I was in EM [my childhood hometown] again, walking on C. Ln. where R who I used to babysit lived. I was walking north past C. Dr. which led to M. Ave. when three girls in burqas came down C. Dr. behind me onto C. Ln. I felt bad for them that they were all covered up on such a warm day.
They walked to their mother, who was tending a fire on the curb, and she said a prayer with them and gave them something to drink. I realized it was Ramadan.

As I walked past their house, I saw that the street was covered in thick sheets of duct tape, multiple bright colors with beautifully intricate mosaic-like designs. It was lovely. As I walked on north, [the street was longer and narrower than actual], the houses on the street dramatically changed.

I walked past a few Jerusalem stone, big and beautiful buildings. One of them had a stone patio with walls and a roof, long rectangles cut out for big windows and no glass. [Like the entryway to the kibbutz school]. I walked in, and it was the “lobby” of a multi-story house and what seemed like a smaller apartment, although I couldn’t tell the size from the outside. I went up the stone stairs from the open lobby to look at the house. Rather than being the typical suburban house with a flat lawn, this house was three stories, but narrow, made of that white/gold gorgeous Jerusalem stone, and each floor had small outdoor spaces, like terraces but with solid ground, dirt and flowers and plants, little nooks and crannies all over to sit in. I was entranced, in love. I wanted to live there so badly, and although I knew I probably couldn’t afford it, I thought that maybe I could afford the apartment, if it were ever for rent or sale.

I walked back south on the street, and saw, to my surprise, an open- air bar, made of the same Jerusalem stone, rectangles cut out for windows, and I walked into the bar and leaned out of one of the windows. The bar looked out onto a lake [where Ch. St. should have been], and I was delighted- I would come to this bar every day if I could. As I leaned out farther, peering around the corner [looking where M. Ave. should have been], I saw that the lake led into a larger bay or sound of some sort. There were all sorts of boats on the sound, and then I saw the area around the sound. There were wide roads, where throngs of people walked, and large, architecturally beautiful buildings. It looked like Europe! I was amazed that all of this was right here, in EM.

[Hm- more discovering amazing, expanded living areas in formerly known places. Hm. I couldn’t shake this dream from my thoughts when I woke up. Not sure if it’s just a wish fulfillment dream or a message of some sort of psychic growth trying to happen.] 2 weeks ago

I dreamed of JR again last night. Being with him again was like coming home.

Then I dreamed that Frog was with me, and I almost told him about JR. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I didn’t know if I could live with that secret.

Throughout the day, I keep remembering the feeling- the ahhhhhhhh- the poignancy of being with JR again. It’s bittersweet. Of course, this has nothing to do with the real JR, just like it has nothing to do with the real BL or the real K. They’re just stand-ins for some emotional need I’m expressing in these dreams.

I’m just not sure what that need is, though. Friendship? Romance? Love? I’ve got those with Frog in real life, so that’s not it. Returning to the past? Some sense of loss for what I had? Not really, since the dreams are far better than the reality. Something to ponder. 3 weeks ago

it’s not surprising I dreamed of BL and A last night. The first dream I’ve had about BL in some time, and it was definitely an insecurity dream.

I was standing in a line of people waiting to pass the headquarters of the corporation of which BL is [really] the CEO. There was some sort of border /security check going on in front of the building.

He came out of his building and saw me standing at the end of the line, and at first I didn’t want him to see me -would he think I was stalking him?. Obviously he did see me, so I waved. He came over and seemed very glad to see me, so I greeted him back with matched excitement and told him that every time I saw his advertisements, I thought of him.

I told him that I was passing this way to visit A, and asked if he would like to come with me. I knew A wouldn’t be crazy about seeing him, but I wanted to keep being with him now that I had seen him again. We happily walked along together, talking, talking, talking, and I was having a great time. It was so wonderful to be with him again.

When we got to the hotel in which A was staying, BL grabbed the paper with the room number and ran ahead to her room. He opened the door without knocking, and this made A near hysterical. She cried and yelled. I was so upset at BL- how could he have done that? I was also upset that now he would have to leave, and I wouldn’t get to be with him anymore.

A was furious at him and clearly felt betrayed by me because I brought him there. She threatened to get an early flight and go back home immediately. I begged her not to do that, trying to calm her, explaining that I didn’t know he was going to burst in like that. I was so disappointed. I knew she wouldn’t have been thrilled to see BL, but I was hoping that she would have been okay with it since it had been over 20 years. But his startling her like that clearly ruined that plan.

