08/11/03
Soup With Dad, Crafting With Mom
This dream was from my regular sleep of 8/7/03.
I was eating something; I'm not sure what, but it tasted good. I was at home and I think it was daytime, maybe afternoon, as both Dad and Ma were home. When I was done eating Dad came to me and offered to make me some soup from some leftovers of some sort. I knew it was a really good kind of soup he made occasionally, sort of like eggdrop soup made with different things left lying around. I think maybe the leftovers were from what I had just eaten, a sandwich or something.
I hesitated. I really WOULD have liked the soup at any other time, but...I had just finished eating something else, and was somewhat full. Still, Dad had this smile on his face and sounded so hopeful that I hated to let him down. So after hemming and hawing for a while I reluctantly accepted. He went off to the kitchen to make the soup and I sighed. I probably wouldn't be able to eat and enjoy it all, but at least I could try to eat as much as I could.
I think this was the same dream but it shifted abruptly somehow. Now instead of being with Dad, I was with Ma and another woman in what seemed to be a high school classroom at night (maybe my geometry classroom). We were standing at some lined-up desks (my back was to the front, blackboard end of the room, so I faced the windows at the back and the door was to my left, but I moved around some), working on what appeared to be crafts of some sort. I think it involved putting designs on shirts. My mom's real-life job is at a silk-screening place, so maybe this had to do with that? She also used to be into crafts a long time ago, before her jobs took away the time. I think at first I just watched while she and this other woman--I don't know who she was, but when I spoke I sensed that she was just tolerating me and didn't really care for me much--worked on the shirts. This wasn't part of a job; it was for fun. After observing them for a while I got involved on one shirt because I think I wanted to design one for myself. It seemed to have an iron-on picture of maybe a nature scene; it was all in blues, and seemed to have light reflecting off of water. Maybe a moonlit lake with trees around it or something. The edges of the image weren't squared off; they faded into the shirt. I believe it had been ironed onto a white shirt and now I noticed there were some shirts (they were all T-shirts) of different colors--like pale tan/camel, light blue, etc. "I wish I'd had it ironed onto a colored shirt instead!" I exclaimed, as I believed it would look much better on the light blue shirt; I had my doubts about it being on the camel-colored one, though, as that might seep through the blue and make it look discolored. As soon as I said this and poked around a little, both Ma and the lady looked up at me in mild amusement, the lady's look also tinged with annoyance. I think now it was like the pattern might not have been ironed on after all and I might have been trying to straighten it or something--I think the waterline was the straight line I was looking at. But I can't be positive. This whole time I kept walking around the line of desks, looking at the shirts and patterns. I'm not certain exactly what Ma and the other lady were doing.
Skybridge To Sugar Loaf
This dream was from my nap of 8/7/03; this is how I described it in my online journal then.
I don't remember what happened first. Basically, I was at Sugar Loaf Rock, maybe a spot that was supposed to be like the Lookout Point way above it. So, NOT exactly at the rock, but it was a lot closer in the dream. There was a little wooden bridge spanning from this high point to the top of Sugar Loaf, which is a tall stack of breccia standing in the interior of Mackinac Island. It was sunset...but I think the sun was setting in the wrong direction. I THINK I was facing vaguely east, but I can't be sure without a map. I believe the sun was in front of me. Everything was darkish orange and pretty. I remember there were cars parked in front of me (I was on some earthen hill or mound) and I was very irritated because the island doesn't allow cars. I sort of tried to control them to get rid of them (mild lucidity though I didn't know it was a dream) and I think they moved a bit but didn't leave; irritating. I was pretending I was one of my Manitou Island characters, I think, and the cars spoiled the illusion.
Anyway, I knew the little rickety wooden bridge which went to the top of Sugar Loaf was built in fact by tourists/visitors or islanders, not by the Parks Commission, so it wasn't really "legal." I wanted to try it anyway. I went walking out on it, this rickety swaying wooden bridge. It changed and now instead of reaching the top of Sugar Loaf I reached a sort of wooden platform/jungle gym way, way up in the air. There were wooden bars and rises and platforms and such going every which way, maybe ropes too. I stepped down onto a few after passing a little posted sign which was meant to mark the "safety point." Meaning, if you go beyond this point you're on your own--don't expect it to be safe anymore. I would liken it to the little "No climbing on rock"-type signs scattered across the island in real life; there's one on Arch Rock. It and a fence are meant to keep people off. In my dream it was safe to go up/out to a point, but if you went further you were not only breaking park rules but you were endangering yourself.
