Date of dream: Monday, January 25, 2010
Level of Lucidity: N/A
Level of Cohesiveness: 
Lucid Intent? No
This dream has been viewed 129 times.
Part of a longer dream which I no longer recall.
I do know I was at home with Ma, it was daytime (probably early afternoon), and cold white light was shining in the windows so it seemed overcast. Dad was absent. I have the feeling that Ma had told me she was going somewhere or something and it kind of upset me, like I'd wanted her to stay home with me, but I don't remember the details. I guess we were doing various things around the house, then, maybe when she was getting ready to leave, I did something that had to do with feeding the birds or some such because I went over near the upstairs stairwell (which is right near the front porch door, where I put bird food in the morning). I really don't remember what happened; I can give only impressions of what seemed to be going on or the feeling it gave me. It had something to do with birdseed. I think there was seed in a bin near the door as there was years ago or maybe the bag of seed was there. I picked up this long, narrow tubelike thing, perhaps rectangular and of cardboard, and I think you were meant to put food in it and then place it where you wanted animals to eat, or perhaps it was meant as a trap with bait for birds or rodents. I put some food in that and took it upstairs with me. By now I no longer really recall the way up, just that it was similar to the real stairway except that it was clean; in reality the stairwell is so cluttered with junk it's near impossible to get up it, but in my dream it was clean, more light than is possible was shining into it from downstairs, and it might have been wider, to boot. The steps were carpeted as in reality.
I remember I went into my brother Eric's old room, and it too was much cleaner than reality, for I stopped by the righthand wall and placed the cardboard tube thing on the floor so it was parallel to the wall and nudged right up against it. I guess I planned to catch rodents in it, like it was a live trap, though there was also the feeling that it was just meant as a feeding device. The carpeting was burnt orange as I believe it is in reality, and the room had the same shape as the real room (with a sloping ceiling), though I'm not sure if the wall color was the same. White light was coming in the window here, too. I stood up to look at the "trap," wondered if I should move it a bit, might have done so, then hummed to myself and turned back to the stairwell to head back downstairs because I think I didn't want Ma to leave without saying goodbye, even if I was kind of angry with her for leaving. I might have gone up here when I had in an attempt to delay her from leaving, even.
I reached the stairway and might have stepped onto the first step only to realize this was not the same stairway I had taken up. I paused, vaguely confused. I then remembered there were two nearly identical stairways, side by side, and this was the one which was further to the right (when downstairs heading up) and was kept closed at the bottom because it was unused. I'd forgotten about it. The other stairway, the one which was now further to the right (when upstairs heading down), was the proper one which I had taken up; I hadn't even noticed the second stairway when passing into Eric's room, so it might not have been there yet. In any case, I was tempted to head down the "forgotten" stairway anyway since it struck me as so novel, but I remembered that the door at the bottom was locked, possibly from the outside, or else blocked somehow and I would not be able to open it to get out; I should take the same stairway I'd already used. But then I remembered that at the bottom of both stairways there was a little open area shared between the two--it looked much like the small space there in reality, with shelves to the sides, except that instead of one stairway and one door leading from it, there were two. So yes, technically the door for this, forgotten stairway might be locked, but I could still go down the forgotten stairway, take a few steps to the right, and use the door for the regular stairway to exit into the downstairs area. (This means there was really no NEED for both doors, since they were right side by side and led into the same place, but for whatever reason, they were there. While we're at it there was no need for two stairways, either.) And so, since I'd completely forgotten about this stairway and it struck me as interesting, I would just take it down rather than the regular stairway I'd used to get up here.
