Dream 013 - a new house, the neighbours, a fence

*start of dream*

I was in the driveway of my house. I knew it was the morning because there was quite a bit of traffic. I'm in the car and I drive to the edge of my neighbourhood. I make a right hand turn to head into the newer subdivision.

After driving past a few side streets, I pull into the driveway of an attached home. I realize that I own this home and this is my first time inside. I walk up onto the covered front porch and the neighbours come out from next door to greet me. They ask if I am the new owner and I confirm. They walk inside with me.

As we're standing near the entrance, they ask if I'm a student, to which I respond that I'm not. I let them know that I was asked that repeatedly at my old place, which I still need to sell or rent.

We head out to the backyard. The way the neighbourhood has been constructed, there's quite a small field between me and the backyard neighbours. I have a fence in my yard and half of it is made out of wood. The other hall is chain link.

While I don't own a dog I can see one running through the yard. The neighbours ask if he's mine and I respond "not yet".

The neighbours then advise me to ask someone about the fence, as apparently it's not finished. We head back inside to chat.

I want to go upstairs, but I'm more concerned with being polite. As we're chatting, I'm thinking about what awaits upstairs. I realize that I don't know the layout of upstairs or any other details. I bought without seeing it first.

*end of dream*

Dream 012 – Home invasion, fingers, blood

Yes, the title says it all. But believe me when I say it was not a nightmare! I had a vivid dream where I was completely aware I was dreaming, but I was not in control of what was happening.

*start of dream*

I was sleeping at my aunt’s house. I wake up in the morning and I find my aunt and uncle in the room across from mine. They are sorting through the contents of a cabinet. They tell me that the house was broken into during the night and whoever robbed them tore through the cabinet, spilling the contents everywhere.

I tell them that we were lucky that we weren’t harmed, because it could have been much worse. So then I thought about the worse case scenario and I found myself back in bed. I was woken up by a hand over my mouth. I couldn’t scream.

Then this man (who I don’t know) comes up behind the intruder. He grabs him and proceeds to kick the living daylights out of him. This man ties up the intruder and demands to know why he came. The intruder refuses to talk, so the man whips out a knife. It’s a huge butcher’s knife - sharp and deadly.

The man turns to the intruder and tells him that he will cut off his hands, but it’s up to him whether he cuts off the fingers first, so start talking. Apparently the hero in my dreams is a psycho!

Next came the fingers, followed by a lot of blood.

Again, not a nightmare.

*end of dream*

Dream 011 – An emergency, a family, my family

Last night was a sequence of quick scenes. I could try to make sense of them, but I prefer the mystery!

*start of dream*

I was running down some stairs and making my way through small corridors. I don’t know where I was, but I knew where I was going. There was some sort of emergency and I needed to be somewhere fast. It felt like it was an industrial setting, or maybe an underground facility, or maybe a ship. There was no outside light and the walls were painted yellow. The floors were an industrial-style textured metal. By the time I got to where I needed to go, I knew the emergency was only a drill.

I was sitting with a family. There was an older couple, a younger man and a small baby. It wasn’t clear whether the couple was the baby’s parents or grandparents. The family was multilingual. They could converse in any language spoken to them, but could only speak in a private language with each other. As I was sitting with them, I asked the younger man if he could slow down when he spoke to his family because I wanted to try and learn too. He didn’t respond to my request.

Then I was sitting with my family - parents, siblings, nieces and nephews. We were gathered in the family room watching TV. It was a show set in the past, probably around the 1930s or 40s. The title of the show was “Auntie.” We were having a friendly argument as to whether it was set in Nova Scotia or somewhere on the west coast. My dad started to lower his head like he was falling asleep. My mom yelled at him to go upstairs to bed if he was tired. He jerked awake and responded that he wasn’t tired at all. I looked at my sister and we exchanged an awkward glance with each other, presumably because we both had knowledge of his death.

*end of dream*

Dream 010 - mini dream - nephew, newspaper, water

It's been fairly quiet in the dream department recently. This one was very quick.

*start of dream*

My sister was visiting with her family, which includes small children. Her middle child likes to test limits. No one was watching him. He found some old newspapers and dropped them in my turtle's aquarium. The poor little turtle! He didn't know what to do. I had to fish them all out without getting snapped at. The turtle is not aggressive, but he was clearly getting upset. After I removed all the newspapers, the water was extremely cloudy. I confront my sister, but I can't remember what her exact response was. I do remember that she was convinced it was my fault that her son dropped the papers in.

