Baby

Somehow, I had a baby. Theoretically I had given birth to it, although that part didn’t figure into the dream at all. In fact, although my baby had apparently just been born, it was beautiful in the way that few, if any, newborns are: it had creamy ivory skin, downy hair, bright eyes, and a perfect little mouth. Oh, and it spoke in complete sentences. That part was especially impressive. Even in the dream, that seemed a particularly unusual feature.

I marveled at the baby’s beauty and intelligence and I loved it intensely—I just wanted to hold it and stare at it and kiss it. And I could tell it loved me back! It would affectionately snuggle up to me, and since it could speak, it also told me as much, although I can’t remember now exactly what it said. I liked the way it would put its head on my shoulder when I carried it on my back.

At one point in the dream I was carrying it on my back while I attended to other business, and suddenly realized I was missing it. I remember thinking something along the lines of, “Awwww, man! I KNEW I wasn’t responsible enough for this!” But then I discovered that one of the women I work with had taken my baby and another friend’s baby to put them in a double-cradle for a nap, so that was okay.

There were several of us with babies, actually, including a grad school friend whose baby looked rather like the Renaissance baby Jesuses she studies, and I think my aunt Teri. I was thankful to have them to ask for advice. Near the end of the dream, I realized I’d never had my baby weighed, measured, or in any other way tested after it was born, and wondered if I should find a doctor to do that. “No,” one of the other mothers assured me, “it’s better this way!” The reasoning was something about not buying in to the idea of comparing with others, or false progress, or something like that.

In real life, I do not want a baby, although I do enjoy other people’s. But this dream was kind of amazing, particularly for the mutual adoration between the baby and me, an emotional sensation that has lingered since I woke up. In the past I’ve had very anxious dreams about caring for someone else’s child and something going terribly wrong, but in this case, even though the baby was (yikes!) mine, it was all very positive and generally affirming.

Chocolate

I was in a cafe somewhere in the gray Northwest, near the Sound. I had been sitting at the bar, with my book, and had gone to an automated kiosk to buy a ferry ticket. I suddenly realized I didn't have my wallet, although I'm not sure in retrospect how I was able to buy the ticket without it. I rushed back to the cafe, and my wallet was sitting right there on the bar, open, but not missing anything. There was a fragment of mirror there, and I realized that the mirror in my wallet had broken (although in real life, it doesn't have a mirror).

I don't remember if my dad came in after I had arrived, or whether he'd appeared while I had been gone. In any case, it was unmistakably my dad, but he looked extremely young, with unlined skin, a halo of wavy light brown hair, and huge eyes with dark eyelashes. He looked sort of like he did in the pictures I'd been looking at in my grandma's photo albums, and also kind of like my brother.

He talked to me animatedly and enthusiastically, as though he was really trying hard to communicate some point, but I couldn't understand what he was telling me. I do remember him saying that he had accidentally eaten "about six hundred dollars' worth" of chocolate; apparently the tiny candy covered gourmet chocolates were $20 (or was it $2?) per ounce. He showed me a few in a little box, but they had somehow been priced in bulk instead of by the box.

He thought this was kind of funny. Eating that much chocolate is totally something my dad would do; paying that much for it is not.

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.

Talking In Your Sleep

So last night I had a very disturbing dream which I don't want to talk about, but let's just say it had to do with an incest rape. It was really random, and bothersome, and that's enough of that. But when I woke up, the boyfriend was all, "what were you dreaming about?" and I was all, "uh, nothing." because I was suspicious of why he was asking.
"You kept talking about yarn." Is how he followed up.
"Yarn? Like knitting?"
"Yep."
...
"Weird"

So I have no idea where that came from. But I do talk in my sleep very often, so that part isn't surprising.

And as I'm blogging away, he's passed out on my bed, and just muttered to me, "I'm glad it's on your bed. See you later." and earlier, right after I sneezed he said, "It wasn't me!"