09/06/01
GET ME OUT OF THIS SCHOOL!!
In this dream, it was daytime, overcast outside and possibly drizzling, and I was leaving to go somewhere; I think I went to the high school, but it was after school so I was only there temporarily. Then when I decided to leave, I had a problem--I COULDN'T leave. My way was blocked.
I seemed to be out by a parking lot. The layout was different from in real life. There was a paved road or drive and it branched off to right and left (well, rather, the drive met another road, it didn't branch off). The school or whatever was off to the left, behind me. At this "intersection" were some huge vehicles, big noisy trucks, and they were doing something to the paving on the roads.
I walked around a bit. There HAD to be a way around this. I moved one way and saw a big firetruck-like vehicle there, so I backed off and tried another way. But the tar was all sticky like lava and I didn't want to risk it. Everywhere were those big trucks. I knew some other students had gotten through, but how had they done it?
I saw a construction or road worker of some sort standing off to my right so I approached him. He was busy talking to someone or doing something, and the machinery was loud, so when I timidly tried to get his attention at first he didn't hear me. Then he looked my way and I said, "Excuse me, Sir..." as if he were in the military or something. He was sweaty and dirty from the hard work, probably in his forties with close-cropped hair under his helmet, but he wasn't that bad looking. Now that I had his attention I asked him which way I should go, in order to best get out of this mess.
He started to reply with, "Well..." but then he turned back to what he was doing while he spoke, so I couldn't hear most of what he said. I got the impression he gave a couple of options, but his general opinion was "You're not getting out of here." I'd just chosen the wrong time to decide to leave and now I was stuck. :(
With a sigh I turned away from him and looked around. Now I noticed a small group of students--we were all high schoolers--standing further behind me nearer to the school, all wearing black and orange snowsuits of some sort. They were all guys, from the look of it; Brett B., a guy I knew in elementary school, may have been there, and another guy--a Latino guy I knew from high school--was also, joking around. I heard a voice speaking, maybe on a loudspeaker; I think it was a teacher, a woman. It said something like students from or on their way back to Traverse City could go now. I guess they were wearing these "snowsuits" for protection, as they went and walked over the hot tar/lava. Their shoes may have melted a bit, but they were pretty much all right. But me, I was still here!!
There were a few other students, mainly girls, I think, around me; "I'm not FROM Traverse City!" I groused. How unfair! I got the impression it was like the ferries that leave Mackinac Island. There are some that go to Mackinaw City, and the others go to the other side, St. Ignace. Of course most visitors come from Mackinaw City, so the people riding the St. Ignace ferry are few. Well, in this case, it was Traverse City versus Cheboygan or wherever I had come from. As most students had come from TC, they were easily on their way back with a free ride--but not so with me!
Another girl there I knew in elementary school, AmyJo S. (she's mentioned in an earlier dream of mine, "High School Revenge"), didn't show up to tease me, but instead asked if there was going to be a "ride passing through Ohio" for the Cheboygan students. (Um, I guess TC was in the UP or something and that's where the ride was going, so we also needed a ride to come up through the Lower Peninsula...she seemed to ask this partly in jest, so maybe she WAS teasing me after all.)
I think somebody else also got upset, seeing the students leave. "He said thirty! He was holding out!" What I believe that (or whatever they said) meant was that thirty students from TC were supposed to be leaving, but in reality it was fewer (I THINK!), so there may have been some spots/rides open. They still wouldn't have been to Cheboygan, though, so I'm not sure what they were complaining about, unless they too were from TC and needed to take a second trip. In any case, this was certainly distressing!
Now the scene switched a bit and we were all inside, in a classroom; it seemed to be mostly white and the lights were on (still overcast outside). I was in the back right corner (I believe it was the right) if you were to stand with your back to the front of the room. Dad was with me and the rest of us now, and he was joking as if trying to cheer me up, but it was just making me feel worse. Why didn't anybody understand why I was so upset! How was I supposed to get OUT of here? It was so unfair. I think I went and I sat down on top of a desk, but it was smooth and slippery and hard to stay on.
Now another student was here with me, Mary B. from elementary school. I don't THINK I ever had any real problems getting along with her. She was always rather...flighty, spazzy, but I don't think she ever teased me or caused me trouble. I can't be certain though. In my dream, however, I knew she used to bully me in elementary school; then in junior high she had become friendly (it happens, it did so with some other students in real life), now here we were in high school or whatever this was, and she decided to get snotty again. While I sat here moping she started teasing me. I can't even remember how. It seemed to be mostly nonverbal, so she must have been poking at me or giving me looks or saying things to her friends to get them to laugh at me. Needless to say I was just getting more and more POed by the minute.