The sign said something odd which I can't remember very well, but I believe it had to do with a piece of clothing and I felt it had been posted by a rustic man, like a secluded woodsman of some sort. It was something like "I washed my hat (here)" or "I lost my hat (here)." "Hat" might have been something else, like coat, or shirt; I tend to think it said "I washed my hat" or "Here I washed my hat," but I can't be sure. A weird thing for a warning sign to say, but it made some sort of sense, at first, in the dream. This was the safety marker--danger beyond this point.
Well, I went out a bit more anyway, VERY much unlike me since I hate breaking rules (especially when it could endanger a landmark, even if Sugar Loaf appeared to have disappeared), plus I'm terrified of heights. I grasped onto the poles and bars and peered down; there was smooth ground below, maybe some pavement too (it seemed damp, like maybe near the beach), and a type of fireman's pole-like thing. I think a few of the little platforms I stepped on either slipped or broke or threatened to, at least. I was afraid and anxious but not frozen or crying with terror, obviously. I think I tried to glance back at the sign but couldn't read it very well. Then I believe I went back. It was late and I guess I had to leave but the dream seemed to shift here.
If they were not the same dream, this then shifted into "Sneaking Cigs."
Sneaking Cigs
If they were not the same dream, this dream from my nap of 8/7/03 then shifted out of "Skybridge To Sugar Loaf."
I may have been returning home from Mackinac Island, or maybe I was just there in a different dream. I think maybe I was going to go dance to music in my room, something which I do only when it's dark. The thing is, although it was around eleven at night, it was still sunny outside! (The latest the sun ever sets around here is about nine-thirty at the height of summer; it's always pitch-black by eleven.) It was sunset, yes, but it was all golden and glowing and pretty outside. At least the sun seemed to be setting in the west.
I think I left my room and went out into the living room to see Ma for some reason. She was sitting on Dad's side of the couch, SMOKING A CIGARETTE! You see, she's a smoker, but she was told, back when she got one of her arteries cleaned, that she had to quit else she'd need the other artery cleaned in five years. That was around six years ago, and she's STILL smoking. I realize she's an adult and can do what she wants, but it's an expensive habit, she was TOLD not to do it in order not to endanger her health, and she KNOWS it's wrong because she always sneaks off to go do it! As if I don't know. It makes me very angry that she cares so little for her health that she won't try harder to quit. (Every time she's gotten those quit kits she lazily hands them to ME and tells ME to read the instructions and then explain them to her...then when I do that, she scoffs at them and says she doesn't need to do it that way. And then never tries the kit anyway! GGRRRR!!)
Anyway, in the dream, here she was, smoking on the couch. I came out and confronted her and she immediately started trying to hide the evidence. I think she tried to hide the cigarette down beside the couch (it was like our old wooden couch with the spaces under the arms, not our current or past stuffed couch with no spaces), but it was obvious I'd seen her. I demanded that she put it out, then produced my squirt bottle when she put the cigarette back to her mouth, and zapped it. It got soaked and the ashes grew long; Ma insisted on taking another puff. >:/
"Put the stupid thing out!" I snapped, threatening to squirt it again. She dropped the soggy butt on the floor and stomped on it. Rather than being annoyed and mad at me like she usually is in real life, she acted pretty neutral, although she was guilty.
She sat down again without a protest (her worst protest had been that one last puff), and I started walking around her and talking about a stop smoking commercial I'd been hearing on the radio. In real life there's an ad which airs on a local station and they describe a stop smoking kit--it's pretty much just a few booklets ("One for when you're thinking of quitting, one for when you're getting ready to quit, and one for after you quit") and some coupons to save money on stop-smoking devices like patches, gum, etc. In short, nothing special, and although the commercial touts how it increases your chances of quitting successfully, I think it just sounds like so much bull. Reading a booklet won't help somebody quit smoking unless they DESPERATELY want to, and it's obvious that Ma doesn't. No matter what the risk to her health and the cost to her wallet.
