Demon Cat

My psyche totally made up for the last thoroughly uncharacteristic, but lovely and affirming, dream I posted here by waking me up this morning screaming. In the dream, if was a full-throttled anguished wail, but what actually woke me in real life was my own pitiful whimper.

A couple of my best friends were in town for my wedding (what?!)*, and he brought their daughter and cat to my apartment so that I could watch them for a while; I think his wife was sick. Almost immediately, though, this cat (which in real life is lovely) revealed itself to be an absolute demon. It went behind the TV and there was a theatrical flash of light blue light and a powering-down sound that indicated that the cat had chewed through the TV wires. The same thing happened and the computer went down. As I tried to catch and contain the cat, it chomped down hard on my left wrist and latched on. I tried blowing in its face, swatting it, flinging it off, and prying its jaws open, but it held on, and although I knew it was inflicting a pretty serious injury that would hurt a lot, I also didn't want to hurt the cat.

But then, then! It let go, only to dart into a large cage that had appeared on the floor and contained another couple of best friends' kitties. These kitties were somehow much smaller and more fragile, and the demon cat killed them almost instantly.**

This time I picked up the demon cat and sort of flung it to the floor. Even though it was nothing compared to the shaking that completely failed to loosen it when it had its teeth in my wrist, this time it, of course, suddenly died.

It was the realization that I was directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of basically all of my best friends' cats (though thank goodness my subconscious forgot the toddler in my care and thus allowed her to escape unscathed!), and the fear that David wouldn't love me any more after I'd killed all those animals, that woke me up howling. What an awful dream.

*This getting-married-oh-no! themed dream broke with convention, as the potential groom was my current boyfriend, it was a day or two before the wedding, and before my brain could totally freak out over the idea of getting married, it was interrupted by the antics of a demon cat.

**In real life, one of these kitties really is kind of demonic.

chubby and manly?

I hate to displace the great dream below, but if I don't I'm going to forget this. I've had three depressing low-self-esteem dreams lately, three nights in a row.

1.
All I really remember from this one is suddenly realizing that my posterior was WAY bigger than I had been thinking it was. This didn't really fundamentally shake my self-concept, it was just really weird and very surprising. My first thought was, "well, I guess I didn't need to be worried about having a lack in that area", and my second thought was, "oh, I guess I should start exercising more". I also wondered what other aspects of my self-image were totally inaccurate.

2.
This was the worst one, and I was discombobulated by this one for a while after waking. It was in the course of a much longer dream in which I was in Italy on an extended vacation with my parents, sister, and grandmother. We were staying in a huge rented villa. It was a very old building with a lot of weird rooms and strange layouts resulting from hundreds of years of add-ons and modifications. There was also some very unattractive carpeting and paint (think a church basement/fellowship hall with carpet that was cheap thirty years ago).

At some point I was attending a wedding in a nearby church. I don't know who this wedding was for, but the curious thing is how I was dressed. Normally in a dream like this I would have gone through an agonizing search through a weird assortment of very detailed clothes, but I don't remember a getting-dressed sequence in this one. I do remember what I was wearing: an oversized sports jersey (hockey?) tucked into a rose-colored below-the-knee early 90s pleated skirt and topped off with a squarish navy blue cardigan (??!). I had my hair straight and parted on the side, and I remember being satisfied with how I looked [although, at the same time, my always-awake editorial review board was strenuously objecting to the outfit].

I entered the church and wasn't sure which side I should sit on, not recognizing any of the guests. I had just chosen a spot when an older man stationed on the opposite side of the church said--loudly--"young man!" I looked around to see who he was addressing, and he repeated it. Somehow I realized that I was the "young man" in question, and I tried to make him understand that I was not a young man. He was not to be dissuaded, and getting more and more worked up. He said, "young man, don't argue with me!", and went on to bluster that my lack of a tie was inappropriate and that I was going to have to leave until I could produce a tie.

Needless to say, it was extremely humiliating and destabilizing. I think everyone else there pretended that nothing was happening as I beat my retreat.

Later on in the dream, I had an exchange with Lindsay Lohan, who seemed very depressed and a little needy. We talked about how cruel the "entertainment media" was to publish pictures of "Stars without Makeup" and dissect celebrities' appearances when they didn't look any worse than your average person on the street. I got tired of the conversation pretty quickly, but I felt bad for her and couldn't figure out how to extricate myself without hurting her feelings.

