of stuff laying out. He showed me a way to walk up the middle of a messy, sloping counter. This put us into a secret part of the building, another dimension sort of. It looked the same, but nobody else could see us. There were tours of people constantly being led through the house, because it was of historical interest, but when we did this, we could see them but they didn't know we were there. They flowed in and out. When they would come in, he would turn on the kitchen faucet under one of the big windows, and run water over an apple as if washing it. Something about this kept us in the hidden dimension of the room.

He showed me stars out two of the windows, something was significant about them. As we looked around, and he pointed at things, he stood behind me closely and gradually put his hand on my back. It was intimate, but I was not put off by it. Rather, I was excited about what might happen next and anticipatory. It felt as if when I was young and very nervous, and interested, but also comforted. I wasn't afraid, but felt good. (I was not married yet in the dream, it seemed like many years ago, and I didn't get the impression he was either as he lived here alone, at any rate I felt no guilt). I leaned back into him and he put his arms around me, and we stood like this several times, talking quietly and still showing me the stars and sights, in between washing the apple to keep the other people in the dark. I started having some problem with my contacts, and took them out and tried to rinse them with my small eyedrop bottle, but when I tried to put them back in, it was like the contacts were the size of dinner plates and wouldn't fit. One in particular gave me a lot of trouble. He suggested I take them out (we both had at some point agreed that I would spend the night rather than heading back to campus tonight, it was discussed innocently enough), but I didn't have my carrying case to put them in or any actual contact solution. Finally I managed to get it back in and it went back to normal size. We continued looking around and hiding from the tour groups, touching and talking quietly.

In the past, say a year or more ago, I had a series of tsunami dreams, it was one of the recurrent themes. I'm not sure what triggered that repetitive theme, but I haven't had one for a while. In those ones I was always excited, electrified by the power of the wave, high with an adrenalines rush that comes of catastrophe. It didn't really have that effect in this dream, although as usual I wasn't scared, but I was more emotionally detached than excited by it. I was detached like this through the whole dream, in fact, seeing and being interested in the goings on around me but unable to connect to them somehow. That is until the last part, where I was no longer emotionally detached, but rather getting butterflies in a good way. Which also surprised me when I woke up (I wouldn't want to imagine such a thing happening with C- in real life, I think it would have creeped me out).

Another return to college - with many campus changes

Wednesday 1/30 - Last night's dream

We are back going to my old college, EWU, again. My husband is going to enroll in classes there, I'm not a student but am living there too. At first we have a small apartment in the nearby city, S-, except it looks like P- in the dream. I don't like living there, and I convince my husband that it would be better for us to get a room in one of the dorms (or married student housing, if we can't live in the dorms) or an apartment near campus.

So, we move there. I go to see the campus. It's close to the start of the quarter or the first day of class. I am wandering around by myself looking at everything. All the empty space that used to be in the campus (malls, walkways, lawns, etc) has been filled up with all sorts of brightly colored and somewhat garish constructions, including music venues, eateries, and things that look like public art. I can barely recognize it. I am a little dismayed at the changes, it makes it look crowded and ugly. There are people streaming all over the place. Music is playing and there are a lot of students out and about, hanging out. I wander through the crowds, looking at and climbing on the strange colored constructions. I can't tell what some of them are for, one looks sort of like a brightly colored electrical transformer station with forks (the kind you eat with) attached ornamentally. They all appear to be additions for entertainment, not new study halls.

I have forgotten the name of the hall that we got our room in and am trying to find my way back to it. My husband got mad at me over something and took the room key, so I don't actually have a way to get in. I'm not sure where he's gone to either, but am not expecting to find him. Night has started to fall. I know I can ask somebody at the door to let me in and say I've lost my key, but I can't remember the name of the building we've just moved in to, so I roam around aimlessly trying to remember its name or where it is. I think it is yellow colored but I can't be sure.