Still, I started describing this commercial to her--"There's this stop-smoking commercial they're airing on the radio that you might want to look into"--but as soon as I started to describe what came with the kit--just some lousy booklets and coupons--I hesitated. I felt very stupid suggesting such a lame method of trying to quit smoking, no matter how well intentioned it might be. How much good would such a kit do her, really? I tried describing the commercial again while I still had her interest, but kept hesitating and stalling. I just felt too dumb, too helpless, to describe such a pathetic method.
I awoke at that point, probably to my alarm clock though maybe on my own.
The 911 Conspiracy
This was a rather frightening dream I had during my regular sleep of 8/9/03, I believe.
The details are vague, sorry. I didn't take notes. My memory picked up as I was standing on the steps on our back porch, which is an enclosed space connected to the house. There are two sets of steps--you enter the outside door and there's a small set of steps to the right, leading up to the inside door, while directly in front of you is a longer set of steps leading down to the basement door. Those are concrete while the smaller set of steps is covered with green turflike stuff. The ceiling over the long stairway slopes at an angle, as it's really the floor of my dad's bedroom closet. The whole space is rather dingy but I've been privately exercising out there lately by using the small set of steps for stepping exercises.
In my dream I stood on the small set of steps, peering down into the big stairwell toward the basement door. And as much as I want to remember what on Earth led to this part of the dream, I can't. It just seemed to pick up in the middle of things--my mom was down there, and some sort of terrorist was holding her hostage. He was Middle Eastern in appearance, with a white(?) robe and turban-like headdress and a scraggly beard--the stereotypical Islamic terrorist. I believe he was in his twenties or thirties, not that old; he made me think of a young white man who had converted to fundamentalist Islam on an episode of Law & Order. He had Ma in some kind of grapple hold and they were fighting--or rather, Ma was struggling to get away from him. All I could do was stand on the steps and stare down at this, frozen in terror. As I watched, the man drew some sort of knife and slit my mother's throat right while I watched. <:( I don't remember seeing her fall over or anything--maybe she was still alive, but just barely, and probably not for long. I think I finally moved or made a noise, and he looked up with wild eyes and saw me. Not that I'd been hiding, and I think he'd known I was around; but now that he was finished with Ma, he was going to come after me.
Only now did I finally spring into action. I can't remember how I fled the house, but I did, and now I was outside sprinting toward the highway--on the other side of the house. The ground was all brownish and withered, and maybe damp, like it was autumn; it was overcast and colorless everywhere. My feet were bare, too; I remember feeling the damp cool earth and wondering if I would hurt my feet by stepping on something sharp as I ran. I got to the highway; even though we live right on it, in my dream I ran an inordinate amount of time, as if it were far away and as if I weren't really getting anywhere fast, since it took me a while just to cross the thing. But I knew I WAS running as fast as I could, and praying I would leave the terrorist behind. As I went into the road I glanced to my left to see a car approaching from the south and I wondered if it would hit me--I probably should have stopped to wait for traffic to clear. But I couldn't have done that, as I was being chased by a murderer and I needed to get help. I ran faster and just missed being hit by maybe a few yards--though the whole time I didn't really care. I wasn't really afraid of being run down. Maybe I wanted to die for some reason?
I knew that I had to call 911. That was the thing on my mind--dialing 911. To probably get help for Ma. I'm not sure what exactly I'd say--"Hello, 911, my mom just had her throat cut by a terrorist"--but I had to get help somehow. At this point, I didn't really seem to be thinking of my own safety, of what the terrorist might do to ME--just that I couldn't let him catch me because I had to contact help first. Odd thinking, but anyway...
I managed to cross the highway and made it to an old neighbor's house across the street. He died a while back but I think he still lived here in my dream. In real life I never knew him, just his name. The layout of things was slightly different, like there were more houses as if in a subdivision; I ran up to the house (it seemed very small, probably white like in real life) and started pounding on the door, yelling, "Mr. R.! Mr. R! (Name omitted.) I need in! I need help!"
