Good morning, everybody.
Dream #1
I walked into a bookstore. I got into the bookstore by heading down into a basement. The bookstore was just a huge, empty room with wood walls and green carpet. At the far end of the room was a checkout counter, which was also made of wood. There may have been a couple of tall machines behind the counter.
There were two guys behind the counter. I had apparently spoken with the guys before. Now I was coming back. Both the guys seemed pretty cool. They were both probably in their late forties or early fifties. One of the guys stood up and spoke with me. He was tall, with short, grey and black hair. We chatted for a moment.
The other guy, who was sitting obscured behind one of the tall machines, poked his head out. He told me that he and his friend were just getting ready to have a beer. This implied that he'd like me to join them for a beer.
I thought about it for a moment and said that I really couldn't. I could hang around for a bit, but I couldn't drink any beer just then. I felt bad because I knew these guys were starting to think of me as their friend. If I didn't drink a beer with them, they'd think I was just thinking of them as bookstore owners, not as friends.
Whatever I'd said must have been kind of ambiguous, because now the long-haired guy was having me head downstairs with him while he got the beers. The downstairs area was about as big as the upstairs area, but the ceilings were a little lower. There were two wet bars, I believe: one on the right wall and one on the left. The guy went behind the bar on the left wall. But I was looking at the bar on the right wall.
The scene stayed the same, but it was now a meeting hall instead of a bookstore. There were a bunch of seats to my left (as I faced the right wall), all facing the back wall. There was a little stage jutting out of the back wall. A woman stood on the stage, haranguing a half-full crowd. The crowd may mostly have been young adults or older children. The woman may have been doing something like trying to incite a revolution.
I was drawn into the situation somehow by someone who had been standing off to the side. I can't remember how I got drawn in. It may have been that somebody'd called attention to something I'd done, maybe something stupid.
Dream #2
I was just walking back to a hamburger stand I worked at, after I'd gone to get some kind of help for the place. It was early evening. The sun had set, and the sky was a cool silver blue. The hamburger stand was stout and white. There were a few sections on the left side (as I faced it) that were open to the outside, just like open-air counters people could sit at. Around those counters there were also a few outdoor tables, probably circular and made of concrete edged with pebbles.
I sat down at the counter. Some guys coming from off to my left were bringing trays full of Mexican food. It actually looked like food from Taco Bell. There seemed to be plates and plates of Nacho Supremes. This was what I'd done for the hamburger stand. The place had been running out of one specific kind of food. I'd needed to ask another fast food place to give us a comparable kind of food, so we could keep selling. So I'd gotten the taco stand to give us all this food.
As one of the guys was loading food onto the counter, I tried, in a really horrible way, to say, "Thank you. You really helped us," in Spanish. I apologized in English for my terrible Spanish before I spoke the Spanish. And my Spanish was really horrible. I can't remember it now, except that I think I said something like "me lo ayuda" for "you helped us."
The guy I spoke to in Spanish was now like my manager at the hamburger stand. He walked behind me then sat down at the counter, to my right. I was saying that if this place sold out of food, it must be really popular. The man said that it actually wasn't popular, due to one of the items on the menu.
I asked what the item was. The man seemed really hesitant to tell me. But he eventually said that people didn't like the fries. I thought about it as I looked into the store and saw people sitting at the inside tables. I thought I saw the man's point. Maybe, I suggested, the people thought the fries were bland? The man nodded.
Dream #3
I was in a bedroom. It may have been night. There was an incandescent light on in the room. I was probably cleaning the bedroom. I was probably in the room with one of my siblings, who may have been a child. There were two bunk beds against the back wall of the bedroom. My sibling sat on the lower bunk of the right bunk bed.
I sat on the floor in between the two beds. I probably had a stack of used baby diapers -- used by me, likely, even though I was my current age -- before me on the floor. There were also sheets of newspaper scattered all over the floor, as well as stuffed animals everywhere. There may also have been some kind of grainy substance, like salt or sand, strewn in places on the floor. Yet I had been cleaning the room, and I'd thought I'd gotten to a point where the room was nearly clean.
My mom walked into the room. The first thing I worried about was the diapers. I didn't know how to explain them. Nobody else used this room. So obviously the baby diapers were mine. But my mom didn't seem to be aware of the diapers. At first, I think, she just thought that the place looked really messy. I think she was asking me questions about that.
