keep a dream journal for one year straight

part of a dream was husband getting a small box in the mail, which was a brand new cellphone.

also there was something about me having an email conversation with a teacher regarding the newer edition of SFAA publication, which was on applied anthropology in school reform _{this is actually the theme of the publication irl}.

one dream was husband, kids, and I in the hospital. we just checked in and we were staying there almost like a hotel. then we decided to change rooms. and there was something about us cashing a check (from the hospital to us) which prompted us to change rooms. then we got to the new room, and I had to go back for our bags. I couldn’t quite remember the way, which involved an impossible escalator _{like an optical illusion; there was no way to actually get where I needed to on it}, but I made it back, and there was already someone else in our old room. I got the suitcases and luggage, and then made my way back to the new room, but I think we were leaving then.

but another dream had a completely distinct feel to it; was not “realistic” at all. I’ll see if I can describe it.

there was an estate? an older estate I think, and I was there, and so was another ?girl my age, and briefly there was someone who owned the estate, who may have been a shaman or something. anyway he was acquainted with the magic of the place.

the other girl and I were in the back of the house itself, on a sublevel, which seemed to end up in a series of shallow caves with passages to the outside. we were lucky the owner was with us, because in these far reaches of the estate we came upon a gigantic tree who was sitting inside reading volumes from the library.

upon seeing us, the tree retreated outside through the caves, but it sort of lurked, and was watching us, and I was shining a flashlight on its (gnarled) face, and it was obvious that it didn’t like us there. I’m not sure if the owner explained or what, but the tree had spent hundreds of years gaining enough power to be able to move and then to cross that line between most of nature and man, which is to be able to read and access all that stored knowledge. the tree ulitimately aimed to combine man’s knowledge with the knowledge that wild, natural things have, which is quite considerable in itself. the tree had been reading for years (in secret), but still had a long time before it could absorb all man’s knowledge available to it; and now it feared that we would stop it somehow, which was what made the tree dangerous to us now _{also because some of mans’ ideas had gotten into its, um, head, and because it had come to have a disturbing view of man based on what it had read}.

we almost got too close to it, not seeing it there in the shadows and thinking it had left, but the owner came back and stopped it in time. it never touched him and he never threatened it; I think they had a tenuous respect for each other. then we went outside to the yards, and the tree decided to try and take us out then, because it was afraid that we would get reinforcements to destroy it or something, based on what it knew of people. it was very scared of us, and channeled that fear into rage- rage that we would disrupt or destroy the plan it had spent all those ages working to achieve, now when it was so very close to succeeding.

it charged us from a distance, and that was phenomenally impressive, to be charged by a raging giant tree. but it couldn’t get through some passage _{we were outside, but it had to pass through or between something}, and in its rage it called lightning down upon itself, purposefully breaking off a significant proportion of its branches so that it could fit through _{that’s how powerful it was}.

immediately after doing that, it realized that along with those branches it had sacrificed a corresponding amount of its own power, and now was no longer powerful enough to enter into man’s world and read. so there was this moment when it just stood there blinking, shocked out of its rage and realizing what it had done. and we looked at it, and it looked at us, and we were truly sad for it, and it realized that we would not have harmed it in the first place. and it just turned around to go back to the woods of the estate, to grow in power again and to one day return and start its reading over again.

then the dream skipped a bit and there were other people (who were supposedly our family) on the estate as well, and the owner was gone, as if we had bought/inherited the estate and we now lived there. we were in the gardens in the immediate back of the house, and there was a deck area and a large pool, a smaller pool (for kids?), and a spa. they were reclining around the pool, but dressed as we were eating outside, maybe some sort of barbecue but not quite that informal, I’m not sure. it was a family get together. the sun was beginning to set, and it was the beginning of autumn, with the leaves beginning to turn red on the trees. _{beginning, anyone?}

I remembered a conversation I’d had with the owner before he left, or maybe he’d shown me a book. in it was legends of the estate and the area, and mentioned a prominent regional goddess. and I thought how when I’d seen the tree, and the tree was mad, I had immediately thought of the tree as “it” or “him”. (?!?) but now, remembering how the tree looked when crestfallen and shocked, I realized the tree was “she” after all; she was this exact goddess in the book. everything matched up.

