Guitar

I was supposed to be playing classical guitar in a quartet performance of the Nutcracker,* along with a cellist, pianist, and... other musician? In real life, I haven't played my guitar in ages and can't really sightread.

In the dream I knew it was a bad idea to be sucked into this performance without having practiced with the group--let alone looked at the music--beforehand, but I hoped maybe it wouldn't be too noticeable. I didn't even have the music, so I had to read off the copy of the woman beside me, who was singing as a member of either the choir or the audience.

Naturally, I was terrible. Weirdly, it didn't bother me as much as it should have.

*Or perhaps the Messiah; it shifted.

Mascara

I was supposed to go somewhere--breakfast, I think--with a cute boy, but I wasn't quite ready, so we came back to my place so that I could freshen up. I was just going to put on some mascara, but for some reason it ended up taking me forever. I felt awful, because not only was I making us late, I has lost my sort of fresh-faced charm, both by appearing to be super high-maintenance by spending so long on my makeup, and for actually putting on too much. I knew I had disappointed him and felt like a total failure.

Unrelatedly, in the dream I had straight, dark brown hair that reached to my shoulders, and longish bangs. In real life, my hair is much shorter, curlier, and multicolored.

harrowing pet and school dreams

I haven't had one of these dreams in a while (I used to have them fairly often), but last night I dreamed that I had some pet birds. The dream followed the usual scenario: I had gotten them and then sort of forgotten I had them*; of course that meant I had forgotten to check their food and water; out of an original number of 5-6, a couple were dead in the bottom of the cage. Another variation I've had on this dream is that the birds are not dying, but escaping from cages with too much space between the bars. I've also had rather harrowing dreams featuring other pets that I've forgotten to feed/water, usually dogs (I don't recall one where the dog actually died, but there have been some close calls).


*Interestingly, I have a vague memory of also recently having a dream in which I had forgotten about being enrolled in a math class for an entire semester. Except at the end of the dream I realized that I had actually dropped the class and there was no reason to be so frantic.

High School Reunion

I had yet another high school reunion dream (perhaps I'm developing a theme as strong as Strovska's group trip theme), this one ridiculously detailed. Note that this may have some basis in reality, since next month is my 15th high school reunion, although I have no plans to attend, and have never planned to attend any reunion. This resolve began the day after I graduated.

Anyway, my dream self seems to be highly entertained by the concept of attending reunions and last night was no exception.

I dreamed that I was arriving at my old school carrying my backpack. I was somewhat proud of myself for limiting my packing to just a backpack. I knew that the girl's dorm had been renovated, so I was expecting some changes. The exterior of the building was expansive and looked very nice, though I did notice that they'd chosen to retain the beige-y, buff-colored exterior, which I thought made it look like a motel.

Inside the lobby, the dorm had retained several architectural features of its former "glory," but with the additions of lots of glass walls with shiny metal accents, a la the CSI labs. I made my way inside and avoided the welcoming smiles of the girls' dean, who was standing at the front desk. She was the one I remember from my years there, and I just wanted to skitter past her with a minimum of "catching-up" chitchat.

I toured the chapel area, and thought it was a shame that they'd completely demolished the yellow stained glass windows in favor of a windowless, and beige-colored, set of blank walls, although I did appreciate the replacement of the seats, which had been horrible when I was there.

I went upstairs to find my room for the reunion weekend. Somehow I knew that I'd be staying in my old room, and that I'd have roommates AND suitemates for the duration. They were all already settled in, and the door was open a crack as I pushed it open and called out, "Hello J.B.!!" (J.B. being the initials of a girl who was my suitemate for two years in real life.) She was standing behind the door, hanging up her clothes in the closet. She gave me one of those friendly-stranger hugs.

I started working to unpack my stuff and get myself ready for something (dinner? church? assembly?). As I investigated the bathroom, I met my suitemates, my cousin A. and another former classmate, S. They had pretty much taken over the bathroom with mountains of bottles, towels, cases of makeup, and various toiletries. Still proud of my light packing job (presumably I was clutching at straws, trying to make myself "cooler" and different from my former classmates), I was trying to wash my face at the sink, which kept filling up with tiny bottles of lotions while I was washing.

