Date of dream: Monday, March 01, 2010
Level of Lucidity: N/A
Level of Cohesiveness: 
Lucid Intent? No
This dream has been viewed 106 times.
Just general impressions, so vague they don't really count as dreams anymore but I felt like taking note of them anyway. They're from yesterday and the day before--I note them down as they both featured the same very particular setting.
In the earlier dream, I was outside in our front yard with the cat, Cosmas, though he might have been slightly different. It was daytime but very overcast and gloomy; it was also apparently summer and the lawn was very green so I was at peace. I was in the area near where the front porch is, looking slightly west-southwest, but our yard was different in that instead of (or in addition to?) the porch steps we now had some sort of strange wooden deck which seemed to consist of different paths and levels going all over the place. There were no curves--when it turned, it would turn at angles, though they were usually small angles and not sharp right turns; it was just lots and lots of meandering wooden decks, some up higher, some down lower and close to the ground. I think they were of medium-dark wood boards, with hand railings. They seemed confined to this part of the yard--the south end--so the yard must have been much more spacious though it didn't seem much bigger than it is. Just a matter of skewed perspective, I guess. I remember that where lower parts of deck went under higher parts of deck, they were heavily shaded and cast almost into darkness, so of course, the areas of yard under this mass of twisting decks were dark as well. It was all quite intriguing.
I was walking around on these levels of deck with the cat and we kept just wandering in different directions, meeting up again, parting ways. Just exploring these decks as if bored. The only real plot I remember is that at one point, I encountered Cosmas maybe on a lower level and he was trying to get up onto a higher level--"Oh, you want up here/there, do you"--so I reached down and stretched out to haul him up. I'm not sure, though, if I was on a higher level and brought him up to me, or if we were on the same level or I was on a lower one and put him up higher. It seemed like the former. He was just trying to jump or climb up to a higher level and I had to help him up as he was having trouble. I think there was a bit of natural soil or fallen vegetation, just a bit, on the decks here and there, not enough to make them filthy, just stuff that had accumulated at the edges over time.
In the second dream, I'm afraid I recall even less. My only clear memory is of the part right before I awoke. But it was again daytime, probably overcast (though not as gloomy) and possibly summer, and there was again this big network of decks in the same area of the yard. (I forgot to state that in this dream as in the former one, these levels were such that they rose rather high, not quite as high as the house but certainly higher than the porch; they were maybe three or four levels deep. Physically they did not look far enough above/below each other to permit walking along without having to duck, but somehow they were.) This dream involved me feeding wild birds and such and watching them eat; I no longer recall the specifics. I just know that right before I awoke, I went to look out the front porch door window and, glancing down at where the regular porch would have been (now it was replaced by wooden deck), I saw two red squirrels by the door, squabbling over food. I believe I exclaimed at them to knock it off and was pondering whether to shoo them away or let them eat in peace when I awoke.
Please compare to the deck imagery in "Climbing Bird Feeders In A Thunderstorm" (a possible deck in the same part of the yard) and "To Organize Or Not To Organize?" (levels of deck much similar to this).
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Date of dream: Monday, March 01, 2010
Level of Lucidity: N/A
Level of Cohesiveness:
Lucid Intent? No
This dream has been viewed 101 times.
Something unusual I noticed last night is that in one part of the night I had a dream featuring me being outside in the dark in winter with my mother, then later on I had a dream featuring me being outside in the dark in winter with my father (see "And A Skull Dream About My Father"). The individual dreams themselves weren't that unusual, just the fact that they both took place in the same setting and both featured one parent. It's also unusual for me to dream about it being winter, even in the middle of winter, for some odd reason, though it's not unheard of (see "Snowglass," for example). As far as I can tell the dreams were not directly related and were not continuations of each other.
