Record interesting dreams

with several of my colleagues. Somehow, this was “work” rather than a social occasion.

As I was walking down the hall to the theater entrance, I met a pale, pasty-faced young woman with long, lank hair. I realized that she was dead, but I spoke kindly to her anyway. Big mistake. She started following me around, and I realized that I really did not want to hang around the walking dead. I ran into the theater and hurried to get a seat that was not next to the young woman. My division chair sat next to me with a big tub of popcorn, and the dead girl sat on the other side of her and kept trying to get some of the popcorn. I wondered how the dead could eat popcorn, and I could tell my chair was getting irritated. She kept pulling the popcorn away from the dead girl’s reach.

Then I woke up.

I dreamed that I was looking for my classroom and could not find it. I was walking through buildings and halls and was totally lost. Typical beginning of semester stuff.

Then I dreamed that I had a baby to take care of and I was not sure what to do with it. It seemed to be my baby. I had a yellow plastic cube that had a high-chair on one side, diaper storage and disposal on another, and everything you’d need for a baby rolled up in that one cube. I was glad, because I did not want to take up too much space with it. I stuck the cube in the closet and wondered about the appropriateness of that, since I already had one dead baby stored in the closet on a shelf. (Must clean out that closet!) I had the baby sleeping in the room that was attached to the closet. When I went in the morning to tend to it, it spoke to me and said, “I am not happy with myself.” I thought it was a bit young to be having an identity crisis, but then I figured out that its diaper needed changing. I was trying to balance the baby in one hand and get the stuff I needed with the other, and I was being self-critical because I thought I was handling it awkwardly.

This dream has “neglected aspect of myself” written all over it, but I am not sure what the aspect is.

Then a dream a colleague had about me: She dreamed that she came to my house, and that it was a period house that I had restored and decorated according to the period, though she was not sure of the period. It had high windows with three kinds of material on each, one of which was Battenburg lace. The house looked gorgeous. In the dream, Nick was well again.

Lowe’s. A home improvement store. But since houses and buildings in my dreams are always reflective of me, I see this as my desire to improve myself. I have been exploring many avenues of improvement, so this is a natural dream to have.

In the dream, I got out of my car and realized I was pretty far from the store (far from my goals). I decided that that was okay, since my car would not get dinged up (a reflection that yes, I have a new, undented vehicle and I am careful where I park it).

I walked into the store and started looking at clothing. I asked myself if Lowe’s had started carrying clothing, and I realized I was in the wrong store.

I walked out of the store and around to the side, where I saw another entrance. I went in. I walked through, opening doors and going down hallways. There was an employees’ lounge. There was a kind of dead end. But I could not find the actual store. This part of the dream reflects the various dead ends I have come to in my efforts, my inability to really commit myself to a course of action.

Finally, I left the store and walked back toward the parking lot and my car. The lot was virtually deserted and it was getting dark.

have been about work and about teaching my classes . . . normal dreams for the start of a new semester.

Nothing too remarkable, except for the one in which I went to class in full clown makeup and a black-and-white clown suit. It was great makeup, too, beautifully applied. I think that part of the dream came from having just read my student evaluations. One student said I was “always professional, always prepared, and always on time” and that she (just guessing here, I don’t know who wrote it) wished all her teachers were like that. I was just wondering what kind of teacher would not at least put on a facade of professionalism, when it was so easy to do. I think the perfect clown makeup represents my professonal facade. It certainly has nothing to do with actual makeup, since I barely wear any.

They are filled with trouble and discomfort and worry.

Here’s an example:

I dreamed I was in an unfamiliar mall. Place dreams, for me, are always an exploration of self. I was lost and confused and looking for a hotel where I knew Nick would be. I finally turned down the right branch of the mall and asked for Nick’s room.

When I reached it, everyone I knew and many people I didn’t were crammed into it. There were shelves with people sleeping on them. There were wooden platforms with people sleeping on them. I finally found Nick on one of the platforms and decided to sleep myself. But I got worried about a coworker and went looking for her. Finally, I found her and climbed onto a just-vacated platform to sleep.

