more group trips, and a trompe-l'oeil bird

My brain is back to its old tricks, apparently--I had another group trip dream last night. It was a combination group trip/family reunion. All of the extended family members from my dad's side had met at some location far from where anyone lived. The first part of the dream involved some socializing with older relatives. Then someone tried to do an organized activity, and encouraged us to break up into groups of 3 or 4 (I've never been all that keen on activities involving a structured forming into groups). For some reason, a real-life friend (Curly Sue, as it happens) was also there at the reunion, so we formed a group with two of my younger cousins. In real life, one is my age and one is a few years younger, but in the dream they were teenagers, probably because I haven't seen them for years. We started talking to them, and I was aware that I was feeling happy about being the cool older relative (and simultaneously really annoyed at both the feeling and the awareness of the feeling; my self-analyzer just won't ever leave me alone!).

After that, the group broke up pretty quickly and people started leaving. I guess we had planned to have a "friends" outing after the family reunion, because I was supposed to meet another real-life friend. I did some random wandering around, and then Curly Sue and I met her at a cafe that bore a strange resemblance to a cross between a laundromat and a Chinese restaurant.

This friend recently had a baby in real life, but in the dream she had apparently, in addition to having her real-life baby, had another baby who was still-born. She started talking about how she was looking forward to the second coming (of Christ, that is) because then her baby would "rise first" with a wave of other babies who had been still-born. In real life I'm not quite clear on the various Christian denominations' views on this, but in the dream she held a view that was supposedly the "evangelical view". She said that she and her husband hadn't thought they had any particular religious views, until the birth of the still-born baby, and then, very abruptly, they "saw the light" (she worded it more gracefully than that) and suddenly started subscribing to this mainstream theology. She even had a printout of something referring to the mass resurrection of still-born babies, some sort of liturgical thing printed out on the typical half-page paper with poor copy quality. I think both Curly Sue and I were a bit surprised at this, but she made it clear that she hadn't become a hardcore conservative and was still her old, open-minded self, so we figured it was a good way for her to adjust to and accept the death of the baby.

After that, I went on a hike with the other friend (not Curly Sue), and we ended up on a very steep scaffolding-like section of trail above a boardwalk (almost Coney Island style, but with less people and more nature). There was an odd encounter with a little bird. It was hopping around, and I noticed it looked strange. I realized that the actual bird had been encased in a covering (made from an old sock!) painted to look like a bird. I managed to catch the bird and remove the covering. It was a bit unsettling, but the bird seemed to be happy either way (with or without the trompe-l'oeil covering).

pop culture reference extravaganza!

I was in the middle of a very detailed and tiring dream when I woke up this morning, the sort that makes me intermittently raise my eyebrows in bemusement for the next half hour or so.

The dream began with--what else?--a group trip. I was traveling with my parents, sister, and some assorted people who popped up fuzzily in the periphery and then disappeared. We were staying at my ex-boyfriend's parents' house (not their real-life house, but an apartment influenced by some extended family members' apartments in Canada). I was sharing a bedroom (with whom, I can't remember; either my husband or my sister, I think) that I realized belonged to the parents, with a very large white bed and a setup including about three fans. The fans kept turning themselves on, even after being unplugged, which really freaked me out. I didn't want them on because I was cold, but it took me quite a while to work out how to get them completely off.

By the time I got the fan situation resolved it was almost time to get up and around, so I took a shower and was trying to figure out when and where would be best to do the rest of my morning remedial work (what is with this constant issue in dreams of trying to put myself together?). The other guests were starting to gather for breakfast, and there were a few minutes of that annoying back-and-forth about the best way to schedule breakfast and bathroom for all parties. There was that cumbersome feeling of too many people trying to move together.