As I tried to calm A down, BL didn’t really seem to care that he had upset her so. He saw one of his coworkers, and left the hotel with her. [That made me laugh to write- dream obviousness.] I was very jealous, sad to see him go, and upset that A was so upset. 3 weeks ago

I was given the chance to be in a large production of a play. I was very excited about this, because I wanted to act, and liked the idea of having everyone see me be funny on stage. I was, though, nervous about memorizing my lines- there was only a short rehearsal period.

A bunch of people were using ex-friend K’s house for a party. When K and E came home, I decided to help K get them out of the house, even though a)I had been one of the people enjoying her house and b)her betrayal of me still stung deeply. We worked together, and I can tell that we were reconciling, even though we didn’t directly talk about it.

[It is not surprising to me that I had a dream about ex-friend K again, since one of the characters in the story I recently finished was loosely based on her.] 1 month ago

I wonder if I’m not getting enough sleep. Last night was the first time I had a dream I remembered in almost a month.

This one was about writing and getting published- not surprising given my focus on it the last few weeks.

I had submitted my story to the contest, and I met in person with the magazine publisher. He wanted to know what kind of writer I was, whether I was really dedicated to it. I made up some kind of answer about writing for the rest of my life even if I never had anything published ever that satisfied him, and he asked if I had anything else ready to show his partners tomorrow. I decided to spend the whole night writing to have something else ready for tomorrow. He was a small man, (both small in stature and small as in petty) who was trying to act big, I could tell, and when he hit on me, I was repulsed. I thought how much I hated small men like him in authority. 1 month ago

This was really sad when I was asleep, but I laughed a lot when I woke up from the sheer obviousness of the dream.

Frog moved us to Indianapolis in order to take a job. I didn’t want to move to Indianapolis, but we did it for the job. [Cough- cough- Trickleside.] Then, once we were there, he decided he wouldn’t actually work where he was going to! [Cough- cough- not finishing his Ph.D.]

I was very alarmed- how would we get by without a salary? I cried and yelled at him, but he wouldn’t do the job. Finally, he said to me, “Why don’t you worry about your own career?”

I decided he was right, and went to explore downtown. I started feeling optimistic about my opportunity to find a new job and do something different with my life. As I walked downtown towards a job fair, Frog grabbed onto my legs, and wouldn’t let go. I tried to get him off, but I couldn’t. He kept grabbing me, and I couldn’t move. I told him, “I can’t go forward! Stop holding me back!” but he wouldn’t let go.

I woke up crying, and then started laughing. The more I think about it, the funnier it gets. I guess my brain is tired of me not getting its dream messages, so it made this one nice and clear. 2 months ago

Snippets of an important dream…

I told my mother that I wanted a professional to do my hair for my wedding, which hurt her feelings, but was authentically how I felt. I was proud of myself for being willing to disappoint her in order to do what I wanted.

Then I wasn’t satisfied with the hairdresser’s results- some sort of weird, stiff up-do, so I brushed my hair out and let it fall naturally and said the hell with it and walked proudly down the aisle, just as I was. 3 months ago

This entry will make mo sense to anyone reading; it makes little sense to myself.

I was in a student nursing hospital in the 1940s, [a la the set of Cherry Ames books I used to devour as a child that my aunt gave me from her childhood library]. One of the student nurses, not Cherry Ames, had been asked to leave, and we were protesting. Her probationary period wasn’t over yet, and she should get more time to fix her deficiencies. We made signs to protest and wrote letters to the administrators.

Then was packing up from college to go home, but I wasn’t college age. I had something to do with the nursing school? There were boxes of medications that I had to go through to take home from the college, and I didn’t have a lot of time to do it. Then JR from (past) college was there, and we were talking as I tried to pack up. He told me that he still had feelings for me, and regretted the painful way we had ended. I tried to act disinterested, but of course I liked hearing that, even if my attraction to him had waned. That wasn’t only because he was in his 40s now, as my relationship with him had never been primarily about the physical, it was the way he was talking about himself and what he had done with his life.

He had been engaged twice, he said, once to a ballerina and once to a model, but neither time got married. He was a successful doctor, and had gone to Haiti to volunteer with doctors without borders, which I was very interested in, but he talked about that as if it were another way to achieve status, which turned me off. We talked as I packed up, and he helped me walk out of the college/hospital with my bags just as a loudspeaker was telling us that we had to leave the premises immediately.