Anyway...this dream is so faded I can't really remember it by now except one part. My mother and I were the only people present, at home; it was dark outside, and winter, so the outside light was on, illuminating the pavement and that general area while everything else was cast into shadows. The light extended around a certain area but faded at the edges just as in reality, so I could see, for example, the mailbox across the road, but it wasn't as brightly lit; I would have been in darkness if I'd gone into the front yard. I don't know if it was morning or night, but the fact that Ma and I seemed to be getting ready to go somewhere makes me think it was very early morning. So Dad was probably at work. I'm not sure where we were going, if anywhere, though I feel it was kind of long distance since we were really preparing for it. I guess I was taking too long because Ma was getting impatient and snapping at me and I was getting frustrated. I can't remember what was taking me so long; maybe I was having trouble getting decent clothes to wear or something. (I'm not a fashionista and in fact have few clothes to choose from--I'm more for comfort than good looks--but it's a recurring dream theme of mine for me to have trouble finding clothes that fit or are appropriate for public viewing--e. g., pants might have tears or holes in them or are stained, or clothes I'd previously worn without trouble are now way too small.) Or perhaps I couldn't find or decide on something to take with me, like music CDs or books. I just know I was trying to hurry while she was already outside getting the car ready and such and I felt bad for making us take so long but I honestly couldn't help it and I hated that she was getting mad at me.
I went outside--in fact being outside is my only clear memory of the dream--and was walking around on the ice on the pavement while Ma did something elsewhere. I think I decided to check the mail or something, so I crossed the side road and opened the mailbox. I don't believe I found any mail in it but I did find two very large, brown butterflies or moths. In appearance they were most like butterflies--I just looked in my butterfly book and they most closely resembled the Northern Pearly-Eye, I believe, except they were much bigger, like monarch size or slightly larger--but even in the dream I seemed to think of them as moths, so I can't be sure what they were meant to be, exactly. Just that they looked like vaguely mothy butterflies. They were light grayish-brown and dusty looking, with darker spots on the wings, and kept their wings spread out to the sides butterfly fashion. There were two of them, just hanging out inside our mailbox. I don't recall finding any actual mail, just these insects. They were to the left side. The mailbox interior was black, as in reality.
The lighting over here now was better than it should have been, that cast by the outside light back behind me. The "moths" (I will refer to them as such now) seemed to notice when I opened the door for they started moving around. I felt that they'd moved into the mailbox to escape the cold and I felt sorry for them, especially when they seemed almost to be crowding close to my hands as if to seek warmth or protection. I really did get this feeling from them. "Aww," I murmured, pitying them, and moved my hands closer so they could crawl onto my fingers if they wished to. I was going to shut the mailbox so as to keep them warm, but it seemed cruel, to me, to just leave them out there, albeit within its protection, and I wanted to scoop them up and take them into the house. I think I had started doing so, cooing at them and gently taking them into my hands--they didn't protest but crawled onto me eagerly--and looking at them with thoughts of settling them within the warmth of the house.
Ma, back at the car or wherever, yelled at me to hurry it up. I was torn between leaving the moths behind and hurrying back to her, or taking some extra time to put them inside, thus probably angering her further, especially since to her they were just pesky insects. I was probably going to do the latter and would just have to live with her irritation. That's my last and clearest memory of the dream, of looking down at these two moths/butterflies and wanting to shelter them while my mother insisted that I stop dawdling around.
Not sure of the symbolism behind this. We have a moth problem in our house, but those are little clothes moths or whatever, and were nothing like the butterflyesque moths of the dream. The only real reasons I refer to these "butterflies" as moths is because they were dull in color, out at night (or very early morning), kind of fuzzy/dusty like moths, and I felt they might be considered pests. Aside from that they looked just like butterflies. I felt very sympathetic and protective toward them; I'm the same way often in real life--I remember once finding a limply fluttering white moth out in the autumn leaves, scooping it up in my hand, and bringing it into the house where it quickly revived though probably died shortly after. I knew it wouldn't live long inside, I just couldn't stand the thought of leaving it in the cold. I don't really care for them, but I don't even try to kill off the clothes moths that always drift around our house since I see little point, they're just a mild annoyance to me.
On looking at it I do notice a resemblance between the words "moth" and "mother," but do not know the significance, if any.
