Snippets

This morning I have a nasty cold--curse distance-run-induced immune-drop, coupled with sleeping only on planes/in airports the next day! Anyway, I ended up sleeping about 11 hours last night, and here are a few of the fragments of dreams I remember:

• I was at the beach with my nuclear family. I had a bunch of stuff on the sand by the shore, including a rolling suitcase, and as the tide came in, my stuff started to get wet. My sister and I went to clean up and change our clothes. There was a little shower up from the water; I remember thinking of it as a "freshwater" shower. We walked down a long hallway to the bathroom, where I waited for her while she got ready.
• At some point, my brother came back down the long hallway, with a new haircut. It was pretty strange--kind of like what you might get if you crossed maybe 90s-era Elton John with Edward the Vampire--but I thought it was cute. I asked who had done it, and he said "Guess." I realized that my sister must have cut it for him in the bathroom. He wasn't exactly thrilled with it, but it had a lot of product in it, so I encouraged him that it would all work out and be attractive.
• I went to my friends' house, and when I got there she was trying to get the baby (much smaller than she is in real life) to sleep. She motioned for me to be quiet and said that she needed me to help, and that I should sit down on the couch. I did, and she put the nearly-sleeping baby into my arms, where she did fall asleep.
• I was online, looking at some sort of strange uber-Facebook/Myspace/iGoogle/blog/chat thing. I was surfing through people's very elaborate, visually overstimulating pages, and realized that my ex-boyfriend was online, too. I could tell this by posts he'd made in the past few minutes, or by the stat counter on my blog, or by comments he'd left on other people's walls. I was online, too, so he could see that. I was thinking about how I maybe felt ready to talk to him again, though I wasn't sure I wanted to take the initiative. I just wanted him to contact me. Then I heard him say, over some strange voice-chat thing, my name, and something to the effect that he knew I was online. I woke up before I had fully decided whether or not I wanted to talk to him.
  

Dream Within a Dream #1

(I had this dream and wrote it down when I was on vacation. Just posting it now).

In a bedroom talking to my ex-bf. He is seated in a small race car telling me a story about someone he knew who needs to kick their brother out of the house but can't. He didn't understand why because the brother is causing hardship. I told him I could relate to that story due to the experience my mom had with my uncle. I draw the connection for him - brother situation - hard to get rid of a sibling - felt obligation to help them. At this point in the dream, the ex turns into my brother, LT. So then I say, "If you were to live with me for a while, to get on your feet or something, I would take you in. You're my brother. Of course I would do that." LT replied, "But I would at least do things around the house, contribute a little bit, try to find work as soon as possible." We continued our conversation and walked into the hallway. We were almost to the living room when we hear the doorbell ring. Through the frosted glass part of the door, I could see two dark figures. I bent down to look through the clear part (under the etched glass design) and see a guy carrying roses. I told my brother it is some guy trying to sell something. Immediately, my brother and I dropped to the floor, so the men outside couldn't see us. We tried to to stay really quiet and wait until they went away. But one of the men looked under the frosted part of the glass through the clear part and saw us huddled on the ground. LT and I started to laugh and the dream faded.

I thought I was waking up in the hotel room in Barcelona. My friend, Bre, was sleeping in the twin bed next to mine. I saw something blue insect over her bed near the window. I thought it was on the window curtain, but it was suspended in air. The insect moved closer to me. I saw it was a spider, blue and black. It landed on my bed and started crawling. I looked at the night stand next to the bed to find something to cover it up or hit it with. I reached for it, but couldn't see my hands. Then I realized I was still dreaming.

