06/14/03
I've Been DELETED?!
This dream is from my nap (I think) of the night before last.
I was trying to post an entry to my online journal at Writing.com and was having difficulty. I think I tried to post it first and something went wrong, so I tried again or else tried something else. I believe I checked out my journal to see if it had posted and my journal was...strange. I think my entry was there, but it seemed to be there twice, plus the layout of the entries page was wrong. There appeared to be some "blank" entries or else the formatting was wrong on something. I got the feeling of having cut myself off in the middle of posting something (like perhaps the upload was interrupted), so it had either not posted properly or I had tried something else in the middle of things and the formatting of my entire journal had been messed up. Crap!
I can't remember what it was that I clicked on or checked out, but maybe it was the entry or my e-mail. And I noticed my username next to a GRAY case. On this website in real life, each user has a little "briefcase" next to their name that states their status on the site--gray for registered user or nonexistent former user whose account has not been completely purged from the system yet; black for registered author; yellow for preferred author, which is what I currently am; blue for moderator; purple for senior moderator; red for the two webmasters and the support account; and white for deceased users (memorial accounts). I should have had a yellow case, but...it was GRAY! Seeing this, I instantly began to panic. Had my account just been DELETED in the middle of my posting, and THAT was why things had messed up? Why would I have been deleted? I've broken a few rules of etiquette there before, but that was only because they were unstated (not included in the TOS) and I didn't know about them; I'm always careful to obey what site rules I know of. I couldn't believe I'd have been deleted just like that and I was very upset at losing my entire account. I've been a member there for about two years now!
I THINK I soon found out I hadn't been deleted after all--it was just a site glitch or something--but damn, had that scared the crap out of me.
Please Save My Bridge!
This dream, from my nap(?) of the night before last, is the one that sticks with me. It concerns an old railroad bridge just down the road from me; it's been converted into a snowmobile trail since the trains no longer run around here, the tracks having been torn up. I remember walking the still-existing tracks long ago with my dad and collecting the old railroad spikes lying beside them. Back then, there were still wooden ties on the bridge and I freaked out because I'm scared of heights and water. *sigh* Maybe a year or so ago I walked the tracks again on my own--only there ARE no more tracks--and reached the bridge, to find the bottom all boarded up for snowmobilers. It's officially a trail now, no wheeled motor vehicles allowed. I used to have fears that the bridge would be torn down from disuse, but now that I know it's a trail, I feel relatively safe that it should be around a while longer. (I would be upset by its removal because it plays a pivotal role in some fictional stories of mine.) I walked down to it again earlier this year, too.
Well, in my dream, which was a LOT more detailed and involved a LOT more than this, I was further toward town, like maybe near where Dave's Place is (it's a store not too far from the bridge, on the other side--the railroad bridge is right beside the highway bridge). It was sunny out, summer, probably around noon or early afternoon, and a lot was going on but I can't remember it all. I seemed to be driving around only I don't remember a car--just skimming over the ground and road. I remember the dirt and rocks at the shoulder of the road and the asphalt itself. It was dry and hot. There was some guy maybe doing the same thing as me, kind of a hotshot, and I remember lots of other people too like tourists or something. There might have been a car crash or accident; I remember something possibly catching people's attention, but I went on my way home, having to pass by the railroad bridge on my right.
When I got there I was shocked to find the bridge in ruins! The left end of it--the end I approach when walking the tracks--was intact, but the right end was mangled and collapsed and partly missing, the rest of it dangling over the river, threatening to fall entirely. Because of the damage it was surprising any of it still stood at all. It was MUCH messier than it would be in real life--like lots more beams and such, like cords and wires and wreckage, when in reality it's a very simple bridge. I stopped and gawked at this in shock. What could have happened to it? I felt even more upset that it would obviously need to be removed this time--I didn't WANT to see it go! But what else could be done with such an obvious hazard?
Other people approached--all seemingly on foot--to view it with curiosity as well. Nobody knew what had happened to it. Somebody hazarded a guess that something had approached from the river and had bashed into it as it went under, and that was the most likely explanation, but it still didn't fit. In my dream, rather than river on the opposite side from the bridge and the highway bridge, it was solid land leading into the woods and swamp like the wooded area that comes BEFORE the bridges and the river in real life. Like the river just kind of disappeared as soon as it passed beneath us. This was not odd in the dream, but what we saw was. Just across from the mangled railroad bridge, we spotted deep ugly gouges in the earth at the edge of the woods, as if something had run aground or spun its tires or...something. Crashed. Some kind of accident. We got the feeling that perhaps some sort of large object--tank?--boat?--I sensed some kind of watercraft--had come grinding through here, leaving both the huge marks in the soil and damaging the railroad bridge as well. But...even in the dream we could not figure out how the highway we stood upon was not in the least bit touched. It lay right between the gouge marks and the railroad bridge...how could it have escaped similar defacement? All we could do was stand and theorize in confusion.
I headed home, greatly upset. It was almost as if I were coming home from school as I'd been in town on my own. I passed through the yard and went inside to find Dad. "The railroad bridge is ruined!" I exclaimed, still in disbelief. "The whole end of it is all mangled like something ran into it! They'll have to tear it all down now!" I was very unhappy about this, and added, "But that bridge is used for a snowmobile trail. What will the snowmobilers do without it? How can they cross the river without the bridge?"
Was I worried for the snowmobilers? Hell, no. I HATE snowmobiles in real life, as their drivers seem to have no respect whatsoever for private property--we'll always find tracks running across our YARDS, for God's sake, when they HAVE their own trails to go down--why do they have to trespass like that?--plus they always seem to be active around two in the MORNING when all decent people should be at home. They are very loud, intrusive, and inconsiderate. But in the dream, I wanted ANY excuse to keep the bridge from being torn down! Even if it meant sympathizing with the snowmobilers. They really WOULDN'T have a way to legally cross the river without it--a nice walking trail would be gone--plus it would just be the loss of a good landmark. (Well, I like it.) I was hoping against hope that instead of tearing it down, they'd take these things into consideration and try to restore it somehow, so I brought up the most valid argument of the snowmobilers' plight in the hopes of convincing somebody.
Dad seemed sympathetic with me, but of course he could do nothing. Some time passed and then Ma arrived or I found her and I brought up my same complaint, describing the state of the bridge and expressing my worries. I added, "I can't figure out how this happened! What could have run into it like that, and why, and how did it not destroy the highway as well?" Because even in the dream, when such things normally make sense, this fact didn't, and I was much puzzled as to how this had happened.
I spent the rest of the dream trying to figure out the answer, but I never did learn what exactly had happened to the old railroad bridge, nor what its ultimate fate would be.
2003 Dreams
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