*end of dream*

Dream 009 - a truck, a gas station, birds

I wish I had time to write this down this morning, but I was running late. Some parts have faded from memory a bit, but let’s give it a try.

*start of dream*

It was dark outside and I was driving a big old truck. I was approaching a stop light and I was having trouble with the brakes. I wasn’t slowing down very well. I ended up rolling into the intersection, but thankfully nothing hit me. I managed to make a right hand turn and started to go down the road, which was also a gradual downhill slope.

As I was going down the hill, I noticed that my sister was sitting in the passenger seat next to me. I tried the brakes and again they were not working. My sister starts giving me heck for driving an unsafe vehicle, but luckily there’s a gas station at the bottom of the hill. We come to a bumpy stop (after jumping the curb) in the parking lot of the gas station.

We head inside to get some help. I realize that this gas station is owned by a former co-worker at an old job of mine (this guy actually does own a store in real life, but not a gas station). He tells me and my sister that he’ll have his guys look at the truck, but in the meantime, we could go sit in his truck because the store was really too small for us to wait.

We go to sit in his truck, only it’s more like a space shuttle with lots of crazy displays and chairs that swivel. This truck completely rocks! And apparently it has a mind of its own because it starts to back up very slowly.

My sister and I freak out as we try the controls. Eventually my sister figures it out and we manage to drive the truck back to our starting point. We both decide it’s best to wait outside, so we get out of the truck. We then realize that we’re also next to a lake. A pelican walks by with a duck in his beak. The pelican was holding on to the duck by his butt. The duck wasn’t struggling, but had more of an expression of annoyance.

My sister didn’t like the bullying that the pelican was doing to the duck, so she grabbed a big stick and started banging it around on the ground to try and scare the pelican so he’d drop the duck. The pelican did just that. And then the pelican picked up the stick and started waving it around at my sister. It was extremely funny until he clobbered her over the head. She was more insulted than hurt.

*end of dream*

Dream 008 - shattered glass, a vacuum, moss

So the first thing I thought about when I woke up? "Oh no! I can't remember my dreams!" So I lay there for a minute, relaxed and they just floated back to me. They had two different settings, three sets of characters, but it all flowed together in some illogical way.

*start of dream*

One of my coworkers was at my house and for some reason decided to sit on my glass dining room table. The table started to shift and contort and just as this person hopped off, it shattered on the ground. This person just stood there with this "I don't know how that happened" look. Really? I wasn't mad because the practical part of me knew that I could get the glass replaced. But then I thought about it more and thought that I would be doing my coworker a disservice in the long run if I told this person that this action and result was fine. So I freaked. "you're a (insert many adjective expletives) (insert mean noun). Get out! Get the (expletive) out!"

Next, I'm cleaning up the glass with one of my aunt's friends. She's a nice lady, but her eyesight is not perfect. She's using the wand attachment from the vacuum and for some reason the glass is being blown around. Because she can't see the extremely small pieces, she's unaware that she's not cleaning well. It takes a moment of observing her and then I reach for the wand and test the attachment. It's blowing warm air on my hand. I fiddle with the vacuum controls and then it starts to suck again. Success!

Next I'm in a rundown house in a very small town. I'm a masters student or some kind of researcher. I'm there with a fellow masters student/researcher. Every morning we hike out to the woods and conduct research on an invasive moss species and light levels. We've just returned to our home base when my fellow researcher announces that he's moving out. I'm shocked! When I ask why, he can't provide any answer. He says he'll continue to work with me, but he can't live in the same home base anymore. The omniscient part of me knows that it is a very silly reason, but I can't place my finger in it.

*end of dream*

Dream 007 - a shopping cart, a field, a missing shoe

Strange dream with no real, meaningful narrative.

*start of dream*

I am sitting in a shopping cart in the middle of a field, only it feels like a football field or stadium. It has a strange design with pockets of grass that extend out from the main field at various places.

I'm not there alone. One of my coworkers is now pushing me around in the shopping cart. Except now it's not a shopping cart, but a cage made out of shopping cart metal. I'm stuck and freaking out. I manage to escape the cage, only I'm sitting on top of it and it's now about 20 feet off the ground.

My coworker doesn't seem to register my distress and continues to push the cart around the field, causing me to hang on tightly or risk falling. She stops pushing me when we arrive to the end if the field. I am trying to climb down, only to realize the grass is covered is dog poop! I also am missing a shoe. How did that happen?