Even though my attraction to him had waned, it wasn’t dead, and I felt unhappy about seeing him for such a short while just when we were making peace with the past that had haunted me. But I had to get into my car and drive back home now- we couldn’t stay on the campus anymore. The car ride would take 10 hours, which I wasn’t crazy about either. JR tried to convince me to let him drive me home in my car, and he could go to Chicago from there. I didn’t want to hurt Frog again, and this, of all betrayals, would be the worst. But I didn’t want to leave him and go alone in the car either.

I woke up before I could make the decision. 3 months ago

Ever since I started to realize that First Boy was representing an aspect of me in my dreams, he’s gone away. I haven’t dreamed of him or of Jonathan Frakes in quite some time.

I realized this when I had two more dreams of K two nights in a row. It seems to be all K now, all the time. If First Boy dreams had come to be about insecurity (hiding my feelings for him to avoid rejection), K dreams seem to be all about my ego: he is passionately hungry for me.

He adores me so in these dreams that I felt a bit sad when I woke up, a bit lonely, as if I had lost a love. Which is ridiculous, because a) the real K doesn’t love me and b) I have a delightful husband who does love me. But I guess the K dreams are a way of adoring myself, which I could stand to do a bit in real life. 4 months ago

because it took lots of different repetitive dream imagery/fears and rolled it all into one wacky dream. But it was really too unpleasant to laugh at.

I was on a large boat, as big as a cruise ship, but not glamorous- rather run down, in fact. I wasn’t there by choice; a large number of people were all trapped on the boat, somehow related to the end of society due to natural disaster or nuclear war or both. The boat was all we had, our only way of surviving.

In the chaos of this attempt of mass survival, some criminals had taken over, and were abusing their power. I was hiding from them on the lowest deck under a musty pool table, but I had to come out every once in a while for food and bathroom use and be subject to their tyranny. Then I would hide from them again.

At one point when I had to come out, I was warily emerging from my hiding place, and then the lights on the boat all went out. Now there was no more power, and we all worried that we would soon be very cold.

We were told to go to the front deck of the boat, where they would arrange some sort of heat. (?) Everyone started to walk towards the front deck, but a friend and I shuffled slowly in the back, not wanting to go where the criminals were, even though it would be warmer, but we couldn’t openly defy them.

From the back of the crowd, still in the interior of the boat, I could see that a massive wave hundreds of feet tall was about to crash onto the deck. I grabbed my friend’s hand and ran as far back into the interior of the boat, worrying I would be trampled by other people running away from the wave. Water rushed into the interior of the boat, but we got far enough away that it didn’t fill up the inside too deep. I guiltily thought that the scores of people standing on the deck that were killed by the impact of the wave would leave more food for those that survived.

Blech. 4 months ago

They are so EXHAUSTING. Luckily, I’ve only had this dream about three or four times, but each time I do, I wake up mentally and emotionally wiped out. There’s so much planning and running and hiding and avoiding in the dream, and the mental frenzy from the dream stays with me most of the day.

This time I seemed to be a teenager. Apparently, the devils/demons/evil overlords were tricking my siblings and I in our house by luring us down a ramped walkway, which led us down to hell. [Yesterday, I walked up to the third floor of the building in my office via the ramped walkway for the first time- I don’t know if this means that hell= work or if ramps were just on my mind]. There was the whole usual running, hiding, trying to get up from underground mishegoss.

This dream was also different from the others in that a whole slew of people managed to escape when I did. We re-emerged on earth and tried to restart our society. We had a little impromptu school and I did a presentation on an African American singer named Mae Mae [mei mei is Chinese for little sister; I wonder if that is significant]. I was reading notes from a computer screen to help me with my presentation, and no one seemed to know what a computer was except one other older woman- we thought it was strange that everyone had forgotten except us. It must have been something that the demons did to us.

The other woman and I went to the library, and the librarian didn’t know what a computer was either. She showed us this “strange new machine” she had found, and the two videos that it played. I urged her to shut off the video as soon as it started, because it was clearly a trick to allow the evil overlords to trap us back into hell. She shut it off, but started to play the other one, not understanding why I wanted it off, and I had to run out of the room to home.

At home, I tried to make my siblings understand that they couldn’t look the devils, who had somehow come up to earth now, and were much more dangerous again, in the eye, because they would be brought back to hell. Despite my warnings, a few of them were tricked into looking, and they popped out of existence on earth.

So- is hell work? School? Being a teenager? My brain? Right now, I have a hell of a headache. 5 months ago

[This dream occurred after I had experienced annoyance at my sister from a disappointing phone call, and a forced reminder of my infertility and related issues due to a gynecology appointment coming up.]

