Anonymous - Walking Together

We recently returned from a visit to Kennebunkport, Maine, so I suppose that is why my dream two nights ago (October 20) at home in Southern California was set in the New England countryside.  The actors in the dream were a young man and a young woman, walking together through a beautiful fall landscape and climbing a hill in an attempt to reach a sprawling wooden inn replete with gables and mystery.  They were engaged in a quest, frustrating but not frightening, and taking place entirely in daylight.  My dream had no resolution.  The inn they sought was entirely visible throughout yet unreachable.  And the dream repeated itself even after I awoke briefly and returned to sleep.  I'd like to revisit that place to see what happens!!

Anonymous

Betsy Lohrer Hall - Very Tan Skin

I look in the mirror and I am amazed to discover that while I have a section of long hair immediately bordering my forehead, around my face, I have a large bald spot on most of the top of my head. Not only that, the skin up there is very tan and somewhat wrinkled at the edges. It becomes clear to me - suddenly - that I’ve been living with female pattern baldness for what must be quite some time without even realizing it.

blh

October 28, 2010

Carol Ann - Fuselage

I had a nightmare last night that I was standing at a second story window watching a plane come apart on take-off, and while I was steeling myself to go outside and help the survivors, a huge chunk of the fuselage came spinning towards the building I was in.

Carol Ann

Jason L - The Walking Painting

So, there was this very strange portion of my dream where I was leaning on a large fence with some friends at a baseball diamond. It was one of those very tall fences and our weight made the fence sag behind us. We were watching high school baseball try-outs. Of course, my old high school track coach was there and I said hi to him. Different people were throwing the ball around and then this one guy came out and the track coach thought that he might actually be pretty good. He had legs but his whole upper body and head were confined to a huge oil painting in a gilded frame. He could move his hands and his face popped out of the painting, but he looked like a walking painting. I never thought of him as a painting though- he was a child who happened to be stuck in a painting. I thought perhaps that his parents were very conservative and this was some sort of religious ritual. Apparently, he was a pretty good pitcher. When one of the coaches came up to tell him what he was doing wrong he started to cry and the coach said that he made the team as a pitcher. I remember thinking that he would have made a good catcher because he would easily block wild pitches with that large upper "body." The painting was at first of a very traditional sort of Rembrandt portrait. Then, later by the end of this segment, I remember thinking it was strange that he was on the body of some sort of distraught maid.

Also, in the dream I was in an art studio and then walking around with my siblings looking at different houses. At first we were going to toilet paper them and then we just decided to look at them. I wanted to write a letter to the people and slip it under there doors. But, my sister-in-law was slightly opposed.

Jason L

New year’s eve, 2011

Betsy Lohrer Hall - Singing Several Notes at Once

I dreamt that my friend Sky could sing several notes at once – as if all the facets of her inner life each had a beautiful female singing voice and they were singing together in perfect harmony… many voices emerging from her one mouth.

blh

Joanna Roche - The Wedding Envelope

In the dream, my mother was central. She was organizing a wedding—for me—but I was busy at work and I arrived very late, as the few guests who had remained were leaving. I greeted those I knew by name, but it was clear I had blown it and they were embarrassed (themselves and for me, I felt). There was no groom at the space where the event was, and I wasn’t sure exactly who (or where) he was…. I saw several people to their car, and when I realized my mother was not among them, I asked the people leaving (who were carrying a lot of things—almost like they were moving—they had carts and coats and seemed very burdened by all the items they were carrying): “Where is my mother?” “She is back at the hall, straightening the chairs,” they told me. “Then I will go there to help her,” I replied. I returned to the place—and remembered the front of it as a large, Spanish style (?) entrance with an interesting façade and shallow steps leading up to a larger building, it felt formal, like an old hotel or even a museum entrance way. I believe (though I don’t remember) finding her there. I think we may have embraced and spoken, but I am not sure—I didn’t I bereft or awful when I woke up or in the dream, so probably I found her or we communicated somehow.