I walk into a building but it turns out to be some kind of clothing store. The door was unlocked, but the store is closed for the day and the lights are off, and when I realize this, I quickly try to find my way back to the front door. When I come out, I pass by 4 young girls, maybe a bit younger than me, who are wearing hijab but dressed in a trendy manner with lots of denim. They look like they are from around Indonesia or Malaysia. I think of asking them for directions but they ignore me and talk together as they walk past, so I don't say anything. I try another door but it is a bathroom (somewhat grimy) so I come out again. I've totally lost track of where our dorm is and feel sort of panicky and lost, but resigned to it. I think about how I should put my key on a lanyard around my neck, the way many people used to carry their dorm keys when I was in school (I think I kept mine in my pocket at the time). I wander across the crowded campus again, observing all the happy rowdy people in a detached way. There is a girl with long reddish brown hair past her waist, laughing with a young dark haired guy, and many others I look at. I wonder if the other students know that I'm not a student anymore, or if they think I'm one of them.

Back in college again (again)

Sunday, Jan 27th (Sunday morning's dream, which I forgot about until now).

I was back at school at EWU, at the beginning of the quarter. My husband was there too and we were going to both live on campus, I think, possibly in the married student housing. I was returning to get another degree. They went through a peculiar dorm-sorting procedure where you went to the dorm of your choice and the available rooms got divided up and roommates assigned.

There was a guy, probably my age or a little younger, with sandy blond hair. He had to come over to do homework or was going to be our roommate or something. I knew my husband wouldn't like this. We talked about various tasks that had to be done and the dorm room sorting. I also wandered around the campus, looking at things. I knew that nobody I'd known when I'd gone to school there before was still there, but I couldn't help feeling that I might suddenly see someone I knew.

The dream went on for a while with myself and other students making various arrangements to prepare for school starting, but I no longer remember the details.

Snapshot from an Alternate Reality Life

1/3/2008 - This morning's dream

This dream took place as sort of an alternate universe type version of the meeting between myself and my husband. I was fully present in the dream, yet sort of aware at the same time that it was another version of reality, like a different way my life could have been (although not that it was a dream).

I am on my college campus, several years ago. Quite a few, if we're being honest. It's a bright, sunny summer day. I'm dressed fairly stylishly, in black and gray, with bleached hair, in a ponytail, and am full of confidence. As I walk off campus to my car, a man (my husband, who does not know me yet in the dream) notices me and apparently decides we have to meet, because he and some friends who are with him jump in a car and follow my car. He is wearing a light blue button down short-sleeved shirt. I am fully aware that I have caught his attention, but I continue driving home, watching in the rear view mirror, and singing out loud along with the radio (I went through quite a few actual songs in the dream, but now I don't remember which ones they were). I am sort of playing a game with my pursuer. Neither I nor my husband look quite like we do in real life, possibly because of the alternate reality... we are both dressed differently, with differently styled hair, and I at least also act quite a bit differently, sort of like people I used to observe, but was entirely unlike: who were popular, stylish, flirty, happy and bubbly and attracting attention. He's somewhat more subdued and less outwardly self-assured than in real life, although the differences are harder to pinpoint in someone besides myself. We're the same people, but living a different life.

He follows me all the way back to my house, which is a many-hours-long drive (going home for the summer, not home for class). In this reality I actually live in my real-life uncle's house, across the street from my parent's house (no sign of my uncle/aunt/cousins, the house belongs to me). When I get out, at my house, we meet properly and he stays and visits. We don't know each other but are trying to get to know each other now.

We walk down to the little bridge by the creek, and sit down on the bank of the creek, chatting and laughing. I end up putting my leg in front of a yellow jacket hole in the bank, and they come out stinging and biting me several times on my left lower leg, it's very painful. This is somehow his fault for having me sit down there, and I also don't get up, he has to drag me away from the nest (I'm not sure if I can't get up because of the stings on my leg, or I think he ought to move me - possibly both. There's definitely a sense of milking the "helpless" persona). I admonish him for getting me into this, but I'm not really mad. He returns with a can of Raid and sprays it on the nest, and we go back up to the house.