There was a lot of activity swirling around me and I'm hazy on the details, but my overall impression was that I was trying really hard to be chipper and chatty, catching up on Life. Our suitemates kept popping in and out of the room, and I noticed that my cousin A., in particular, was wearing a TON of makeup. Verging on orange.

It seemed like we were all trying to get out the door at once, but with very little success, as everyone kept trying to use the sinks/counters in the bathroom, but being thwarted each time by the massive amount of potions. Everyone was trying to iron dresses and skirts, and while I'd been so happy with my limited packing job, I worried that my selections wouldn't be dressy enough, considering all the ironing, fluffing, make up, hair styling, and stocking applications that were going on around me.

In short, it was exactly like high school, and by the time I woke to NPR, I was pretty relieved that I don't have to attend any reunions if I don't want to.

Hugely Embarrasing

ATTENTION: this dream contains several gross-out moments. I even considered not blogging this one, but we must be honest.

I dreamed that I was reporting to work at Whole Foods (no, I don't actually work there, but I've considered it). I needed to use the bathroom really badly, so I figured I'd go before my shift started. When I got to the bathroom, however, I discovered that it was more like a department store's dressing rooms, i.e. no toilets.

I really had to go at this point, so I figured (gross out moment #1) why not just go on the floor? I'll clean up afterward. Accordingly, I leaned against the wall in a corner and, um, went. This wasn't (gross out moment #2) just going "number one" either, if you get my drift.

So, now I had to clean up my mess. I found some paper towels and started to clean up, but I was keeping an eye on the clock, which was inching closer to 3 p.m., the time I was supposed to start work. At this point, the whole thing just got out of hand.

Every time I tried to initiate a part of the cleanup process, the mess spread to something else. I continued trying to clean up the floor with paper towels, but somehow, I managed to forget that I'd laid my keys and wallet on the floor nearby, and in my cleaning efforts, I'd managed to get the mess onto them. Then, in the course of cleaning other things, I forgot about the keys and put them into my pocket, which was gross.

At one point, I even managed to contaminate an enormous pile of fruits and vegetables: kale, bananas, carrots, apples, onions. I started trying to wash each one, but realized the futility of this effort. I ended up piling them into one of those coffin-sized rolling beer coolers to take care of later. The mess was all-encompassing and seemed to be expanding: all over the floor, the walls, and my hands, the pile of produce.

By this point, after piling the produce into the cooler, I realized that it was 3:08, which meant that I was late to work, but I still had to wash my hands.

I was so exhausted from worry and frantic (and futile) cleaning that I think I woke myself up at this point.

zombies and their superior sense of smell

(my surroundings have seeped into my dreams)

i was living/staying in some sort of a neighborhood/community where everyone knew each other. the neighbors congregated at the house i was staying at after we were alerted that we were in danger of being attacked by zombies.*

when the neighbors made it to my house, we began boarding up the windows and doors with wood and various pieces of heavy furniture (it was a very anxiety-ridden dream, the kind where you can *feel* the adrenaline pumping and it kind of hurt). most of the neighbors hung out in front of the t.v. while i stressed over every possible point of entry. luckily, hyde and kelso from that 70's show** were there to help me. at one point we found ourselves in the garage, looking out though a crack. we could hear a chainsaw and we were trying to determine if it was a neighbor in need of help or if it was too late.

eventually the zombies closed in on the house and we were all doing our best to keep them out when it occurred to us (not sure how) that zombies had an extremely sensitive sense of smell, especially for unpleasant smells***, and that we could use this to our advantage****.

.................................................

* this part of the dream was likely influenced by a conversation where i compared preparing for a hurricane to preparing for a zombie attack. I was informed that one does not get advanced warning about zombie attacks.

** my youngest brother watches repeats of that 70's show incessantly.

*** this part of the dream was influenced by a conversation i had with my cousin and her husband about how the women in the family have very sensitive noses, especially for rank smells. the husband reported that my cousin complains of his gas "even before it leaves my pants".

**** yes, i am aware that zombies would need a functioning brain in order to actually be able to smell.

breaking and entering

Speaking of dreams in which people are out of character, I had one last night in which my parents were completely out of character (they're normally extremely law-abiding and very concerned with propriety).

