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!

very weird miscellany

It seemed like I woke up every 20 minutes or so last night thinking, "that was so weird. I have to remember that." Of course I forgot most of it, but I think the few I do remember are representative of the rest in weirdness.

• My husband was going to do some interplanetary travel. I'm not sure if I was going too, but at any rate I wasn't concerned or worried, just excited for him and the other two people who would be traveling in his little "pod". It was a very rudimentary metal construction divided into three stall-like compartments, almost like a flat-topped horse trailer, minus the wheels. Each stall had a round porthole-like window that the traveler could look out while en route. He and the other two travelers were getting inside the pod to accustom themselves, but not yet leaving. Oddly, I don't think there was even any glass on the windows. Apparently there had been such great advances in space travel that things like pressure and oxygen were no longer a concern.

• I was staying in a largeish cabin with my parents and sister in the woods somewhere, on a family vacation. I'm not sure who else might have been there, but I had the impression of more people there than just my nuclear family. At one point when we were all sitting around in the living room, I began to talk to the cat. It was a large, mottled gray cat with a slightly cartoonish air. I asked it some question of little consequence, and it answered me immediately as if to have a spoken interspecies conversation was completely normal. I looked around at my human companions and said, "See, that's why I like cats so much. They're so much more intelligent than dogs."*

• [Same setting, cabin in the woods, raised up on a very high foundation/stilts; on the front porch this time.] I was just loafing on the front porch when a redneck-ish man with a junior-high-age redneck-ish son sauntered onto the porch. I wasn't at all alarmed, because it felt like they had some business being there. I just kept reading my book, until I started to feel like the son was infringing a bit on my personal space by staring at me (the father was completely absorbed in the view of the woods and not paying any attention at all). The son said, a propos of nothing, "I'm kweeping!" which in this alternate dream universe meant, I knew, that he was *ahem* very excited**. I was pretty offended by his forward declaration and also didn't want to encourage his attentions, so I went back in the house without really saying anything. On one hand I didn't want to hurt his tender young feelings, but really! A few minutes later a [very corny] rejoinder came to me: "You're kweeping me out! I'm mawwied." [Get it? Think "mawwiage" from The Princess Bride.] I don't know where my brain comes up with these things, and I find it even more alarming that in the dream I considered it a brilliant example of l'esprit de l'escalier.

• Then there was a very brief vignette, maybe a movie, in which a bimbo-ish blonde woman was threatening a used-car-salesmanly man*** with a ludicrously tiny gun, cocking it and holding it to his head. It was some kind of revenge thing for his ostensible past mistreatment of her, and I never did see what actually happened. I had the impression that she was all just hot air (and whether such a tiny gun could do any damage was another legitimate question).
  

*This coming from a person who in real life very much likes both cats and dogs.
**What can possibly be with this recurring theme of inappropriately young boys expressing interest in me?
***Although I know that there are many exceptions to this, my stock impression (based on extensive experience being dragged to car dealerships) is a stout man with a greasy, bloated face and moist, meaty hands with one or two large rings jammed on to his fat fingers.

regressing

I hesitated all day about posting this because I think it's an embarrassing thing to dream, but it's so random that I'm going to go ahead and do it.

I don't know what the occasion was, exactly, but I was at some kind of big event being held in a school gym. Whatever the event began as, it was transitioning into a dress-up social occasion of the sort held by religious schools that can't hold a dance. I was somewhat younger in the dream than I actually am, and not married; and there were a lot of people from my old high school, although most of them were just faceless extras (all older than high-school-aged, like me).

When I found out that the event was going to turn dressy I turned my attention to what I should wear for it. Although I don't remember the creative act, I found myself in a dress that I had whipped up on the spot*, out of peach-colored silk, floor-length, and late-80s style (fitted bodice with a "v" at the waist, puffy sleeves--it should be noted that I was skinnier than my actual self in the dream and such a dress actually fit me properly). I was surprised at how good it had turned out, but once I tried it on for fit I kind of ran out of steam on hemming the sleeves and skirt, and was just wearing it unfinished and over a pair of pants.

That's not the really embarrassing part, though. Around that time I started talking to a guy from my high school class who I apparently had a crush on**. He was being very cute/funny/charming, and he put his arm around me as he made silly comments about a washer and dryer we were looking at. What he was saying wasn't even registering because I was so excited that he had his arm around me. Then he made a comment about how we could have that washer in our house if we got married, or something joking-but-not-joking in that vein. Then he mentioned Oklahoma and I realized with a start that he was a big family person and that if we were to get married I would have to spend a lot of time there, possibly even live in Oklahoma, which really gave me pause.

Anyway. The embarrassing thing is, who has such adolescent dreams? The whole thing reads like a 7th-grader's diary! ("And then we were looking at washers and dryers and he put his arm around me! I think he likes me!") And I thought admitting to the Johnny Depp dream was embarrassing. I'm not going to be surprised if in tonight's dream some boy gives me a note saying, "Do you like me? Check yes or no."


*The event was in a cross between a gym and a Best Buy store, complete with merchandise in random places, including sewing machines and other home appliances.
**Thinking about it this morning, I realized that there may have been an actual mutual crush at the time, but I was too clueless to pick up on either side of it.

