weird combination

In all this time I haven't posted, of course I've had a lot of dreams. Last night's were particularly impressive, though. First, I had a terrible dream about my husband getting shot in the head. We were somewhere with a group of very young people (I don't know if we were as young in the dream, or just out of place). We were hanging around in a semi-derelict house, and one of the guys had a gun. He started messing around with it, shooting out the door at something outside. In theory it wasn't supposed to be dangerous because he was just shooting at a target, but somehow he accidentally shot my husband in the back of the head.

I don't need to go on about how awful that was, because it's self-evident. He was still alive, though, so the awfulness just escalated. The kids freaked out and didn't want to take responsibility (didn't even want to call 911). Of course I immediately started to try to stanch the blood (of which there was surprisingly little) and call 911. I failed at first at calling because I kept getting distracted with my first-aid attempts. Then, every time I tried to dial I couldn't get it right. I accidentally entered the wrong sequence of numbers, an extra number appeared at the end, I accidentally erased all the numbers, I pushed the wrong button, I accidentally hung up on the dispatcher, etc. etc. I couldn't find my own phone, which had fallen down somewhere, and kept trying on a variety of phones that were lying around, none of which I could figure out how to use (usually it was the crucial "call" button that I couldn't locate). Finally I decided to look for help on foot, while simultaneously trying to prevent the kids from burying my still-alive husband to hide the evidence of their accident. I eventually ran into some people outside who seemed helpful and competent. I think at that point I must have woken up and realized that he hadn't actually been shot, because I don't remember how it ended.

The other part was considerably less harrowing. I was composing poetry, which is something that I think I've dreamed occasionally before*. Usually when that happens I can't remember any of it in the morning, but this time I remembered part of it. It was a medium-sized poem, so at least half of it is probably gone for good. The missing part was along the same lines. I think it was inspired in part by some recent thinking about my personality and priorities and how to deal with people with conflicting personalities and priorities; and in part by a book I've been reading about slowness. Anyway, this is all I remember:

Manifesto

We reserve the right to dawdle, to hem and haw, to hedge.

We write poetry in our dreams, and knowing that it was graven once in the gray folds of our unconscious is enough.

We are not waiting for happiness.

We know it when we see it.

I found the dream really interesting and amusing, because I remember the thought process I went through choosing the wording there, including a debate about whether the word "graven" was too stilted (I'm still very much on the fence about that). I think the lines that came more easily were the ones I forgot.

*In real life, I haven't dabbled in poetry since late adolescence, when I think one is contractually obligated to do so.

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.

gross and girly

I dreamed the other night that I was staying with my husband at my parents' house (they weren't there). I had apparently disposed of some leftovers (a lot of beans, and some other miscellaneous food) in the upstairs bathroom toilet, but hadn't flushed for some reason that seemed perfectly legitimate at the time.

Three girls in their mid to late 20s were there, for some reason I can't remember. Neither of us knew them, but their presence there had been pre-arranged through some sort of lodging swap program. We had just gotten home from somewhere, and I had decided that it was the perfect time to broach the subject with him of whether or not we were ever going to have kids. I have no idea why I found this the ideal time, especially with the three visitors in the house, but I was convinced it was the perfect opportunity, so I cornered him on the piano bench and started questioning him.

He wasn't as forthcoming as I had expected, and the conversation soon fizzled out. I was walking around the house doing chores, and he was in the living room messing with his phone. I ascertained that he was calling, or trying to call, a girl, and got very disturbed about this--especially since I took it as a reaction to my effort to get him to decide on the procreation question.

I decided to just stay upstairs and occupy myself with things and let him call whoever he wanted. I would then react as warranted to whatever ended up happening. Alarmingly, though, I looked over the second floor balcony and saw the three female visitors lounging in the living room in see-through 1950s lingerie (all three of them had very vintage/rockabilly hair and makeup). Great, my husband is in the living room making a "booty call" while surrounded with three women in various states of undress, looking like Suicide Girls itching for an orgy! I was quite unhappy but determined to maintain my sangfroid. The most annoying thing was my impression that I was expected to waltz down there and join in their orgy with them (even though said orgy had not started and was possibly only a figment of my imagination).

I went into the bathroom fuming and flushed the toilet. Unfortunately, though, the garbage had sat in there long enough to start getting fizzy, and the whole thing blew and splattered all over the place when I tried to flush it. There were little bits of decomposing garbage all over, including on my eyelashes. I went out to inform the charming group below that the toilet had exploded and that I was going to have to clean the whole bathroom and then take a shower (what better way to discourage them from including me in their orgy?).

I never did get my shower, although I did get the bits of slime rinsed off my face. The girls had come upstairs and I gradually caught on that they did not, in fact, intend to involve our couple in an orgy. On realizing that, I started to warm to them and we ended up in my old room talking about vintage clothes, various sewing and crafty things, and selling on etsy. I started rooting around in my old dresser and came up with handfuls of really neat old pajamas--lots of hand-embroidered silk and that kind of thing.