We (parents, me, sister, and possibly grandmother; I don't remember either of the sons-in-law being there) were on a road trip somewhere in rural southern or central Arkansas. Apparently no one had planned for lodging, and it was getting late. Since it was so rural, there were no hotels around, so my parents stopped at a little cluster of houses in the middle of the woods. Somehow it was decided that one of the houses was where we would spend the night. I'm not sure how this was decided, but I was so taken aback that I didn't even question the decision at first, thinking surely they would come to their senses.

They started unloading the car and carrying things into the house, which was fully furnished and clearly lived in. They were commenting on the furnishings and dishes in a matter-of-fact way, and my mother started puttering in the kitchen, although she seemed a little disapproving of the cookware. My dad removed a screen from one of the windows, saying that it was double-screened for winter, and since it was no longer winter the screen should be removed. I thought at first that he was getting ready to do some repair work, which I had mixed feelings about. On one hand, this wasn't his house; on the other hand, maybe he was looking at it as payment for staying there.

When I realized that they were serious about staying there, I started freaking out and saying that we had to leave right now because someone lived in the house and we could be charged with breaking and entering. When they weren't fazed by that, I brought up the possibility of the owner coming home late, finding his house full of strangers, and opening fire with his shotgun and killing us in our sleep. That didn't make much of an impression either, and I was more and more stressed about how to extricate myself from the situation. I was also disturbed at not getting any backup from my sister, who in real life is sensible and very cautious about anything that could provoke a violent reaction from a random stranger. She had shut down and wasn't saying anything, just wandering around almost invisibly in the sidelines (maybe looking to make her exit unnoticed?).

After we had been there for a while, with all the lights blazing and the windows opened, a police car drove by. It circled around, left, drove by again, and parked facing the house. The policeman just sat there staring at the house, with a civilian woman in the passenger's seat who looked like Grace Jones. I thought that surely that would move my parents to change their plans, but they remained calm in their bedtime preparations.

I don't remember how all that ended. I think it just phased into another story line. I was at work, looking at pictures (or footage?) with my boss. The pictures showed the bend in a creek that was supposedly part of a cave/creek system here in town. The bed was eroded stone with very steep edges, like a very miniature western river canyon, and the water was gushing through. He wanted me to go out and explore the creek system and take more pictures, but I was a little worried about the safety of getting into such rushing water. He said it was only about waist deep, but I thought he was being a little cavalier because he's a very tall and large person and would be a lot more stable in such a rapid current than a medium-sized person. I also wasn't excited about spending my free time on a work-related project, even one involving such beautiful scenery, and hoped he would forget about asking me.

In the other snippet, I was shopping with my mother, and it's only significant in a dream-analysis sense. She was rushing me along and didn't want me to look at some things I wanted to look at, which is one reason I don't shop with my significant other (the other reason being that I don't generally like shopping with anyone but myself). It's one of a few examples of dreams in which I transfer annoying husbandly traits to my mother, which I find odd.

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.

Art

I was at a friend's apartment, and there was a call for me on her phone. It was my secondary adviser, and his wife (also an art historian, though not at the U) was also on the line. He asked me if I'd "done the research on the Indians," a question I'd apparently promised I'd look into last summer. I had to admit that I hadn't and that I was a big disappointment as a student and scholar. It turned out that he was asking about Hiawatha and Minnehaha (which happen to be the names of two streets here in Mpls). I mentioned the tiny marble busts I'd seen of the two at the Detroit Institute of Arts, done by Harriet Hosmer,* and how much I loved them because they were sparkly.

*I looked this up just now, and they were actually by Edmonia Lewis.

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!)

blah

It's so annoying to wake up and realize that you've been dreaming about work AND school, simultaneously. Right before I woke up this morning I was having one of those dreams where you find out near the end of the semester that you've been in a class you didn't realize you were in. I apparently knew I was in this class (some kind of science, although physical or social I don't know), but I hadn't been studying. I had been squeaking by, but I suddenly resolved to start studying, and was confident that I would immediately start acing it and confound the professor (who, I imagined, would pronounce me a genius).

The only problem was that I was working full-time at the job I have now (except in a different building--actually, two separate buildings--and a slightly different set of coworkers). I had to ask if I could leave early from work so I could study for the class.