3.
The third dream involved a couple of my real-life friends. We were eating in a restaurant somewhere, and one of them (who in real life is the most tactful person you could ever hope to meet) commented on how much I was eating. She said, "yes, I've always been amazed at how much you can eat and how often. I could never eat that much. I guess that's why you're chubby with a belly." This was said with a perfectly straight face, as if it couldn't possibly be offensive to me, so I figured I had better respond in kind, as if it were just a normal discussion about anything else.

A Rough Transcript

When I woke up this morning, I tried to describe last night's dreams to David. It went something like this:

We were being chased by someone like the Dollhouse people, because I had helped free some of the other people and I had pulled my own Matrix jack-thing out of the back of my head, but had been faking it. They discovered that I didn't have it, and I ran away and they started chasing us. You and I went to the Riverview to hide and watch a movie. (David: "Hiding and watching a movie sounds like a great idea!")

And there were zombies at some point. (David: "Dreams are always better with zombies.")

...And... I was going to get married! (David: "Hmmmmm.") But to a girl. The wedding was going to be in three weeks, and we were experimenting with how my hair was going to look. It was going to look pretty awesome, actually. But I was already thinking, "Okay, I can just go ahead with this, because clearly I've thought out this decision, and it will probably be fine. And divorce is not that big a deal, anyway, if it doesn't work out. Or I could call the whole thing off... I still have three weeks..."

Marriage

In an unusual twist on the wedding dream, last night I realized that my boyfriend and I had somehow gotten married. Concerningly, however, I couldn't remember having a wedding. When I thought back, I could "remember" some sort of ceremony, but without any of my own friends or family. When I realized that my mom hadn't been at my wedding, I got so sad I almost started crying. I thought that maybe the marriage should be annulled, since we hadn't even had a proper wedding. I was somewhat comforted by the fact that we could have a reception when we got back to Minneapolis, and that I could send cute invitations for that (I was thinking something with black and white stripes, vaguely French).

I decided to go to bed or take a nap, and to listen to my neighbor's "audio logs"--kind of a streaming audio blog, I think, and entirely a dream invention--for comfort. Somehow, though, I ended up at a party she was hosting, with a bunch of people I knew from various lives. One friend was telling me about the single-wide mobile home he'd bought with the help of another friend (she said she'd put in $1200, and when the housing market crashed, that investment had disappeared). My neighbor came over and asked me how I was doing, and I was about to tell her how sad I felt about the wedding debacle. Then I woke up, and was SO relieved that I wasn't married or in the middle of wedding business in real life!

Wedding

My boyfriend and I were going to a wedding. It was to be held in a mall, and as we walked up a ramp to the upper level, I kept noticing tacky little "venues" for other weddings, some just in food court style eating areas! When we got to the area where my friends were getting married, however, there was a quiet, nicely lit balcony filled with round tables with white linens and gold flatware. He walked me over to a table near the back, and as we sat down I saw that it was by a big screen that was showing a college football game--I think it was EWU vs. OC (whatever those letters stood for; I think at least one of the teams was from the Northwest). There were a lot of players on the field, at first in uniform and then in street clothes. At some point, we were no longer looking at a screen, but over the actual game itself. In the stands, I saw a hand-drawn poster supporting keeping religion out of schools (it featured a large electric guitar, a trap set, and a Bible with the words "lust" and "lush" written on it). A girl with hair down to her waist turned and waved at us.

The couple who I realized were getting married sat at the table with us, and I was thrilled to be surrounded by such good friends. In real life, these two have been married for almost six years and have a baby. The lights went down and we held hands for a blessing. The groom's mother, wearing some sort of cowl, the bride's mother, and a few other women were singing a haunting song for the blessing when my alarm went off.

I hit snooze, naturally, which meant I also got to dream that a squirrel had gotten into my apartment somehow and was tearing around my bedroom.

Pie, running, polka dots

I woke up dreaming about delicious pie. Upon waking, it struck me as an odd combination: blueberries, apples, and raisins, I think, all in sort of a souffle-like base--maybe something like a shoo fly pie? (I only had that once, about 15 years ago.) I poked "ooh" into the top crust with my fork tines, apparently to show someone my appreciation. Did I mention that it was delicious?

Before that, I dreamed that I had gone running with the African American family across the street--a father and about seven kids of varying ages. The street in question was the one I lived on with my parents in Portland, although the neighbor family has no precedent in reality. Before we went running, I had somehow gotten sucked into some sort of baseball game with them.