As I wrote up the dream for you, I remembered an earlier part: before the guests left, when I had first arrived, and went into a smaller room, where gifts or other items were located (storage or coats or something, it was small and had lots of stuff in it). I remember picking up and opening an elaborate, very large, cream-colored envelope (several feet in size) that was for me, as the bride (I assume). It was flat, like a super elaborate Hallmark card, but unfolded into a cardboard archway (kind of like a pop up book, but bigger than a book). It was, it stated or I knew, an archway for the bride and groom to walk through and down (it was a passageway, not just an arch). It said on the card that it (the card/experience) was supposed to “smell like autumn,” and had images of orange and yellow leaves on the front. I tried to enter it, but could barely fit in my head and shoulders—I remember feeling like Alice in Wonderland after her “Drink Me” episode where she was too big for the room! I thought to myself at the time, “Two people could never both fit here, or walk through it!”

Joanna Roche

October 30, 2010

at my home in Southern California

Cheryl - Leaving

I had a dream last night about someone leaving me for someone else.  I manufactured a way to still go home with them.  I was crying and said to them, “I am afraid that I will keep doing this,” meaning not letting them go and figuring out how to spend more time with them.  They said, “No you won’t….I won’t let you.”  At first I thought they had confidence in me being stronger than that (continuing to hold on) and then I heard the second part of their sentence and realized they really were going to leave me, that they wouldn’t allow this to go on.

Cheryl 

Long Beach, CA

October 30, 2010

In my own bed

Anonymous - Being Dumped Into The Void

As a child, in Chatham, NJ, I had a recurring nightmare: I dreamt that I was tied to a parking meter on a conveyor belt which gradually "dumped" us into a void!

I think that this dream started as I was in my bed looking up at the ceiling where there was a long crack. Somehow that turned into the dream!

anonymous

December 11, 2010

Jen Zen - Sweet Dream for Romi

Sweet dream for Romi...

I knew he watched me -- black eyes ringed with blue, incandescent in the dark, mine reflecting amber gold, harvest moon and honey. He was humming love songs, his thoughts a fuzzy blur. I felt his breath, and heard the smell of wind, surf pounding on the beach far away, sinking in the heartbeat through his skin everywhere we touched. His smell familiar and soft as through a freshly laundered cotton shirt, crisply pressed.

I awoke and floated as a purring cat curled small and tender on his tummy, breathing long and easy, fur thick and plushy against his tawny skin, a buoyant leather drum, warm and resilient, suspended now dropping, heavy as an oval stone of smooth grey granite carried by waves in space and time, cinnamon grey tiger stripes spinning in the dark. He caressed my head absently, twirling fingers round my furry ears, round and round and round again, rubbing exactly right... so I purred louder not to stop, warm and happy all the way through, adrift in serenity.

JEN ZEN (aka Jen Grey)

October 31, 2010

Rick Lohrer - Curious Companion

I woke up in the middle of the night thinking I was in bed with an alligator….and the skin on its belly was soft and smooth.  Go Freud go!

Rick Lohrer

December 21, 2010

Block Island, Rhode Island

Cheryl Bennett - Runaway Train

Somehow I ended up as the engineer of a runaway railroad train.  The engineer wasn’t there and I had no knowledge of how to run a train.  The tracks for this train went across the ocean and were even slightly submerged under the sea water.  The waves were very rough.  I sat in the engineer’s car which was actually more like being in a luxury cruise ship captain’s chambers.  His seat looked out onto the tracks ahead.  We were going at a fast pace but we stayed on the tracks.   I finally found a ship-to-shore communication device.  I kept leaving messages about my situation, always keeping a calm voice but no one was calling me back.

At one point men were working on the tracks and assumed I would stop but I couldn’t.  I heard the train hit two of them and they were bumped into the ocean.

At one point,  a woman told me that someone had left me a 20 minute message of how to stop the train when we got to our designation, which was my big concern all along. I don’t know why I could hear her but not the message but I didn’t know how to retrieve it.

Somehow I came to the knowledge that the train had fallen off the tracks.  I think I could see that we were total engulfed in ocean water through the windows and that we were sinking downward.  That didn’t seem right to me as we weren’t filling up with water.

