Sarah Palin's National Geographic Cameo

I've gotten woefully behind at reporting my dreams, but I couldn't let this one go unchronicled. This was night before last, and I couldn't have avoided the all-day political reporting even if I'd tried, so I'm sure the overdose was what caused this.

I was reading the National Geographic, which is one of my favorite real-life pastimes, and had gotten to the Letters to the Editor section. A woman was writing in about something they'd mentioned in an article or blurb that I had missed in a past issue. The missed article had apparently mentioned and quoted a man named Lewis, who had predicted that Sarah Palin would have a major political win in the future. The woman writing in was extremely excited about this, saying that she knew "the Lewises" in real life, that they were just wonderful people, and how had National Geographic gotten ahold of this "revelation" (!!??!!?? [punctuation marks taken from the letter]). Had National Geographic intercepted an e-mail from "Pastor Lewis"? This was wonderful news (!!!!). "Can you tell us more??!!??!!??"

Last night I returned to form with a tiring dream about group travel featuring an altercation with my sister after she told me that my underwear (when clean; this was all about the state of my overall stock of clean underwear) smelled bad. I think this may have been prompted by my realization the other day that it had been years and years since I've had any kind of disagreement with my sister and that it would seem very strange.

A few nights before that I had another dream in which I was traveling in India, first with my husband and then with my parents. The part with my husband followed our usual real-life pattern of him wanting to take things at a faster pace than I did ("yeah, this is nice, but we can't hang around too long or we'll miss such-and-such other place"). There were a lot of really neat aesthetic details in this dream.

war of the gender stereotypes

In one part of my dream night before last, I was driving in a nice, leafy urban neighborhood. Suddenly there was a loud explosion not too far in front of me, and I realized it was a car exploding. The explosion was very dramatic, with lots of dark gray smoke, and it completely vaporized the car--no subsequent burning car, practically no debris, nothing. There was an object where the car had been, and I realized with some alarm that it was the woman who had been driving. She was in remarkably good shape seeing that the car had been destroyed, but it was obvious she was seriously injured (although there wasn't really any blood; there hardly ever seems to be any blood in even my most violent dreams). Several passersby ran up to her, and I guess I did too, because I remember looking down at her feebly moving her arms and whispering, "help me!". A couple of proactive types were hovering over her, so I figured the most useful thing for me to do would be to call 911 (not being a proactive type myself). I went back to the car and started dialing, but my hands were shaking so badly that it took about 10 tries to get to the operator; each time I would either mis-dial, accidentally hang up, accidentally press the button for the internet browser, etc. It was very alarming, a new twist on that dream where you can't lock the door against the pursuing Bad Guy.

The next thing I remember, I was in an unfamiliar house where I lived (temporarily, I think) with my parents in addition to my husband. Things are a little hazy here, but there was some yelling between me and my mother and/or my husband--I can't remember who was yelling at who, although I think I was giving as good as I got.

Apart from fighting with family members, I was making some kind of concoction of onions, corn, canned beans, and some other miscellaneous ingredients. I went off to take a break while it was cooking, and ended up watching the ultimate chick flick on a tv in a spare room. Diane Lane, or a reasonable facsimile, was the female lead, and Viggo Mortensen (or, again, a doppelganger) was the male lead. She was falling into his arms (of course), and there was some of that requisite chick-flick music-less slow-dancing around the room. She got very emotional and started talking about how lonely she had been, and he said something totally unrealistic (but very chick-flicky) about how now she would never have to be lonely again because he was there to love her. I was simultaneously enthralled and disgusted, and also a little disgusted at myself because I realized that I wouldn't, in theory, at all mind a world in which people said that kind of thing to me (Viggo's line, not Diane's); although I could do without the slow-dancing-around-the-room stuff.

After the chick flick, I saw an iphone-like cell phone lying around and started messing with it (I think it belonged to my husband, who was off at work). There was an animated movie on it, and I guess I figured it would be a palate-cleanser after the extreme romance-novel thing I'd just watched. The drawing style was interesting, very stylized and a little more hand-drawn and raw than typical anime style. I don't remember the story line at all, but Calvin and Hobbes made a cameo appearance.

yuck.

It's been a really long time since I had a variation on this dream, but just before waking up this morning I dreamed that my husband was openly ogling someone right in front of me.

I don't know what the context was, but we were seated at a table somewhere, maybe at some kind of outdoor event. To my left was a Diane Kruger lookalike. In addition to being incredibly beautiful and completely flawless, she seemed to have a perfect personality (unlike grumpy, neurotic ol' me). I think I had made a little superficial conversation with her because she was just so nice that I couldn't be antisocial and ignore her.

After we had exchanged a couple of sentences, my husband leaned over from his position on my right and started brazenly ogling Ms. Kruger-lookalike. I'm not sure if he actually spoke directly to her, but he was clearly completely smitten and I had hopelessly lost the battle of comparisons. I don't remember if I objected verbally to his ogling or if he just saw that I was disturbed, but in response to my irritation he started in on a list of her virtues and my deficiencies.

