A three-for-one of dreams.
May. 22nd, 2009 02:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
i_idI've been having a number of rich, vivid dreams, lately. I'm not sure what to think of them; my left brain wants to read detail and symbolism into them, but they're just dreams. Right?
The first one, a few nights ago, was glorious. Me on my sailboat, a beautiful tidy little craft, sailing down the coast. The weather was fair and perfect, and we made beautiful time between Cape Flattery and the mouth of the Columbia. We, because I wasn't alone aboard. I was the sailor, but I had a companion. I'm not certain who it was, but in the dream, I knew her. She was someone I knew very well, and could tolerate, but didn't like very much. I don't even remember what she looked like, just her acidic intelligence.
After we passed into Oregon waters, we encountered a tight little archipelago of islands. (They're not there, in the real world. But such things make sense in dreams.) The weather continued to be perfect, ideal, so I sailed into their midst with no qualms, but the passage narrowed and narrowed until my boat and I were sailing down a stream barely as wide as our hull, our keel scraping the cement bottom. My crew deserted into the thick woods surrounding us the moment we ran aground, leaving me to re-stow everything that fell out (boxes and boxes of clothes or cloth), and to manhandle the boat back into deeper water. I was working on it, and taking a much-needed break when I saw the octopus in the woods.
It made perfect sense for there to be an octopus in the woods. I am a Washingtonian, after all. It was man-sized, a giant Pacific octopus simply striding through the trees. I followed it, for some hungry reason, and it led me first to an old road, root-raddled and overtaken by the forest, and then to an abandoned concession stand. Shrinking, the octopus took refuge in a lobster tank full of yellow duckies, changing its color to match. I think I caught it before I woke up.
The next night, the dream began on a bus. Across from me was sitting a very young and very pregnant woman, and we were talking about hospitals, the comparative quality of various maternity wards, and the government vouchers that would get you into one or another of these. When she got off, her stop a few miles before mine, I realized that I'd forgotten to mention that I was pregnant as well.
I went home, to a house full of family not quite mine. An awful lot of them were ill, bedbound and cantankerous, but excited about my very-close due-date. The debate about hospitals resumed, and occasional segued into PSAs about the evils of teen pregnancy. And eventually, it all simply turned into a big hospital party, while I just sat in a corner, leaning on my father's shoulder, watching my relatives argue and waiting to go into labor.
And then the next night, night before last, I just had a very short, very vivid dream of being at my aunt's house. I'd arrived in the middle of a family discussion about money, just in time to hear the oldest daughter suggest that they rent out their tree house. I must have been skeptical (probably remembering their real tree-house, which is two boards tied some four feet up a cedar trunk), because they took me outside to show me.
In place of the playhouse/dovecote they actually have, there was a gate-house and a ramp up to the most magnificent tree-house ever conceived. Easily three stories tall, it was a masterpiece of dark blue shingling and plate glass. I offered to rent it myself, for $400 a month, and they were about to take me up on it when I realized that this must be a dream. I looked at a computer menu, and found the option to wake up. And so I was awake. Awake and extremely disappointed.
The first one, a few nights ago, was glorious. Me on my sailboat, a beautiful tidy little craft, sailing down the coast. The weather was fair and perfect, and we made beautiful time between Cape Flattery and the mouth of the Columbia. We, because I wasn't alone aboard. I was the sailor, but I had a companion. I'm not certain who it was, but in the dream, I knew her. She was someone I knew very well, and could tolerate, but didn't like very much. I don't even remember what she looked like, just her acidic intelligence.
After we passed into Oregon waters, we encountered a tight little archipelago of islands. (They're not there, in the real world. But such things make sense in dreams.) The weather continued to be perfect, ideal, so I sailed into their midst with no qualms, but the passage narrowed and narrowed until my boat and I were sailing down a stream barely as wide as our hull, our keel scraping the cement bottom. My crew deserted into the thick woods surrounding us the moment we ran aground, leaving me to re-stow everything that fell out (boxes and boxes of clothes or cloth), and to manhandle the boat back into deeper water. I was working on it, and taking a much-needed break when I saw the octopus in the woods.
It made perfect sense for there to be an octopus in the woods. I am a Washingtonian, after all. It was man-sized, a giant Pacific octopus simply striding through the trees. I followed it, for some hungry reason, and it led me first to an old road, root-raddled and overtaken by the forest, and then to an abandoned concession stand. Shrinking, the octopus took refuge in a lobster tank full of yellow duckies, changing its color to match. I think I caught it before I woke up.
The next night, the dream began on a bus. Across from me was sitting a very young and very pregnant woman, and we were talking about hospitals, the comparative quality of various maternity wards, and the government vouchers that would get you into one or another of these. When she got off, her stop a few miles before mine, I realized that I'd forgotten to mention that I was pregnant as well.
I went home, to a house full of family not quite mine. An awful lot of them were ill, bedbound and cantankerous, but excited about my very-close due-date. The debate about hospitals resumed, and occasional segued into PSAs about the evils of teen pregnancy. And eventually, it all simply turned into a big hospital party, while I just sat in a corner, leaning on my father's shoulder, watching my relatives argue and waiting to go into labor.
And then the next night, night before last, I just had a very short, very vivid dream of being at my aunt's house. I'd arrived in the middle of a family discussion about money, just in time to hear the oldest daughter suggest that they rent out their tree house. I must have been skeptical (probably remembering their real tree-house, which is two boards tied some four feet up a cedar trunk), because they took me outside to show me.
In place of the playhouse/dovecote they actually have, there was a gate-house and a ramp up to the most magnificent tree-house ever conceived. Easily three stories tall, it was a masterpiece of dark blue shingling and plate glass. I offered to rent it myself, for $400 a month, and they were about to take me up on it when I realized that this must be a dream. I looked at a computer menu, and found the option to wake up. And so I was awake. Awake and extremely disappointed.