I guess everyone managed to get ready, because we got to church (based on my parents' actual church, except with uneven, too-close-together rows of metal folding chairs instead of actual pews). I sat down next to a real-life coworker and my sister, but my sister got up at some point to sit with friends, and I was left with the coworker to my left and several empty seats between me and my mother. For some reason I was annoyed with her and wanted to ignore her for the duration of the service, but she kept talking to me about various things (notably whether I had a kleenex). I was uncharacteristically empty-handed in the dream, so I didn't have a kleenex, but she had sidled over in the kleenex search and was sitting next to me. I couldn't get rid of her, but wished she would go away because in the dream I was developing a bit of a mutual crush on the coworker* (sitting progressively closer together in a G-rated way, as is the usual pattern in my "crush" dreams).

The church service finally started, and a group of about 7-8 high school students got up to sing. It started out with an almost unbearable solo by the girl in the center: that almost-inaudible, reedy, breathy voice of a teenager who thinks she can sing because she sings along to music in her room. Soon the others joined in, which made it more bearable and added a bit more volume. They were all swaying and dancing to various degrees, which I found kind of charming ("aw, youthful exuberance"). I knew that my mother was going to freak out, though, and possibly get up and walk out. Their dancing soon coalesced into a routine, and when the group turned around I was startled to see that one of the girls was wearing a dress that amounted basically to an apron, so that her hot-pantsed backside was completely exposed when she turned around. She did a not-quite-expert version of a jiggling "booty dance". The whole effect was extremely jarring, although all I could think was, "that poor girl, why didn't anyone advise her against this?"

When the song ended, the entire audience booed, and a short, stocky, Chuck-D.-esque man in a military uniform took the stage. He began to rail against the dance piece, which he clearly hadn't appreciated either. And he had really not appreciated getting what amounted to a (very short) lap dance by Miss Hotpants/Apron.

Things didn't get a lot better after that. They started running a video showing a Jessica Alba lookalike clothed in a sort of leotard over a printed, almost-transparent full-body catsuit. The catsuit had a really beautiful pattern to it, a kind of leaves/flowers/wheat thing. The girl had water (rain?) running down over her, which was slowly dissolving the print/material of the catsuit (but not the leotard). I gradually caught on that it was an American Apparel ad, for a water-soluble catsuit (??). From what I could understand, it would dissolve and then reconstitute itself. They were hinting that this feature would be useful when one needed to pee, since you could just leave it on (?? yuck). The video ended with what I finally realized was a closeup of the model's (clothed, but barely) crotch.

The dubious church service being finally over, several members of the party went to a flea market. I love these flea-market dreams because they're always so detailed, but I can't remember many of the items I looked at. The thing that sticks out most was a beautiful, elaborately hand-embroidered pillowcase. One side was white embroidery on white, and the other side was a mixture of white, printed border, and white embroidery. The fabric was a loosely woven linen, which didn't seem either all that comfortable or very durable, and there were a couple of holes toward one end of it. What was really noteworthy about it, though, was its former owner: Anne Heche (??)**. While the completely white side had an elaborate embroidery saying "amor", the other side had "Anne Heche" embroidered on it. There was a note pinned to it saying, "soon to be Leah Anne Somebody-or-Other", from which I deduced that the pillowcase was part of the spoils of her relationship with Ellen Degeneres. There was another pillowcase-like object next to it, and I thought it might be Ellen's, and might be similarly beautiful (although I did think it might be a bit freaky to have a set of Ellen-and-Anne pillowcases on my bed). On closer inspection the object turned out to be not a pillowcase but a red Chinese towel. I first looked at the back side, and was thinking of buying it. On turning it over, though, I found that what had looked like two plain panels were actually two photorealistic renderings (in terrycloth?!) of a couple of celebrities in the style of mid-80s Glamour Shots (tm)***.

Sigh. I knew this one was going to go over the character limit for tags....

*Alert Readers should be assured that this is not a real-life development, although I do enjoy this person as a coworker because he tends toward a benign grumpiness that I find soothing.
**Where DO these random celebrities come from? They're never anyone I've actually been thinking about.
***Research reveals they're still in business!

creepy megachurch

Over the weekend I had another Back to School/high school/boarding school/group trip dream (of course). All I can remember of that part is a very rudimentary dorm situation (metal bunk beds), and a girl I actually went to school with referring very matter-of-factly to herself as a lesbian. This was surprising because, although I wouldn't have been surprised to discover that she was, she came from a very conservative family. I was a little in awe of her courage in being so open about it, in view of her background, although the implication seemed to be that she saw it as a spiritual burden to be borne and fought against. I guess that made it a little easier for her to be open about it.