I think I answered that I was going through the cleaning in layers. I'd cleaned a number of layers, but I left the layers of stuff that I'd thought I still needed. That was, for instance, why I'd left the sheets of newspaper on the floor. I'd also left all the stuffed animals. I wasn't going to throw the stuffed animals out. They belonged to my sibling (my sister?), and I respected the fact that my sibling liked stuffed animals.
Suddenly my mom got very angry and started asking me about the diapers. I didn't know how to explain them at all. I think I only mentioned that I was planning on throwing them away as soon as possible.
I was now out walking alone on a road that ran through a flat, grassy plain. It was probably early evening. The sky was really beautiful, with shades of blue and pink. The colors in the sky may have shifted from time to time, so that there were always new, brilliant combinations of evening colors. I was apparently engaged on the task of taking something back to some place.
But someone behind me caught my attention. I turned around. The person was probably a woman, maybe in her forties or fifties. She was blonde, dressed in a tan suit with a skirt that went down to about her kneest. She had her hair up in a short, tight, style. Her hair was blonde and grey. She looked very beautiful and stately, but a little worn out. She held five knives, with their points down, close to her chest. The knives had silver handles. They may just have been butter knives.
The woman asked me what I was doing. I may have replied that I'd been sent out to return the stuffed animals that had been in the bedroom I was cleaning. "But," I told the woman, "I'm really not going to return the stuffed animals. It would be cruel to my sibling. I only needed to make it seem to my mom like I was going to do that."
The woman may have discussed something else with me, probably something that made me wonder how I was going to get home from where I was right now. I may have told the woman that it was finally getting dark, and that I'd need to make my way back home before it got too dark for me to see my way. I knew it was going to be dark soon, because the sky had taken on an intensely vivid, though deep and dim, yellow-green glow at the horizon.
So I started walking back home. I reached something like an intersection. The road crossing the road I was on was small, like the road I was on. But it was busy, and big trucks occasionally ran down it. Right across the road was a river. The road I was on crossed the river, but not quite in a direct line with the stretch of road I was on. The crossing was a little off to one side.
Just then it became pitch black. I couldn't see anything at all. The headlights from the cars on the road may have given me a little light. But I think that usually the cars were even driving without headlights. The only lights I constantly saw were the lights of the town I was trying to get back to. But they didn't provide enough light for me to see where I was going.
I'd managed to cross the busy road. I was now at the river. I was trying to find the crossing. But I couldn't find it in the dark. I would edge my way from side to side along the bank of the river (which was just off the edge of the busy road), nudging into the air with one of my toes, trying to hit the solid structure that I'd know was the crossing. But I couldn't find it. I thought I'd just try to cross the river by wading across the river. But I knew the river was too deep for that.
I edged my way over to the left, still poking my foot out to find the crossing. But now a huge semi-truck came barreling down the road. I must have been a little bit into the road. The truck screeched to a stop, almost, I thought, hitting me. I could feel the waves of heat pouring off the truck and flowing along my back.
Suddenly I fell down, almost like I'd fainted. I was lying on the ground, right underneath the front left tire of the truck. I was wrapped up in a white sheet, like swaddling clothes, or a burial sheet. I started to wonder if I hadn't been hit by the truck after all. The headlights for the truck were now on. I could see them.
The driver got out of the truck and ran to see me. I didn't feel hurt. I didn't know whether I was injured. I figured I could probably still use all my limbs, though, for some reason, I didn't want to try at the moment. The driver may have attempted to lift me out from under the tire. He may have succeeded. Other drivers may have stopped and gathered around the front of the truck. I heard the flat, desperate scream of a woman.
Dream #4
I was at my great grandmother's house. (
My great grandmother died about three years ago in waking life.) It was daytime, and golden sunlight filtered into the living room, like it always did.
I was here with my mom and my sister. My great grandma had had some kind of bad accident. We all thought she was going to die. But now she was up and walking around the house, taking care of household chores. But, for some reason, either my mom and my sister or just my mom thought my great grandma was still going to die.
I was trying to be a bit more positive about things. I tried to help my grandma out with her household chores. I had been in the hallway, maybe walking out from my grandma's bedroom. I could see my grandma walking around in the living room. I then walked into the "guest bedroom," the spare bedroom my grandma kept available for family members who wanted to stay the night. I could see my grandma heading toward the guest bedroom.
