snippets

I had a weird assortment of dreams last night, but I only remember a few bits. I was crawling on my stomach with a few other people into a cave-like space under a concrete traffic underpass construction. I wasn't too excited about it and was starting to feel pretty claustrophobic, which led to a realization that I had never really liked caving. I announced that to my companions with a feeling of relief, as if I had been obliged to do a lot of caving (??) and this was finally going to free me of having to do an activity I didn't enjoy.

While we were crawling around, I was gathering dirt in addition to some other unclear objective (there was a reason we were under there). The next snippet I remember was a contest involving making a concoction with an inedible substance that would resemble as closely as possible a food or personal care product (??). My item was a skin cream simulacrum, made by whipping up the collected dirt with some store-bought lotion (apparently we could use a certain amount of ready-made product). I whipped it up until it looked like light-colored chocolate mousse (which begs the question of why I didn't call it chocolate mousse) and labeled it as a beauty product.

The judging involved normal consumers looking at the products (not knowing about the inedible ingredients) and choosing which they were most interested in buying. There was a lady who was very excited about my skin cream and wanted to buy some and use it immediately. I wasn't sure what the procedures were going to be for the rest of the contest, but I was very concerned that she was actually going to try to use some--I kept picturing her applying what was basically mud to her arms. I dropped several broad hints, but she wasn't taking them and I got more and more panicked about how to stop her from trying the cream.

After that I was stuck in traffic, which is a frustrating thing to dream about, since I spent about an hour stuck in terrible traffic on my way home yesterday. I was able to drive at almost full speed for a while in the dream, although traffic ahead was slowing drastically. Suddenly one of the tires on my car blew out, but I managed to calmly brake and pull over without rear-ending the car in front of me. When the insurance people showed up (insurance people show up to accidents?), they knew me already because apparently we had been ordering a lot of miscellaneous car parts and they had a lot of dealings with the parts people. What a boring snippet....

Elephant in the Lake

Last night I dreamed a rather complicated and convolunted story that may not make complete sense here (it sure didn't last night). I was playing a character in this dream: a man who had a best friend. These two friends had possibly the most tragic lives of anyone outside of a Victorian melodrama. My character had a lovely wife, who eventually died. His best friend, however, had a much more tragic existence. He also had a lovely wife, with a lovely child. The child died early in the dream. This couple had also bought and restored a vintage hotel that was located on the shores of a large, picturesque lake (something like a fjord). At some point in the dream, my character visited the hotel in its finished state. My friends had apparently dredged out of the fjord a cement elephant that had originally belonged to the hotel, reinstalled it in the courtyard, and painted it blue. Other parts of the vintage hotel had also been restored, including a cave tour (apparently the hotel was built on an outcropping of limestone, which lends itself well to cave formation). In the cave, inexplicably, was the advancing edge of a glacier. My friend's wife blithely climbed up to touch it, showing me how easy it was, but I remained reluctant. It seemed to be tempting fate to touch a glacier.

At some point in the dream, I visited my friend on a wine-making commune, where he and his family were staying and working. I got a tour of the winery, the vineyards, and this blissful meadow, where (I swear this is true) children were frolicking in the flowers. There were some heartbreakingly beautiful blue flowers in the meadow and I remember thinking that it was all too good to be true.

Sure enough, I later heard that my friend and his child had died of cholera (??), leaving his wife alone at the resort hotel. I immediately went to visit her (my wife was also dead by this time). On my visit, it became clear that she was planning to kill herself, as she had nothing left to live for. She passed on to me her dead husband's identity, though, providing me a way to start over (from what, I'm not sure). She gave me his ID card, and told me that I could take over the hotel and give myself a fresh start. I was sad that she was going to die, but I understood her position. After all, I had lost my family too.