The house is the same, but it's remodeled totally differently inside. The first room is blue and more spacious, with a high ceiling and several not-very-comfy white couches and tall chairs in a sparse, modernistic style. My brother is also visiting me or staying with me for a while, and is already sitting there. I introduce them. My (future) husband has hurt his knees during the wasp incident, and I offer to rub them (not entirely altruistically). Then my brother intervenes and says that he has something painful on his lower back and wants me to look at it or remove it. He lays down, and there's a small spot on his lower right back. I try to see if i can squeeze out a sliver or pus or something but it looks more like a scar, not like there is anything in it. However, whenever I so much as touch it he screams in pain, so he quickly decides that it's not worth it. Then discussion leads to a mark on my shoulder which occasionally itches me, and hurts when I scratch it, an old red scar (existing in the waking world). My (future) husband is of the opinion that I should have it looked at, but I dismiss it.

Then we end up going up to my grandma's house to visit her, but I don't remember what happens there. The dream finishes up with a sort of "this is how it ended" scene back in the blue room, at some point later in time than when the rest of the dream took place, like when a movie skips ahead at the end to show you how the characters lives turned out. My name is now "Irianna" (not sure of the spelling, it seemed in the dream like it had more letters..Iarriana?). My husband and I are together there, possibly married now although that's not specified. We have a small white poodle-type dog, sort of like my waking-world former roommate used to have, but I have died it bright purple, "so its life will be more interesting."

With that finish, I wake up (or rather, I spent the next 45 minutes trying to wake up, drifting in between consciousness and remembering parts of the dream. In my semi-awake state, I feel it's very necessary to remember the name and the purple dog). The whole official "alternate reality" version of my life, as opposed to being weird becuase it was a dream was sort of a new one for me. Also, the amount of extreme physical pain (experienced by me and the others) was higher than usual, although I've felt pain in dreams before. The weirdest thing was how I acted like a totally different person, embracing behaviors that I don't do or even dislike, but that are common in many young women I know.

Going back to school, thoughts of future and past

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trying to find a quiet place to work or study

Monday night/Tuesday morning's dream -2 of 3

In the second dream of the night, which doesn't seem to be related, I am working at a desk in a room which is both a large school and part of my mother's office. And possibly also a church. A new person has been hired. I forget her name, but she is young with short, jaw length blond hair. She doesn't have anywhere to sit, so I offer her my desk. She takes it up front. I talk to my mother's office manager, N-, about where I should go now, and she's not sure. I want to go and ask my mother about it, but she is in some kind of important meeting. The whole office is larger and grand with lots of polished wood.

I find my way into a classroom. My friend H- is there, but the desks are somewhat small and crowded, several rows of desks with multiple chairs at them. There won't be much room for my two computers, and I also don't like people sitting beside me. And I want to work at my own level... the class will gravitate towards the slowest people in it and I will be bored and wont' be able to get anything done. At this point she's the only one in there, and there's room at the back, but I don't really want to have to work there with the other people so I go to find my mother again and ask if I can have another desk in a room to myself. But, she's still occupied. When I come back, the classroom has filled up with everybody else and the teacher, and there are no empty seats in the back. I am huffy and don't want to squeeze in with the rest, so I refuse to join them.

I wander through other rooms. There is a room with a large divided couch, which is a confession room for the church part of the building. I find a large empty classroom with a polished wood floor, and talk to a nun there about where I can work, and she tries to come up with a solution with me, but in the end we still haven't found one and I keep looking around. I don't want anybody sitting behind me looking at my computer screen, and I want a room by myself.

A Surprise Kiss

This dream is actually from the night before/morning of 11/28/2007, but I forgot to record it. November was a prolific month!

