Getting A Man At The Mall

Tuesday night/Wednesday morning's dream - 3/16/2011

I don't remember the earlier part of this dream, but somehow I ended up going to a mall. It wasn't a mall I know in real life, it might even have been in a different city. It was evening. I was carrying my son with me. I met S- there, who I haven't seen in a long time (the time period was current or slightly in the future, so I really haven't). What I can't remember now is if we were intentionally meeting there, or if I knew he was going to be there so I went there. At any rate, I knew he was going to be there and I wasn't surprised to see him, but rather I was looking for him and looking forward to it nervously.

Initially I went in to the mall and went to some different stores, and then I went to this counter where you could renew your passport or book travel tickets. Possibly, you could also get visa stamps there. I think the first time I saw him was around there, he was coming away from the counter. I was looking for him to be somewhere, I'd already been at the mall for a while basically just wandering around passing the time until I met him. I went to him immediately and hugged him, like when I said goodbye the last time I saw him in real life. He hugged me back but I got the feeling that I was hugging longer than he intended and he might be uncomfortable, by the time I broke away. We chatted and caught up. He had just returned from a trip visiting his family back home in J-. His trip came out through Lebanon and apparently this is why he was visiting this travel counter. Also he was planning another trip there soon. He chatted a little bit catching me up on his family, etc, his brother's recent marriage and child, and so forth, and then he went off to do something in another part of the mall that he had been on his way to. I hung around the area and went to some nearby stores, then I saw him again at the travel counter and I went there myself ( to run into him). I said, I was also planning a vacation in Lebanon soon myself, and we talked some more at the counter. I got my passport stamped or something for my trip. It seems I came up with this on the spur of the moment, because in my head, I was making plans at that time how I could request a week off work in a week or two, and actually take the trip, to make it coincide. I could actually do this, I thought, and decided to just then. We talked about going together since we would be there at the same time. Most of this time I was thinking in my head vs. paying attention to what we were actually saying, so I don't really remember most of the conversations but there was a lot of "hanging out chatting" type of conversation, and another half hug at my departure. After I was done with my activities at the ticket counter, they were still working on his, so I didn't have any clear reason to keep hanging around, though I still wanted to spend time with him. So I drifted to the next door store, hoping he would catch up with me again when he got done, though we hadn't specifically made this arrangement. A number of the stores in this mall weren't separated fully into their own entities like in a regular mall, they were more like separate rooms without doors between them, so the transitions between them were a bit odd.

The store I went into next was a bookstore or some kind (next to the travel counter). I looked along a shelf of calendars, they had different themes of different kinds of animals and bugs, then I started looking at a shelf of Anno books for my son. They had Anno's Animals (a very large version, like a supersized version) and then they had another one I'd never seen before which was called Anno's String Games or something similar, and it had a black and white illustration on each page with trees and such, and a person doing some kind of cat's cradle design. There were no words (as typical with Anno books) and no instructions, so it was hard to tell how you were actually supposed to make each design. I was curious about the book flipping through it but decided not to get it for that reason.

While I was flipping through this book, S- came into the bookstore having finished with his travel arrangements, but he saw somebody in the bookstore, a friend or relative who had been browsing, and went over to talk to him (it wasn't somebody I knew, though I'd observed him in the store). It was one of his relatives he'd just seen on his trip back home. In their brief comments (overheard) I realized that when the guy had been at the family get together back home, he let other people there think that he was gay or something as he was not in a relationship, but actually he was involved with (or possibly married to) this girl, who he introduced now to S-. She was a cute American girl with a short blond bob. He was really happy to introduce her to S- and S- was very happy for him and it seemed that the fact that he was with this girl was a big breakthrough in the family dynamics. I gather that some people in the family knew they were together but he hadn't made it evident when S- had last seen him back home.

