Monthly Archives: November 2002

Dream: Impossible dream

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I had a dream in which I was apparently married or associated with a man wealthy enough to go where he pleased and when he pleased, and who owned beautiful, hilly woodland in the Appalachians, the kind of woodland that is deep, mysterious, dark, and inescapable. Oddly, the man was an enigma to me. I remember being in love with him and wanting him, but always he seemed to be somewhere else. It was as though I wanted something that didn’t exist (him) and was trying to find the unattainable (untainted wilderness). The deeper into the woods I went, the more marvelous they became. I could have held that feeling forever.

I wish I could have written the details down first thing. It was a wonderful sensation.

Dream: Water landing

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I was perched behind a rickety old wooden house that was next to a river, although I don’t remember any land, just lots of water everywhere. Two planes came flying low over the river and suddenly wrapped themselves around the drainpipe of the house. I wondered how I would rescue the pilots. Somehow, they disappeared, but a third plane wrapped itself around the same drainpipe. I managed to get the pilot out of that one but don’t remember now how, only that it was quite a puzzle to open the plane and get him out without his falling into the water below. He may have been bigger than the plane and I think he was retrieved upside down. Whatever happened, it was quite remarkable, and the sun shone in an eerie way over all.

Dream: Back door escape

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I was at a party or movie hosted by the chairman of the company and found myself often in a huge room with colourful patterned walls in the back behind which was a, similarly designed, not particularly well-kept bathroom I kept finding myself in. You couldn’t see the door once you were in there, and I discovered there was a back door that led to a bus stop where I could catch a bus that would take me directly home.

I also saw a movie that appeared to be about one or two accomplished inventors, but toward the end, after the setup had been to make you feel good about them, it is revealed they invented some kind of bomb, chemical, or other device that was horribly destructive. I would see a human face being peeled apart over and over again, almost like an onion, and would keep escaping into the odd bathroom and wondering if I could find the back door again to catch a bus.

I also dreamed of being a big, old, meandering house and of finding a photo of my three aunts together, only it struck me as odd that they all had white or grey hair. I showed it to someone in the family, and he said, “They’re all in the living room.” “But two of them are gone. At least I am certain one is . . .” Yet there they were, just like in the photo, all with white or grey hair. I felt something was wrong.

Death of a toad

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Last night, we were driving around the south suburbs when I spotted something hopping sporadically on the road. At this time of year, it easily could have been a leaf skittering across; it’s easy to perceive blowing leaves as moving like animals under the right conditions. But just as it dawned on me that it was an animal — a very large toad — and I was trying to say something about it, I felt the wheel of the car go over it. This is an indescribably ugly sensation as it plays upon the mind. A toad that had lived long enough to become a large adult — gone just like that. And no doubt just one of many that is killed on the road every day.

We talked about it. It was inevitable — there was no way the toad could have crossed the entire expressway unscathed. It was unavoidable — it happened so quickly, and any effort to avoid it would have likely resulted in an accident anyway. Yet, it seemed an awful thing, accruing greater importance than the actual event.

I have been feeling somewhat morose about life in general — the life of “quiet desperation” that the times seem to be encouraging, the inability to return to the naievete and therefore simple pleasures and joys of childhood, the revulsion I have for current events, my own inability to cope with personal issues right now and to take action, the loudness and blare of life today that so ill suits me, the turning of the countryside into a shopping mall for “convenience,” oh, and so many other reasons . . . the needless death of a toad may be that one typically tiny incident, insignificant in itself, that encapsulates all the feelings of despair that spiral downward into life-sapping hopelessness and feed the cycle. Is there a bottom to this pit?

Dream: No detail, only failure

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I had a weird erotic dream this morning that felt like it lasted forever. As detailed as the dream was, I don’t remember any of those details. It was erotic in mood (mine), but not so much in content.

I went back to my hometown church with my friend, and it felt different. I led a class, but there was something about it that was causing problems — I didn’t know what to teach, no one was listening, the materials were missing, or something. We ended up on a farm, where I couldn’t get something to happen that I wanted to show him or I couldn’t find something. Meanwhile, I wanted something but didn’t know how to ask for it or get it, or perhaps it just wasn’t available.

My dreams always seem to end up in frustration and failure.

Dream: The Escape, Parts 1 and 2

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I had a long, elaborate dream, but don’t remember much. I do remember being in a surreal department store but not what made it surreal or what it is I wanted, other than lunch. The time seemed to be more in the past than in the present — perhaps mid-century. I also vaguely remember something about being followed by a man and his wife, and the man following me out of the building.

I escaped into a maze of interconnected apartment buildings and into the home that appeared to be that of a writer or journalist. I sat down at his typewriter and tried to write something that made sense and was accurate because I had a sense that nothing that was written ever was. Then I felt that I was about to be caught — the man was still pursuing me — so I left through the back and discovered myself in a surreal maze of homes with back yards all crammed together and fenced in oddly — at a height. There were numerous dead ends and seemingly nowhere to go, yet I managed to get away.

Two narrow escapes in the same dream. From what?