I think I tried the door and got inside. I felt the terrorist was hot behind me so I sped through this house, through short narrow hallways and such; it was like being in a trailer or something. It was kind of messy. I think I may have come across Mr. R.--in my dream, though I never saw him in real life, he was a sort of older, unkempt man, maybe with black (dyed?) hair--and he was surprised by my sudden appearance and breathlessness. I asked to use his phone and although he didn't really interact with me aside from standing by and watching, he didn't object either, and I got his phone and tried to dial 911.
Now, in our area, the number is not just 911; you have to dial a full seven digits, ending with 911, to get in a 911 call. Kind of does away with the purpose of 911, but that's how it is. In my dream it seemed to be just the three digits, though. Also, calling 911 is a recurring theme in my dreams and I am almost NEVER successful, as the numbers keep shifting and changing as I dial; I think I've only successfully dialed a phone ONCE in my dreams. Well, I started dialing 911 but I think I messed up and had to try again. And by now the phone was not really a phone anymore, but rather some weird disconnected mess of stuff like wires and electrodes. In order to dial 911 again, it's like I had to press two wires together as if hotwiring a car or something. It was very complicated and I didn't seem to be getting anywhere; it's like somebody REALLY didn't want me calling 911. I felt desperate that I couldn't get help for my mother, though I never quite got the totally grieved, terrified feeling I would in real life or in a regular nightmare. I just seemed more determined and yet resigned than anything else.
Before anyone else points it out, if they were going to, the odd significance of the number "911" did already occur to me, although I'm not sure what my own particular take on it would be, nor why I would dream of a personal terrorist attack on my mother. :/
One-Star Restaurant
I only remember a brief snippet of a dream from my regular sleep of 8/10/03. I was at a Chinese restaurant with my mom and we seemed to be sitting in some upper level with my back facing the front of the place; it was higher than usual and even gave me a slight feeling of acrophobia. I feel the carpeting was offwhite or cream colored; maybe the walls were too, and there might have been browns or wood, like in the furniture. The lighting was dim, maybe with candles on the tables, and there were real Asian waiters. We sat at a table and I think I ate something, then I got something else to eat. It's hard to describe, but it was like a soft roll/pastry of some kind, breadlike, maybe pinched off in parts like a crab rangoon though much bigger and soft and stuffed with something.
It looked appetizing so I picked it up and took a bite. At first it had a pleasant buttery taste--mm! Then I think I realized it was supposed to be a sweet roll so it tasted sweet and I didn't like that as much, but thought, eh, I haven't had a dessert yet so maybe this is supposed to be it? But then a DIFFERENT taste entered my throat, like an aftertaste, and it was SO AWFUL that I nearly gagged as I looked down at the stuffed contents of the food. Oh my God, it was awful.
All I could really make out inside the thing was either more bread or some light filling (cream cheese?), and in the midst of that the long, grasslike leaf of some kind of plant embedded in it; I'd taken a bite of that while eating. It was like thick waxy grass, green, maybe with white stripes or something. Some kind of special Asian seasoning or garnish or taste enhancement. The thing was, I knew it was the cause of the hideous taste in my mouth, and rather than eat any more I just felt like gagging it all up and washing my mouth out and gargling with something. UGH.
It was not a bad taste in the usual sense of the word--it didn't taste like feces or anything, not that I'd know how that tastes. o_o It didn't taste sickly sweet, or sour, or salty, or overly processed, though if I had to choose a taste I'd say that was the closest I could get, that it had a sort of processed taste to it, a chemical-like aftertaste. Very bad and awful...I can't describe it. I set the food item back down on my plate and tried not to make awful faces; Ma looked at me questioningly and I might have tried to comment (around my nearly gagging disgust) that I didn't care to finish this item and wanted to leave. I had zero appetite after biting into that. UGH!
I wish I could describe to you exactly what the taste was like, but I can't do it. All I know is when I awoke, I STILL had that bad taste in my throat, and as I breathed all day long I could still vaguely taste it back there. How awful! Even after eating and drinking to try to get rid of it, I could still faintly taste it. I don't see how that's possible as it was just a dream taste, but that's how bad it was! Only now, hours later, do I THINK it's finally gone. Ick ick ick. >_<
2003 Dreams
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