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).

unsuitable boy toy

One thing I dreamed last night was that I had an iPhone. I liked it, but I felt a little bit silly thinking I was part of a Great Community of iPhone users. I think there was an iPhone users' club having a convention somewhere, although I wasn't part of it.

The other part of the dream started at the end of a story line that I can't remember at all. In the previous story line I had met a very young guy, a babyfaced black teenager. I think I had met him in a professional context, and was surprised when he kept hanging around. It was time for me to leave wherever it was that I had been, and he proposed that I give him a ride somewhere. There was a certain amount of waiting around in the car, but I can't remember whether I was waiting for him or he was waiting for me. After a while I realized that all along he had been asking me out on a date. That realization horrified me on several levels: he was way too young for me, and I wasn't attracted to him anyway; it had taken an embarassingly long time to realize what his intentions were; I had probably acted unprofessionally by accepting his invitation; I was now "leading him on", etc.. I tried to think of a way to extricate myself without creating an awkward situation, but couldn't, so I just kept thinking of lame excuses and things I had to stop and do, hoping that he would get bored and go on home by himself. It was pretty excruciating. Also, embarrassingly*, he was dabbling in very small-time drug dealing, and I knew I should try to dissuade him from it but wasn't sure how.

[I don't know what's up with these dreams wherein some unsuitable guy is pursuing me or I'm "supposed" to be dating him. It was kind of fun to be able to say this morning that I had dreamed I had a "boy toy", though.]

*embarrassing because it's so racial-profiling-y.

swimming contest

The setting for this dream was the default group/institution setting, kind of a cross between a short-term academic program and summer camp. I think everyone, including me, was a teenager, although it didn't register as being a change in age.

The only thing I remember very well is that the people in charge were organizing an athletic contest. Apparently this was a tradition for the group, and the centerpiece of the tradition was a long-distance, cold-weather swimming contest. The location was at the edge of a lake or maybe the ocean, in a Scandinavian-like climate. I think it might have been winter to boot--at least it wasn't summery, and the water was very cold.

The adults in charge of the contest were gathering people up to participate, and when they came to me they insinuated that it wasn't a big deal, something they had done for years, and not even all that difficult. I must have signed myself up, because when they came around on subsequent rounds they asked if I was getting ready for the competition. I tried to find out more about it and began to realize that I might not want to do it after all. Every time the sign-up lady came out with another informational tidbit about it it sounded more daunting. I had just assumed that we were supposed to wear swimsuits, but then she mentioned that we should wear at least two swimsuits, and probably socks. I looked down and realized that I was wearing a pea-green competition-style suit over a darker green retro halter suit with shirring. I kind of liked them both, especially the retro one, and wondered vaguely where I had gotten them*.

It had gotten near enough to the race time that people were lining up at the edge of the dock (in all kinds of weird clothing combinations), and I was getting a little apprehensive. The organizer lady came around again, and asked me if I was sure I wanted to compete. I asked what the distance was and she hemmed and hawed, but then said that it would be about an hour and a half of swimming in frigid water. I said, "Oh, in that case I'd better not. I could swim for an hour and a half, but I couldn't compete for an hour and a half." I think I was also wanting to put on some regular clothes by that time, and picturing young competitors dropping off mid-race and sinking slowly to a watery grave. The organizer was fine with my withdrawal, and I thought the staff were displaying a weird and irresponsible mix of cavalier disregard for safety on one hand and a stifling tendency to assume my incapacity on the other.

There was another part of the dream involving a very nifty old house in the middle of the desert that had been converted into a restaurant/museum and was supposedly haunted; and an episode involving rapidly rising floodwater about which I was very unconcerned--but I don't remember much about either.



*oddly, I didn't wonder why I was in good enough shape to be wandering around unselfconsciously in a swimsuit, or swimsuits, as the case may be.

Beer Foam Races

I dreamed that I was part of some kind of promotional contest taking place in a grocery store. I was going to be racing another contestant (nameless, faceless guy) through the grocery store, down aisles lined with our supporters: my race course was lined with mine, and his course was lined with his. Apparently, this contest was attended mostly by kids--about fourth grade through high school.

Apparently this contest required a lot of strutting around, a lot of trash talking, and a lot of high-fiving and saying, "YEAH!" (all activities foreign to my personality). Anyway, after a lot of this "bonding" with our fans, we lined up with our backs against the meat counter (??) and the race finally started. It turned out to be a very short race and I don't even know who won. We ran down a short aisle, made a right turn, and sprinted down the final distance. Both of us then strutted and high-fived our ways back to the starting point. I guess the older teenagers were sitting together near the starting point and they had been holding beer bottles behind the meat counter, shaking them up. When I arrived back at the starting point, the teenagers opened the beer bottles and started spraying me with beer foam in celebration (remember, I don't actually know if I won).

I started laughing really hard (again, really out of character) and shouted over to the other contestant to take a picture of me, covered in beer foam. At this point, the foam was in big piles, like snowdrifts. When I went over to look at the picture on his digital camera, I was surprised to discover that I was wearing an above-the-knee, white, pleated skirt and a navy blue shirt with (possibly) saddle shoes. I was surprised to learn that I had been running in a skirt and the possibility occurred to me that that might have been the reason for all the support from the teenage boys.