The whole encounter turned out rather pleasant, except that after having rinsed my face I hadn't put on any lotion, so my face was very tight and itchy. Also, I realized that since my parents weren't there--and since the girls weren't there to engage in an orgy--we had three separate bedrooms to lodge them in. The only problem was that the other two bedrooms available hadn't been cleaned in quite some time and were crawling with dust bunnies, which I found very embarrassing. (Garbage-spattered clothing and dried-up face showing messy and dirty lodging space to very cute, put-together visitors. Great.) I don't even want to think about what this dream says about me or my sense of self, but once again I've managed to generate a surreal and unwholesome list of labels.

co-worker dream

In addition to a lot of other stuff that I can't remember, I dreamed that I was at a doctor's office for some minor ailment. They sent in a nurse for my preliminary check-up, and I guess she had looked at my employment information because she said--very excitedly--"you work with Such-and-Such Male, right?" I said yes, and then she asked, "has he been around lately?", to which I replied that he had. She said, "oh, because he hasn't returned any of my calls. I keep trying to get ahold of him and leaving messages, and I haven't heard anything back." At that point I thought maybe I shouldn't have said that he'd been around. She finished up her exam, and before she left said, very insistently and enthusiastically, "tell So-and-So that if he wants to get together and do anything, go out or anything, I'm totally up for it".

Poor thing.

I related it to the coworker in question this morning, and he asked if I had been withholding any messages from him.

back to school

I had sort of a back-to-school dream last night. I was getting set up in a dorm, my roommate seemed nice, I had some cute clothes and dorm furnishings, so overall it was agreeable. There was an unpleasant bit where I got hung up on getting ready to go to the library to study, though. I kept putting on more and more and more makeup, wondering why I was doing it and why it wasn't making me look better [and now I wonder what that was all about, because it was significantly more makeup than I ever actually wear]. I made a resolution that I was just going to stop where I was, go to the library, try not to worry about looking like a clown, and henceforth be an effortless natural beauty (!). I felt rather optimistic about my future as an E.N.B.

The other disagreeable part of the dream was my ex-boyfriend calling just as I was getting ready to leave. I was puzzled about how he had gotten my new number so quickly, and I was really annoyed because, although I didn't have anything against talking to him from time to time, I had a sense that he was going to start calling really frequently and I wouldn't be able to figure out how to get him to stop without being rude and hurting his feelings.

And I just had a flashback to a dream that I had completely forgotten, from a few weeks ago. I don't remember the story line, just images. It involved a fantastically overcrowded house (not mine) and a blues singer. The whole atmosphere was very Deep South.

unsuitable boy toy

One thing I dreamed last night was that I had an iPhone. I liked it, but I felt a little bit silly thinking I was part of a Great Community of iPhone users. I think there was an iPhone users' club having a convention somewhere, although I wasn't part of it.

The other part of the dream started at the end of a story line that I can't remember at all. In the previous story line I had met a very young guy, a babyfaced black teenager. I think I had met him in a professional context, and was surprised when he kept hanging around. It was time for me to leave wherever it was that I had been, and he proposed that I give him a ride somewhere. There was a certain amount of waiting around in the car, but I can't remember whether I was waiting for him or he was waiting for me. After a while I realized that all along he had been asking me out on a date. That realization horrified me on several levels: he was way too young for me, and I wasn't attracted to him anyway; it had taken an embarassingly long time to realize what his intentions were; I had probably acted unprofessionally by accepting his invitation; I was now "leading him on", etc.. I tried to think of a way to extricate myself without creating an awkward situation, but couldn't, so I just kept thinking of lame excuses and things I had to stop and do, hoping that he would get bored and go on home by himself. It was pretty excruciating. Also, embarrassingly*, he was dabbling in very small-time drug dealing, and I knew I should try to dissuade him from it but wasn't sure how.

[I don't know what's up with these dreams wherein some unsuitable guy is pursuing me or I'm "supposed" to be dating him. It was kind of fun to be able to say this morning that I had dreamed I had a "boy toy", though.]

*embarrassing because it's so racial-profiling-y.

Teaching

For some reason, Ellen and I were sleeping by the side of the road in a city. There were beds there, and even a toilet in the middle of nowhere--which I used, right out in the open, with a sense of something being slightly out of place, but hardly even of shyness.

Later, I was in the TA office at school, where I saw one of my friends with huge dark rings under her eyes. Instead of asking her if she was okay, I asked her if there was anything I could do to help her. She brightened up, and said that actually I could help cut out all of these little figures out of colored paper. But as I was about to help her, I got a call from one of my students. In real life, this student's name is Evin, and I think she's a girl, but in the dream it was a boy. Partly due to the connection, and partly due to his circuitousness, I couldn't figure out what he wanted from me. I kept giving him generic tips about being a better student and trying to reassure him, but I wasn't sure it was working.