I was moving back to Trickleside, but my parents and my sister were with me. I was looking at a house to buy on a street that I had been to before and loved. The house was very small, but I didn’t mind because I loved the neighborhood so much. If I had to live in Trickleside, I wanted to live on this street. My mother pointed out that the house had these heavy curtains, and the seller told me that they were to block out the light and noise from the shopping center across the way. I knew I couldn’t buy the house, and I told my mother that if it was only 5 or 6 houses down on the street, it would be far enough from the shopping center, but this one was too close.

Leaving the house, I talked to a friendly blonde woman who asked if I was moving to Trickleside. I explained that I had lived there before for a period, moved back home, but now needed to move back because the cost of living was cheaper. She showed me her house, 5 or 6 houses down the street. It was stunning. Big rooms, lots of light through windows, and although the architecture and decor was in a style not to my personal liking, it was very new and bright. She invited me and my parents and sister to stay there for the night. I was trying to calculate how much I could afford to pay for this large, new house on my favorite street if she would sell it.

This was the saddest part:
I was with Frog and my family in the living room of the lovely house, and we were looking at a timeline of my pregnancy on the living room wall. Apparently I was over 4 months along. I was amazed that I was pregnant again and hadn’t known for so long again, and hadn’t miscarried. I told Frog that I’d better not go with him to an event we had planned, since we had been planning to drink alcohol, and he quickly and loudly said, “No, you have to go!” I realized that he had some sort of surprise for me that night. Was it a surprise party? I thought maybe he had known I was pregnant all along and it was a surprise sonogram. My sister was disappointed/angry that I hadn’t told her I was pregnant, but how could I have when I hadn’t even known until now?

And a scary part:
My family and I were settled in one of the rooms on the floor to go to sleep, but then I started to notice several spiders slightly suspended in their webs traversing the house just above the floor. At first it didn’t matter to me, but then I remembered that I had to be afraid of spiders in Trickleside because they could kill you here. I pointed them out to my sister, and we agreed we couldn’t sleep in the house with so many spiders nearby. We went to a nearby CVS and I asked to use the bathroom. Inside, I saw that there were almost 20 small spiders on my arm. The floor of the bathroom was flooded, so I dipped my arm in the water to get rid of the spiders.

Hmm. Why am I going back to Trickleside? Fear of moving backwards? Undoing the progress I had done? Was the house my uterus? Not a hospitable place? Or am I still looking for a home? A home that seems good, but then has serious flaws? Very disturbing dream. 5 months ago

It is through writing and analyzing my repetitive dreams that I am able to make breakthroughs. I think that I knew this about myself intellectually before, but now I really know it emotionally, and can start to act on it.

I had a dream last night with the same old hiding and pretending/passing theme:
I was a man in Iran, and some religious men invited me to a party. I went, and unnoticed by me, the woman I was with was asked to leave because she was a woman. Another non-Iranian then said that he wanted to leave and they shot him right in front of me. I pretended to convert and be one of them so I wouldn’t be killed. I had to keep pretending because they were watching me carefully.

As I was writing down this dream, and thinking about the many times that I’ve had this dream in different circumstances but with the same theme, that I felt I needed to dissemble in order to survive, I suddenly had insight:
Whether I know it or not, no matter how far I think I’ve come in living authentically, I am still hiding a part of myself and passing as other than I truly am in some way. I am not telling/living the truth about some aspect of myself.
[some of you might be thinking “duh! obviously”, but I didn’t fully realize that these dreams are trying to tell me this until right now.

Here’s the thing, though. I have no idea what on earth it can be that I’m hiding! What could I be keeping back?
I wonder if it has something to do with writing. That maybe I hold back from writing for fear of being too open? Too exposed? This is big stuff, and I’m going to have to really spend some time meditating/thinking about this. 6 months ago

Once again, I forgot to attend the college classes in which I was enrolled after the beginning weeks. There was no way to make up the work or take a withdrawal- it was too near the end of the course. I would have to pay more college tuition next semester and take the courses over before I could graduate, not to mention what it would do to my transcript.

The twist:
I was doing housework as I worried about all this, and thought to myself: if I can’t even get my act together when I’m not attending classes or doing work, how will I manage when I take the classes next semester?