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Date of dream: Monday, March 01, 2010
Level of Lucidity: N/A
Level of Cohesiveness:
Lucid Intent? No
This dream has been viewed 108 times.
Please see "A Moth Dream About My Mother" for a precursor, though not a prequel, to this dream and for introductory notes on why I'm taking it down. This was the more interesting and unusual of the two dreams.
I was outside again, in the dark, in winter, with the outside light on illuminating the area immediately around the pavement, only this time I was in my father's company; my mother wasn't present but this seemed to be early morning so she was probably asleep inside. It was black outside. I believe I in fact started out inside, saying goodbye to Dad as he got ready to leave for work, and I was probably going to my bedroom window to watch him drive by the front of the house and beep goodbye to me, but I guess something had changed in his routine and I was getting concerned so I left the house to see what it might be. I felt very anxious that something had gone wrong though I didn't know what.
I don't remember if I first saw it from my window or from outside; I seemed to go into the front yard but the way things were laid out was somewhat different, like the house wasn't there and I had a clear view of the junction northwest of us from a position I shouldn't have been able to see it from. There was snow all over the ground as in the previous dream. (It's also like the house wasn't there in that the outside light seemed to spill across this area of the yard when in reality, the house itself--the source of the light--would block it and cast this area in shadow.) Anyway, Dad's vehicle was parked here at the corner of the road, like he'd been preparing it to go to work or was changing or getting something, I don't know. His vehicle, in reality a dark blue SUV, in my dream seemed to be one of his prior vehicles, a black or black and gray SUV; but in the dream he'd had it painted bright neon orange. (It seemed at first, I think, to be yellow, then was orange. I was going to say "hunter's orange" as it was along those lines, but it wasn't QUITE as brilliant as that; even "neon" seems to be overstating it. It wasn't just normal orange, though. Like dullish neon orange, or neon orange that has been coated with dust.) It confused me when I saw it. Why had Dad had his vehicle painted bright orange? It seemed very strange, but he must have had his reasons. I think I started walking toward it, where he was doing something, because I wanted to see him off plus I wanted to allay my anxieties over his change in routine in leaving for work. Dad didn't seem perturbed, just busy with something, so perhaps all was well.
I don't recall the next part too well. I know I was hanging out in our short, northern driveway, which is composed of gravel, mixed rocks mostly smoothed by water action; in real life it's covered with ice and snow and should have been so in the dream, but it wasn't, and there seemed to be more of a sandy mixture to it here as well. It was no longer just Dad and me; a few other people, around my age (I might have been slightly younger, as I usually am in dreams), seemed to be milling around the driveway area while Dad did his stuff. I guess I was just waiting for him to leave, and poking around here while I did so. I think I poked and dug at a few of the rocks embedded in the sand/soil of the driveway, in a halfhearted way; in real life I often poke around at them and dig out or pick up a few of the prettier or fossillike ones because I find them interesting. Sometimes this involves getting a sharp stick and gouging at the hardened soil around them until I can pry them loose. In the dream, I believe I poked a bit at one item that would not easily come free, and I lost interest so I let it be and meandered around a little. I possibly interacted with Dad a bit, but he was still busy (I think he was looking around in the stuff in the back of his vehicle), so I went back to the driveway and these other people. Milled about a bit more. Got bored enough to again poke at the various rocks and such protruding from the ground. I saw something that wasn't quite rocklike in appearance but was longer and seemed to be composed of layers, almost like a piece of baklava turned on its side or something, and I thought perhaps it was wood or bone or a fossil. It was the same color as the baklava I ate in the past, too, a tawny color, and a bit longish and narrowish like a stick, maybe like three or four inches long (at first) and slightly less than an inch wide. It was deeply embedded in the soil so only this top edge of it showed. I think I had poked at it earlier, unsuccessfully, but now I grew curious so stooped down and proceeded to dig around it to get it loose. I did this all out of sheer boredom, not really expecting anything exciting. The other people were chatting a little as they walked around and I might have been absently chattering at them as well as I did this.