Anyway, the rest of the dream was in the same cultural vein. I somehow ended up in a gigantic megachurch. It was more of an alternate universe, really. Instead of being just a church, with the usual seating-and-platform setup, it was a vast domed structure, with the dome duplicating a sky. It was filled with houses as far as I could see, like your average suburban housing development with largeish houses crammed very close together on very small lots.

The houses were arranged around a central mountain-like contraption. It was very tall and narrow, modeled after the rock columns/mountains you see in pictures from Asia, and although I knew it had been constructed from scratch it was a very convincing facsimile. There was a walkway with railings spiraling around it all the way to the top (which disappeared, or at least appeared to disappear, into clouds). A children's choir was arranged all along the walkway, conducted from below by a woman in a yellow satin robe (I think the children were similarly garbed). She had to crane her neck all the way back and wave her arms at the sky, but they seemed to have no trouble following her (although I wondered about the acoustic viability of such a setup).

The inhabitants, from what I saw and overheard, were very excited about taking part in this alternative living experiment. The whole thing was extremely creepy.

oh boy (literally!)

My brain is definitely responding to my fear of having more adolescent dreams and/or dreams about young boys*. The very night after the washing-machine dream, I dreamed that I was in a church-ish setting. I think they were having church, but there were some other things going on too, garage-sale sort of things outside. There was an old wooden Middle-America church-ish building with a high porch, and the inside where the church service was actually taking place there was also a balcony in the entrance, where you could stay and look over the proceedings without committing yourself to going in and sitting down.

When I was still outside, I saw a very small boy with curly hair who appeared to be lost. I didn't see any corresponding adults around, so I thought I should try to help him find his people. As soon as I approached him he darted away and was replaced by an older boy, maybe 10 or 11, with straight dark hair.

This older boy also claimed to be lost, and although I didn't have quite the same urgent feelings of concern for him, he was still young enough that he should know where his parents were, and vice versa. So I walked around with him a little outside, and we didn't find any parents. We then went inside and stood on the balcony, and I started to get the distinct impression that he was sticking around more because he had a crush on me than anything else**. I wasn't sure what I should do, whether I should continue the [somewhat fruitless-seeming] search for his parents; whether I should just stand there and listen to him talk, thus encouraging him; or whether I should just start completely ignoring him and hope that he would go away. In the meantime I realized that he seemed older than he had outside, and that, indeed, his voice had changed from preadolescent to adolescent. This freaked me out a little.

An unrelated but interesting detail was that there were food vendors in the back of the church. Someone had converted an old chicken coop to a portable stand for selling what they called “oeufs caillés”***. They were eggs cooked somewhere between soft- and hard-boiled, in the unbroken shells, but when one got to the yolk it had been transformed into soft little spheres the size of the big tapioca pearls in bubble tea. There were two versions, just plain lightly sweetened, and chocolate (although the white in the chocolate version was still white). The operators of the stand had set it up so that it was self-service, thus cleverly avoiding offending anyone with compunctions about buying and selling in the church building. I thought the whole thing was very clever, although I wasn't sure how much I liked the eggs in question.


*Not that kind of dream. Really.
**Wait! This is the second dream I can recall dealing with underage boys having inappropriate crushes on me IN CHURCH. What is going on?
***I don't think such a thing exists. Literally it would be "curdled/clotted/coagulated eggs", and a search doesn't show up anything. However, there are "oeufs de caille", or quail eggs; but the eggs in the dream were definitely chicken, not quail****.
****Wait! Eggs. Is this whole thing really about my biological clock? Is my brain really that twisted that it's presenting me with these weird parallel themes of pursuit and procreation? Does my brain fancy itself a controversial Italian movie director from the 60s or something?

cougar?!*

Oh boy. I toyed with not reporting this dream, but I suspect it will be more amusing seeing it written out--when I woke up this morning I was just tired and disgusted with my subconscious for the night's selection.