Then I realized that I’ve had a parallel real-life worry in the back of my head for some time now: if I can’t get my act together when I’m only working freelance part-time, how will I manage when I start working full-time again? 6 months ago

About KS.
No actual sex, just the longing and the deep need for his friendship/love We hugged each other tightly, grasping on and not letting go. I didn’t feel guilty at all for cheating on Frog. 6 months ago

In my dream, I was sitting at a table with her and one of her cousins. She was making passive-agressive remarks about me, and I called her on them. She denied hostility in the remarks, but finally, her own cousin said took my side, saying that it was obvious.

For some reason, her being unkind to me was devastating. I was sobbing, and felt absolutely miserable. Way out of proportion to what I should have felt. I wasn’t even angry at her back- just terribly sad.

Interestingly, when we woke up this morning, Frog told me about something unpleasant from his childhood and his parents that he had been thinking about. I guess I was tuned in to his emotions (or it was a tremendous coincidence.) 7 months ago

I was in jail with a bunch of young boys. The jail cells were very small, and we had to sleep on the concrete floors. At one point, they let us out for a recreation period, and the boys started playing kickball.

I knew I wasn’t really supposed to play with them, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Since I was a prisoner, I didn’t feel that I could just walk away and join the girls’ game either.

Then I a woman that knew me called me over and gave me a great hug. I didn’t remember who she was at first, but I could tell by her conversation that she was a teacher I had in one of my classes or workshops. When the principal of the school (not really a jail anymore) heard the woman praising me, she asked me to come with her to her office and help her with some education-related matter. I was happy to go and do something important rather than be in jail, but I was worried that I would get in trouble for leaving the recreation area. I walked over to the two male guards and quickly mumbled, “I’m going to the principal’s office now,” hoping it was better to ask forgiveness than permission. 7 months ago

was that I was getting married to the big guy from How I Met Your Mother. He was very strong and protective of me. Everything else was fuzzy. 7 months ago

Come on, subconscious, give me a break!

My parents were gently letting me know that I needed to find a way to move out of their house and figure out a way to financially support myself. [Apparently in this dream, I didn’t have a husband or children.] They would give me a little seed money to get started, but I had to have a plan.

I brainstormed multiple plans: Could I afford to go to college? Should I try to get a full time job? I was worried that any job I could get would be very low paying. I didn’t see how I was going to be able to make it. I needed a degree, but didn’t see how I could get one without my parents’ financial support.

I was looking at apartments, and I saw a complex in a part of Manhattan I’ve dreamed of before. The neighborhood was not the best, but it was near the bridge, which would make travel easy if I could ever afford a car. They were having an open house, and I was being shown around by a sales agent. She offered to show me several models, and I told her I needed the one with the cheapest price. They were co-ops, and the sales price was surprisingly cheap, although the monthly maintenance charge was rather high.

The apartment was quite spacious and new-looking, and my father seemed to be willing to help me pay for the initial sale. However, I was concerned about feeling safe walking around the neighborhood at night, and I was also concerned about the location of the apartment within the complex: the playground was located right next to it. Now my Aunt M. was there, and she tried to tell me it would be great to have the playground so near for the girls (apparently, suddenly I had children again), but I told her that I would have to go around and out the front to get to it anyway, and the noise coming from the playground would probably be bad.

I looked at the sales agent’s paperwork, and she had a code for my trustworthiness on it. Apparently she had me down as telling her one lie so far on the tour. I was shocked- I had told a white lie, but I was annoyed at being judged for it. It was such a minor one!

This dream wasn’t much of a surprise, since I have some serious financial concerns right now. However, I would like a little relief from my real life worries and my dreams. 8 months ago

but I think I have to start digging deeper into these danger/violence/sexuality dreams that keep recurring. It’s good that I’m trying to remember these dreams and think about what they mean, because they are all so dark, and seem to have the same themes. I suspect it all means something.

Perhaps some psychotherapy/bodywork/mindwork is in order for me. 8 months ago

Very vague and wispy. Not a lot of details come to mind, but more of a mood and a theme.

I was in hell. One of the higher levels, and like Dante, the levels were worse the more you went down. But instead of 10 circles, there were 40ish levels, like a skyscraper.

An omnipotent evil authority (maybe two?) was repeatedly killing all the people in hell. Since we were already in hell, the killing was very unpleasant, but not particularly problematic. You just ended up dead again in hell. If you weren’t in human form, however, when the Devil killed you, there were some sort of terrible consequences. (I can’t imagine what would be worse than eternal torture, but apparently it was much worse. I can’t remember exactly.)

I was running and hiding from the Devil (devils?), trying to avoid being killed but escape was impossible. I just had to keep trying to avoid being killed until I was back in human form, and avoid going down to the lowest levels of hell.