Chaos, worry, and too damn many people were the theme of this dream, and that’s pretty much my life right now. I am discovering that as I finish major projects, many other unfinished things are waiting. I have too much to do and too many people to care for. With my father-in-law’s fading memory and oncoming need for care haunting me, I am realizing that I just cannot take him in to our house, that I cannot care for him and Nic too, and that bothers me, because I know he will not want to move here for assisted care.

As for the too many people, I am a private person, but I cannot function now without someone to help me care for Nick. That means a loss of privacy, and I hate that. But the phrase of the day is “suck it up,” and that’s just what I must do.

Last night I dreamed that I bought a garden flag (a decorative flag that hangs from a low post staked into a flowerbed, like the Googled example above) with a yellow cat on it.

I woke up and realized that although we do have a garden flag, it is 3 years old and I have never checked it for wear since my hubby’s colleagues planted it in a flowerbed out front.

So I checked it. It’s faded and worn. I looked online and finally ended up at eBay, where I thought I might get a good deal. I found one EXACTLY like the one I now have AND I found one with a yellow cat on it. I bought them both. It was meant to be. :)

No, not the dishwasher detergent. This was a cascade of music. In my dream, Elton John bent over the keys of a grand piano, singing “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.” The notes were crashing and cascading off the piano keys in palpable ways: A cascade of orange wax dripped from a candelabrum, stairs cascaded down from the heights in a very Gothic way, and a waterfall cascaded majestically. When I woke up, I could still hear those crashing notes and I thought, “Why isn’t music always like this?”

who had previously been married to a woman who wrote history books. Her books were well known for their excellence, partly because of this man’s attention to detail. I only knew this because I had Googled him, and I wondered how I could be married to a man whose job and previous relationship I knew nothing about.

I walked onto the front porch, and he was there with the new edition of one of my books. I sat down beside him, and he made an observation about the book. I realized it was right on, absolutely true, and that I should pay attention to him. I said, “Hold on, I am going to take notes.” I went into the house for a legal pad.

It was at that point that I woke up, realizing that the observation was indeed right on and absolutely true, and that while it was too late for the book I just finished, it was not too late for the one I am working on.

When I thought about the dream this morning, I realized that all three people in it, including the editor and the woman who wrote history books, were me.

The editor used to be the part of me who analyzed the overall picture and paid attention to the finished product and made sure that my concerns were heard. The woman known for her excellence used to have time to dream and think and be creative, but she is history, and her collaboration with the editor (their marriage) is history too.

The me who walked onto the front porch is the current me, the person who is so busy that her evaluation style goes something like this: “Whatever. Next!”

The front porch is my active consciousness, the things that are “in front” of me at the moment. The editor had to sit on the front porch to get my attention, and the issue he brought up was absolutely on target.

This is one of the few times that a dream has brought an actual problem to my attention to help me solve it.

I love it.

after last night’s dream.

I was a member of a group that, out of necessity, was planning to practice mutual cannibalism. In the dream, the economy had gotten out of control and there was not enough to eat.

Nick and I and another couple were discussing our plan, and I was adamant that while they could take slices of my butt, NO ONE could eat my nose.

I was also idly wondering if the pain of having my derriere sliced would interfere with the pleasure of eating someone else’s.

While this may sound like some weirdly twisted dream of veiled sexuality, it is not. I know exactly where it comes from. When I am stressed and busy and yet another thing that I must do comes along, I ask the rhetorical question, would anyone else like a piece of me?

And yes, I am stressed and have too many things to do, too many things chomp, chomp, chomping at poor Jessy’s butt.

I walked down to the head teller’s window and saw two men with guns. I realized she was being robbed. I did not think the robbers had seen me, so I hunkered down, went back to my window, reached up into the drawer (I was on the floor) and pulled the silent alarm. I hid under the counter and waited.

The robbers left and the police arrived. I was waiting on customers and I could not think or count. The customers left and the police asked questions. Four of my coworkers had been shot and killed. I sat on the floor, bereft and longing to be at home with my hubby.