Anyway. I don't remember the first part of the dream, but I had learned that a boy who was a few years behind me in elementary school had a big crush on me. In real life he was probably 2 years behind me; in this dream, I was my actual age (although, I think, unmarried) but he was only about 15.

There was some church event that I was supposed to be going to, at my parents' church. Actually, it wasn't in the church, but in a room in the elementary school building--my old elementary school building, although it didn't look anything like my actual old school. I arrived with my mother, and for some reason I had it in my head that I needed to indulge this schoolboy crush by sitting somewhere near the boy and his friends. It turned out that my mother didn't need much maneuvering to get us to sit right in front of the row with him, his mother (!) and his friends. He started playing with my hair, which was a little annoying, but I told myself it was part and parcel of indulging his crush. Then my mother decided to move up a couple of rows, to my annoyance. I somehow found a logical and unobtrusive way to end up seated between him and his friends.

Being seated in the middle of a group of 15-year-olds really drove it home that there was a huge age gap. He seemed thrilled, and kept trying to paw me in both odd and inappropriate places, and I was getting annoyed and starting to feel like I had gone far enough with my charitable action and I should be able to hang it up now. The other boys seemed impressed that he had bagged an Older Woman, and I wondered if there had been some bet as to whether or not he would be able to get me to go out with him.

In addition to being hemmed in by youngsters and pawed at, the program was really boring. At one point I looked up at the ceiling and, inspired by the fact that I had spent my elementary-school years there, said, "I'm so glad I'm not in elementary school anymore". Then I realized I was speaking to an audience of entering high-school freshman. I tried to quickly throw in something about high school being much better and completely different from elementary school, so as not to damage their little egos. At the same time I felt very foolish about the not-in-elementary-school-anymore comment, wondering if--horrors--I might be trying to impress them and at the same time appear young enough to be in their age group. [Seriously, when you're over 30 you can be happy to be out of college, or even still happy to be out of adolescence--but out of elementary school? That's something you progress past at age 16 at the latest.]

By this time I was thoroughly disgusted with myself and the situation and wondering why I had even thought I needed to go on a pity date with a minor--and then I wondered, even more alarmed, if that technically made me a pedophile.

I got up to leave and tried to distract myself with some flyers at the entrance. One of them had a black background and looked like someone's idea of a sophisticated layout. It was a p.r.-ish flyer for a nebulous company/service headed by a girl I knew from college. I wasn't sure whether she was peddling publicity services or group travel services. [Yes, even when I'm not on a group trip, group travel still rears its ugly head in my dreams.] There were some stock-looking photos of young, attractive people happily on some kind of cruise, and a phrase that said, "Be seen naked...leaning into the naked sea", with emphasis on naked. I understood the leaning part to refer to the cruise, and to imply something like exultantly leaning off a ship railing a la Titanic, and I wondered who on earth she thought that was going to appeal to as advertising, other than exhibitionists. Then I re-read it and realized that it actually said, "Be seen in black dresses", which was also puzzling but in a different way. Now I was really freaked out about possibly being some kind of perverse maniac.

And now you see why I woke up in a bad mood.

*I now realize that this dream was probably inspired by someone telling me he had actually narrowly escaped a "cougar" when he was younger (cougar as in rapacious older woman, not as in feline).

colorful dresses and makeup mishaps

I had yet another dream where I was picking out clothes and trying to get ready. I was at my parents' house, and I was supposed to be participating somehow with my sister in the church service at my parents' church*. I guess I hadn't packed any appropriate clothing, because I was looking through the closet in my sister's old room. There was a huge selection of dresses, so huge that they were stored on one of those rotating racks like at a drycleaner's. I could tell that most of the clothes had been found at thrift stores. They were all really interesting, with a lot of prints and unusual color combinations. Some of them were overtly "ethnic" and others not, but they all managed to be unusual while still being very wearable and not too weird or cutesy. I was really impressed that she had amassed such a huge collection of interesting clothes, and ended up spending too much time browsing. I finally settled on a black dress** and realized I hadn't left much time for the rest of my preparations.