What a boring dream. And then I woke up and realized that, although I didn't have to study for anything, I still had to go to work. I was looking forward to that afternoon off.

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

A while back I had another job-related dream. I was talking about something random with a coworker (a real one, not a dream-generated one), when he said, "well, it doesn't matter anyway, whatever happens you'll complain about it". I said, "what do you mean?" He answered that I was constantly complaining about everything, that "everyone is always talking about how you complain all the time." I was surprised and alarmed, because I didn't think I complained *that* much, and pressed him for more details. What did I complain about? In what way did I complain? How could I cut down on my complaining so as not to bother everyone? He shrugged dismissively as if to say that it wasn't worth it because I wouldn't change, and started to walk down the hall. I called after him to think about it and then send me an e-mail with the details. Right before I woke up I was at my desk checking my e-mail, and there was no message from him. I had a sinking feeling, knowing that I had a reputation as a whiner and that he wasn't going to e-mail me about it and I would therefore never be able to correct the problem.

That was a weird variation on the dreams I have occasionally where various members of my family (usually my mother) are berating me for being a terrible person because of a whole cornucopia of grave character flaws.

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.

get away from my dream, brangelina!

{I'm annoyed sometimes at how many of the same boxes my dreams check. This one checked most of them (school, group trip, career-related anxiety, procrastination, celebrities, family members).}

In the beginning of the dream I was somehow in school. It was neither college nor high school, really, more or a career-related thing (Remedial Career Planning?). We were either getting ready to go on or already on a group trip (I should just omit mentioning this and let the reader assume that, unless otherwise specified, all my dreams involve group trips). We were being assigned specific projects by a teacher/adviser, and when my turn came I was delighted to be assigned to design a coloring book featuring Texas wildflowers. The adviser hinted that it was in line with my interests in art and plants, and that I was wasting my abilities and should take advantage of this project to Get Ahead in My Career. I was really looking forward to it, but stressed at the same time because I had a sinking feeling that I was just going to procrastinate forever and either do a terrible job or not do it at all.

Against that cheerful backdrop, we arrived at Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's house (/compound?). It was supposedly outside New Orleans, but the scenery was very western. The house and various other buildings were in a grassy area nestled against some small hills. Behind one part of the house was a big ravine with a magnificent view of a canyon and distant hills (more on this later). I was with an undefined group, but my parents and sister were also there. My sister wanted to take pictures, more because she liked the place than because she wanted celebrity-related pictures. We were both rather upset when I realized that my camera was still broken and that I hadn't brought any other cameras.

I think we were there for a meal of some sort, but it was pretty clear that our presence was an inconvenience, and the meal didn't happen. A haggard Brad Pitt was chasing a bunch of kids around. Angelina never did make an appearance. Brad gave some of us a perfunctory tour of the place, although when we got to the actual house it was obvious that he didn't want to show us the inside, and hadn't really been planning to--it was completely chaotic.

By "actual house", I mean a small old semi-renovated house with bedrooms for all the kids. There were apparently common living and dining rooms elsewhere, possibly in the adjacent newly-constructed house where Michelle Obama's mother was staying with the Obama offspring. She was very cute, pleasant and spunky. Her bedroom looked out over the wonderful canyon/hills view, and she said, "I'm a low-wage woman, and look where I'm living! Look at what a view I have!" I wasn't sure why she and her granddaughters were living there, but everyone seemed to think it made perfect sense.

In addition to the two houses, there were several other buildings, some of them very weird. I was looking at one, a glass building filled with strange apparatuses and tube-like structures, and thinking it was really neat and had great potential when Brad wandered up, apparently having escaped all the children for a minute. He explained to me that the property had been a cleaning business (dry-cleaning, etc.), and that one of the reasons they had bought it was to take advantage of the cleaning-related buildings to modify them into something architecturally interesting. He got very excited talking about it, and seemed to shake off his haggardness for the first time.