in the book it mentioned a ritual the locals did to worship that goddess, which took place at a waterside, when the setting sun turned the sky and the water shades of red and pink. and looking around at the family get together, at the sky and the water in the pool, I realized the conditions were right. so I and the other girl _{sister, twin, clone; am not sure who this person was, but maybe another self of mine from past or future? who can know in a dream?} did the ritual, right in front of everyone there, but they didn’t know we were doing it. the ritual was just to say her (the tree’s) name over and over to yourself while in the water under the setting sun. so it wasn’t obvious; but everyone did wonder a bit when the other girl and I jumped in the pool with all our clothes on. we were so joyful and carefree about it, though, it just made them laugh.

that’s how the dream ended; with this scene of us joyful, confident, and hopeful for a renewed beginning, even though we knew there was a long period of rest and stillness and waiting between now and then. all we had to do was keep the dream alive in our hearts until the time was right.

I love dreams like that… the ones that are like amazing stories that someone else is telling me. :D

I dreamt that I was sleeping, apparently at my parents’ house. my dad tried to wake me up, but I didn’t want to wake up, and pretended not to notice. when I did get up later, my dad had died. my mom and sister were there, but nobody was as upset as I thought they would be, as if somehow this had happened in the past or some other kind of distance were involved. as the day went on, I was suprised mom didn’t call anyone, especially the coroner or something. then I opened a drawer in the kitchen, and the neighbor’s boy _{who irl is now in his late twenties, but in the dream was about 8} was curled up inside it, dead. at that point I called 911 to come over and help me sort out what the hell was going on, because no one else seemed to be that concerned.

the dream morphed after that, and instead of my dad dying, or maybe in addition to my dad dying, I had died. and I was walking around as a ghost, in the backyard _{it was my backyard in SD} by myself wondering at it all. the backyard was very worn, reminding me now of old nursery room in The Yellow Wallpaper, and in the center there was a very very large dead snake coiled up. the wind blew in gusts and made the dead snake move and sort of rattle, which was disconcerting. I was mostly upset that son (?) hadn’t been careful with the snake, and the snake had died as a result.

there was a bit more, or another level to the dream, but I forget it at this point.

anyway, this is a dream I want to think about, as it made me sad and uncomfortable. as usual, I am just looking at general symbols to see if anything sounds right or gives insight. feel free to share your interpretations of the dream if you want!

last night I had either a plethora of dreams, or one really long convoluted one. part of it_/them? involved me taking a college literature class, which focused entirely on C.J. Cherryh!

in the first class we watched 3 videos, which were movies of the first 3 books in the Foreigner series. and I think the second class might have been scheduled to be 3 movies adapted from Chanur.

I really wish I could remember details about the videos, but sadly, I only vaguely remember Bren. (he looked incredibly like his depiction on the cover of Inheritor. ) the movies were not made in America and so had foreign actors _{that I couldn’t recognize}, but they were great.

I went up to the professor after everyone had left, asking her where she found those movies(!), and telling her that CJC was my favorite _scifi writer, and I especially liked Chanur. her reply was that most people “your age” tended to think that way.

???

May 4th 2007- May 4th 2008 is the goal

marking it off the list now.

small family get-together . I was playing with a (mythical male) cousin some game, maybe arcade related, cards I think, and horsing around, pretending to see character from game and “get” him. then cousin pretended to be character from game and get me! :) he was holding me upside down and I was pretending to be begging for mercy, while I was laughing. when he sat me down I realized he was my uncle G when he was about 25 maybe?

then it was hard to concentrate on him. I got in a plane there at the house and it was landing at the house but it was so close to things that the wings should have been mowing trees, destroying the roof, etc. it was sort of a simulation, somehow not a real plane. I felt I had been place in the plane and was now being toyed with againgst my will as if to recreate a crash like the one that had killed G _{though G was killed in a car crash}.

on a small train , representative of high school (though I had already graduated). at end of trip is graduation ceremony in stadium adn then they tell you or it is expected of you to get on another train I got on the second train, and the only other person on the train is LeVar Burton. the first stop was maybe a kitchen or something. an old woman asks what grade I’m in. I say, I’ve already graduated. then I introduce Levar Burton to her and say, “he’s from Reading Rainbow.”

another dream was “fish” that crackled, fizzed, and popped – they were from another plane or world. elfish maybe. no, I’m serious, that’s what the dream said. ;) I was looking in Alco/Target store and they had aisles of these fish in tanks in the pet dept. the instructions say that food is not necessary, but salt was. I didn’t have much luck with them.

it was El Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead).

we were outside in slightly hilly, dry country like west Texas. on the top of the hills, people would pretend to bury coffins (coffins are interred flush to the ground), and then the kids inside come out and switch to another coffin to repeat the ceremony until each kid has been “buried” in each coffin.