At that point I looked in the mirror and realized that I looked better than I would have thought given my lack of cosmetics, and also that I was a very young-looking Asian girl with bangs. Apparently my sister was also Asian, and she looked much older and more sophisticated. I worried that, especially if I didn't have time for much cosmetic work, people would think we were mother and daughter.

I guess I had time to start on the cosmetic work, because the last thing I remember was putting a mascara wand back into a bottle of makeup because I was in a hurry and being frustrated that I had probably messed up both products.

I think it's weird that I have these clothing/preparation dreams so often. I love the clothing parts and wish I could remember the details when I wake up; the preparation parts I could do without, though. I wish I could come up with an interpretation for them that doesn't point to unhealthy appearance anxiety.

*That reminds me that I periodically have dreams where I'm supposed to play the piano for their church (something that happened a lot growing up) but haven't prepared anything and am trying to figure out how to muddle through. These dreams feature a weird combination of performance anxiety and hubristic overconfidence that I'll just be able to improvise something baroque-y.
**Why did I choose something black, with all the beautiful colored and printed options?

Auburn

I was at the Auburn house, and I was headed to church. My mom had given me permission to drive her car, which in the dream was still silver, but even sportier than in real life. I don't know why I was driving; when we lived there, we almost always walked, as it was so close.

Still, I got in the car, elaborately backing out and turning around, getting used again to the manual transmission and avoiding hitting anyone on the active street (which, on church mornings in Auburn, it never actually was: everyone was at church!). As I pulled up to the intersection, where I would turn left, an aqua VW beetle swerved past me on the left and hung a left turn without stopping. Jerk.

When I got to the church, there were orange traffic cones in the parking lot and I realized they were doing valet parking. As I got my keys together and got out of the car, I realized that I had put on a nice skirt, but was still wearing a rather sloppy tank top (which I wore under another shirt yesterday, and which I sometimes sleep in). Then I looked down and saw that I was also wearing my black down booties: apparently the only dressing I'd done was to put on the skirt.

As I pondered whether to walk home and change, or drive home, or try to just pull off this odd combination and pretend it was fashion-forward, the kid doing the valet parking had gotten into a cooler in the backseat. He was concerned that the ice would melt while I was inside. In particular, he was worried about a container of milk. I told him it was really old and that we didn't care about it.

midwestern girls

I dreamed last night that I had started dating a boy I had an obsessive but fruitless crush on in elementary school (the one who was messing with the coffeemaker in the other night's dream)*. [Obviously I wasn't married in this dream.] I was at my parents' house getting to ready to go to their church; it was going to be our public "coming out" as a couple and I was stressed out about it, not least because I wasn't sure how I had come to be half a couple with him and because I wasn't sure I wanted to be. Also, he had two small children, and it occurred to me that maybe he just wanted a nursemaid for them. And at some point I saw a picture of his ex-wife and she was really beautiful, which further stressed me out (I was sure he must not be over her and anxious about being compared to her). Oh, and I didn't like his hair very much, but it occurred to me that since he had worn it that way since age 7 chances were very slim that he would be convinced to change it now.

Of course I was trying to pick out something to wear, and at first I thought I had a lot of great choices. The closet was full of similar printed silk dresses, some of which had really beautiful patterns and colors. I was feeling optimistic and planning to wear my red shoes when I noticed that only one dress was wearable--the others were very wrinkled, as if they had been hand-washed and drip-dried, all crinkled and crispy. Also, they had alarming huge 80s-style collars, and the red shoes turned out not to be my actual red shoes but patent-leather things with chrome buckles, which didn't really go with the dresses.

Then to my further annoyance my brain woke me up blasting "California Girls" to itself, repeating the part about midwestern girls over and over**.



*Random people tend to appear a few times in a row in my dreams, then disappear again. I think it's because I'm so puzzled as to why they appeared that they stay in my head and pop in again.
**Apart from "The Sloop John B", I am not a Beach Boys fan.