I think the door for the regular stairway might still have been open since light was coming in at the bottom and I could hear the TV and/or Ma doing things way down there. I thought about calling out to her. I might have even been able to see out the front porch door window (impossible even if the door for the forgotten stairway, closer to the porch, had been open) or else the left front window (also impossible) a bit, and there might have been a trace of green, which would mean it wasn't winter, but that might just be me. I was hesitating heading straight down because I was enjoying the mystery of this place so much, plus, the stairs were unsafe. I stopped on the top step, my hand grasping the wall to my right; it was less than a foot thick, maybe six or seven inches or so, and seemed made of yellowish plaster; it was the divider between the two stairwells. There might have been striped wallpaper on the other wall to the left. There were no lights on in the stairway so it was dim but it was a warm dimness, in warm tones, so was pleasant to me. The steps were carpeted but the carpeting was now thick plush (dusty rose colored?) and kind of slippery under my feet so I had to watch my step lest I go falling. That's why I gripped the wall. As soon as I did, the wall wobbled, and I pulled my hand away in surprise, looking at it.
I looked at the wall a bit more. I think it was not attached quite securely at the top, perhaps having come loose over time, so when I gripped it and purposefully wobbled it a bit, it swayed a little from side to side. It was still anchored at the bottom but who knew how long that would last. I murmured some sort of comment like "Yikes" or the equivalent, and hesitated on this top step. Although it fascinated me, this stairway seemed really unsafe, what with the wobbly wall (I guess this wall wouldn't be an issue in the other stairway, despite the two of them sharing it, maybe because the right wall of the other stairway was stable?--like the right wall was more important than the left--perhaps that was the only wall with a handrail--the real-life stairway has a handrail only on that side (the left side when heading up)) and slippery, steep steps--for they were steep, too, seeming to slant at an unnatural angle, and not being quite long enough for the entire foot to step upon, plus the stairway just seemed a lot HIGHER than the real one. I think I sat down on the top step, as if to very gingerly shuffle my way down step by step, on my behind, while clinging carefully to the wall, but I don't think I got to do so before awakening. I really wanted to take this stairway, but was quite nervous about doing so. It seemed all too easy to lose my footing or bring half the building down with me. I kind of wanted to just sit there enjoying the novelty of the place.
Please compare to "In The Military Now" and the dreams referenced therein--"Lost Hallway" is a good example--for other dreams featuring parts of the house I've completely forgotten about (and which don't really exist). The disused, parallel stairwell is really much similar to the disused, forgotten hallway of the dream mentioned. The wobbly wall could have been influenced by a passage in a novel I read the previous day describing how the walls of some upstairs rooms in a dilapidated house were such that they could be wobbled like loose teeth; I remember this entire description of the house falling into decay, including a part about floors becoming dangerous to walk upon and falling through, really hit me. (See also "Warping Floors.")
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Date of dream: Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Level of Lucidity: N/A
Level of Cohesiveness:
Lucid Intent? No
This dream has been viewed 197 times.
I was in my bedroom and I guess it was morning, perhaps before when I typically get up but it was pretty light out, just the slightest bit dim and overcast. I looked out the window over my bed and had a good view of the yard and the bird feeders. (Compare to that in "So Much For The Reality Check, Redux.") I don't recall snow but all the vegetation was barren and brown. I don't remember looking at the porch feeder, but the standing feeder in the yard was MUCH shorter, like only a foot, at most, off the ground. It was covered with sunflower seeds and there was at least one winter goldfinch on it, perched right in the middle, eating away. I dislike the goldfinches, but it was only one (there might have been a very few others about), and what's more, my attention was more focused on the two large, brown great horned owls also sitting in the yard, right near the feeder.
I guess their presence wasn't as shocking as it would be in reality (I have never seen a wild owl, and have only heard one once)--either that or I just didn't get the chance to wonder about it, as they were both eyeballing the goldfinch; they hopped into the air and one of them swooped down and next thing I knew there were yellowish feathers flying ALL OVER the place, just an insane number of yellow feathers. (Winter finches turn from brilliant yellow to dull mustardy brown, so these feathers were brighter than normal, but still not as yellow as a summer finch.) The owl had snatched up the finch so fast I hadn't even seen it, just the mess of feathers it left floating in the air; the other owl accompanied it and they briefly disappeared. I gawked, stunned. I felt I should probably have tried to help the finch, but, I figured, there are so many finches, the loss of one wasn't so much.