This news made S- really happy. I knew it was because of me, it was like his cousin being with this girl opened up new possibilities for him or meant the family had decided it was allowable. He came over behind me where I was standing and hugged me from behind really enthusiastically, laughing and happy, to the point that he picked me up around the waist and I lifted my feet off the ground. Still hugging me like this, he whispered very quietly "I love you" in my ear. I was very emotional and happy. I whispered that I love him too, and lifted up his hand to my mouth, kissing it twice just barely, not sure if this was too much. He led me over to the cousin and his wife/girlfriend and introduced me. My mind was a whirlwind of thoughts and I was walking on air. Then, he raced out the back with me (there was an exit from the mall in that store which opened out through glass doors to the back parking lot). I wasn't sure where we were going exactly. I was very happy, but I did have some fleeting thoughts about the past reasons we hadn't been together, but I was too happy to wonder about them too much. We stopped just outside the doors. He wanted to go tell his mother (and possibly other family members) who were parked at the other end of the lot, I said I have to get my stuff, (my son was still inside with the cousin, and my other things) so I stopped at the exit, and he ran off across the lot bounding with excitement. I went to go back in the doors, but I spilled something on two mats outside the entrance, they were like placemats or small rugs that had been on the ground, that were mostly white, and whatever I spilled on them was some kind of food that stained orange, like spaghetti sauce. So I knelt down to clean this up. I could see at the other end of the darkened lot (which had floodlights like a typical mall parking lot, only we were behind the building not in the main lot), he met a woman (his mother) and was talking to her. Pretty soon he ran back to meet me. He asked what I was doing and if I was ready and I explained that I had started to go back in but then I messed up the rugs, holding them up (my attempts to remove the stain hadn't succeeded, just spread it around). He replied "messed on the rugs!" with an expression of fake alarm/grossed out and we both laughed. I said it this way knowing it would sound funny and he would react like that because it was funny and I wanted to see his silly expression, making fun of me like I remembered. It was still fun to be goofy although I was so painfully happy, maybe lightening the all the emotions a bit by both of us laughing. We went in together to collect my son and my things, then I woke up.

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.

Nobody grocery shops but me!

Saturday, 3/8/2008

1st dream (1 of 3)

I was living at home again, or actually at my mother's office, and I had decided that my job was to do all the grocery shopping. I had a special list. I went out and did this, and came back (it took a long time), but when I got home I saw that my sister and brother had also returned with some groceries. I was mad and told them that the grocery shopping was my job, and I had it all worked out to buy exactly what was needed, and if they wanted additional items they should add them to a supplementary list on the refrigerator. My mother came home and was happy that everybody had gone to the store, and couldn't figure out why I was annoyed. I don't remember a lot of details but this dream was pretty long and involved. I think there was a part with movies and pizza (sleeping at my mother's office) after that.

A Black Silk Scarf with Roses

Last night's dream

This one slipped away from me in scattered disarray driven by the early rays of dawn (okay, more like mid-morning), like spectators departing after a parade. Apparently I can't remember well when I'm too tired, either, and having been sleep-deprived all week, I'm now exhausted.

The only scene I remember is I am standing trying on a large black silk scarf with red roses all over it. It's triangular, or a folded square. There are several similar options to buy which I also look at. My sister and I think my mother are also there. I'm a little confused if I'm buying it for myself, or for my sister (although it seems like it's for someone who isn't there, and my sister is there). I think from other scattered images that we are in a set of outlet malls that I visited in an earlier dream several weeks ago.

Only now when I recall it, I realize this is a reference to a book I was reading last night in which one of the characters mentions in passing that she bought a black scarf with roses on it for her sister.

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.

Looking for a gift, finding crazy people

In the part I remember, I spent a lot of time walking and driving around downtown. It did not actually look like Port-, but I think it was supposed to be. The house I lived in looked sort of like one of my old houses in A-. I went over to my brother's house with him to get a present for our mother on her birthday. He had apparently forgotten to get one. First we drove to a nearby shop that sold maps and similar artifacts. I looked at theses (there were bumpy maps, globes, many small map items) and thought to myself that she might like them, but my brother didn't find what he was looking for and we left again. Then, we went to another nearby shop which sold comic books or something, but it was closed. It was getting late in the day, the afternoon was sunny but not particularly warm. We went back to his apartment. He started sorting through some drawings and comic pages he had made, in black and white, looking for one to give to her.