The linear time order of this dream is not linear at all, it keeps looping around. At one point I walk to the garden with a boy, and he tips me backwards and we kiss. I am surprised and excited. We are passing the F.H. and I see my father looking at us out the window (somewhat alarmed). This is because I was with this other boy earlier in the dream who I was flirting with and have been with longer. The one I kissed, I know much less, although I like him and greatly enjoy the kiss. I feel somewhat like I am cheating on the first one, even though we haven't kissed or anything, and I feel bad becuase he would be mad if he found out and probably wouldn't move forward with me or keep flirting. I don't know either of them very well but I really like the first one. Both of them are somewhat similar looking, tall, slender, and young, with shaggy light brown hair. They don't look like anyone I know in the waking world. Oddly, my husband shows up in the dream as well but I don't feel guilty about it in relation to him. This is the part of the dream I remember most strongly.

Throughout this very long dream, some of which I have forgotten, we are preparing for some kind of exhibit or show. We have to make something for it, some kind of craft. We are at a school, I think, and it may be related to that. The time order in the dream is tied in knots, back and forth all over the place. We are in the kitchen preparing for the exhibit and my husband looks at the clock over the stove. He has a final that he has to leave for at 1:10, and it is 1:11. He is relieved because he still has time. But then I tell him that the clock on the stove is wrong, and it's really almost two hours later. He'd have only about 15 minutes to finish. I can't remember if he ends up going to try to make it or not, but it's discussed. It's pretty certain that he won't be able to finish it though, even if he goes.

The exhibition is in a large building with many halls, white inside, like a school art building. My cousin K- has made something for it as well, I think it looks like a small (artificial) christmas tree, and it's green and red. We admire her work. My sister is also there, possibly helping me prepare or entering something herself. I have multiple interactions with the two boys mentioned earlier, mostly the first one who has not kissed me but who is clearly interested in me. He is also helping prepare for the exhibit or making something himself.

7-Layer Soup, and Unclassy Phone Calls

10/26/2007 - Last night's dream (really early this morning and later this morning)

In the first dream, I was with my Aunt K-. She asked me to try some soup she had made, evaluating it for something. It was called Seven-Layer Soup, and it actually had layers of liquid, that you could see were distinct from each other. There were vegetables and beans and such in it as well. I tried it, taking a spoonful from each layer. You could dip your spoon down to a certain layer and lift it up through the other layers, and it kept whatever layer you had dipped to. The soup was good, although not exceptional. The most impressive feature was the layering. There was more to the dream, but this is the only fragment I can remember.

In the second dream, much later in the night, I was talking to my husband. As it turned out, he had been cutting class a LOT. He would call his teacher in the morning at the time class was starting (they had a phone in the classroom). If the teacher didn't answer, he considered this a valid excuse not to come to class, because he'd called and they hadn't been there. If they did answer, he would say he was calling in sick or something (not that they ever answered). I was rather upset and frustrated and tried to explain to him that this was not a valid reason not to go to class, nor should he expect his teachers to answer their phones. My teachers almost never answered the phone when class had started, I said. He should just go to class and stop calling in, and furthermore if he did reach the teacher, it would be too late for him to get to the class anyway (of course, this was the point of the whole exercise, to skip class).

I woke up when his alarm went off and was temporarily soothed by this, signaling that it has all been a dream and he really wouldn't do anything so ridiculous because here was his alarm getting him up for class. But then it became evident that he wasn't going to class after all, making me illogically REALLY upset due to the combination with the dream (and extreme lack of sleep).

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.

Touching Another Plane

Monday Night, 9/10
I was at a new class. I'm not sure what kind of class it was, but it was some kind of PE class involving physical activity, or training to do CPR, or swimming... something like that. I had a locker which I retrieved my things from. It was a new class that I just started, and there were some people I knew slightly in it or talked to... I wasn't feeling extremely negative about it, but not that positive either. There were the usual confusions of the new day where I did not seem to know where anything was or what anything meant, while everyone else did.