When I hung up with him, another student wanted to talk to me. She had very curly hair and skin that actually looked like porcelain. I couldn't remember her name, but I glanced at her paper, and said, "Do you go by Lyligia?" She did. I had apparently given her a C+ on this paper, and she couldn't figure out why, because she'd worked so hard and "shared some really meaningful things." So I looked at the paper, and remembered that although she had presented some very personal details, the essay overall was fragmented and non-cohesive. "And how long is it?" I asked. "Seven pages, single spaced," she answered. "The assignment was for three pages, double-spaced," I responded, "so this doesn't fulfill the assignment requirements."

I guess I was dreaming about grading since I've so far managed to do so little in my waking life. Sigh.

Reunion

(Wow, this got long! It was the first even vaguely coherently narrative dream I'd had in a long time, probably because I accidentally slept for about 11 hours last night.)

I was back at my high school reunion, but in the dream we seemed to alternate between being teenagers and our current ages. At one point, we were on a bus, and our class sponsor (the physics teacher) was explaining to us something about being able to ride back on the bus, or to take our own transportation and go out. He seemed to be strongly encouraging a drink called "Burma," because it would fit nicely into the theme of what we'd been studying. I did some research, and found a book with really cool old labels from various brands of Burma, and recipes for exotic snacks that made nice accompaniments to it. I never got to taste Burma, although we did go out later; all I remember is that the waitress brought me what was supposed to be a beer, but there were only about two inches in the tall glass, and it tasted like apple juice.

The next day(?) there was some sort of vespers-thing, of which I don't remember much, except that the girls and boys were separated and that at the end, the RAs were the first out. These included people I'd seen at the reunion, in their current state, and at least one who wasn't an RA in school.

From there, we headed to the cafeteria. It was raining, and I was walking by myself. As I turned a corner, I saw a boy from high school, who had liked me a lot then and whom I'm afraid I didn't treat as well as I should have. He hadn't been at our actual reunion. I started crying when I saw him, and we walked toward each other as though everything was going to be okay (I've had the everything-is-going-to-be-okay dream about him before, actually). But then he turned into another (girl) friend from high school, who had been at the reunion, and who was also crying. I was disappointed, but we hugged and went inside the cafeteria together.

My mom still worked there, as did the rest of the foodservice staff from my senior year. I said hi to them in the kitchen, and then we went to find tables in the dining room, which had been set up for some sort of banquet.

The next day was graduation, and it was sunny. A friend and I were walking to the gym for the ceremony, and realizing that I was dressed quite conservatively. I was even wearing nylons, with a dress I recognized as one I'd purchased 10 years ago. I got out my phone to make a call, and when I opened it, my uncle was on the line--he had been trying to call me just as I was trying to call (him?). He was trying to tell me where I should meet him in the gym ("Adam Tennessee"?). I was really excited to see him, but something seemed vaguely wrong and/or sad at the same time that it seemed completely natural. I think I knew there was some reason I hadn't been able to, and wouldn't be able to see him, although I'm not sure I realized in the dream that it was because he was killed almost four years ago.

We got to the gym and were looking for him and my dad, who had also called, but couldn't find them. At some point, one of the security/organization people was walking by with a walkie-talkie, and I could hear my uncle on the other end, trying to either explain or figure out this AdamTenessee business. I tried to make another call with my phone, but realized that it had somehow been smashed and misshapen, although the new shape did end up being rather rounded and ergonomic. I was mostly disappointed that it wasn't all little and compact and as easy to slip into a back pocket as it had been. I never got to see my dad, or my uncle.

the cell phone murderer

I took my cell phone on vacation to use as an alarm clock, and most of the times I set it at night I forget to choose a nice ringtone, so it ended up being that hideous AT&T default da-da-da/ da-da-da/ da-da-da-DUH! The last night we were there I had a terrible dream right before waking up, pretty blatantly stolen from Japanese horror-movie plots. I dreamed that there was some sort of serial killer afoot, and he has choosing his next victims based on a complicated equation generated by cell phone ringtones. When your phone went off, his computer-like brain would quickly analyze it to see if it matched up with the pattern he was looking for (kind of like the meter categorizations of hymns in the hymnbook). I don't know how he was capable of hearing all these cellphones going off, but apparently in addition to the computer-like brain he also had extraordinary aural perception.

Anyway, I was dreaming this for the first time just as my cellphone went off, and I had to grope for it, terrified, trying to shut it off before he could parse the rhythmic code and locate me. The worst thing is that I put it on "snooze" and had to repeat the terrified scrabble to turn it off when it went off again five minutes later.