Now all of a sudden, there was a red squirrel sitting on the feeder where the finch had previously been, eating away, oblivious to the two owls again sitting in the yard. And now the owls were eyeballing it. I hesitated--I hadn't saved the finch, why save the squirrel?--plus there are so many red squirrels--but despite my dislike of the mobs of finches, I still felt I should have tried saving it, and the same held for the squirrel, especially since they aren't nearly as mobby as the finches. One of the owls (I felt they were a pair, not necessarily mates but companions who acted in concert) hopped up into the air just as before, wings spreading. And I began striking my window to distract them--it did the trick, they both glanced toward me in surprise, though the squirrel just kept eating away as oblivious as ever, and I knew the owls would still go after it if given the chance. They turned back to it and it was hard for me to keep them distracted, since they weren't scaring off. I must have opened my window for I started letting out this awful growling/snarling noise like a wildcat in the hopes that that, for some reason, would deter them. (It seemed too low pitched, truthfully, but was rising.) They again hesitated but refused to leave, and that's how the dream ended when my alarm went off, with me growling at these owls and them staring back and the squirrel just eating away.
No clue what prompted this.
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Date of dream: Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Level of Lucidity:
Level of Cohesiveness:
Lucid Intent? No
This dream has been viewed 210 times.
From some time before awakening, but it was odd enough that I sleepily took a few notes that should help me remember it.
I can't recall the beginning; my memory picks up with me heading upstairs toward my brother's old room. Things were different from reality. It was like a cross between the upstairs and the basement, almost, because as I turned on the landing at the top of the steps, it was also almost the equivalent of entering the old jar/storage room in the basement, only cleaner and laid out differently, of course. I guess I wasn't quite at the top of the steps yet (though "geographically" speaking, I seemed to be in the entryway to my brother's room already) because I peered up into a wooden drawer. This is hard to explain. There was a wooden dresser or shelf here or something with at least one drawer which was partly pulled out but instead of peering down into it I peered up into it, like it was upside-down and the contents were thus defying the laws of gravity. It could simply have been that I was looking up through a bottomless drawer and saw some things stuck/sitting further back within the dresser or whatever, but I don't know. Can't explain it. I just know I saw at least two old boxes of sinus pills within. I used to take these religiously when I was younger, mainly a generic brand that was orange in color, because I thought the sinus medication was what helped my headaches, not the acetaminophen that most such pills also contain. Now I know better and usually just take acetaminophen. Back in the day these pills contained pseudoephedrine, but they phased that out over time without my noticing; it's only been recently that I've become aware of the benefits of pseudoephedrine when one's sinuses are blocked, so have to occasionally buy it at the pharmacy after showing ID since it's a controlled/regulated substance and the phenylephrine they put in sinus medication now does squat for my colds. Pseudoephedrine is controlled/regulated as it's a known stimulant (also used in the production of methamphetamine) but the weird thing is, it makes me sleepy. Doesn't stimulate me at all. I still recall the first time I bought "non-drowsy" sinus pills containing pseudoephedrine and about an hour after taking them was puzzled to find myself feeling weird--it took me a few moments to realize I was drowsy. Apparently pseudoephedrine has a contrary effect on me or something. *shrug*
Anyway, for ages after I'd stopped taking such pills I had half-empty packets still lying about, both with and without pseudoephedrine, and it was only after taking some of these (expired) pills and finding that the phenylephrine did nothing to help while the pseudoephedrine did seem to help that I learned it's no longer sold on shelves. In my dream, I saw at least two opened boxes of old sinus pills when I peered up into this drawer and I smirked and thought, "I wonder if they have pseudoephedrine in them?" I wrote in my notes "no pseudoephedrine," so I guess they had phenylephrine instead. One was the old orange pills I used to take (they used to contain pseudoephedrine but changed to phenylephrine while keeping the pill appearance basically the same), in their blister pack; the other one was different and might have been red gelcaps or something. Then one of these wasn't exactly just sinus pills, but some kind of three-step sinus decongestant thing which included nasal spray as one of the steps. You'd take or do one thing, then another, then the third. I thought that sounded incredibly bothersome when one could just take a pill, plus, I hate the thought of spraying anything up my nose. These and the other contents of the (upside-down?) drawer seemed very old and dusty and "dirty" to me so I moved on without touching them.