I think there may have been some press people there then, because all the kids started posing for pictures, piling up on top of each other. They were stacked like pancakes, flat on their backs, but just before the picture could be taken the top couple of kids toppled off. Brad seemed rather stressed about having to get them all stacked up again.

forgotten words

I had an interesting little snippet this morning before waking up. The plot of the dream was that I was supposed to be working on a large-ish project--I don't know if it was a school/research project, a translation project, or something else. Whatever it was, I hadn't been working on it and was feeling stressed. I was in a strange apartment that didn't belong to me, and it seemed like the inhabitants might have been in the process of moving in or out. There was apparently no bathroom in the apartment, because several times during the dream I had to go downstairs to relieve myself in a hovel-like outhouse dug into a grassy bank outside the soviet-bloc-style apartment building.

Every time I used the primitive facilities I realized with a start that here I was, taking a bathroom break again after having not accomplished anything toward my project (I think at this point I wondered if I were really dreaming or not). That was the depressing part. The neat part was that surrounding the "bathroom" the grassy ground was covered with all sorts of debris, notably all kinds of coins, from current EU coins to more exotic coins that were clearly very old. I wanted to pick them all up for later sorting and perusal. On my last bathroom trip, getting quite depressed about my lack of productivity, I looked closer at the ground and realized that there were also words there. I don't know what they were made of--they were really just *words*, the essence of them, not words printed onto some material. On closer inspection I realized that they were all words that had fallen out of use, and I was very excited by the discovery. I loved the idea that here were all of these forgotten words, laying on the ground. I forgot my depressing procrastinatory situation and woke up still excited about the extinct words.

Yes! With three-inch heels!

Another recurring dream theme I have is a scenario in which I discover that I've grossly neglected a pet (or pets). This hasn't happened for a while, but I had one last night. I was staying in a dorm that alarmingly resembled my high school dorm (which I fortunately didn't have to live in at the time). I had just realized that I had a pile of overdue books and dvds for the library (a recurring real-life theme), and I was agitated about going to return them. I think I was making pointless and confused trips up the stairs to my room and down to my car.

On one of these trips, as I was walking past the movie-set Western Town setup (?what?), I heard clomping footsteps and looked over to see a guy who looked like a 17-year-old Hayden Christensen, walking by in cowboy boots. He was doing that thing where you watch someone to gauge their reaction to you while trying to not appear to be watching. I didn't think that much about it, but he followed my trajectory for a while, gradually starting to walk beside me.

Around the time I realized he was really trying to accompany me I remembered that I had had my childhood cat (still alive, apparently) with me in the dorm, but that I hadn't fed her or even seen her for quite a while. I went back to the dorm and tried to talk to the dean about it. She tried to be reassuring, saying that cats were self-sufficient and she might have just wandered off to find a new home (or, she added, maybe she had just died and that was why I hadn't seen her).

All this time Hayden, Jr. seemed like he really wanted to talk to me. I was a little annoyed because I was already stressed about the library and the cat, and I couldn't figure out why he was so interested in me. Was he really desperate for a friend, or did he have a Thing for Older Women, or what? (Despite the living-in-the-dorm thing, I was my actual age in this dream.) He finally engaged me in conversation and asked if I had noticed him as he walked past the Western Town. I said, "yes, you were wearing cowboy boots", to which he answered triumphantly, "Yes! With three-inch heels!" Bizarre.

waffling and unproductivity

I had an alarmingly moral-of-the-story dream the other night. In the dream I was quite a bit younger than I actually am, and I had an internship/entry level job at a magazine. I'm not sure what sort of magazine it was, but I think it was a "women's" magazine that had a mix of fashion/fluff and actual substantial articles.

The editor of the magazine [why was I being directly supervised by the actual editor?] wasn't very clear about what she actually wanted me to do. She showed me several different articles, both from her magazine and other magazines, hinting at each turn that she'd like me to do a similar article. I was confused and felt like I should come up with the Best of all those ideas, and also felt like, if she hadn't specifically told me yet to write a specific article, I could just wait for her to tell me.

That wasn't the best course of action. One day she called me in and asked me where my article was. I started hemming and hawing and babbling about how I wasn't sure which one she wanted and that I had therefore waited; and that I now saw the error of my ways and realized that I should have just started on one of them instead of being paralyzed by indecision and a lack of direction. I begged her to give me another chance because I had learned some initiative and decision from this experience.

I'm not sure I like these transparently moralistic dreams.