Up to this point the dream followed the usual template, but whereas usually I just slink off and disappear to nurse my hurt feelings elsewhere, this time I practically exploded. I first ranted at him that he was being really rude to Ms. Kruger-lookalike by ogling her so brazenly. Then I may have added that I didn't cotton well to his ogling of her either--I'm not sure if I verbalized that. I do remember going into his flaws, although I don't remember what any of them were other than a failure to do the dishes. I think I went so far as to say that I wasn't sure I loved him anymore. The whole dream was extremely disturbing, and the aftertaste was pretty disturbing as well.

cinderella strikes again

I find it a little embarrassing to admit to my recurring dream themes, but I had another one this morning in which I was the household Cinderella. Anyway, I was living with my parents, and my sister was there, although I think she was more of a long-term visitor than a full-time household member. I think my husband also lived there, but he was absent for some legitimate reason--I think he may have been working extremely long hours at a demanding job, or maybe he was on a trip.

What I can remember started with me coming to the realization that for quite some time I had been doing everything for all the other members of the household. My wrath was directed primarily at my mother, and I started yelling at her: "Don't you think it's grotesque?! I cook EVERY MEAL, I clean up the dishes, I do the laundry, I clean the house--how can you live with yourself?!" I was really steamed up. When I realized how mad I was, I started to analyze how I felt about each member of the household. My dad was more or less exempt from my anger because he was working outside all day on some building project; my grandmother was exempt because she's 89 years old; my husband was exempt because he was always working and never there. I was a little mad at my sister, but she was somewhat exempt because of her guest status--and anyway, she was staying well away and completely ignoring the discussion, puttering around with a stack of art supplies in the corner. My mom refused to acknowledge my tirade in any real way, which made me even more mad.

I should add that the house we were living in was interesting, some kind of 60s-70s split-level thing with a main living area in a sunny half-basement, where the kitchen was. There were quite a lot of tchotchkes to be dealt with in cleaning, too, including macrame plant hangers.

After the outburst I went off in a huff and was rather proud of myself for taking a firm stand and not feeling guilty about it. I felt like I had made a psychological breakthrough. Then I started to think about the fact that my mother was busy taking care of my grandma, and I wondered if maybe I hadn't been a tiny bit hard on her.

That semi-guilty feeling morphed into some sort of depression whose cause I can't remember. I was still in the same house, with my sister and a friend of hers (random dream person). The friend was visiting and they were going to go to some social function scarily reminiscent of a church-high-school "banquet". The friend had showed us a very expensive couture gown that she was planning on wearing. Although I was depressed, I realized that I should make an effort at sociability, so I said, "that sure is a snazzy dress!"

Shortly thereafter I escaped into a bathroom with a laptop computer. I thought I'd distract myself by looking at ravelry (knitting website, for the uninitiated). I started reading a non-knitting-related forum there, and the avatar of one of the posters drew my attention. Instead of being just a photo, it was a video, showing several women frolicking around at an outdoor house party. There was some kind of "party"/dance music, and some of the women were dancing to it on a trampoline while others were dancing around a pool or jumping into the pool (this was more of an interpretational modern dance than a generic party dance). Someone in the discussion said that they wished they were attending the party, and I kind of agreed, which was a little out of character for me since I'm not much of a party person. The setting was certainly attractive, though, a stone house with nice landscaping looking like it should be in Provence.

I guess I clicked on her avatar or something, because suddenly it filled the whole screen. The view was now inside the house, though, and the women were in really elaborate and colorful eastern European costumes, with equally elaborate hairstyles (the one I can remember was a halo of tiny buns all around her head, supplemented with some kind of flowery decoration). They looked like they were warming up when an announcer came on and announced, in French, that they were such-and-such gypsy group and they were going to be doing a show; he also made it clear somehow that this was in Quebec.

The show started when some very animated gypsy music came on. The most interesting thing was that when they moved, their costumes moved with them. The dancer most visible had a couple of huge chrysanthemum-like flowers on the front of her dress, and they opened and closed and revealed different layers of petals, each with its own color and shape, kind of like a kaleidoscope. I thought vaguely that instead of dwelling on the injustices of my Cinderella-hood, maybe I should have just distracted myself with this first instead, because I suddenly felt a lot better.

Tale of a Mansion

I thought I would get to my computer as quickly as I could so I wouldn't forget the only dream I remember from last night.
I was in a large house, quite like a mansion, in a room with a few friends. Two, I recognized, and the others I didn't. The two friends that I knew were being catty with each other because one was telling the other what to do and the other was being defensive about it. I said something (cant remember what) to stop the argument and the defensive friend muttered something under her breath, to which the friends near her started whispering with her. I was angered by this and called the defensive friend the "b word" and stormed out of the room which surprised the rest of the friends. I walked into a room that it was all white and there were other people that I didn't know in the dream in this room. I realized I needed to use the restroom, but they told me I couldn't. When I peered into the toilet there was a spoon and an blue object inside. They told me to use some hand sanitizer and I would be fine. I was happy with this answer and started to move throughout the house.
I saw three of my friends from childhood who asked me nicely to leave, but I told them that I wanted to get a drink at the party outside before I would. They agreed to let me have a drink and then leave.
I walk outside, and there is a pool party with a lot of people. I suddenly find myself with a towel that is holding my wet hair and another around me. Then I'm suddenly naked in front of party, but only a couple see me as I cover myself with my hands (the towels disappeared, I guess). I jump into the pool and realized that I am swimming really fast. Then, I suddenly see a middle school crush, who becomes very interested in getting reacquainted. My next thought is that I realize that I have a swimsuit on. I stop swimming and start to talk with him and start to pinch his shoulder, which he has no problem with as we walk out of the pool.
(I realize this dream does seem a bit disjointed, but that is how it was in my head!)