I entered my brother's old room--it was cleaner and vaguely different in appearance but about the same in layout, and seemed bluish and dim like there was a curtain over the window--and found some sort of literary discussion group in progress. I can only assume that's what they were. It was perhaps three to five other people led by an older (forties or fifties?) male; I can't recall appearances but I think he was stocky and spoke with this sort of affected distinguished accent, and he was kind of melodramatic, but not so badly that it was very irritating. The others, a mixed group of male and female, sat around him in a circle (on the floor or close to it, he was among them too); they were younger, like college age, and hung on almost every word he said. They weren't MINDLESS about him, they were just really fascinated. I don't recall what they were discussing at first when I sat down and unobtrusively joined them, but it was a book or TV show or something, and they kept enthusiastically giving illustrative examples.
For some reason I assumed they were discussing the role/appearance of dreams and how differently they're used by different characters because I launched right into the discussion with examples from the TV show Third Rock From The Sun. There was this episode or two where the four alien characters experienced dreaming for the first time--their dreams were presented in the show, and they were very elaborate and bizarre, for example, I remember the character Harry had a big musical dream sequence, whereas the character Sally was in this really stylized dance sequence or something, in black and white, and then her boyfriend turned into a chicken or something; the character Tommy, as I vaguely recall, dreamed of being chased or chasing someone through this really colorful and weird dream landscape. These four had never dreamed before so at first they thought they were going crazy. I seem to recall these episodes were highly regarded for the special effects used. Anyway, I cut right into the discussion saying, "Yes, Third Rock From The Sun made excellent use of the way different types of dreams can be used to illustrate different types of characters. For example, the little boy's dream was full of perceptual distortions indicating his age and size--everything seemed a lot bigger than it really is." I envisioned looking way up at a table looming over one's head as if one were a baby. I was here talking about the character Tommy, but he was an adolescent on the show, so I tried to correct myself to say his name rather than "the little boy" as he wasn't that little. (Tommy's dream in the real-life show, as far as I recall, made no use of size/perceptual distortion as Tommy was not that small. I might have also described how I experienced this phenomenon in real life myself when visiting the high school years before I attended--it seemed gigantic, much bigger than it was when I went there for classes--and when I once had to go to my old junior high for a college class, I was amazed by how tiny the hallways were compared to how I remembered them.)
I then moved on to try to describe Sally's dreams, though again, I couldn't recall her name, I just called her "the woman." I mentioned how her dream was full of vibrant color. (In the real show, recall that Sally's dream seemed to be in stylized black and white; I seem to recall the other characters' dreams were very vibrant. So yet again I was getting this wrong, though in my dream it seemed correct.) I guess the color indicated her outgoing personality and reflected the fact that she was a woman, somehow. *shrug* (On the TV show, although the aliens were asexual, Sally acted more like a male alien trapped in a woman's body, but seemed to grow used to being female, though she was never terribly girly.) I then came to the character Dick's dreams and I felt the others were getting antsy to keep the discussion going so I just cut myself off with, "And Dick's dreams, well, let's just say they were weird," and smiled. I think the others had already started talking again so they might not have really heard what I'd said, but I felt more flustered and rushed than upset.
