I'm disappointed in you, George

Here's another embarrassing one. Alert Readers may recall that I've had two or three dreams in which George Clooney shows up randomly and reveals himself to be a charming conversationalist and a good companion to kill a little bit of time with while waiting in public places (??). Unfortunately it turns out he has a darker side below the charm.

This encounter began with my needing to take one of our dogs to the vet. I had found a vet that was more conveniently located in relation to my house and work, and wanted to try it out (inexplicably, we were living in something resembling a poor-ish neighborhood of a third-world city). The building was a three-story concrete building, with parts of it in okay shape and other parts that either had never been completed or had been destroyed by some unidentifiable catastrophe. I was poking around trying to figure out where the vet office was located (not easy, despite a prominent sign on the roof indicating that it was somewhere in the building). At some point I realized that I had forgotten to bring the dog (??), but since I didn't have time to go back for him I decided to at least locate the place and see how it looked, and maybe try to ask a couple of questions.

In the midst of my pokings-around, I ran into George, who was sitting at a counter in a cafe/bar restaurant in the building, looking out a large glassless window onto the parking area (keep in mind that the whole atmosphere was one of picturesque third-world decay, almost post-apocalyptic). I decided to play it cool and ask him if he knew where the vet's office was (you know, treat him like a regular layperson). He was, as usual, charming and helpful, and gave me directions involving navigating the destroyed part of the building that looked "like Kosovo" (his words). He then invited me to sit down and eat something with him, an offer I accepted both because I was hungry and because who would refuse a lunch invitation from George Clooney? We had a pizza, which was quite good.

We got along famously over the pizza, although I don't remember the conversation. Nor do I remember how we got to his house, but the next thing I can remember we were in his house, which had a larger selection of chotchkes displayed than you'd expect. By this time I felt like I had known him for ages, and he was being very nice, in the manner of a guy that you're getting to know and fast moving toward relationship territory with (you know, very interested in what you have to say, doing all the right body-language things to appear interested but not creepy). I was enjoying myself very much, although I certainly wasn't thinking "I'm going to have an affair with George Clooney"; he was much too smooth to provoke thoughts like that.

This is where things started to go downhill fast. In an embarrassingly ham-handed bit of G-rated symbolism, my subconscious chose to indicate his wish to take things further by having a wrapped condom drop out of his pocket onto the floor (??!?). Of course I freaked out because I had just been basking in the warm glow of his charming company and apparent general regard for me. I backed away and started sputtering, at which he abruptly lost his temper completely. He started yelling that I had been leading him on, with the reasoning that I accepted his gift of lunch ("you took the first piece of pizza, too! You just jumped in there."), and that the logical implication of that was that I was agreeing implicitly to "pay" later. I was completely crushed--what I thought was a spontaneous meeting of minds (and, well, yes, I did find him charming) was actually, in his mind, a way to get some action. I was crying by this time (loud wails and hiccups, the whole spectacle) and said, "but I'm MARRied", which I figured would surely appeal to both his reason and what gentlemanly side he did have (although I was beginning to realize I had seriously overestimated his gentlemanly side).

As I was wailing and he was berating, a young brunette slipped out of a bedroom and left the house, obviously having been there all night. Of course that didn't help things either. I beat a retreat, having completely changed my assessment of Mr. Clooney.

But that wasn't the end, oddly. A short time after I got home, someone delivered a medium-sized box, from George. I opened it and found a wild assortment of things, heavy on the books but with other things like event tickets, information on the stock market, etc. As I started to look through it, I realized that this was George's identity encapsulated in a box, and that he had somehow, drawing on his celebrity status as bosser-around of assistants and obtainer-of-favors, to assemble all this in that short amount of time (there were documents that would have had to be obtained from businesses and agencies, for example). Despite my resolve to have nothing more to do with the nefarious George, I began to soften as I realized what an effort he had made to be understood and explain himself.

What an odd and embarrassing dream. Once again, I promise I am not obsessed with Mr. Clooney. The only times I think about him are when confronted with a bit of celebrity gossip and when I have these random dreams in which he shows up. I have to say, though, I'm curious whether his Jekyll or Hyde side will show up in the next one (I doubt I've seen the last of him).

the mechanics of dream crying

I had the saddest dream last night. So sad, in fact, that I woke myself up crying (or maybe the dog barking woke me up; it was simultaneous). My husband and I were living (with other people, of course--I couldn't possibly have a dream in which I don't live in a group arrangement) in a rooftop apartment. It was really just a small box-shaped one-room building with extremely low ceilings, on top of the flat roof of an older building. I think the building itself contained a mixture of offices and apartments, and it wasn't in great shape.