Then I noticed through the video image of our train, which now looked more like an oval with points (kinda like the Beatles “Yellow Submarine” but not so fancy), that we had fallen off the tracks.  BUT there was a rope in view that someone was trying to lasso the vessel with.  It finally caught and was pulling us.

At this point I knew I needed to talk to the passengers.  I had to confide in one person to help me locate the intercom, so I left the captain’s quarters.  The first room I came to had about six people playing handball.  I asked for help and a 30-something man offered.  He came with me.  Getting to him had been straight-forward: out of my cabin, into the hall and into the big room (athletic room).  Once we were walking back into my cabin it was if we were in an emergency room.  We had to keep walking past nurses and I had to shut a curtain to privately talk with him but then somehow we were in the captain’s quarters again and all that was shut out.

The intercom wasn’t where I had been sitting with all the equipment.  It was built into a round table in the middle of the room.  It was just a black faceplate where one part was a circle with holes.  I saw us go by icebergs and asked someone on the mike if we were in Alaska.

As we were getting off what had now become a cruise ship, I remarked to someone that this is why I never wanted to take a cruise; I was always worried about drowning.

As I got off, no one knew who I was, which felt a little empty. Off to the right of the indoor hallway ramp (kinda like at the Los Angeles Airport where you  walk up a carpeted ramp to get to some of the terminals), I noticed a body covered in a sheet and thought, “I didn’t know anyone had died because of this experience.”  But before I could think anything else, there was a young black boy on a stretcher with an IV and oxygen.  He was next to the body.  I knelt by him and asked if he okay.  He said he was.  Still kneeling I turned away from him and started crying.

I then told whoever I was walking with that I would have to go visit the wives of the two men I had bumped into the ocean.  In the dream I think I was saying it because it cast me in the “right light” to do it, not because I was moved to the point of feeling I needed to help the wives feel better.

Cheryl Bennett

Betsy Lohrer Hall - A Long Way From Where I Aimed For

I went to Holly’s apartment for a visit. (In my waking life, she lives less than a block away from where I live in Long Beach.)  It was a large building with a narrow corridor leading from the lobby to an elevator. The hallway and corridor were very dark. It was daylight outside, but it became night in the building. There was a doorman in the elevator (and the elevator was much larger than the one that is actually in her building). All of us in the elevator were whisked up quickly to another level of the building and placed straight onto a conveyor that took us to Seal Beach, several miles away. Seal Beach looked much like a fun zone, something like Coney Island or Balboa. I tried to call Holly, but my phone wouldn’t work. I was more than two hours late at this point, and had no way to reach her to let her know where I was.

Note: the morning after I had this dream I spoke with Holly on the phone. She said she’d tried to call me the night before, but the call wouldn’t go through.

Betsy Lohrer Hall

Gretchen Potts - Playdates in Canada

I had a dream last night that our good friends, who have a little boy that is best friends with our son, moved to Canada. We had to commute to do playdate every other weekend because the boys were so upset.

Gretchen Potts

October 24, 2010

Marta Deffenbaugh - One Big Fat Cow

There was a large beautiful boat, at the edge of the water and I was trying to shoo one big fat cow on that boat. The cow was almost as big as the boat.

Then, I woke up.

Marta Deffenbaugh

October 23, 2010

Anonymous - Water Runs Between Us

We are near the Hollywood sign around sundown and the glow from the city and from the sign light the sky. As we walk toward the sign, we see a first trail that leads from LACMA, and a second trail that comes from over in West Hollywood.  There are canals/streams with water running and grasses and trees and we see a cross-dresser on the far side of the canal. We keep going. I’m with a beautiful young African American woman I don’t know, though it could be Sandra. Then I find myself at a yoga conference/social party. I’ve gained enough success and notoriety that people recognize me and know my name. They don’t approach me directly, but one server tells me they know who I am.

I am doing yoga. We’re in a very interesting place, part shopping mall, part county fair. When I do certain yoga poses I start to spin and twirl in the air and I can’t stop. I’ll stop momentarily in a handstand, balanced on a railing or a chair, and then roll and transition into other poses.