Oh, and to make it worse, I wasn't the only intern there. There were several other girls marching purposefully around and apparently writing actual articles while I waffled. They all had an air of put-togetherness, potential, and authority.

Gas Stations that flip cars?

I dreamt I was at a gas station, trying to fill up gasoline in the middle of the night. I was in a hurry because I was scared to be outside during the hour it was. The gas station was really dark and I could only see the light on in the station where the attendant was sitting inside of the store. I filled up my tank and the minute I removed the pump from my car the pump whipped back and hung itself back in the cradle, the ground underneath the car turned into a platform, raised my car up about 20 feet and flipped it.
On the way down because I lifted the pump up in surprise, the car came crashing down and flipped on the wrong side. I went towards my car and saw all the damages and started worrying.
I looked towards the other cars that happened to be there as well. These two cars flipped as well when done and landed safely and properly. I could see the tires of my car bent and wires hanging out of it from the bottom with green, pink, blue, and yellow wiring. Somehow, I was able to flip the car back and start driving to my parents house to find a mechanic or to have my dad help me with the car. I was glad this dream wasn't real when I woke up.

not driving

The other day I dreamed that I was riding in a car. I was either dozing off or reading--I think dozing off. I suddenly realized that although I was in the passenger's seat, I was supposed to be driving the car (there was no one in the driver's seat). I panicked and jumped into the driver's seat so I could start driving, wondering why the car hadn't run off the road without me. Later (still in the dream) I told my husband about it, and he tried to console me by saying, "It's okay, you were just asleep for a short stretch of two-lane road that never has very many cars on it."

I realized that I've had this dream (with variations) quite a few times. I wish the meaning of it weren't so obvious. A funny tidbit, though, is that the vehicle is usually a van or truck or other big thing, so I'm sitting up quite high as I hurtle down the highway in the passenger's seat. I can't remember it ever being a regular car--maybe my subconscious is pragmatic enough to realize that I couldn't jump into the driver's seat so easily in a regular car.

my mother thinks i'm a terrible person

I had another one of those disheartening mother-hate dreams last night. I was in high dudgeon about something and my mother got really disgusted with me (thank you, i hope so, that was the apt word for her reaction in these dreams). She started raking me over the coals about my bad attitude, saying that I was getting disproportionately angry about everything, it was a terrible attitude, I needed to shape up, and basically that I was a terrible person.

The interesting thing is that I do feel like I've been disproportionately and indiscriminately angry for a while now, and I feel guilty about it. So maybe some of these dreams are just caused by guilt feelings.

Lateness

Once again, I was running late to catch a flight and hadn't packed.

I was playing chess in the kitchen (I remember the board and it was completely improbable...) when I looked at the clock and saw that it was nearly 9:15. I realized that we should probably already be on our way to the airport, and I wasn't even dressed, let alone packed.

In the bathroom, my contacts were in what looked like a small, shallow, petri dish--and there were probably 10 of them. I knew that only two were my correct lenses, but figured that the others were old lenses that could work in a pinch. I got my right one in, but then couldn't find the left one. I tried on a couple that turned out to be soft lenses instead of hard ones; one was a gigantic blue lens that was way larger than my iris. At one point when I looked down at the petri dish, the contacts were all folding over on themselves, and some looked like they were made out of red rubber.

When I went to the bedroom, my suitcase was open but basically empty, and the closet was full of stuff that needed to be packed. I wasn't dressed, though, and I couldn't figure out what to wear on the plane. I tried on my new pair of striped gray slacks, but they looked funny. Then I realized I'd put them on over jeans. I took them off and decided to wear the jeans. I found an awesome sweater, a slim little scoop-neck, with wide horizontal stripes of navy and lime and narrow emerald ones, and half-length sleeves, which I thought would go perfectly with my new green trench coat.

The whole time I'd been dressing, I'd been trying frantically to do the math in my head on exactly how late we were. My flight was supposed to leave at 10:24, which meant I should be there not much later than 9:24. Then my sister said it would take 29 minutes to get to the airport! Dream math is not my forte, but I finally realized we should have left at 9:04. That's about when I woke up.

I'm halfway through my exams; apparently lateness to catch a flight is my subconscious' most accessible anxiety theme!