I think my uncle G was with me (he’s been gone 20 years).

one dream about sis? not sure.

then I was in daughter’s class, or I was with daughter’s teacher at a lecture which involved tools/props to use during class. one thing featured was a hand drum_{I had no idea what those were called, but I managed to find out anyway lol}, and another was a fabric resistance tunnel

second dream took place in Egypt. husband’s brother K had bought a house in a new development but it was kind of a slum as the land was maybe an old landfill. (the houses were nice, but outside was old mattresses and tires and broken glass.) he (brother-in-law) said he loved Alexandria but doublted he’d ever be able to go back (how to sell his house?)(he had been talked into it, sight unseen. shades of Jack Aubrey). he and his wife M went to work at same place, and husband, kids, and I went too. we sat and waited outside in the lobby the whole time. I was thinking about Egypt and could I get used to living here. Mom was with us, and not reserved at all- in fact she was rather obnoxious at points. when K&M got off work, K had to go home immediately to meet w/developer. cost him $600/hr to be late. we had trouble getting everyone into the cars (now there are two cars). I went back in to find mom, and she’s reading greeting cards in the gift shop; finally got her to go to the car.

I think K was driving, looking for my husband. he (K) got out for a sec, and mom took over and started driving off! I was mortified, and couldn’t get her to stop. she thought I was overreacting to her driving on the wrong side of the road! she made it back to K’s house by God only knows how (I was trying to get her to go back and not leave K like that). K&O were there already, having come in the other car, and I wanted to hide under a rock. I thought, wow, mom is very self-confident! to the point of being oblivious!

part of that dream somewhere was a boy asking me to tie his shoelaces for him as if I were his mom.

third dream I was supposed to be at a house I had stayed in as a child? maybe? had the little people playset stored on the shelf, which I never had as a kid irl but was supposed to be significant. (irl, it is. thing almost drove me batty when he had one; but that’s another story).

mom was holding a teeeency bulldog puppy, and wouldn’t let me hold it. I was very upset and cried, demanding the puppy. she left, oblivious, and I picked him up, and after a while wanted to lay him back down (such a small thing, so sleepy). there were 2 rabbits, a black and white koala (tiny panda-koala hybrid?), another bulldog puppy, but nowhere to lay this puppy down. I went to ask mom. she was talking to my father-in-law, and completely oblivious to me, but fil stopped and listened to me wondering where was the proper place to lay the puppy down. then he proclaimed, “now that’s boredom.” as in I am overthinking this, it’s not important, I must not have anything else to do. I said I just wanted the puppy to feel secure in its known place, and I didn’t want the rabbit to eat it.

something about a team competition vaguely military. one team who didn’t even know if they wanted to be there won the first event, surprising everyone including themselves. they decided to stay in and just see if they could do it (which they didn’t really want to do, win, as that would automatically enlist them in the armed forces and assign them to a special operations unit), but in the second even they fell behind. it was a one time fluke.

Halloweenish. maybe a college building on a hill in forested hilly area. young man being seduced by young woman who, at beginning, anyway, had a very spooky appearance: even glowing eyes or something. but the young man wrote that off as possibly contacts/faked. however, he was terrified by the fact that her freckles on her face would appear and then disappear and then reappear in different places. as he could think of no explanation. this all went away when she started to fall for him (at least become attracted to him).

she wanted a sexual liason and to that purpose took him somewhere else (maybe a dirt/gravel road in forested area?); he went becuase he was afraid not to go, but he was also a bit attracted (when her freckles stopped moving about). she kept going different places and by the end he was very interested, but nothing ever happened. in fact they ended up at son’s school, and both son and daughter were there.

maybe a summer camp? def not good vibes. then the man/woman faded out and it was me, and I was there helping daughter. the whole dream had a school feeling to it somehow.