A man is snuggling me and kissing my neck. He’s married. I’m feeling turned on, but I don’t want things to go any further. Somehow I wriggle away and go on spinning and landing in yoga postures. I pass a pen – literally like a livestock pen – with a metal fence and there are many people practicing various poses. Someone asks me to be her academic advisor but in the back of my mind I know I’m not qualified.

I wake up with my arms over my head. My husband is getting out of bed.

anonymous

Anonymous - Newly Discovered Rooms

I regularly dream of large, run-down houses with rambling interiors. In the dream I’m often discovering a forgotten room or rooms which have been unused and neglected. I always have a need for the space in these newly discovered rooms, but am faced with a cleaning/clearing/rearranging job before I can use it. Interestingly, the houses are usually period properties – Victorian, Edwardian, and recently a 1950’s sort of place. They’re always very different places from anywhere I’ve ever lived – furnished as though there has been considerable wealth, but now are very shabby and worn. The detail I see as I survey these dream places is often phenomenal and I wake up thinking how could I possibly have had that kind of highly specific detail in my head, as I often see things that I have no memory of ever seeing in my life, but which seem totally compatible with the period. Sometimes I’m aware that I’m dreaming and have a degree of conscious control of the dream.  (It seems like that to me, anyway.) When this happens I get rather excited in the dream and will often move in and out of rooms quite quickly to take in as much of their fantastical detail as possible. This awareness never lasts long, though, because I always try to assume too much control of the dream and it brings me out of the dream state -- always such a bummer!!

 anonymous

Paula Isenberg - Tiny Threads

In this dream my son had just completed an art project for a fibers class by combining many sculptural baskets together. He was ranting with frustration because he didn't like the way he had joined the baskets and he didn't have time to take it apart and re-design it. Suddenly my sister, cousins and nieces came into the room and started the tedious process of undoing thousands of tiny threads. (This part featured each relative working.) When my son returned he was delighted to find that it was ready to re-construct. [P.S. - All these women were just here for his wedding.]

For years I've had recurring dreams about wandering through houses and finding new and wonderful rooms. Sometimes the new house is mine; other times it's someone else’s house.

Paula Isenberg

Wednesday night, October 27, 2010

Cheryl Bennett - Traveling Without A Ticket

Traveling with a group of people. Time to go home and they get ahead of me in line.  I have to catch up to them because I don't even know what airline we are going home on.  I am afraid people will think I'm taking cuts but then I realize a lot of people are standing off on the side of the line talking so no one will think I'm taking cuts.  When I catch up to everyone and we are nearing the point of boarding the plane, I realize I have nothing with me.  No ticket.  No driver's license.  Someone in my group says not to tell them I lost it but to say I never had ID.  I am worried I won't think of all the answers to all their questions if I lie about that.  I go up to the counter and the agent is a sympathetic black woman.  I burst into tears and tell her that when I was in England someone stole my purse with all my money and ID.  She tells me not to worry; that is why they digitalize everything.  I am trying to remember my driver's license number but can only think of the first three digits for sure, just like in real life. I sorta think I know some of the other digits.  She needs to know what flight number and airline.  I ask Dwight for his ticket (he wasn't in the dream up until this point).  I am surprised he lets me have it as he is usually worried I will lose it or do something wrong with it.  Then I wake up.

Cheryl Bennett

December 15, 2010

Betsy Lohrer Hall - Out Into The Storm

I am a man somewhat older (in real life I’m a woman in my 40s). I am in a beachside town and there is a storm coming. It’s a major storm which they anticipate will wash most of the shoreline beach and buildings into the ocean. I’m not prepared. My coat isn’t waterproof and because of my beard and the extra blanket that I have wrapped around me, people think I may be homeless. It’s an affluent neighborhood. They want me to MOVE ON. I stop into a beauty salon to get one last haircut and a new dress (?). They are packing to leave, but give me the address of another location on higher ground. They send me out in the gathering rain with peanuts and unpopped popcorn kernels in the big pockets of my coat.

blh

Carolyn Liesy - Soaring

I am hovering over a valley --  a very lush, green valley in the alps, or a view from an airplane. I spread my arms out in a V and clasp my hands in front of me and soar through and around the valley. It is a peaceful experience.

Carolyn Liesy

October 28, 2010