While she did this I dared to speak up, and I said, "So you went back to your old self. You were at least halfway decent in junior high. Now you're a snotwad again." Or something to that effect. :) I think she was a bit surprised to hear me say this, and somewhat annoyed, but it didn't stop her. I think she just kept it up even more, along with another friend of hers who decided to join in. She didn't seem to like that I had perceived her as "friendly" at one point in our lives, so she was going to disprove that. It happens...
Now I started trying to doze in order to block them out. I seemed to be sitting at the desk rather than on it, and I put my head down on my arms and shut my eyes. I was pretending to be, or I WAS, my character Damien, and Mary and her friend kept poking and prodding at me and not letting up. Bad, bad, bad...Damien can be a fighter if he wants to be. She kept bugging me and I kept snorting awake abruptly, at which point she'd back off, then I'd doze off again and she'd start up again, over and over. It was weird because it's like my breath kept stopping. That was the real reason I would lift my head and awaken so abruptly, because I couldn't breathe! It just kept happening. Never had that happen before. /:( This part also had something to do with a "forest fire" or some such. Damien is deathly afraid of fire, so that may have figured in here. There were these two clear, colored plastic squares...like acrylic...maybe four or five inches squared, half an inch thick. With an image etched in the middle, of trees, I think. Like frosted etching on clear glass. They kept seeming to change color; at one point one was yellow with a green etching, then one was clear, then one may have been yellow with red or something else, etc. Perhaps Mary and her friend kept showing these to me in my "sleep" and it kept waking me up? I do believe she was trying to scare me, and it was working, at least on Damien.
I was thinking of PTSD. I believe Damien has it, at least to an extent (though he would of course deny this). They were exploiting his trauma in order to tease him and I didn't like it. The colored squares with the tree etchings in the middle made me think of a forest fire or something (perhaps there really was a forest fire somewhere--it wasn't really in a forest, as the "trees" on this may have resembled cacti, but I'm not certain) and that made me/Damien anxious. That may have in turn affected my breathing, causing me to struggle for air and then come gasping awake, lifting my head.
The last bit I have written down for that part says "trying to trick her." I admit I don't really remember that part. I guess that near the end I was only pretending to be asleep and to be afraid, and I was going to make her look incredibly stupid at any moment. The lack of air WAS real to begin with, though. And even when I woke up I felt as if I'd had trouble breathing. Which is really strange, so I wonder if I were lying with my face smothered in the pillow or something...
A Fountain In The Sidewalk On Mackinac Island
In this dream, I guess I was going to Mackinac Island on my own, since I needed a map badly. I was in a hallway in some building and the walls where white or light colored and it was carpeted, very nice and modern. I have the feeling I was already on the island but I was getting ready to go off on my own and so of course I was nervous. As before it seemed hazy and warm outside, but just about ready to rain if it hadn't already (and I feel it had). Anyway...I stood in this hallway, at the right side (a hallway branching off to the right seemed to be ahead of me) with Ma and I was trying to leave, only to find I had forgotten my sandals. I couldn't go anywhere without them. Ma and I looked around a good long while and I was starting to get mad at her--as if thinking she'd misplaced them--before I found them in the one place I hadn't looked, right beside my black backpack on the floor in the hallway. I kind of gave her a dirty look but I felt bad for having gotten mad at her. I was too embarrassed to say so. (There may have been a part in here about a dress as well.) I picked the sandals up and put them on, only to remember--I had no map! I'd forgotten my guidebook! Darn it! We started squabbling and fussing again when Grandma B. (Ma's mother) appeared from a nearby room (or the branching hallway?) and said that she had a map if I needed one. Well...I thought that was weird, but all right. She pulled two papers out of her purse and I looked at them. The first was a guidebook like the one I have for the island, and I started to take it with me, only to look through it some more and realize it was more of a nature sanctuary guidebook than a map. It offered descriptions of all the nature centers on the island (in reality I think there's only one small one; this one made the whole place seem like a refuge with all sorts of strange animals including some kind of bison or white buffalo), and tiny "micro" maps of different tours to the centers, but no overall map of trails on the island. Ma and I murmured over this for a moment, how nice it was, but I realized it was useless for what I had in mind and gave it back. So I looked at what else Grandma had, and...it was just a foldup map of the entire state of Michigan! That was USELESS! So we all started fighting again since I had no map, I had to go, and I didn't even know where I was going or how to get there. So I think I started looking around for a giftshop in which to buy one, rifling through my money and muttering aloud.