I was doing something like arranging a huge pile of quilts on the bed. The pile was all stacked up neat and orderly. These were all quilts my grandma had made. The top one probably had a red and green design on it. As my grandma walked into the room, she discussed something with me. She may have spoken about smoothing out the quilt's top. Or she may not have discussed it. But that's what I was doing, for some reason.
My grandma and I started having an interesting conversation (of course -- I forget it now!). I was really engaged on one point, when suddenly I saw my grandpa (
my mom's dad, who died about four years ago in waking life) coming toward the bedroom. For some reason, the door to the bedroom was open only a crack. But I could still see my grandpa.
I stopped what I was talking about in mid-sentence. I didn't want my grandpa to be involved in the conversation, for some reason.
When my grandpa came into the room he said something nice to my grandma. He said something else to both me and my grandma. I smiled and treated my grandpa very politely and listened to what he had to say.
My grandma walked out of the room.
My grandpa switched his position so that I kind of had to face away from the bed. I may have held one of the quilts in my arms. I may have been folding it, so I may have held it folded over one of my arms.
My grandpa told me something like, "When I died, at first I was a little woozy. I woke into the new world, but I didn't know what it was. Slowly I began to see things clearly again. But only a little bit. And that's when I saw angels. The angels were all facing in different directions, each to a different specific location in the world. One angel faced toward Argentina. Another angel faced toward Venezuela..."
I could see, in my mind's eye, a place full of light. At certain points, the bright, shining, white light seemed to resolve itself into clouds. There may have been golden gates at certain places in the clouds. In the clouds stood angels. The angels were, in fact, spaced widely apart and facing in all different directions. I think I figured that there must have been one angel for every country in the world.
I was walking along the pedestrian portion of a large bridge, crossing over a large river. The pedestrian walkway was enormous, and the bridge must have been enormous as well. I was walking up toward a stairway up to the next section of walkway. The stairway ran between two walls of huge, stone blocks. It was a bright, clear day. But in the shade it felt cold, and there may have been some ice on the steps.
I thought to myself what a comfort it was that my grandpa had visited me. I thought that now that he had shared his vision of the afterlife with me, I'd be much less afraid of dying. I probably thought of the experience as a dream, but I may have kept a little feeling with me that it had actually, physically, happened inside my great grandma's house.
I thought I'd share the experience I'd had with my family. But, walking out from between the stone walls and out onto the next walkway (which may also have had coatings of ice or snow along its edges), I thought that I may not share the experience. I felt like my mom, and possibly my aunt, had had experiences already with my grandpa and great grandma. I didn't want their experiences to conflict with my experiences, and I didn't want them to change their accounts of their own experiences so they would fit in with my account.
I passed some sort of stone gate along the walkway. The walkway, which had been sloping up slightly, now became much flatter. I figured I was about halfway across the bridge by now. A dog came running up past the gates. It was a border collie. The man with the dog was still behind the gate. He was out jogging with his dog. But the dog had run a ways ahead of the man.
The dog lay down right at a spot in the path where the coatings of snow had become so wide as to take up all but a central portion of the path. The dog was rolling around, growling, and baring his teeth so frantically that I was afraid to approach it. It seemed like a violent dog that would attack me if I got near it. But I was still a ways away from where the dog had stopped, and I figured I wouldn't have to worry about what to do for a few more seconds.
But now the man came running up from behind me. He quickly reached the dog. The man appeared to be in his fifties. He looked healthy, muscular, and tan. He was bald and wore sunglasses, a red (or rusty tan?) t-shirt and some running shorts. He cheerfully told me (I was still a ways away) that the dog was actually a good dog and wasn't anything to worry about, especially since the man was now with him. The man may even now have had the dog on a leash.
But as I approached the point in the path where the man and the dog stood -- not moving forward, the man maybe jogging in place -- the dog began barking violently and frantically. The dog then did some weird move where it rolled through a puddle. The puddle splashed unbelievably high, sending a wave of water toward me. The water swept over me and shocked me.
I backed up, out of the way of the wave. But I still thought of approaching the point in the path where the dog stood. But now, when the dog barked, sheets of cold, clear rain dropped from the sky! They seemed to fall in time with the dog's bark! The sky was completely clear, but the sheets of rain would still fall. I backed up quite a bit, maybe all the way back behind the gates I'd crossed when the dog had first passed me.