The discussion kept going, quite animated--I should clarify that this was taking place below and just to the left of Eric's window--when something appeared to the right, as if the walls meeting at the corner weren't there. A large, looming figure emerged and hovered toward us--I think it was almost like we could see the trees beyond the wall, maybe barren and in a mist, but this muscular manlike being just drifted "through" the wall (if it were even there) and toward us, a glower on his face. I think he might have been bluish in color--either just a bluish cast, or just on part of his body, like his chest. I only saw him from the waist up so I don't know if he had legs, but his arms were muscular and so was his broad chest; he had thick hair and handsome, chiseled features, though he wasn't really the type I myself would go for. He held his arms a bit out from his sides, hands down and elbows bent slightly outward, and his fists were tightly clenched. He just gave us the most malevolent glare as he floated our way and we looked up and I might have even said, "Ah, there he is," for we'd kind of been expecting him, as if he had arrived to make our point about the role of dreams in TV and literature. He was an angel or a demon or some combination of both. Maybe a punishing/avenging angel.
He halted and growled something so deeply I could not understand it. I knew he was asking an important question of me/us and the answer we gave would be highly symbolic of a dream situation--i. e., we would learn something very deep and meaningful as if from a dream itself, so perhaps this guy was some aspect of the unconscious. We were to speak with him and search ourselves to gain knowledge, or whatever. But I hadn't understood what he'd growled, plus, maybe we'd still been chattering a bit. I stared up at him, perplexed, then dared to ask, "Could you ask that again?" or maybe "Could you ask another question?" since I knew the second question he asked wasn't the same as the first. He kind of scowled and I knew he was displeased but I really had not understood him before. In any event, he obliged me, and growled menacingly:
"Are you the father, or the scroll?"
This was the very first note I wrote down, originally the only note I intended to take down, so I know it's exactly what he asked.
It was an either-or question. I was to search myself very hard and give him the right answer. It was sort of like I'd "made" him do this, the way I occasionally control things in dreams without going lucid, so I'd been looking forward to hearing what deep thing he might ask me, but the question, when it became audible, seemed nonsensical and rather a letdown after my anticipation. I felt like, "This is the best I can come up with that fast? This is the big deep question I have to answer? It barely even makes sense." I'd been hoping for something more interesting, I admit.
Still, I hesitated. My first instinct was to say that I was the scroll--for I'm a writer, I love to write, it only made sense. But that seemed too obvious and too easy. Plus, when I thought about it longer, it didn't make sense. I couldn't be the scroll because that would be like saying I was my writing itself. I'm not my writing, am I? I'm the creator of the writing--the progenitor. And isn't the progenitor the father?
"I think I'm the father," I said at last to the angel/demon, uncertainly. I wanted to mull it over longer to be sure, but he moved toward me and I felt a strong pressure on my chest--I don't know if he put his hand there or not, but I knew he was responsible. I knew then that my answer had been correct, for some reason, and as the angel/demon continued glowering at me I woke up with that same feeling, of "Ah, I guess I was right." I might have felt I was right as I was then waking up--indicating that I went lucid at the very end--but I'm not sure. I just know that was the end of it. I got up to go to the bathroom, took down a few notes, and returned to bed. And there you go.
Please compare to "Angels, Dark Matter, & Time" for another rather deep dream in which an "angel" appeared, and to "Where Did All These Books Come From??" for an example of when I once "asked" my unconscious a question--while awake, in this case. I've long wanted to ask direct questions of my unconscious and receive useful answers, for example, where is a particular item of mine, but it never works as far as I can tell--at least, if my unconscious does bother to answer me, the answer is so disguised or symbolic that I can't make use of it. This explains my disappointment at first when the angel/demon asked his question--I'd rather have had him ask something clearer and more meaningful. It was almost like an anticlimactic moment, and my fault because I hadn't heard him right, maybe the first question had been better. (Also because I "made" him come up with the question in a hurry, like I was improvising, and I'm not good at that.) But it turned out being intriguing after all. I strongly identify with my writing--it's about the only aspect of myself that I see as having any value, and whenever others want to talk the only thing I have to talk about at any length is my writing, so in a way, I am my writing. I know it's not healthy to get yourself so tangled up in something that isn't technically you but I don't really have any other talents or uses to speak of...and as for my writing, I seem to be the only one who enjoys that, too, anyway.
So the dream might have been telling me to stop doing that, though I have no real reason to do so. It's not like I have friends or a life or anything taking up my time; I haven't even really been writing lately as it is.
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