I don't know what happened next but then I was walking along the right side of Market Street on the island, looking down at the curb. I walked in the street itself, not on the sidewalk, and it was a lot like when we were last really on the island, misty and hazy and muggy, all gray. Yet I wasn't afraid of the impending rain. (We got soaked in real life. :/ ) I was on my own now (close to Marquette Park but walking away from it), and I looked at the water puddled along the curb and splashed my foot in it. It was clear and lukewarm, just perfect for the day. I smiled to myself. Then as I continued walking, I came upon a fountain set into a stone wall on the other side of the sidewalk. How charming! It and the wall (the fountain was carved out of it) were of this pinkish-orange stone, not shiny smooth, but not terribly coarse either. It was a very simple design, just a bowl with a tall part rising out of it, fluted, sort of, like a flower rising out of the bowl, but tall and thin, maybe about four or five feet or so, and I think it fluted out a bit at the top which is where the water spouted out. But then when I reached it, the bowl encompassed part of the sidewalk itself, so I stopped and looked down into it and could have stepped into it should I chose. (What I mean is, there was no rim around it--the bowl was carved into the ground, like a pit, about three or four feet across but with smooth, not sharp, edges.) The water was swirling around in it and there seemed to be a few (colored?--round?) things--coins?--lying on the bottom. Not very deep, only several inches, and still nice and clear and lukewarm. I really wanted to put my foot in, maybe step into it entirely or splash a little bit, and I may have poked in my toe, but I thought I might get in trouble and had to mostly refrain. It was a shame, such a pretty fountain too.
And somehow...I ended up at Devil's Kitchen, I believe, which is a sort of cave facing Lake Huron on the shoreline. It might not have been Devil's Kitchen, but I think it was. Eric seemed to be with me now, possibly Shannon, and I was going up to the cave and climbing up part of it. It was black like in real life, but it was also slick in places like glass. More like crystal, I should say, as it was jagged. I started up the right side of it a bit, placing my hands against the cool slick "glass," but then stopped. I think it was wet from rain, and I might fall; even if it hadn't been wet it would be dangerous. Eric may have decided he wanted to climb it a ways, and he was looking at me as if trying to figure out what I wanted to do. (It seemed to be sunnier out in this part, but the sun was mostly behind the cliff so it must have been morning.) I decided not to go any further and worked my way back down, although I had only gone up a few feet. No need pushing my luck.
Bad-Luck Sunset
This dream had to do with taking pictures of sunsets. :) Boy, that one sure pops up a lot. In this one, I looked out the window to notice a pale rippled pink sunset and it was beautiful, so I started to go outside. I opened the front porch door and stuck my head out to test the weather. Brr, must have been in the mid-sixties. I went back inside to get my jacket, had to look around a bit, then tossed it on as I rushed out the door and down into the yard. I looked upwards but it wasn't really pink anymore; it had changed. (The greatest effect of the sunset was in the high north-northeast, not the west.) Still, there were large clouds in deep gray and yellow, and the formations were interesting; plus there may have been a TEENY flash of pink far up higher above my head. Only I then realized--I'd forgotten the camera!! (Sheesh...) Growling to myself, I turned and started across the lawn (it seemed to be autumn as I think I was tramping through some spare damp leaves), then started to jog--I didn't want to miss what little of the sunset was left! I went in and fetched the camera, and I think I turned it on. But as I went out for the second time I noticed the batteries were low, almost empty, so I turned it off, even though I think turning it on and off repeatedly wears them down more. When I got to the corner of the yard I again turned it back on.
But...I'D MISSED THE STUPID SUNSET!! *sob*
I was getting so mad by now I wanted to stamp my feet. That was when I looked up a bit more to the right of the highway, more eastward, high up through the leaves on one of the trees. (Yes, there were leaves on at least some of the trees in this dream, very unusual for a sunset dream; they were silhouetted by the sky, and all in black.) In a small opening between the leaves I saw a very intriguing cloud formation. It was still lit up in gray and yellow and rose up in a big fat lump, very distinctive. Not as good as the sunset I'd missed, twice, but it was something. I pulled out the camera again and started ducking and dodging around, searching for the best position, which was suddenly difficult; those leaves just wanted to get in my way!
I think I finally found the perfect position to take my pic, and--a car decided to come down the road!! THIS WAS NOT MY DAY! I hate standing in the yard when cars go by on the sideroad as the passengers usually yell at me or say something really snotty as they drive by. Don't ask, stupid neighborhood. I can't even stand in the corner of my own yard without some twit boys on bikes yelling out sexist comments. (Which has happened. *sigh*) So, I think I lowered the camera and stepped back several paces in the hopes they wouldn't notice me (it must have been getting dark as I think their lights were on). I also believe my brother came out into the yard at this point--I was at the north side of the house--but knowing my luck, I had missed my last chance...again! ~>:(
2001 Dreams
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