Marathon

It's officially marathon season: I've had my first marathon nightmare! This one wasn't very detailed, but involved me stopping, mid-route, at a church with my parents. There was a wedding going on and they were taking pictures. I remember looking out the window and seeing a single runner go by. I needed to get back to the place where I had left the route (about a mile and a half away), and I realized that running back to that place and continuing the route from there would add about three additional miles and would cost me too much time. I needed my parents to drive me back, and I couldn't seem to pull them away from the church. I had six hours to finish the entire race, and I figured I would barely make it.

Fragments

The weirdest part about last night's dreams was dreaming I had awakened and was writing them down in bed, only to have my alarm go off in the middle of it. I was still in bed, but sleeping rather than writing anything, and that was rather disorienting.

I'm pretty sure I dreamed all night, but all I can remember are vivid fragments, which even in the dream world I thought merited writing down. In the dream, I found a notebook by the side of my bed, in which I found a free page to start writing notes. The notes I ended up writing, though, were about an epically long voicemail message my mom had left about food. Then the notebook turned into the menu she was looking at, complete with glossy pictures. We were supposed to eat Thai food, but she had found another restaurant and was telling me about things like the "Germaphobe Plate with Eggs," which she thought "you and I would both like." Although my mom doesn't drink at all in real life, in the dream she also suggested some cocktails, one made with 120 proof vodka and something she pronounced as "shtoot." Stout, I wondered?

Before that, there had been:

• A store stocked with Halloween costumes, now 50-70% off. A mom was shopping with her two boys for next year's costumes, in adult sizes as the younger one could have grown several inches by next Halloween. Another family of three was dressed in matching costumes that covered them entirely and seemed to be made out of a light foam with gray decoration to simulate depth. At the time I didn't know if they were supposed to be skeletons or mummies or what; now I think they may have been tombstones!
• Some sort of celebration, in which a bunch of us were thanked with packages of snacks. I busted mine open, and thought they were absolutely delicious. I was oohing and aahing over them. They were sort of like Frosted Flakes, but thicker, and more like mini pastry flakes with powdered topping. Mine were golden with white topping, but other people had chocolate with powdered sugar, or even apple with cinnamon. I was so impressed!
• My ex and me in my apartment. Suddenly he started what I guess could be called a gas leak; a pipe in the floor by my door suddenly started spewing clear amber liquid, which I understood to be gasoline, all over the place. He said, "Is there a watch here? There must be a watch here somewhere!" He threw open the window, and there was a small digital watch face in the sill. He hit something and the spewing stopped. I cleaned up the mess with paper towels, and then started to sweep. It was difficult, because the wind was blowing in my apartment and autumn leaves were swirling everywhere and turned to dust when I touched them with the broom.
• My sister and me trying to go to church. The church building was empty, but as we wandered, we found a little chapel. It was filled with African Americans having Sabbath school, and they were clearly not happy to be interrupted, although they let us sit and join anyway, for the last few minutes.
• A movie theater with outlets in the seats. I plugged something in. Speakers? My cell phone?
• A huge tunnel where the snow passable to snowmobiles ended. There was an evening train at 9, but we had missed it.
• A dentist's appointment for me. As we were getting ready to leave (my mom was driving), I realized I hadn't brushed my teeth and that they were seriously scuzzy. I went into the bathroom (from my grandma's old apartment in Portland) and started brushing. I could see red stuff around my teeth; at first I thought it was blood, but then realized it was Swedish fish (which I'd been eating in real life last night). I figured I was in for some blood at the dentist's, though, since I'd forgotten to be flossing in advance of the appointment.
  

Brother

I appear to have had strange and vivid dreams all night. I kept ignoring my alarm this morning for a little more sleep; in my dream state, for some reason, I thought it was "bullet-proof," whatever that means.

One of the craziest parts was being back in my parents' garage, unpacking after a trip of some sort. I looked over at my brother, and he was wearing CRAZY shoes--they looked like an unholy cross between Pumas and mariachi boots, but weirder. They were mostly black, but with strange gold ornamentation and, weirder yet, a tall, cork, wedge heel.