[Upon awakening and further reflection, this really annoys me. I don’t believe in hell, my family of origin’s religion doesn’t even believe in hell, so why is it (more than once) the symbol of my dreams? Apparently, this imagery is so ingrained in the consciousness of our culture that it is meaningful even to an atheist Jew.] 8 months ago

Warning: Don’t read this if you are offended by sexuality or drug use. Or really random, messed up dream images.

I went to a party thrown by the union representative of a local district. I thought it was only going to be a work thing, but I instantly clicked with the union rep- a smart, funny, man with a big frame, broad shoulders and a lovely goatee (my “type”). His friends at the party were interesting and amusing, and I was really enjoying myself.

At one point, we were talking about a teaching job that was available. He said he could give it to whomever he wanted, which seemed odd to me, but I could tell he had a lot of power. That made me ever more attracted to him. I thought for a moment about asking for the job myself, but I was unsure- did I want to trade in my current autonomy for security and more money? I wasn’t sure, and by the time I had decided to ask him for the job (I knew he would give it to me), he had called everyone to introduce the teacher for the new position. Everyone was glad that it was a teacher who had been laid off due to budget cuts prior to this.

Then, amazingly, the union rep offered me a job doing push-in for remediation part time as a consultant. This would give me a lot more flexibility and autonomy than a regular teaching job, but still give me some of the security and salary I needed. I was so happy that I hadn’t asked for the teaching job.

I ended up staying at the party very late, really enjoying myself with the union representative and his friends. At one point they asked me if I wanted to smoke a joint. I said no, because it was the middle of the night, and I would have to get home soon, but I asked him if I could buy a little bit of pot from him. He said he would just give me some, but I insisted on paying whatever it was worth.

He went to his fish tank, and pulled out an extremely oversized heart locket from the gravel. Inside was his stash. I tried to take a small pinch, but ended up picking up a lot more than I wanted. I didn’t feel that I should put it back, because I had some water on my hands from the fish tank, which would ruin the pot, so I felt I should buy it. I was uneasy, because I was afraid it might be more than an ounce, which would mean much worse consequences if I were arrested. His friends put it in little baggies for me. I was so thrilled: a new love interest, pot, and a job!

I told everyone that I had to leave since it was 3 a.m., and the union rep offered to walk me out. I was very pleased by this, and I was hoping he would kiss me. We sat on a bus bench together, and he did kiss me. I was so happy, and it was such a long, wonderful kiss. He moved in to touch me more, and started to lay on top of me right on the bus bench. It didn’t even bother me that we were in public. But then he whispered in my ear that he thought it was very sexy to put on makeup and pretend he was a lesbian. He took out blue eyeshadow and blush and put it on heavily.

Just like that, all the ardor was gone. A parade started to make its way down the main street, and I mumbled something about having to go before the parade stopped all traffic- I would catch a bus on a north parallel street. I quickly left, and he didn’t try to come after me.

When I got home, I saw my daughters’ 3 dolls playing with each other on a toy bed outside the house. Interestingly, it wasn’t my house, but the house across the street from my childhood home where my childhood frenemy used to live. I nodded my head- now I knew I had been right in suspecting they were actually alive. It was hard for them to move around with their doll-shaped bodies, so I picked each one of them up, hugged them and kissed them like they were my children, and brought them into the house.

Inside the house were about 10 children- none of them actually mine. I scolded them for being up in the middle of the night, and told them to go to their rooms. Frogette’s friend’s sister, JB, was there, and she wouldn’t listen to me. I suspected she was on the spectrum for Autism. The house on the inside was much bigger than the house on the outside, with multiple halls and wings and different rooms. I went into one of the darker rooms, where beds were stacked like shelves, multiple bunkbeds high up. Frog was on one of the middle beds, and I joined him there.

Frog and I had sex, me feeling only slightly guilty that I had almost just cheated on him. It was very comfortable, very familiar sex, not anything like I had felt with the union rep, but quite enjoyable in a different way- comfort versus excitement. When we were done I thought of the union rep. It was sad- I really liked this guy. But there was no way I could get over that weird kink, even though I didn’t want to be sexually-closed minded or judgmental.

I got a call on my cell phone. It was the union rep, and when he greeted me on the phone, I realized that his name wasn’t the name I thought it was, the name of one of my junior high school crushes, it was a name that rhymed with it, in fact, Frog’s brother’s name. I was disappointed that he shared his name with my brother-in-law, it made me even more uncomfortable about him, so I decided to gently let him down.