I land on the ground, prioritizing a clean landing for my socked foot. I made it! I hop through the dog poop obstacle course and find a cleaner section ahead in the field. It's not grassed, but a groomed dirt.

*end of dream*

What do you do when rest is not restful?

I’ve gone several nights with no dreams. I wake up feeling more tired than the night before. I know that in time this will pass. In the meantime…

Dream 006 - driving, signs

I had an usual moment at work yesterday. We have flexible hours so I have made the habit of coming in slightly late and staying late. It's been like this for a while because my old boss used to do the same hours and then give me a ride to the bus stop (huge time saver). Now that she's left, I'm often alone for a bit of time after the office closes. I enjoy the quiet because it allows me to focus without needing to answer other people's questions or deal with distractions.

So yesterday I was sitting at my desk after closing and all of a sudden the small metal filing cabinet next to me lets off this big noise like someone had kicked it! I didn't jump nor was I scared. I looked, saw nothing could have made the noise and immediately thought of my dad.

This little tale may explain the second part of my dream. When I was younger, I knew a guy several years older than me who decided to become a minister. It was known that he had an experience of some sort that washed away any doubt or disbelief in a higher power. He would refuse, however, to discuss this experience with anyone. He said it was too personal. Anyway, while he was not in my dream, a lady that knew him well and who had made similar life choices was...

*start of dream*

I was in the passenger seat of my car. Someone was driving. He was male, young and could have been a friend or family. I just couldn't remember who he was by the time I woke up. We were driving somewhere where there were a lot of roads but not much anything else. It could have been a desert. We needed to go the opposite direction and after pulling through an intersection we made a quick 180 turn. Then we were driving and needed to make a left hand turn. I told the driver to slow down, but his response was that he could handle it. We made the left hand turn and the car almost skidded out into a light post. The driver laughed. I wasn't sure if he was laughing because I was right that he should slow down or if he was just trying to scare me.

Next I was standing with this lady I used to know who was studying to become a minister and a lady who was a minister. They were chatting about signs - signs of God and signs from the beyond. I was just listening when the first lady turned to me. She told me that the aforementioned guy's experience was that he was talking to his mother one day and right before his own eyes, she disappeared. My dream wasn't clear whether it was really his mother or an apparition. Either way, it was not explainable.

*end of dream*

Dream 005 - doughnuts, time sheets, a church

Yet again I was dreaming, but without the typical formed narrative. Three elements stood out in particular. Two of which I can connect back to recent events. The third was a little more random, but I think it was my subconscious letting me know there was something still unresolved...

*start of dream*

I went to a doughnut shop. Amazing handmade doughnuts were everywhere. I was with my sister. That's it.

Next, I was talking about time sheets with a colleague that i know from volunteering. Her organization was having trouble with their time sheet program. I offered to help.

Next, I was waiting in church for a service to start. My siblings and their children were all there. I kept trying to count the children because I knew there were the same number of children as there were adults. Except my counting never confirmed what I knew. It was somewhat frustrating.

*end of dream*

See? Erratic and basic nonsense. I ate an amazing doughnut yesterday. Dream explained. I'm still probably processing my dad's funeral. Dream explained. Not sure about the time sheet business. Work will be busy for the next two months, so it's probably my subconscious trying to get me to focus...

Dream 004 - a movie theatre, a Winnebago, a bus

Last night's dreams lacked the narrative form that I usually experience. My mind is a mush of chaos, so I am somewhat expecting this to be the norm for a while. The dreams had a common character and there wasn't much distinction between them, so I'm equating them to one dream.

*start of dream*

I was sitting in a movie theatre, which was actually a church. There were theatre seats and some random couches. I was sitting on a couch while the co-star of my dream was lounging across it. I don't recall the movie or any other details except there was a child bouncing at the opposite end of the couch.

The next thing I knew, my dream's co-star and I were checking out the amenities of a motor home Winnebago. It was rather rustic inside, but it would be perfect for the cross-country trip we were planning.

Then we were standing at a bus stop. A bus, the 146, come around the corner, taking out the bus stop sign. As the sign fell, it knocked over two people, one of whom was holding a small girl. The bus driver called out, asking if everyone was ok but rather than getting off the bus to check, he just continued on his route. I was mad because the people who were knocked over were waiting for that bus.

*end of dream*

Now I don't even know the 146 route bus, so I'm not sure what it means. And my dream co-star is a real person who I know and see regularly, but has gone AWOL this past week. I presume because he doesn't do sad well.