And before THAT, there was to be a wedding. I don't remember whose, but we were getting ready. Or, my mom was getting ready and I was entertaining a small girl in a shopping cart who had a volume of Childcraft. I was excited to read to her about Frog and Toad. On the bed, I noticed a strange little leotard garment. It was silky, black with white polka dots and fluttery sleeves. Then, a short-ish teenager who I recognized as a celebrity, and who had long bleached-blond hair, picked up the garment and put it on (or, rather, it materialized on her; I don't remember any dressing involved). In the dream, I thought she might be Ashlee Simpson, although, as is usual when I dream about a celebrity, a Google afterward indicated how wrong I was. On her, the little leotard thing (which apparently she was going to wear to the wedding) also had odd pink ruffles. She said, excitedly, "How do I look?" I replied (quite diplomatically, I thought!), "No one could wear it like you!"

another marriage/wedding related nightmare

i was moments away from walking down the aisle (as is always the case in these awful, awful dreams). the man i was about to marry was like 10 years older than me, a trucker, and had a tattoo (of what exactly i can't remember) on his right bicep. the man also had a young daughter, about three years old. side note: i think my dream husband-to-be was a combination of several guys who are married to various friends/acquaintances. he was this typical redneck character who would be my worst nightmare for a husband.

anyway, my mom was absolutely thrilled. she was so, so happy that her daughter was almost married. i, on the other hand, was panicked. another side note: the dream had this very heavy and sinking emotional quality to it. it felt less like waiting for something special to happen and much more like waiting for my life to be violently taken. i cannot express how deeply sad i felt in this dream. i was caught in this moment where i was trying to decide if i should accept my fate or run. in the dream i was overwhelmed with how happy the whole circumstance made my mother. i was also overwhelmed by the thought of pulling the plug on the wedding at the very last minute. i did love the the trucker guy's little girl and i remember she was making it especially difficult for me to stop the wedding from going forward.

right before i woke up, my dream-self remembered something that my mom had said to me in real life many years ago while watching oprah. she said something along the lines of: no matter how close you are to walking down the aisle, if you realize it's not what you want, you should stop everything rather than continue with the wedding just to save face. my dream-self felt like i had found an "out" that my mother couldn't argue with because they were her words of wisdom.

about this time i woke up with a start and in a sweat. i enjoyed a huge wave of relief as i realized it was all

just. a. dream.

(analyze that!)

Scenes

Friday night I had fairly vivid, episodic dreams all night long. Saturday morning I couldn't remember most of them, but a few did stick out.

-There were a lot of fat babies. In the dream, they were very cute, but upon waking consideration, remembering our exclamations over their multiple chins, I'm thinking they were morbidly obese.

-I was preparing two kinds of cheese and bread for some event. The bread I was just slicing or tearing (it was white and very soft), but the cheese I was actually making. One of the cheeses was orange, and the other one was white. The white was very soft, kind of like ricotta, and had some herbs or something in it. When I tasted it, though, it was bland and kind of grainy.

-I was at a wedding--with my dad, I think. It involved a huge parade to a specific location. The guests followed--and sort of became part of--the parade, behind costumed acrobats and the like. The parade stopped when we reached the destination, which was just the street in a nice historic neighborhood, with the setting sun in the background. We all stopped, and the officiant said something, to which the bride--who was very petite, with a small, white, heart-shaped face and dark hair (I think she may have been a character in a book I'm reading, Claire in White Oleander), responded. When she did, a lantern that someone had been holding went out, and everything went black. When I was able to see a second later, I had been whisked along with the crowd in the opposite direction, deliberately turning our backs on the bride. I "remembered" (whether I'd actually been told earlier in the dream or if dubious dream-memory filled it in) that it was some sort of gypsy (?) tradition, where because the bride had been unfaithful to someone else, the community shamed her by pretending to go along with the wedding, but then at the last minute, showing their displeasure. I felt bad about it.

Purple

Last night's dreams were all pretty strange, but perhaps the most surreal moment was when my neighbor, her boyfriend, and Snoop Dogg (I think) came into my apartment all dressed in purple and wanting my opinion on the clothes they were going to wear to a wedding they were in.

My neighbor's boyfriend was in a royal purple, crushed velour vest with a lavender shirt and a baby blue tie. He had matching royal purple slacks. My neighbor was wearing something similar, also royal purple, but it was more of a crushed velour jumper. Snoop Dogg had on a royal purple top, but lavender slacks.