I soon realized, however, that the boots were the least weird part of the scene. He was riding a bike to which was attached a... kiosk? storefront? booth display? I don't even know exactly what it was, except that it was several intersecting walls covered with merchandise on hooks. The merchandise was, I believe, Baptist VBS materials. In Spanish.

He peddled happily around and told me that he'd gotten a really good deal on it.

Ice cream bar

I don't remember if I went to the drive-through because I wanted the chocolate-covered ice cream bar, or because I saw the ice cream bar on the sign and then realized I wanted it. Either way, I definitely needed the ice cream bar. When I got to the window, they said it was 24 cents. Apparently I had already given the boy at the window my debit card, though, because he handed it back to me when I tried to give him a quarter. Somehow the fact that the ice cream bar was $0.24 wasn't as surprising to me as the fact that they'd actually run my card for that amount.

The boy was very nice, though, and because I wasn't sure how to get back onto the highway, he drove me. Or had me follow him, in his white car. I don't recall now which it was.

He dropped me at a place that was supposed to be convenient to the onramp, but as soon as he left, I got lost again. On foot, I went looking for help, and found a church. Someone told me that if I went through a certain room and then through the garden, I'd be able to see the road I needed.

As I entered the room, an older woman seated just inside the door was crying. I hesitated, and wondered whether I should comfort her or if she'd rather be left alone. I put my hand on her shoulder, and said, "Ever since I was a dean, I can't just ignore someone who's crying." Or something like that. It seemed warm and compassionate in the dream, anyway, and she smiled at me and seemed to feel better.

Then another woman noticed me and asked, "Were you in Ohio?" She recognized me, and her face was familiar, but neither in the dream nor now can I think of her name (now I can't even recall her face, except that it was roundish, and that she had wavy light brown hair). I felt a bit like an awkward celebrity.

Demon cats

She pointed out the moving things in a dark corner--something black and fluttery? At first, they seemed simply to be black moths. Then they were bigger: bats? Finally, they emerged in their final form as sleek, very thin black cats with bat wings and strange green eyes. They were not very big, but seemed vicious--likely because of their long, pointed teeth. There was an entire collection of them--six or seven. We contained them by binding them together in some way, and I tried to get good pictures of them using my digital camera. They kept moving, though, so I wasn't sure I'd captured them.

Somehow, the dog--like a small golden retriever at first, but later more like a terrier--was attached to them, whether because he had pursued them and his leash (red) had gotten tangled with their bonds, or because someone had connected him in an attempt to control the cats. Somehow, he ended up being dragged along behind them and getting roughed up--the skin on his sides was scratched and his fur was bloody. When they stopped, he lay perfectly and frighteningly still on the chair, and I was afraid he was dead. I noticed that his tail was sticking out rigidly over the edge of the chair, which I was afraid indicated rigor mortis. But when we got up closer, and touched him, he moved! He was definitely alive, and looked like he was going to make it.

There was lots more, which I wish I could remember. Unfortunately, all I have is vague snippets, including going to a church where the pastor was promising a million dollars to volunteers who could complete some task. I'm pretty sure that part was inspired by this YouTube video.

Mostly blurry

I was at a Christmas party at a friend's house. I didn't really know anyone except her--and then she took off. I decided I was going to leave, but she was gone, so I couldn't thank her on my way out. She pulled back into her garage just as I was leaving.

When I got out to my car, I wasn't sure I should drive, as I felt very sleepy and loopy. I decided that if I took side streets, I should be okay. When I got to my car, it was balancing on just two tires, as the other two had shrunken and warped into misshapen blobs of rubber. I got in and drove anyway, but most of the road was under construction, and bright orange cones lined a single open lane.

As I was driving--very slowly and carefully, given my states of mind and vehicle--I saw a car drive through the construction zone, get hooked on something, and keep driving until the cable that had caught him was strained taught and he couldn't figure out why he wasn't moving. He got out to examine it, but I don't remember what happened.

Later I was in the church where I did most of my growing up. I think my advisor may have been there, but unfortunately, the rest of the dream is a smeary blur.