I waited until the rains stopped. Then I began walking forward again. I think the dog and man were still at the point on the bridge. But now a group of teachers and students were approaching from the other side of the bridge. I think this may have made the dog less violent.
I crossed the part of the walkway that was really coated in snow. I was now on a much thinner section of walkway. I could actually see out, on both sides, to the river we were crossing over. We were really high over the river! I could also see the big city on the other side of the river.
I think I crossed two groups of teachers and students. The teachers were all pretty, smart-looking women, probably in their late twenties. The students may mostly have been girls. A lot of the students looked like they came from places other than America.
I think the first group of students I passed didn't react much to me. But I passed the second group of students as I was reaching a particularly thin portion of the walkway -- again, it may possibly have seemed thinner only because a large portion of it was taken up by a coating of snow.
I believe I had tried to make space for the children by getting as far off to the side as I could. But the teachers made all the students turn their backs on me and stretch out their arms. It was like the children and teachers were all making a fence. The teachers were like fence posts, all evenly spaced between the students. The students, I notice, all wore pink wool caps and pink wool scarves and pea coats of some maroon-purplish color.
At first I felt like the teachers had put this "human fence" in place specifically to block me from crossing the bridge. But the students weren't blocking the passage at all. In fact, they even seemed to be standing up on the coating of snow, completely faced away from me. So now I wondered if the teachers had put this "human fence" where they'd put it so I'd have no chance of seeing any of the children's faces, like, if I saw the children's faces, I would do something perverted to the children.
Dream #5
I was down in the subway in New York City. The subway platform I was on was really big and really crowded. But it was also constructed so that it felt really tiny and tight. The walls arced over toward the tracks very steeply. The light was a dirty, glaring white fluorescent light.
A group of kids, maybe in their early twenties, stood behind me, around me in a half-circle, like they had gravitated toward me and were trying to make me a part of their group. From their conversation I gathered that the kids had come from Texas. They were here as tourists. This was their first day here. They had probably only gotten here a few hours ago. They were now headed back to their hotel.
But they felt that they hadn't seen enough. They hadn't really known how to get around. And they were worried that tomorrow they still wouldn't know how to get around. They wouldn't be able to use their time efficiently. And they wouldn't be able to see all the sights they wanted to see.
There were a few guys and a couple of girls. The girls all looked pretty, clean, casually dressed, but well made-up. The guys were all kind of scraggly, sunburnt, with messy hair and messy clothes. But the guys and the girls were all cool. Even though they were upset about not knowing what they were doing, they all seemed to be joking and laughing with each other.
I turned toward the guy who stood directly behind me. He had scraggly, tightly curled, blonde hair, a red-pink and pale white face, and he wore a dark, dingy blue t-shirt. I told the guy, kind of speaking to him over my shoulder, "You know, the easiest way to do this is just to get a subway map. You can find out where everything is where you want to go. Then just look at the subway map to see where you need to catch the trains to get there."
The man said that he didn't want to spend a lot of money on some map. But I told him the subway map was free. He seemed surprised by this and asked me how he could get a subway map. I told him, "You just go to the subway booth. At a lot of stops, you'll see, right past the exits, a little, silver structure with a worker sitting at it. You just go up to that worker and ask for a subway map. Look. I'll show you."
I led the kids over to the stairway (or set of stairways?) that led up to the turnstiles leading out of the station. Just past the turnstiles was a service booth. A worker sat at the booth. The kids all went up to the booth to ask for a map. I hoped the booth wasn't out of maps. It wasn't. The kids got their maps. I watched one of the boys pull out his wallet and slide his subway card through the turnstile.
We all started walking back down the steps to the platform. The kids all told me thanks. Apparently, now that the kids knew their way around (of course, they hadn't even opened the maps yet), they were heading off on some different train. But I think the kids wanted me to be friends with them and help them out in getting places while they were touring around here. I thought I should give them my phone number or email address.
But I couldn't tell if they really wanted me around. So I told the kids that I had to hurry away to catch my train. I ran off to the right as they headed down another set of stairs off to the left.
***
UPDATE: A discussion of some of the images in these dreams can be found at this entry in my dreamday journal.
UPDATE 2: Added one drawing to dream #3 and one drawing to dream #4, July 27, 2012, 3:29 PM, Mountain Standard Time.