I told him I couldn’t see him again, and he was very angry. He said that he had tape of me buying marijuana, and wouldn’t the school district like to know about that? I walked through one of the long, darkened halls of the house, whispering with him on my cell phone so Frog couldn’t hear me, feeling somewhat threatened, yet still feeling bad that we couldn’t be together.

Weird. I’ve got nothing on this one. Except I think this is the second dream lately that an unsuitable man wants to possess me at a threatening cost. (I have such an ego in my dreams!) And weird child/childhood stuff I can’t put my finger on. 8 months ago

[Prompted, of course, by A’s recent visit.]

I was in some sort of program or camp, yet I was my real age. We were in communal housing of some sort while we worked on some group project, and I was in First Boy’s group. Living with him again, I realized that I still loved him. I told A that I had made a big mistake, that I should have requested a transfer. It was too painful to love him when he wasn’t in love with me, even when we weren’t living with each other.

Then A had cancer. She was in the final stages, due to die soon, and I was traveling to be with her as she died. I was trying to pack [how typical!] and having trouble, and I worried about missing my flight. I made the flight, but I was sobbing so hard I had trouble seeing. 8 months ago

After decades of this repeated dream, and then a merciful year or so that I stopped having it, it came back last night.

Actually, people laugh when I mention it, because it’s such a cliche. But these dreams are painful and upsetting to me, even if they aren’t as bad as some of the repetitive dream genres I experience.

Being back in college- again. Needing credits to graduate- again. Unhappily realizing that I’ve forgotten about the classes I’m supposed to be taking, that I’ve missed many of them- again. Desperately trying to figure out how I can fake forgetting the class, and how I can make the work up, and what it will mean if I can’t (I won’t graduate: more time and effort and strong feelings of being left behind)- again. Realizing that of course I can’t make the work up, I’ve forgotten to go to class for far too long- again. Panic. Desperation. Misery.

Ugh. 9 months ago

And I’m not sure why. But it is still in my head.

I took a job in a child care facility- a very low paying job as an assistant. I saw a man undressed in the boys’ bathroom, and reported it to my supervisor. Instead of being glad that I had averted tragedy, everyone was mad at me for getting the man- an older man that had worked there for many years- in trouble. The director of the facility argued with me about the technicality of some legal issue, and I insisted that I knew educational law, and all of the other assistants thought I was too uppity.

There was a 6 year old girl from what now was an orphanage, not a child care center, that I adored, and somehow, I was eligible for a program that I could take her home with me for a night to see if we were a good match for adoption. Now Frogette was 6 also, and Tadpole was 2 or 3, and I hoped that Frogette and this girl would like each other. I really wanted her to join our family.

I was married not to Frog, but to his brother B. We were very estranged. We lived in a condo in the city that was very well decorated, with a gallery of pictures and newspaper clippings of friends and family on our walls.

In a work situation, I was helping a magazine come up with a better format. There was also some kind of stage show being sponsored by the magazine, and the actors were on stage rehearsing while we worked behind the wings. I saw K, and instantly fell into his arms. We made passionate, perfect love right behind the stage, and I was overflowing with happiness. I thought that I should feel guilty because I was married, but brother in law B was such a shitty husband that I didn’t really care at all. I was too filled with joy about K.

K’s father [dead in real life], found us where we laid afterward, and made some lascivious comments, and tried to touch me. I snarled at him that I was with his son, and he was a terrible man. He laughed at me. We were frightened and angry. It turned out that he was the owner of the magazine- extremely wealthy. At one point, and I was seeing all the action on a movie screen now, he passed the older biological sister of the girl that I wanted to adopt in a car as he was driven in his big, black limo. He made inappropriate sexual remarks to her as well, and everyone watching booed at him because she was just a teenager.

When I got back to my condo, B had obviously found out about K and I, and he had destroyed the entire gallery of pictures we had, and trashed the rest of the condo. We were obviously getting a divorce. K comforted me, and told me he would take the girls and I to a house he owned so we would be safe. It was a mansion, with huge grounds, and I invited all the personnel from the child care facility/orphanage to come for a picnic. Apparently, all was forgiven. One of the other assistants said that I had decorated this house even more beautifully than I had decorated the condo. It was going to be displayed in the magazine I had helped reformat, which was now a best seller.

B, meanwhile, was called to go to Afghanistan. I was meanly glad that he would be gone, and didn’t even care if he got hurt or killed. I did let him say goodbye to Frogette and Tadpole, though.