Then, I have stopped by the P- airport. I am intending to go to a nearby grocery store, as I urgently want to buy some ice cream. I have slipped away from the others, in this, since for one they would not approve and for two, I am intending to eat it all myself, guilty style. I'm having one of those periods of craving things and eating them all myself.

I make my way up and down aisled, through rows. It sort of morphs between an open air market and an actual grocery store of the enormous warehouse style. I collect a cylindrical box of ice cream, a frozen peanut butter pic dessert, and a third item, and make my way to the checkout counter. The guy there has a notice which he is passing out and which is on the wall, a flyer printed on colored paper. It notes that something about ID. I rummage around and around to locate my debit card and driver's license, holding up a lot of people, but I cannot find my current ID. According to the flyer, I can't make a purchase without it. I am steamed, and I resolve then and there to go to the nearby DMV office and get a replacement license in order to make the purchase. I suspect it's really not that lost, but I'm getting frustrated that I cannot buy the ice cream and other stuff. I stomp off to go do this, pondering if anyone will object to the fact that I have obviously driven to the DMV without a license. Around that time, I realize from writing on the flyer relating to the state that I must be across the border in V-, not in P- at all. For some reason this is irritating as well. I maneuver my way around the airport and stores and locate the DMV.
Skip over actually getting the license, I go back and purchase the ice cream and other stuff. The ice cream is in a yellow box like Tillamook ice cream, but it has a black, rather cartoony picture of a jackal on it. I meet up with my mother and sister nearby, and we are looking down into a treed area, possibly a park, from a high distance. I am in a much better mood now, but my mother is pointing down below, talking about how my sister can always see these things she can't see. She asks if my sister can see something down by the river.
My sister rolls her eyes to me, we've been through this before. It is I who can see things other people can't see, not my sister. She tells my mother she can't see anything, while I point out whatever it is down by the river.
Then, I see a pack of jackals (real ones), moving through the trees. I marvel over them and exclaim. My mother and sister cannot see them at all, and gradually throughout this part I realize that it's not that I can see BETTER, it's that they can't see them AT ALL. They are there, but I (and perhaps others) am the only one who can pick them out, as though they exist on another plane but live in this world. I am racing over the implications of this in my mind, thinking of other occurrences this might explain. Suddenly I realize that the jackals actually came from the ice cream I bought, and it is through this that they have been let out. I marvel at them, they are not dangerous or threatening, and the others seem to realize something is there, but cannot see it.

I take my mother's hand and leap down a huge waterfall of fruit from the top of the airport to the bottom. It is in enormous stairsteps, with different kinds of fruit on each step: peaches, strawberries, etc, hundreds and thousands of feet down. I jump easily from step to step, feeling the rush of air but knowing I will land safely as I bounce from one to the next. My feet squish into the fruit at each landing, and I can smell the fruit and see the airport far, far below, but I don't feel heightsick because of the certainty of the giant staircase I am jumping down. I glance to my mother, enjoying the sensations, and realize that she is a little frightened, although trusting of me. Then I realize that it is because she cannot actually see the fruit staircase we are jumping down either! It's like the jackals. I try to imagine what it must look like to her without it, probably scary, but she is coping very well.

Back near the grocery check out I run into some other people carrying their licenses, they can see these things too right now. We compare stories and discover that each time we lose our licenses, we have a glimpse into the "other side" as if we have died, but we haven't. This is what allows me to sometimes see these things from other planes. My best friend, S- died a month ago (in December, apparently... the time is different), and at that exact time I was able to dip into this plane as well. The other occasions for me and the other people this happens to have been triggered by similar events, and seem to also be signaled by the licenses, which get punched with a cancel stamp at that time: D. We are fascinated by our discoveries and heightened senses that we have access to, although it is something that seems to come and go and may be finite.

In real life, the time of the year is different (December was not a month ago), and my friend S- has not died, a month ago or now. But it's sunny and warm like the weather in the dream. I haven't lost my license lately, but I was driven to go and get some of that ice cream after the dream, although I only just made the connection.