My neighbors were the ones in the wedding; I guess Snoop Dogg was just there to help them model clothes. He seemed a little sensitive when I asked something like, "Do you all have lavender pants--?"

I think the wedding was to be that afternoon, and my neighbors were kind of freaking out about what would look best. I did like the suit with the vest and tie, and remembered thinking it was interesting to assign a color or material (crushed velour?) to your wedding party, and then let them go wild and surprise you.

Wedding Jitters

So it was the day before my wedding and I realize that I don't have a cake or a dress. At midnight I went dressing shopping with a friend and they kept bring out these awful mother of the bride suits with pink and yellow and purple and green sequins. I kept explaining that I wanted something whitish and very plain but they were not understanding.

Then we had to pick out the cake and this woman brought a hot pink layered cake out. The layers were all slanted on top of each other (in a nice, artistic way, not in a the cake was made really poorly way) but she warned us, "for some reason all of my cakes come out tasting like cookies. But I think this one tastes like cake." Then she said that she could add any flavor that we wanted to the vanilla cake and I immediately wanted lemon but realized The Boy hates lemon and I should go with orange. Everyone else at the table just shouted "Citrus!"

Then the wedding started but I was sitting in the seats and not up on area in front. They brought out bomb sniffing dogs and I was afraid they were going to find my pot and kick me out of my own wedding. Then the ceremony was over and I was ready to go home and could see that my college girlfriends were sad that there was no dancing so I tried to explain that the dancing would happen the next day.

pretty boys

lately my dreams have been saturated with work-related themes so i haven't cared to document them here. but last night (or more accurately, this morning) i had some lovely boy-related dreams.

first one was about me and jason bateman. we were newly dating and i was very excited though a little cautious. i mean, it was jason bateman so how could i not be excited? but then again, it was jason bateman so i was quite skeptical about how successful the relationship could really be.

the details of this dream are rather sketchy but i do remember several moments of he and i gazing into each other's eyes. and then it quickly turned into us deciding to get married. which made me very nervous. he told me to calm down, that we would make a great husband and wife. i decided to believe him though i felt all apprehensive and anxious. then the dream really picked up speed with us planning a wedding for december, because that would be the next time i'd be in florida with all of my family.

the dream ended somewhere around this time.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

the next dream started out with a large group of people (including myself) at a house that was to be remodeled. we were all on the lawn meeting the family who lived in the house. it was a single mom and her kids. her oldest son was in his early 20's and he was insanely attractive in an italian-with-thick-dark-messy-hair kind of way (but he was an american). while he was overwhelmingly attractive, he dressed in a very over-the-top fashion (now that i think of it, he might have been designer tank top guy) and so of course, i began to poke fun at his wardrobe.

as the dream unfolded, it appeared that i was involved in some sort of competition. we were there to be picked to be on a re-design team. as i realized this, i wanted to leave because i knew that there was no way i was suited to re-design a house. but before i knew it, the hot guy was choosing the people who would be on the team. to my surprise, i was chosen. and so was kendra. i remembered thinking that kendra was definitely qualified for the task but i was NOT. it didn't take long for me to realize, though, that i was picked not for my design capabilities but because hot-guy-with-ridiculous-over-the-top-fashion fancied me.

and this is where the dream turned into stuff you don't need to read about.

Wedded

There were to be three weddings that day, and we were at one of them, sitting at a table in the back. Everyone had these fancy wedding certificates (I think one was a cheesy sunset with palm trees), and I realized that I hadn't filled mine out, even though--I realized at approximately the same time--I, too, was married.

I started to work on it, and filled in the blank for my own name. But the form was upside down, and I ended up writing my name about 1/4" above the line. I didn't fill in the groom's name, even though I was pretty sure he was at the table with me--and had filled in his own certificate. For some reason, I wasn't precisely sure he was actually the groom, and I also felt a little bit shy about the commitment. It wasn't the terror I've felt in other dreams of this sort; it was much more resigned, and maybe even slightly relieved.

Then the lamp fell on me and I woke up.

Going to the Chapel

We were getting married. And it was The Big Day. And I was sooo bored. And no one would let me help with anything. I tried to help set the table, decorate the cake, put bows on the pews, etc... and everyone kept saying, "You need to just sit and relax!" But I had nothing to do, and I wasn't freaking out that things weren't being done correctly, but just that I was so bored and wanted SOMETHING to do.