We had been out and about and were returning home, if you can call such a living arrangement "home". It had been raining, and as we neared the top of the stairs leading to the roof, I noticed water pouring down the stairs from the rooftop. I made a note to let the building manager know (incidentally, the same guy who manages the building at my real-life office). It didn't really occur to me to be worried until we came out onto the roof and saw that it was completely flooded, almost up to the wall around the edges, which was about six feet tall. We could still walk through the water easily, but it was threatening to fill up the apartment to roof level. When we went inside, everyone was confusedly trying to gather up their things to evacuate. I looked around for our dogs with an increasingly sinking feeling. I asked someone about them, and just as they started to answer I brushed up against what was obviously one of their bodies floating around under the surface of the water*.

Of course no one had thought or had time to rescue our dogs, and it was terrible to think about them struggling to keep their heads above water in the middle of the crowded bunkbed setup (the room was filled with bunkbeds like a summer camp). I felt terrible realizing that if we had been there we could easily have gotten them out of there, and terrible in a different way thinking that if the roof had had proper drainage this wouldn't have happened at all.

I've always kind of wondered about the mechanics of crying in dreams, in those cases where you wake yourself up sobbing violently--how long are you actually crying in "real time" (it always seems to me like I cry for hours in the dream), and are real tears coming out? I still have no conclusion, but found it interesting that I woke up with tears in my eyes (but not streaming down my face) after what seemed like ages of crying. I also woke up slowly enough to note that I was gasping, sob-like, but my sleeping partner is a heavy enough sleeper that I've never been able to get an outside observation of whether I'm actually sobbing or just gasping.

Anyway, it was a harrowing dream, and I was very glad to hear the dogs barking when I woke up from it.


*This seems like a weird detail, that they would be floating around at a 3' depth, but I don't know enough about the physics of water and dog corpses to say whether it's really inaccurate. Another weird physics-related detail was that after we had removed the dog corpses from the flooded rooftop I was carrying them around in a garbage bag, casually slung over my shoulder--all 170 pounds of them, which I would surely not be able to do in real life, especially if racked by sobs.

Which reminds me of another gorily specific detail: I was carrying the dogs around because I hoped to find someone to flay them and preserve their hides for me, and also to remove and clean up their skulls so I could keep them as mementos**. When my husband expressed dismay at this weird and excessive desire, I said, "but think, don't you know any hunters who could do it? It would be easy for a hunter who was used to processing deer!"


**I probably shouldn't confess this, but I have considered in real life (although purely theoretically) the possibility of keeping the skull of a dead pet as a memento (in my defense, the hide idea hadn't occurred to me), although I'm sure I wouldn't due to a lack of butchering/taxidermy skills/cast-iron emotional constitution, and the fact that I don't know any local hunters.

morbid curiosity and other things

last night's dream was prompted by some time i spent on facebook prior to going to sleep. through facebook i learned about a friend of friends who passed away on sunday. it appears he has had a rough couple of years emotionally and the death may have been a suicide or an accidental overdose... no one knows yet.

i never knew this man but morbid curiosity took over and i spent a good amount of time piecing together his story through the wonders (?) of social media. i was sad to learn that he left behind two young boys and that led me to dream about holding a sobbing boy in my arms as he mourned the loss of his father. it was a rather gut-wrenching dream. upon waking up i realized that this is the third (at least) dream i have had where i remember comforting a sobbing child.

*****

today i spent the day with the department i work with at a retreat. which means lots of time together in one room. when i came home i immediately fell asleep and had a dream that one of my coworkers was blind. my interaction with him as a blind man was very detailed and i thought it was a rather strange thing to dream.

More crying

I had a night full of nightmares last night. One involved someone following me through what was ostensibly my building at work, but was much larger and more echoey. I was walking as fast as I could without appearing to walk fast, but he just kept gaining on me. I hurried to open my locker (we have to leave our stuff in lockers at work) and as I was closing it, he was behind me. I just hissed "get away," and ran out the doors onto the steps, which were much longer than my real workplace. More like the US Capitol building. I was running down the stairs, hoping I wouldn't trip, but he was behind me.

The other nightmare was more definable. At one point, I was working in a store when guy came up asking for help. He placed his hands on the counter and leaned over to ask me. He told me he was Canadian, so I made some kind of inane joke, all while noticing that his fingers were blunt appendages with pale skin and a light coating of fur.

Later, I was sneaking into a movie late and there was some confrontation over the placement of my head. Apparently I was being difficult and placed my head directly in front of a woman's view. Every time she tried to move, I also moved. I didn't think I was being difficult.

