Dream Stuff

[Robert]

Last night after a dream involving rugby -- I frequently have dreams wherein I'm playing, officiating, or otherwise in attendance at American or rugby football -- I dreamed about a real estate deal.  Seems some community property used as a building for meetings or some such was foreclosed on, and somebody bought it for $1,000 sight unseen at an auction.  The purchaser then had it inspected, found full of rotten wood, and told it'd be better to tear it down and build anew than to repair it.  Instead the purchaser flipped it for a loss of $400 to a group of the people who were using it.  Those people acquired for $600 a property they'd been using but would undoubtedly be condemned or simply collapse soon, which they didn't realize.  And if they didn't have the money to afford mortgage payments, they certainly couldn't afford to fix it, let alone rebuild on the lot.

[Robert]

I've had a couple of standout experiences in dreams lately.  One involved looking at an old AM radio whose dial was marked in wavelength rather than frequency, and trying to do the conversion.  Have you ever tried to do math in a dream?  It's very difficult to concentrate on the figures.  I tried to get the reciprocal of a fraction mentally, and failed.  So I tried long division "on paper", twice, not realizing that since I was dreaming it was still mental arithmetic, not really on paper.  First time, I saw it wasn't coming out right, tried again, still didn't work.  Seems I'd made the absolutely ridiculous seeming (when you're awake) mistake of switching the numerator and denominator, and therefore trying to divide by 1, and being vexed when the quotient came out as the number I was starting with.  I mean, how could I not see I was doing something useless, dividing by 1?  Folks, don't do math in your sleep.

The other was when someone told me their (Their school's?) worm racing team was doing badly.  I asked, "How's the JV?"

[Robert]

Last night I dreamed I'd seen a new vignette from Lost.  In it, Hugo posed as someone answering phones to help people who'd been victims of a scam.

[ShayP]

Has anyone here ever had their dreams in a sepia tone or a greenish hue? I've had several that were like I was visualizing everything through a colored lens.

[Robert]

Has anyone here ever had their dreams in a sepia tone or a greenish hue? I've had several that were like I was visualizing everything through a colored lens.

That reads as vaguely familiar, like a hypnopompic dream that might be produced by pressure on one eyeball from having that side of the head pressed against a pillow.  It seems to preferentially stimulate cones of one of the colors in the retina.

A few nights ago, none of that, but I dreamed I'd put a flat, disc-like earpiece on a penguin.  I remember turning the earpiece like the whole thing was a knob, to lower the volume on it.  I don't know what audio was coming thru it, but the penguin liked it and wouldn't stay still for me to remove it.

From there I went into a large room, probably a hotel ballroom, where former president Trump was going to speak.  Someone nearby wanted to exit a place that was like one of those storefronts with glass double doors on a small vestibule to keep the wind out.  However, the inner door, which was on the right from the outer door, had been converted by the Secret Service into a fire exit only, so I was unable to help him.  Apparently I was one of the invited guests, don't know if he was or just wanted out of there.

[Robert]

I don't know if I've mentioned here previously having had a dream that was a new bit for Seinfeld, but I had another last night.  I dreamed Kramer was describing a scam he was pulling every year by putting his dirty blankets in rented storage, then claiming damage and getting new, clean ones to replace them.  My dream must've been influenced by the fact that I'd put my blankets away for the summer, then got them out again for this cold snap.

[Robert]

This morning I turned on the air conditioner in my bedroom and went back to bed.  I dreamed I and some friends, more or less independently, went to a lecture with a large audience by a Muslim apostate explaining his particular take on Islam.  A number of his followers were there, dressed like Ku Klux Klan, except the robes and hoods they wore were grey instead of white.

Then I realized I'd been dreaming and woke up, remembering that I had someplace to go: some children's baseball game or practice.  Then I thought, since when do I coach children in baseball?  And I started to recall that it was in the spring of 2020, because children's football clinics had been canceled, so I coached some baseball teams associated with the school where I was teaching.  But none of that was familiar enough, so, realizing I was still dreaming, I woke up "again".

[Robert]

Sometimes the dreams I remember best come from naps, like the one I took today.

I dreamed I was with my parents.  But they weren't much like my parents, they were dream parents.  That is, they filled roles that indicated these were my mother and father, but they looked and acted differently.  Anyway, my father and I were looking at the sky when I saw something astounding there: a reversing-mirror image of the Earth, although it was somewhat faint, still being daylight or not fully dark sky.  I pointed it out, but couldn't get my father's attention, as he was engrossed with the Moon or something else.  So I turned to my mother, but couldn't get her attention at all; she was reading something.

From there we went to an apartment which I guess was home.  I scraped off a corner of the kitchen table what appeared to be jelled spilled pineapple juice, and threw it away.  My dream father then fucked around with me by placing a bag for garbage alternately so I couldn't open the door (from inside), and then so I couldn't close it.

[Robert]

I think frequently the sequence of events around going to sleep and waking up has a strong effect on the impression a dream makes, like this morning.

I was in bed wanting to get back to sleep, but unaware that I actually had fallen asleep, briefly.  I was aware of being in bed but thought I was facing the other way, and "saw" out the window two firemen clad in the chartreuse they wear to be more visible at night, coming out of a truck toward my house.  I was aware my eyes were closed, and amazed I could see so well what seemed to be projected on my eyelids.  However, being alarmed at the sight (Was the house on fire?), I opened my eyes to see I was facing the other way and must've been asleep for just a few minutes or less.