Went back into a dream - in someone's home looking around at a closet and an archway with detailed drawings around it, almost like hieroglyphics or another ancient language. I turned around and the TV was playing a scene from a video or movie. There was a girl at the train station waiting for her friends. They came - a couple - arguing or having a disagreement or discussion without acknowledging her. She was very sad in the video - almost crying but her friends didn't notice. The song, Because of You by Kelly Clarkson, was playing in the background (NOTE: I have not seen this video). I went to sit down on the couch with a little plate of something to eat in my lap. A voice entered the room, "What is that?" referring to the video/movie on TV. I was with a group of colleagues from my old job - Mo, Rob, & Jules, and two other people (male and female). The woman who spoke was a Black woman in her mid-50s, with glasses and long dreadlocks going gray. She was dressed in Kente cloth or some other colorful dress or wrap from Morocco or a similar another country. She sat next to me on the sofa. We explained about the song - Kelly Clarkson won American Idol, etc. I could tell she didn't watch much TV or listen to music. We were there to ask her a question about something. Mo was seated on an ottoman to my right and asked her the question - something about music. He addressed her as Dr. Fain. We were there so she could tell us which one of us - Mo or me - was right about a debate we had. I said that I wish I had the music with me, but then Mo reminded me that I had sent it to him and he could access it on his phone. Then I remembered another song or piece of music I had a question about. I started to ask Dr. Fain, but then realized I may have already sent her the question via email. So I said I may have contacted you separately about another piece of music. She nodded her head yes and told me she received the email. I apologized to Dr. Fain and said, "I've been having trouble remembering things since the birthday." She nodded and smiled. Then said something about how I didn't look as old as my mind was. I looked around the room and saw Rob and the other guy (I knew he was older than me), then looked at the other female across from me on another ottoman (I knew she was younger than me). Not including Dr. Fain, I was the third oldest person in the room.

Beach Island

I was on some sort of trip with my entire nuclear family. We were on an island that had blindingly white sand. The beach was pretty, but a little bit terrifying, with massive waves that would spring up suddenly and engulf people playing in the surf. The tide was out, so we drove over the sand to where we could see the water in the distance. It was rather barren and disconcerting. The receding tide had left little pools of water, and there were whales beached everywhere. They were shiny and black and not as big as ordinary whales. I saw a smaller fish-like creature (though it was in the air like a bird) trying to pull one of the whales back into the water with his teeth. I don't think he was trying to save it, though; I think he was trying to take it home to eat it.

My family and I decided to head into the interior of the island, where there was jungle. We were in a hotel room--apparently my brother's--putting on sunscreen. My dad sat on the bed and said he wasn't going to go with us. I didn't really feel like venturing out into the wilds, either, but I rubbed in my sunscreen anyway.

The whole dream left me feeling vaguely uneasy. I seemed to know that I should undertake the adventures, but just felt a slight sense of foreboding and disinspiration to leave the comfort of the car or hotel.

Parking, Calling home, Dialing the wrong number

I was somewhere killing time. I drive in and out of the parking garage of this building two or three times and then would go to a cafe. The last time I went into the garage, I hit the garage door opener, but the rolling steel door did not go up all the way. I thought my SUV could fit, and it barely got through the opening. I went to park, but stopped so I could decide which parking stall to choose. There were a few spaces open in front of me, but I didn't want to other people to park in front of me because I thought I would need to move for them to get out. But when I pulled closer to the space, I could see there was another way to get out. I saw cars come down a ramp from higher floors, drive around the corner to exit on another street. So I parked, got out and went into the cafe.

I saw a clock - the time was 6:47. Suddenly I remembered my writing group was meeting at 6:30. I was already late. I started to call the workshop leader on my cellphone, but then I got a call from home. I answered the phone and heard my brother say, "Where is it?" I didn't know what he was talking about. I was frantic about getting to the workshop since I was already late and asked if I could call him back. I called the workshop leader's number. It took three or four rings to her answer. I feared she might not because the group was probably working on the first prompt. When she did answer, I apologized for being late. I didn't introduce myself and wasn't sure she recognized my voice, but she said in a low voice, "Hello PT". She said I could come for the second part.

I tried to call my brother back on the cell phone, but I didn't get through. When I looked at the phone, I realized I had dialed the wrong number. I tried dialing on a land line and still kept dialing the wrong number. The key pad was sticky - so I would press a number once and the same digit would appear on the screen two or three times. My friend came to help me, but the numbers still came out wrong or transposed - too many 7s or 8s. I finally decided to use the voice command on my cell phone.

Brother

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

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

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

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