Cross-Country Pursuer

I am on a cross-country drive. I have stopped somewhere in the Midwest to visit friends. After I'm done there I have a stop in Kansas and then it's on to Colorado for a long visit with all my old friends. I go to the company where they all work together. My friend R is leaving the parking lot with a car full of friends just when I'm leaving. I ask if anyone wants to ride with me, and then they can show me the way. Two guys volunteer. We go around the building to the parking lot, but I can't find my truck. We go into a parking garage looking for it even though I know I parked outside. The parking garage is full of twists and turns and doesn't really make much sense. I am still in the structure, but I'm now following narrow passages and stairways trying to escape from someone following me. The building is now at a school, but I'm not sure what it's for. I stumble upon an abandoned room where someone has set up house, but I know they're just squatting, probably unable to afford a "real" place to live, but they've done a great job of making this hidden space comfortable. I continue running from my pursuer, a burly man who seems always just a half step behind me. I push through ceiling tiles, I open doors I don't go through to trick him, I can't ever seem to get a good lead. At some point I realize I'm dreaming and decide to change the dream, but I have a difficult time of it and eventually just wake up.

Note: As a long time nightmare sufferer, I finally taught myself to change the tenor of dreams in college. I got quite good at it. Unfortunately my skills are a bit rusty since I no longer have as many nightmares (but that's a good thing).

The Boat Party

I start out at school studying. I'm afraid my notebooks won't fit in my backpack, but they do. Then as I'm heading to a New Year's Eve party, I meet up with some guys I know in a band. We're in a gym. There's a vampire with a meat hook in his shoulder in the pool. We pull him out and remove the meat hook, but he's in bad shape having lost so much blood in the pool. He wants to feed off of me, but I'm afraid. The guys promise to pull him off if he doesn't behave. I let the vamp feed off of my wrist. Afterwards I ask the guys if they're going to the New Year's Eve party. It's being given by my friend J and his roommate who live on a boat in the harbor. The guys weren't even invited. Turns out there's some sort of rift between them and the roommate. I don't ask specifics since no one seems to want to talk about it. I walk to the harbor with my stuffed backpack. When I get close to the boat I notice lots of people wearing robot-ish costumes, and I wonder if I missed that memo. There is line to get on the boat. J isn't anywhere close to the door, but his roommate is. I ask the roommate to take me to J's room so I can stash my backpack. He's delighted to show me around even after I've gotten rid of the backpack. The boat is huge. He shows me the deck in the back where people are toking up. At the front of the boat, I see my recent ex-boyfriend with his brother. They're having a great time. I'm instantly sad. I go to the deck in back although I don't smoke. I just sit and eat munchies with the few people already there. My ex walks through on his way somewhere else and notices a young boy sitting along. He tells the boy that he can cure him. The boy has some sort of congenital illness that makes him small and will shorten his life considerably. My ex tells him even if he's not cured, he'll certainly live a much longer life if the boy allows him to help. The boy agrees. My ex climbs on the boy's chair, gets very close to his face, and then proceeds to lick his forehead. The connection is felt by everyone in the room. The two of them shake with the energy. My ex's eyes begin to roll into the back of his head, and I know that something is wrong, that's he's gone too far. I'm screaming at him to stop. He finally pulls away and falls to the floor in a faint.

Flooded Beach

I am living in a small shack on the beach of an island with my toddler. We came for a vacation and never left. My toddler pulls me outside to point at the horizon where a storm is building. I walk to the store to get a few things before it comes in. I need a refill on my antidepressants, but the woman at the store can't open the pharmacy, and the pharmacist is gone. I wonder how I'll get through the next few days without it. Then I watch with building horror as the woman starts shuttering things to lock up for the storm. It finally occurs to me that our little shack on the beach will not survive what is coming. My toddler and I take refuge with the family who owns the store. They live on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the building, and it is partway up a hill from the beach. The water comes into the house anyway and keeps rising. We escape with the family, who have 2 preteen sons, out the attic, scrambling up the rest of the hill. We walk across the flat, mesa-like hill while water pours down and swirls around us. When we get to the other side, we see that the beach town there is sitting under blue skies. When the water has gone, we go back to the family's house, and we move in with them.

Then I'm suddenly a man, and my child is preteen girl. I claim to be a novelist, but I am working at the other village making and painting ceramics. I'm very brooding. My daughter sneaks out of our rooms in the house one night and goes to meet one of the young men in his bedroom. I catch her there and yell about how I've given her everything and this is how she repays me. I pull out a large case that, as the observer, I am scared contains a gun, but it is some sort of giant compass. I need it to write. I have realized that I have created this situation by refusing to write, and now it's my job to fix it.

A Whiter Smile

While visiting my parents, I come across a bottle of tooth whitening powder in the bathroom. It belongs to my brother. It claims to work in one application. I dip my finger in the powder and scrub my teeth with it. It does work, leaving my teeth noticably whiter. It also makes my gums bleed quite a bit.

Note: I had a Freudian psychotherapist once who told me that dreaming about losing teeth is a castration issue.

Weddings and Lions

I am getting married to a wonderful man. He was previously married to my sister or close friend, who, in a fit of crazy, lopped off most of his wanker. This doesn't seem to be a problem in our relationship. My mother has been making me a suit to wear for the wedding. The skirt is made out of a Halloween print on a purple background. I am busy sewing trim onto the sleeves of the jacket when I see my bridesmaids. They are wearing long, elegant dresses (irl, the dress I'll be wearing for my cousin's wedding). My funny Halloween suit is completely inappropriate. I go into my walk in closet and dig frantically for anything that might be dressier. My mom, having seen the bridesmaids too, comes in to see me. She's worried too. I decide that since I have a few hours I'll just go shopping for a real wedding dress at David's Bridal.

I am watching a nature TV show with my brother. There's a shot of a large iceberg, and as the camera moves in, animal sounds can be heard coming from a sort of cave under a ledge of ice. I wonder how a wolf pup could have gotten himself separated from his family and found himself there. But when the camera gets to the animal it turns out to be even more strangely, a lion cub. The show follows the young lion as he makes his way south, his mane growing in as he moves toward warmer climates. I wonder if he'll remember the deep cold when he sits under the hot African sun.

A Working Riot

I am in some sort of court setting. There is a man there with silver hair who is accusing the government of all sorts of conspiracies to harm the people. I keep trying to point out that bad things are more often the result of error prone human beings making crappy decisions out of fear and self interest. He makes more inflammitory comments and a riot erupts. Someone points a rifle at me. I run out of the building (along with lots of other people). A division of my husband's company is down the street. I see two people with rocket launches aiming at the building I'm running toward. For some reason they don't make contact. I get inside the building and ask for my husband's boss because I know he speaks English (am I in another country?). I also hope that my smattering of German may help me communicate, but everyone seems able to speak English. Someone is giving me a tour of the place. I comment on the fact that the building is exactly the same as the one where my husband works. They tell me they do that on purpose so workers moving from one location to another have an easier time. The man who caused all the trauma in the first place is in the building too. He keeps trying to engage me, and I keep leaving the room he's in before I scream at him. Not only is he an idiot, but he seems amused that he's started a riot, a riot at which my life was threatened.

Waking Up Male

I wake up and find that I'm a man. I am in hiding from someone or something, and this is the disguise I've been given. It is only temporary. I am delighted at the strength and power of my new body. I flex my muscles a lot. I roll my shoulders, swinging my arms and marvel at the feeling of taking up so much space. And being entitled to that space. It occurs to me that I should be testing out the equipment below (just for the purpose of science, of course), but I'm in a hurry and don't have time.