[anniem]

I think frequently the sequence of events around going to sleep and waking up has a strong effect on the impression a dream makes, like this morning.

I was in bed wanting to get back to sleep, but unaware that I actually had fallen asleep, briefly.  I was aware of being in bed but thought I was facing the other way, and "saw" out the window two firemen clad in the chartreuse they wear to be more visible at night, coming out of a truck toward my house.  I was aware my eyes were closed, and amazed I could see so well what seemed to be projected on my eyelids.  However, being alarmed at the sight (Was the house on fire?), I opened my eyes to see I was facing the other way and must've been asleep for just a few minutes or less.

This is a good story. I must ask, was there fire in the dwelling anywhere? In the awake place, I mean.

[Robert]

This is a good story. I must ask, was there fire in the dwelling anywhere? In the awake place, I mean.

Not that I'm aware of.

Anyway, the rest of the day I kept trying to sleep again, and again woke up every time within minutes or less.

[Robert]

This morning I woke up with an exaggerated awareness of...well, I might as well tell the whole story as well as I can remember it.

A frequent theme of my dreams is moving out.  Vacating premises, alone or with others, all packed up.  Such was this dream.  I dreamed my father and I were moving out, and that accompanying that activity was clearing out some stuff he had that was pretty well unclassifiable.  In this case it involved opening a large package with mysterious contents under circumstances that meant comparing religious practices in the presence of some women.  I've no idea how these things went together.  My father explained that in Judaism it was one way, in Christianity another, but that this package was for some Islamic ritual.  I'd expected the major contents of the package to be foodstuffs, because the Jewish and Christian rituals it was being compared to would've had those, but instead the main contents of this supposedly Islamic one appeared to be 3 large different-colored-label bottles of what was almost exactly like Dr. Bronner's liquid soap, except it must've been a knockoff brand.  I opened one bottle and poured a little out and verified it was indeed soap solution, one of 3 different scents in the box.

It then occurred to me that my father was a secret agent of some sort, inasmuch as the package did not contain what I'd expected, and that he and the women attached significance to it, like it was some coded message -- maybe in the fine print in those Bronner-like labels.  Somehow this realization must've greatly gratified me, because I became aware...did you ever see the ad for the James Bond picture in National Lampoon's 5th inaugural of JFk issue, "The Spy With the Biggest Penis You Ever Saw in Your Whole Life"?  I felt like that, albeit with a penis not that big, but with an erection that did reach past my bellybutton easily.  I then woke up with an erection not even that big or stiff, but definitely there.

So, 2 mornings in a row waking up with a sensation of being super in some way -- once with color X-ray vision, the next with super-sex arousal.  I don't know what this all says.

[Robert]

Sometimes the dreams I remember best come from naps, like the one I took today.

I dreamed I was with my parents.  But they weren't much like my parents, they were dream parents.  That is, they filled roles that indicated these were my mother and father, but they looked and acted differently.  Anyway, my father and I were looking at the sky when I saw something astounding there: a reversing-mirror image of the Earth, although it was somewhat faint, still being daylight or not fully dark sky.

I saw something like that while driving home late in the day a few days ago.  It was a cloud lit by the sun at a low angle.  It didn't look like a reflection of Earth, though, just "blank".

[Robert]

Last night I dreamed that I started a job in a large single-story building entirely occupied by one firm.  What their business was, what my job was, I don't remember.  I worked there about a week, then for some reason I was there one morning on my day off; it wasn't my idea, but I'd gotten word to go there then.  In a large room I encountered a young lady who was lying naked on her back on some platform (maybe the tailgate of a station wagon) with her legs spread.  She forcefully pushed a wad of cotton into her vagina and continued to manipulate it.  In waking life I'd've thought it a menstrual pad, but in the dream its function was mysterious.  She was ecstatic as she eventually left the cotton wad in her.  What my role was, I had no idea, even in the dream.  She could've been masturbating, but I had the impression there was something more to it.  Was there cocaine or something similar imbuing or coating the cotton?

Anyway, we were seen and reported to management.  The boss asked, "Didn't you see the part about that in the orientation film?"  No, I hadn't.  After I asked around a while what had been going on there, I was told, no, there was no substance coating the cotton, but that the lady had been "stimming".  Apparently this was a term the firm used for masturbating on the job, and it was apparently a forbidden, but not too uncommon, occurrence on the premises.  I was absolved of responsibility, and left the building.

[Robert]

Usually I remember most the last or nearly last dreams of the night, but last night's first dream was so impressive it's the one I'll relate here.

There were wild grey-and-brown mice infesting an attic, and weaving in and out thru holes in its shingled roof, seeming to have a fun time as mouse times go.  Then in the left lower corner of the roof, a white, apparently pet mouse of the same size popped out thru one of the holes just as one of the wild mice got there.  The two went nose to nose, like making friends, when the white mouse grabbed the wild one by the former's mouth and front paws, and in steps, but quickly, swallowed and ate it entirely.  Then another white mouse popped up from a hole slightly higher and to the right of that one, and did the same with another of the wild mice.

My friend Charlie noted decades ago that my dreams were frequently cartoon-like, and I guess this would be an example, since the plot seemed right out of a Looney Tune.  My dreams don't look visually like cartoons, but sometimes act that way.

I suppose there might be a racial metaphor at work in this dream.