Sleeping in my dreams in a mixed-up time

Sunday Night's Dream: (9/2/2007)
In the first part, I was on a outing of some kind by car with my grandma and possibly aunt (on my mother's side). We were in Seattle or someplace similar. They decided to stop by a place called Gringimmer's (or something that sounded similar) and were really excited about it. It was a sort of funland and restaurant, rather like an adult Chuck-E-Cheese. We arrived in the parking lot, there was an enormous iconic sign which everyone recognized (except me, but I felt I should) with the name in blue on white block letters. We got in by swinging on colored ropes, from rope to rope high over a large open amphitheater filled with those round colored balls you play in, which we eventually dropped into. Then we climbed out onto a balcony where lunch was served.

In the second part, I was returning to my apartment, driving my old Mazda pickup. I was going to move to a 2-bedroom apartment from a 1-bedroom in the same building, because my grandfather (also on my mother's side) was coming to live with me, as he needed to be taken care of. My sister rode down with me but then went somewhere else. She was still attending college but was on a break. The apartment complex that I lived in was the kind like a large hotel with exterior walkways around the outside in front of the doors, and I was on the second floor. I went inside to move all my stuff... I was now by myself and apparently I lived alone. After putting all my stuff in the elevator, I rode down to the bottom floor (possibly to get my grandpa, but he was not there), but I accidentally got off the elevator and left my stuff inside. It went back up to some other floor. The apartment building did not look that tall from the outside, but it apparently had several floors. I had to keep pressing the elevator button multiple times before my stuff came back... it seems several elevators operated within the same shaft, and it was a matter of luck if I got my stuff to come back before somebody else found it on another floor and took it. Eventually it came back, and I rode back up with it and moved it into the other apartment.

Either before or after this segment (or at the same time, the time order was all irregular), but still sometime in the middle of the day, I went to a class nearby in a similar building. I was still taking college classes part time. In the class the teacher got mad at one of the students because he had brought a sleeping bag and pillow to class. The teacher then said all of us could bring our sleeping bags and pillows, and we did so and filled up the room with them, relaxing and snoozing. I had mine handy and in fact I felt extremely sleepy and fell back into the poofiness and slept for a short time, falling asleep and waking within the same dream. Afterwards when the other students were clearing out, the teacher came to talk to me. He seemed concerned that I was so tired and that I had a sleeping bag with me. I explained that I kept it in my truck so I could go sleep in the vehicle between classes, because I got so exhausted. He seemed worried, but didn't know me well enough to say much more. I continued out of the class and went back to my apartment.

By this time it was very late, and I was feeling lonely and hungry.. I went out walking across the parking lot in the dark, looking for a restaurant or grocery store that was still open. I didn't have very much money, only a few dollars left in my checking account.

I ended up going to a small coffee shop, where I ordered my standard drink. The people here did not know me, as if I were new to the area, although I wasn't. They seemed mildly suspicious. While the barista made my drink, I looked through the other food items in the shop, trying to find something I could afford. There were cartons of ice cream but they were 10 dollars. There were a variety of unappetizing looking muffins and pastries, but the cheapest was 7 dollars. I decided I was not going to be able to buy any food. When I got my drink, the barista asked if I was familiar with some brand name (that apparently went with an energy drink they always sold in this store). I was not and she seemed rather offended (I don't remember the name anymore, but it had a read and white label with two words and I saw it on something in the store after she asked me about it). I wandered out into the dark with my coffee, still feeling hungry and alone.

This dream seems to have taken place in a mixture of time between past and future that never existed in the waking world... my husband is gone in the dream, but it's like he left, perhaps permanently, and used to be there... but my grandparents who died before I even met him are alive. The car I am driving is two vehicles ago, but I myself am my present-day self. The real-time references are to the move and lack of money in the account at that particular point in time. I'm kind of somber throughout and increasingly lonely and isolated feeling towards the end.