I at last was able to pull this woodlike/layered thing loose. I think it came out as its own piece and based on what came after, it was probably a jawbone, just the lower one, like for a horse or deer though smaller. It was long and narrow. This in itself didn't seem too surprising or interesting; it was just like digging out a curious-looking rock. However, in the kind of deep hollow it left behind, I spotted something else embedded even further in the earth, and it was peculiar in appearance, so I reached down, still chattering absently, and grasped hold of it to pull it loose as well. It came up quite easily--I didn't even have to dig it out as I should have had to--and now the dream took a decidedly strange turn, for, in keeping with the jawbone I'd just freed, this was a bizarre skull which seemed both part deer and part human.
It's hard to describe. Firstly, in real life there's this game online called Endless Forest or something where everybody plays the role of these weird deer with human faces. I've never played it (my Internet connection is too slow) though I was tempted once, before it became big. Word about the game spread to an online art community I belong to, DeviantArt, and there was a spate of artwork produced by various fans of the game, so for a while I kept coming across lots of artwork of deer with human faces. Of course these people would put their own spin on things, giving the deer odd facepaint or decorations or other attributes that the game didn't actually feature. They even came up with individual deer characters and storylines and whatnot. It was all terribly faddish and after a while I found myself rather annoyed. Secondly, some time back while doing a search for "forest" at DA, I came across a piece of artwork obviously inspired by Endless Forest, though it was moderately different. It was a portrait, from the neck up, of one of the human-faced deer, only instead of purely a human face, the upper half of the face was covered by a sort of mask that protruded outward to a sharp point like a long, stylized bird's beak, kind of like the "plague doctor" masks of the Middle Ages. So it was this composite creature with the ears and neck of a deer, this birdlike mask over the top half of the face, and human eyes peering out and the lower half of a human face as well. I do not know if this was really a mask or if it was part of the character's real face; I'm just describing what I saw. The character had a name like "Jakob" or something and I think the mask was shiny and black or gray. I didn't bother to go looking at what the artist had said about this artwork since it was obviously yet more fanart based on the game, however loosely, and I had long grown tired of seeing such things.
This "skull" in my dream most closely resembled this later piece of artwork. It was what was supposed to be a deer "skull," but it had a humanlike face, and in addition had this pointed, projecting part over the nose and upper half of the face; there seemed too much to it for it to be an actual skull, like it was a real face and such, but it was made of light (porous?) tawny-colored bone and that's what it was supposed to be, a skull. I picked up the jawbone and held the two together though now the jawbone must have been more like a human jawbone and not a deer jawbone if the lower half of the face was more humanlike; I can't explain it. I just know they went together and as soon as I pulled this bizarre monstrosity loose from the ground, I felt very uneasy. I knew it was the skull of some sort of mystical creature which had once lived here. I just somehow knew all this. They were a race of very ancient, wise beings with deer bodies and humanlike faces. I think they were--or had been--benevolent, but they were just so intelligent, and so vastly ancient, that the mere thought of them unnerved me, and perhaps I also feared that my unearthing of the skull of one could anger them. I can't say that they were still in existence--I feel they had died out or "moved on," somehow, ages ago, long before the modern age, possibly even before man--but it's kind of like their spirits were still around, or they could still react to things from some other plane of existence; again, I can't really explain. They weren't evil or threatening creatures, but they were terribly powerful, and I thought perhaps I'd just disrespected them by digging up this skull. I really wanted to make amends fast.
Before I go on I wanted to say that they vaguely made me think of what little I know of the "Kirin/Qilin" these lionlike/unicornlike creatures from Asian belief. Granted, most of what little I know of the Kirin/Qilin is what I read in a Dungeons & Dragons manual. (I just looked it up at Wikipedia to get the spelling right and was surprised to learn that in Japanese art it's depicted as being more deerlike than in Chinese art. Although I'm certain I've seen depictions of it with deerlike antlers, I had never considered the two in conjunction with each other, as far as I recall.)