Eventually, I ended up back at my apartment, where my boyfriend was frantically writing in the office (as he's been doing for the last week, working to a deadline). He was clearly angry with me, but I didn't know why. I noticed that the office was totally empty except for his desk, chair, and computer. The walls were bare, the rug was gone, and all of my stuff was missing. I was afraid to ask him about my stuff, but I was worried about it.

He snapped that he needed to reduce the distractions, so he threw away all of my stuff. He also managed to convey that I had done something really stupid and he was very angry at me. I couldn't understand what I'd done. I tried to ask him, but he just said he had to get his work done.

I went out into the hallway, but I didn't know what to do. I was very upset and was starting to cry. I kind of wanted him to hear me crying, so maybe he'd feel sorry about being angry with me. He came out of the office and started shouting at me that I was just pretending to cry, and that I was being distracting. This naturally made me cry harder, and I woke myself up by sobbing out loud.

My sweet boyfriend, who has never done anything like his dream self, was understandably freaked out.

canophagy?!

I can't take credit for this dream, but I found it dramatic and horrible enough to want to document. My husband dreamed that my parents were visiting and we were going to eat one of our dogs (the sweet, well-behaved one)! He had to kill her so she could be eaten, which he did by shooting the back of her head. I asked him if we actually ended up eating her, and he said he didn't know, because after that he had to go off and cry [he said he also wondered afterward, still in the dream, why we hadn't decided to eat the misbehaving dog instead]. What a terrible dream, especially for someone who hardly ever remembers his dreams!

Puffy

Due to some crying last night, I knew I'd wake up with puffy eyes this morning. In my dream, I knew that, too, but when I checked myself in the mirror, my eyes were not only not puffy, but nicely made up, with mascara and eyeliner. In the dream, I "realized" that this was because I hadn't taken my makeup off before bed.

This morning's actual results weren't quite as nice.

therapeutic screaming?

i was visiting the home of a blog friend who i've never met in person. it was her and her young son and then some other faceless people. me and her son and the faceless others were sitting at this small table with short legs - obviously a child's table. i was across from the boy.

the boy got upset, as children do, about something seemingly insignificant. he started banging his open hands on the table and screaming and crying (but without tears). i instinctively knew that his upset wasn't really about the insignificant issue - rather it was built up anger and sadness about the on-going divorce and custody battle his parents are embroiled in.

i watched him throw this tantrum and i saw the faceless others move in to try and shush and soothe him. but somehow i just knew what he needed and it was to really cry and scream and be allowed to be angry. and then i found myself joining in his tantrum. i started banging my hands on the table and screaming as well. my behavior shocked him for a moment and he stopped. he gave me an irritated and confused look. i said come on! don't stop! let's get this out! i'll do it with you... let's scream and cry! he looked at me like i was crazy and then he decided to take me up on it.

this time there were real tears on his face. and i noticed warm tears rolling down my cheeks. we screamed and cried together. and then we laughed.

Ice cream bar

I don't remember if I went to the drive-through because I wanted the chocolate-covered ice cream bar, or because I saw the ice cream bar on the sign and then realized I wanted it. Either way, I definitely needed the ice cream bar. When I got to the window, they said it was 24 cents. Apparently I had already given the boy at the window my debit card, though, because he handed it back to me when I tried to give him a quarter. Somehow the fact that the ice cream bar was $0.24 wasn't as surprising to me as the fact that they'd actually run my card for that amount.

The boy was very nice, though, and because I wasn't sure how to get back onto the highway, he drove me. Or had me follow him, in his white car. I don't recall now which it was.

He dropped me at a place that was supposed to be convenient to the onramp, but as soon as he left, I got lost again. On foot, I went looking for help, and found a church. Someone told me that if I went through a certain room and then through the garden, I'd be able to see the road I needed.

As I entered the room, an older woman seated just inside the door was crying. I hesitated, and wondered whether I should comfort her or if she'd rather be left alone. I put my hand on her shoulder, and said, "Ever since I was a dean, I can't just ignore someone who's crying." Or something like that. It seemed warm and compassionate in the dream, anyway, and she smiled at me and seemed to feel better.