It was anti-climatic.

Boys, bikes, fishes, theory

I was leaving school with a couple of friends from my department. They were taking the bus and I was going to bike, but we walked together until our paths diverged. As one of them said goodbye, he stood very close to me and put his arm around my shoulders, and it brought back a too-familiar and distinctly unpleasant sensation that I was going to have to, yet again, extricate myself from a situation I never intended, because I had somehow given the wrong impression (see Wedding Nightmare).

When I got to my bike, it was in the parking lot, propped up on its kickstand and unlocked. It was my beloved (stolen) yellow Trek instead of my new bike, and some papers were tucked under the brake cables. The first was a general notice from the campus bike police, saying something to the effect that someone had noticed that my bike wasn't locked up. Below that was a dreadful, grease-stained essay from one of my students. It wasn't even two pages long, and he had quoted an entire paragraph of uselessness. (It looked like an actual paper he turned in on Friday, but I'm pretty sure in the dream it referenced the paper I've been working on all weekend, and my own useless quoting--Baudrillard, thou villain!) It also made repeated references to someone's face being the color of chili sauce.

Then I was in class, and we were watching a film--or a trailer for a film. It was apparently about a boy who turned into a cat... or a fox... or a wolf (probably a brain cross-reference to two separate characters in the Harry Potter books). But he also had a small stuffed fox, who was bright orange,* and was his friend. Then they were rushing through the water, swimming... or drowning... and the fox saved the boy. Only, the fox turned into a bright orange goldfish! And the goldfish saved him, but by dying... and then not dying, in this cosmic scene where their eyes got really big and everything sort of glowed! I turned to my friend Susan, and whispered, "The sacred gesture!" (Last semester we were in an Anthropology seminar called "Ideas of the Sacred," which I dug and which drove her a little crazy, and now I see it in everything, including H.P., of course, and apparently even in my dreams.) She whispered back, "I like it when he just quotes Poisson," which I thought was very witty, since I thought I knew this philosopher, and since his name also meant fish.

A friend from college was sitting in front of me, and he turned around and tapped my knee.

But I was encased in a horizontal pillar... or I was a pillar... and I couldn't open my eyes because they were stuck shut... and there was a noise in the distance... which I eventually recognized as my alarm.

*Orange was the color of my first wedding nightmare.

Lady in Red

Finally a dream! Last night I dreamt I was at a wedding and was a bridesmaid. I had on a halter dress with shiny red (christmas red) satin fabric and a jewel that was at the base of the v. Everything at the wedding was white, which made my dress stand out even more.
It was funny because everyone kept mistaking me for the bride (even though I was in red), and saying how beautiful I looked, yet I didnt even know who the bride to be married was.
Thinking about this dream now, all I can remember is that I was really happy in the dream and the shine of the red satin and the jewel stood out to me the most...hmm what does this all mean?

wedding nightmare

last night i was visited by my reoccurring nightmare of getting married to someone who i DO NOT want to marry. i've had these dreams for several years and they show up every couple of months or so. the guys are different. sometimes they are exes, sometimes they are just guys that i've known throughout my life. last night it was a friend who i haven't been in contact with in probably a year and a half.

as usual, i was moments away from walking down the aisle. i was in the dress and helping to decorate. this part of the dream was fun. i was surrounded by friends and family and was filling the chapel with tons of candles. and then it hit me that i was about to be married to someone who i didn't love and wasn't at all attracted to. my stomach sank and i began to panic.

as is usual in this type of dream, i started trying to figure out how i could get out of the wedding that was moments away from taking place. i worried about hurting his feelings and making a huge scene by calling everything off. i thought about if i could really go through with it. could i just fake that i wanted to marry this guy so i wouldn't disappoint everyone? could i handle being "tied" to someone i didn't love? could i learn to love him?

the dream then turned into a series of scenes flashing one after another. one of me and him at the alter and feeling sick to my stomach. one of me looking at my face in a photograph and wondering if others could tell that i wasn't happy. another of me and him back at "our house" after the wedding and feeling completely stuck and like my life was ruined. in all of this i was trying to keep myself from showing him or anyone else how sad i was but he could tell. he tried to convince me that i would eventually love him and be happy but it literally felt as if it were the final moments of my life, that it was coming to an end.

i woke up in a sweat. there are no words to describe the relief i felt when i realized it was just a dream.