My aunt K- either stopped by or was going to stop by but went to my house instead, becuase we were intending to go back there. My vehicle was still there, I'd come here in my brother's. We told her we'd meet her there for lunch or dinner. But, when we called my house, expecting to find her (and arrange to eat), she was no longer there. We decided she had gotten tired of waiting and left, which made me a little disappointed.

While my brother was sorting through all his stuff, my father showed up. My father and I drove around and we went up a steep hill. It had a mansion at the top which we wall knew about, which my sister had mentioned in relation to her work, and we pointed it out and talked about it. A governor lived there, called governor margeauruex, or something like that, she was a somewhat eccentric older woman. We saw her leaning out on the balcony of the mansion, looking down. As we drove up the steep hill, a woman was walking up the hill with the cars, to the right of us. My father commented on how she was dressed up and must be going somewhere special, she was wearing a silky evening gown in a very pale cream color. I then saw that she was wearing socks (and no shoes), and said she was probably crazy instead. He said that going sockfoot didn't necessarily mean she was crazy. But as we watched, she started walking on her hands and feet (not knees), and she crossed the road and ran this way into a parking lot on the right, which eventually led up to the governor's mansion. I don't think she was wearing anything under the gown, besides her socks, and decided that she was in fact crazy.

We returned to my brother's apartment. He was still sorting through stuff. My father lay down on a couch or chair and covered himself, evidently planning to sleep here and spend the night. My brother was complaining to my father about how I kept blowing air on him, on his ears. I laughed at said he made it sound romantically inclined. He said it was annoying and irritating. After other idle chitchat it became clear that they were both planning to stay here, so I decided I was going home. I would have to walk, becuase the my brother's vehicle was here, and mine was at home. It was a ways, although not insurmountable to walk, but I noticed that darkness had started to fall and some people would not consider this wise. I announced my intention to head back, and neither my brother or father made any comment about walking back in the dark (or driving me back), so I headed off.

Uncomfortable situations in the market

Tuesday night's dream.

I was wandering through a large, circular building with halls around the outside edge, containing shops of many kinds in indoor rooms. It was some time in the afternoon and I was killing time. I bought two large raw packages of hamburger at a butcher shop there, they were already thawed (or never frozen) and drippy, and I was somewhat concerned about not getting them back into refrigeration quickly enough. I carried them around with me throughout the remaining shops, conscious of the problems of setting them down anywhere.

I also went into a "Thai" store, where I spent a long time. It was full of small, decorative, very expensive knickknacks with an oriental look, decorative china and carvings. I hung around there for a long time looking at things, and then I picked up two pieces of flat carvings, about 6 by 8... dark panels with an etched scene. I started to walk out of the store carrying them, and the shopkeeper was on me in an instant, telling me how much they cost. I told him that I'd forgotten that I was carrying them, and clearly he didn't believe me, actually I didn't really believe myself and wondered what the heck I'd been doing. I felt quite embarrassed.

To my surprise, however, he was not angry at me, after I put them back down, he told me that they were getting in a similar sculpture to one I had been admiring, a small black and white figurine... I think I was looking for one of a cat and this was a different animal or something. He encouraged me to come back at a certain time when they would have the one I was looking for.

Then I ran into my coworker, T-. He followed along afterwards and asked me to come over to his place, which was very nearby, for lunch, which I eventually gave into. I was nervous as he was acting overly friendly and I'd thought he was married, but apparently he was divorced and "looking." I did not really want to go, but I felt he would think I was being very rude if I kept refusing. When we got there, we walked into a small entryway, which had lots of decorative knicknacks and draperies, and was rather dark. There was another person there, who was his brother, and he called him over to introduce me. He introduced me by saying it I was "the one I'd been telling you about", and that I was a Muslim. He said this with the air that this was fascinating. The brother, who was much larger, hung back and reacted to this information with an air of disapproval and almost disgust. I was made quite uncomfortable by both their attitudes (although the coworker meant well).