Then another woman noticed me and asked, "Were you in Ohio?" She recognized me, and her face was familiar, but neither in the dream nor now can I think of her name (now I can't even recall her face, except that it was roundish, and that she had wavy light brown hair). I felt a bit like an awkward celebrity.

don't kill the tiger

i was at some sort of a fair, accompanied by a large group of people from various corners of my life (work, friends, family, etc). we were walking through a an exhibit in a trailer where there were a ton of sheep giving birth all at the same time (i'm pretty sure this part of the dream was influenced by a conversation i had with ceri about a fair in mn).

as i was walking through the exhibit trailer, a saber-toothed tiger appeared out of nowhere and grabbed me by the arm and pulled me outside. it was biting down hard to where it was piercing my skin, but not hard enough to actually rip my arm off. as he was biting down, we were looking at each other straight in the eyes. a crowd gathered around me and a lady had a large knife and was ready to jump in to save me.

i pleaded with the crowd and the knife lady to keep back. i wanted to try to get away so that the tiger wouldn't have to be killed. i felt this weird connection with the tiger as we looked into each other's eyes. somehow i just knew that the tiger and i loved each other (almost like the tiger was my pet) and that he didn't want to hurt me, he was just doing what nature makes tigers do.

i was nervous, halfway wanting someone to save me but knowing that by saving me they would have to kill him. the tiger and i stood there for awhile, my arm in his teeth, looking at each other. finally he made a quick move and bit down harder which made the knife lady lunge into action and stab him in the neck, killing him.

and i sobbed and sobbed. it broke my heart that the tiger was dead.

it was a very emotional dream all around. it felt so real that i instinctively checked my arm for teeth marks when i woke up.

Panera

At my parents' house over the holiday, I've been both averaging about 10 hours of sleep and sleeping on an air mattress that tends to chill me while I'm sleeping, the combination of which seems to be resulting in frequent dreams--and odd themes. Including the last one I posted, for example, I've had three separate dreams featuring garages. Teeth have also been reappearing; two nights ago I dreamed I was wearing flexible rubber retainers, and three nights ago I was late to a dentist appointment.

Last night I dreamed I was at my Panera. The layout was relatively recognizable; I parked in the same place and I knew where the outlets were (one learns these things when one's laptop battery lasts for just four minutes). Outside, there were a lot of kids with purple hair.

As I was approaching the counter (which looked like a ticket window, with a Plexiglas barrier) to order, I got a call, from pollsters who had called me earlier in the dream. They were asking me about all sorts of Spanish names that I should have recognized but couldn't quite place. The woman at the counter tried to help me, but it wasn't working.

When another customer approached the counter, I moved away to give him room, and then got into line behind him after I finished my call, just as another woman was coming in. She pushed right up behind me, sort of squeezing me off to the side, although I kept my foot in line. When it was my turn, she drew up to the counter. "Excuse me," I said, also at the counter. "It's my turn." In real life, I generally let people cut in front of me, but in the dream I decided to stand by my rights. She was really angry--on the brink of tears. She said when I had greeted her and her friend outside the Panera weeks ago (I vaguely remembered this) that it had been a horrible, painful experience. I apologized and said I'd had no idea it had offended her so much--but that it was still my turn to order.

So I ordered, and headed for my favorite table, by the fireplace. A lot of the tables had been moved, though, and there was a raised seating area that's not there in real life. Up there, people were crowded around tables, rehearsing for a musical that appeared to be in Italian. The scene apparently took place in a cafe, with people singing out their lines from their own tables.

I went to set up my computer, but the power cord was a stretchy light blue filament, like dental tape. I was trying to figure out how to strip the ends to get to the wires so that I could attach it to my computer, and the outlet, when I woke up.

"Tangled in my blanket of clouds..."

Last night I played the making-dinner-from-nothing-and-without-grocery-shopping game, which is always exciting, especially when you're starving. I wanted to make my mom's oatmeal pancakes, but since I didn't have any eggs, called her to see if applesauce could substitute. She thought it could--but then it turned out my applesauce was moldy, so I had to call for another suggestion. At this point she suggested nuts, and as I found some sliced almonds in my freezer, I proceeded with the pancakes and promised I'd let her know how they turned out. It was this afternoon when she called to find out how they'd been (really delicious!) that my dream came back to me.

In my dream, the glass bowl in which I'd mixed the pancake batter was on the counter in my kitchen, but it was full of batter again! I couldn't believe I'd forgotten to fry up the rest of the really delicious pancakes, and thought I'd make some more. Then I realized the batter had been sitting out all night, so that probably wasn't the best idea.

Then I was eating something. Pancakes? I guess it tasted sort of like it, although they were a little gluey. For some reason, I started crying, as I was eating. And then I started choking. I couldn't breathe and I felt sick. I ran to the bathroom because I thought I would throw up, although in real life I really never throw up. I was terrified because I couldn't breathe. I woke up gasping, with my heart pounding.

It would be a better story if I could say I'd eaten my pillow or something, but I hadn't. My bedding was fine, and, thankfully, so was I.

Tears

I'm pretty sure I had been crying in my sleep, but I'm not sure why, because all I could remember of my dreams was that a girl in my department had a baby, and that an acquaintance from high school was very tan, very gay, and leading a choir (which, it was determined, I would be better off just watching).