Anyway, I stood up, taking this skull (and jawbone) with me, and walked over toward the side road where a few of the other, unidentified people were gathered. I guess either Dad and his vehicle were closer now or else he was with them, still doing his thing. I started to kind of murmur to these people about this skull and what it meant, but what I remember trying to describe were some ancient texts of some sort. The others turned and looked at me as I talked in this low, melodramatic voice, acting all awed. I was sort of roleplaying this part as I kept stopping myself and starting over again as if to get it just right; this means I probably also controlled the others' reactions, though to a limited extent only, as they seemed to start losing interest the longer I went on. All I clearly recall is I began describing/explaining some very ancient texts called the Vedas--and yes, I'm aware that these are real texts, though I know virtually nothing about them. In the dream, I think I first mentioned, perhaps, ancient Egyptian texts or something, or maybe this was just in reference to how the Vedas were composed; I then said how very ancient the Vedas were, in fact, they were the oldest texts known to man. (I do not believe this is in fact true, since my dictionary says they were penned in the sixth century BC, whereas ancient Egyptian texts--and many others--are much older. In the dream I didn't seem to take into account oral traditions.) The very age of these things was awe inspiring and was one reason I was acting so dramatic--it was almost like the Great Old Ones and whatnot from Lovecraft's writing, just stuff so ancient it blew the mind. I remember I gave the name of the Vedas several times because I kept redoing this to make it dramatic. I would like say, "The Vedas," and the others were supposed to say, "The Vedas?" as if in curiosity or something. I also described in detail how they were bound--I almost seemed to have a roll of papyrus in my hands as I did so--"They were written upon scrolls, bound end to end like this, not on separate pages attached between two covers like those silly books they had in The Mummy" or something like that. I just really emphasized how these texts were put together, and again, I had to do this several times over, each time revising myself to get it right.
What exactly this had to do with the skull, I'm uncertain; I guess this creature belonged to the culture that had created the Vedas, and I showed off the skull to show how very old it all was. (Though I also kind of get the feeling the Vedas were manmade since I had mentioned they were the oldest known manmade texts, so perhaps these creatures had penned the first versions or had passed them on to humans?) It was all just very awe inspiring to me, but since I kept redoing this, even though I kind of controlled their actions, the others started to lose interest the longer I went on, and Dad rather impatiently went back to his work on his vehicle. I believe that was how that dream ended, with me going on and on about the Vedas and this advanced ancient civilization as if it were all quite fascinating and eerie. I think I was trying to explain the potential danger in my having dug up this skull (and maybe the others had a copy of the Vedas on them or something) but nobody was really listening anymore.
After awakening, and getting up to really see Dad off, I worried that the dream might be some sort of warning for him--was the bright "warning orange" color of the vehicle some sort of sign to watch out for deer while driving to work, for example?--and considered telling him about it, but my parents don't put much stock in dreams, and the idea made me feel foolish anyway.
Again, I can't think of any real-life material that directly influenced this, aside from the game and artwork previously mentioned, though I do have one interesting detail to add. The day before this dream, I had been downloading some PDF files from online, and one was entitled Myths & Dreams by Edward Clodd. Whenever I download a PDF, I'll quickly page through the entire thing to make sure each page is there, and every so often a word or phrase will stick out at me and I'll glance at that page a bit longer, but aside from one passage here and there I didn't pay much attention to this particular download at the moment as I was busy. However, remembering this dream today, and downloading a different copy of the same book, I wondered if any mention was made in it of the Vedas. I was going to do a search of the text when I went to the next page and there was the word "Veda," referred to as plain as day. So, seeing as I've never been in the least bit interested in learning about the Vedas, my brain obviously picked up on the word while scanning quickly through this PDF file, and for some unknown reason brought it out in my dream. This could be an example of cryptomnesia--when you read a phrase or word in passing without really paying attention to it, and either forget about it or don't even really remember it except subconsciously, then later on it shows up in a dream and you have no idea where it could have come from, like your brain just spontaneously produced it from nothing. Since I don't read about the Vedas, and hadn't consciously come across mention of them lately, this detail could have been very confusing ("What the heck brought THAT up?") if I hadn't happened to think of that PDF file!
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