Wow. I have no idea what this all means, but I am glad to write it down so I can revisit it later. It seems all jumbled, but the extremely vivid emotions of the dream are still with me, so I think it is worth looking into more. 10 months ago

I dreamed that I was driving past a section of houses on the beach that I had never seen before. Unlike the usual houses on the beach, these were smaller and older, a bit run down.

I was delighted with my find- I didn’t even know that these houses had existed- and I scoped out the area. There were no for sale signs on the houses, but I thought that I would just wait until one did go for sale, and see if I could sell my house and make up the extra money I would need.

I was so delighted to find this whole area I didn’t know existed. I thought the dream of living on the beach was impossible, but now a whole new avenue of reaching it had been opened up.

(hah. My brain is so obvious!) 10 months ago

E., who went to preschool with Frogette, now just turned 10, left a Hallmark card/booklet outside our house that said “I really love you.” The next day, he called the house, and I giggled, “oh, you must want to talk to Frogette- hold on.” He insisted that he wanted to talk to me, that the booklet was for me. I said, “Oh, E., that’s so sweet, but you know this can’t work out, right? I’m married and you’re so much younger than me…” He was very upset and hung up.

The dream then showed the next 10 or so years passing by, like a movie, with E. growing up, befriending my son (my son?), and acting as if it had all been some silly kid crush that he was now over. However, he was also manipulating my son, turning him against Frog slowly but surely, making him think Frog had done bad things to him.

Finally, the stress started to affect Frog, as his son kept becoming estranged from him due to E’s sneaky, horrible machinations, and he started to have heart problems due to the stress. Finally, he died, which is what E. wanted all along- he was just biding his time until he could get me.

My son was standing over Frog’s grave, telling him that although Frog had done some horrible things, he still loved Frog. I was crying, and E. came over to comfort me. He had grown very handsome, (with a beard, of course) and I was attracted to him. Of course, I didn’t know anything about his manipulations. Next, he was going to turn on my son, since my son would, naturally, be unhappy if E. and I had a relationship. E. would stop at nothing to have me. (That sounds so hilariously over-dramatic to write. What a huge ego I have in my dreams!)

This all played out like a movie- I could see that he was a sociopath, I could see what he was planning, but “I”/my “character” didn’t know anything, and started a relationship with E. We were in bed together, about a year after Frog died.

(Apparently, my brain is psycho.) 11 months ago

I find it interesting that the night after I dreamed about being with J’s J, I dreamed about being with L’s D.

I wonder if these dreams are really about the friends- not their men. Maybe their men represent something they have that I want? A personal quality? Their affection? Because I’m not really attracted to either man.

Something to ponder. 11 months ago

I was with J’s J, in his bedroom. I was putting my clothing back on, and his parents walked in. I was very embarrassed, but then I saw that his parents were Bob and Sue C.! [Bob died recently, but my subconscious must have forgotten that- it wasn’t strange to see him at all]. I jumped up to hug them despite my half-dressed state.

I was so glad to see them- it felt like home. They laughed and told me that some members of the bridge club [my parents oldest and dearest friends-people they have expressed health concerns about] were coming later, so I should stay and visit with them. I couldn’t wait to see everyone again.

When I came out into the living room, not only was the bridge club starting to arrive, with huge hugs and kisses for me, but Cousin C. was there. [Cousin C died a year ago. She was the first person in my family to die in a long time- all my grandparents and great aunts and uncles died a while ago, the last one almost 15 years ago, so she was the one I had the longest relationship with, as a real adult, so I miss her more tangibly more than any of my other relatives who have died.]

I was shocked, and thrilled, and I ran to Cousin C, hugging and kissing her repeatedly. She looked like she did when I was a teenager- much younger than her real age would have been, and I was amazed not only that she was alive, but that she looked so young and healthy.

A wonderful wish fulfillment dream, but poignant to wake up and longingly remember. 11 months ago

In this one, Frog was one of the bad guys. The leader of the bad guys sent him to do some bad thing elsewhere, and then they all gang-raped me. Painfully.

When Frog came back from his thug assignment, one of the bad guys made a remark about having tried me out. Frog got mad, and went to beat him up. I begged him not to, because I was afraid he would get hurt. He slid out a gun, and I cried out a warning. Just as the bad guy pulled the trigger, Frog was able to turn the gun around so it shot up into the air. It ricocheted against the ceiling, and hit the bad guy instead of Frog. 11 months ago