Bad Dream 175 -- Somebody Stole my Bed

In my dream, I am in a rather confusing building.  In part, it's where I live and in part it's where I work.  

In an early stage of my dream, I open the door to the room in which I have been living.  I expect to see my bed -- a nice Danish modern Queen-size kind of bed -- and my belongings.  Books, clothes, and so forth.  In fact what I see is a completely empty room.  There is carpeting on the floor, but absolutely nothing else.  

There is activity happening around the building -- workmen moving things here and there -- and I assume that my stuff has simply been moved to another room.  So I spend considerable time looking for that new room.  I think I may ask some of the folks doing the moving about my bed and belongings, but get no helpful response.  As this process goes on, I feel less and less likely to ever find my stuff again.  

Partway through this process, a come across someone I know.  We're both Field Service Engineers and have worked on the same project from time to time.  He has been moved out of his room in this building into a hotel room, with the Company (whatever that is...) paying the bill.  He's annoyed that, while the Company is paying for the room he has to pay "Service Charges" for that room out of his own pocket.  His plan is to take this issue up with Management immediately before these charges accumulate too high.  He walks away.

I walk into an open area in the building.  It might be used as a lobby in other times, but at the moment it is rather full of shipping boxes -- mainly cardboard and mostly rather large.  Someone who's working in this area sees me and tells me he has a box that has been sent to me.  It's a bit bigger than a briefcase but roughly the same shape.  

I open it and find that it's full of metal pieces something like Erector Set pieces but mainly brass rather than aluminum.  It's been sent to me by someone who works for one of our client companies-- someone with whom I got along quite well.  And somehow I know that the pieces can be assembled into a model Power Plant similar to the one he and I worked on some time ago.  It should be fun to assemble, but it will take time -- and I have a much more pressing assignment!

But I'm quite pleased at the present and tell myself to get back in touch with the sender as soon as I find my bed and belongings.

By this time, it's clear to me that any additional searching on my part would be useless.  My stuff may still be here somewhere, but it would seem to be a place that I don't have access to.  

My immediate superior is not around, so I can't ask for his assistance.  I know it's no good looking for him.  But I see his boss (that is, my boss's boss) and explain my situation to him.  He's sympathetic and I think he would really like to help, but he's so tied up with the moving stuff in and out of the building, he simply doesn't have time to help out.  

As these last events take place, my concern switches from "Where is my bed and stuff?" to "Where am I going to sleep tonight?"  It's getting on towards evening...

Bad Dream 174 -- My BIcycle in Pieces

In my dream, I'm trying to reassemble my bicycle.  I have no information as to why it is in pieces, but I think I can reassemble it.  I'm not terribly sure my efforts will be successful, but I'm trying to do this out of curiousity as much as regaining use of my bicycle.  I know that there are several shops I could visit with the pieces and they would do the job quickly and inexpensively, but that's not the way I want this to happen.

I'm in a room with several other extended family members.  I know that Sarah is here and also my (now deceased brother) David.  And I know there are others, but can't identify them.

I also know that David is very good at this sort of assembly/disassembly, but I really don't want any assistance from him.  I'm not sure why...

The bike isn't completely disassembled and it seems to me that I will have to take several pieces off the existing partial assembly before proceeding with the overall reassembly -- and it's this disassembly that has me concerned more than the reassembly.  

The room is crowded and not well lit.  I need to put the bike pieces in a particular array and arrangement to begin reassembly, but as mentioned above there's some disassembly to take place first.  This will involve the removal of small black screws holding several pieces together.  And if these screws get dropped or otherwise get away from me, they will probably never be found again and will be impossible to purchase in my local hardware store.  And that will likely preclude my reassembly project and I will just have to buy a new bicycle.  

I find that I can either position these pieces in a good light, but that would interfere with the doings of some of the people.  Or I can lay out the pieces in a nice neat way, but the light will be too dark to do any work.  There don't seem to be any places that meet both criteria.

As I'm looking at the pieces and considering where to start, David comes over and starts fingering the pieces I have in front of me.  I bark at him to chase him away.  He leaves. 

Some of the parts are held together with"Acorn Nuts" -- but they are really flimsy, being thin sheet metal bent in to the proper shape.  (Different from the small black screws mentioned above.)  Throughout much of the dream, I am complaining to myself about these fasteners.  It's clear they won't hold up under any of the pressure and wears and tear of riding a bicycle.  Grumble grumble.

David comes back, and once again starts to examine the pieces of the bike in front of me.  And I chase him away again.  I understand that having him help me -- or do the job himself -- will vastly increase the likelihood of the project being successful.  And I also understand that I am being unreasonable.  But that's how it is.  

Bad Dream 173 -- Stealing Stuff From My Car

 My dream begins with me in a commercial building setting.  It's the office portion of a research and development company.  I don't work here, but I know the people and their products.  I like them and they like me.  The lady I'm talking with is disappointed in the results of a test on their latest invention.  When they hooked it up to a more conventional device (a projector?) it didn't work.  

I suggested that the problem might be with the projector (if that's what it was...) rather than their invention and that they should try a different device for the test.  She hadn't thought about that and was enthusiastic to give it a try.

So I left the building feeling pretty good about myself.  

I start walking towards my car.  It's getting late in the day and it had been raining.  The parking lot -- which is half empty -- is wet and the sky is still cloudy.  I'm carrying a rather large box that I plan to put in my car and then go do something else before leaving.  My car is more than halfway across this large parking lot, but I can see it as I walk towards it.

I place the box on the back seat of my car and close the door.  I notice that there are two young men -- late teens or early 20's -- walking around my car.  Literally circling around it and looking in towards me and the car.  They are wearing bandanas across the bottom half of their faces. I consider this to be weird, but young men do weird things, so it doesn't bother me.

But just in case, I turn towards them and ask them a question ("What are you doing?" "Will you please go elsewhere?") and they scamper off to the woods nearby.

Now that they've gone, I can walk back to some building (I think it's another one -- not the one I just left).  As I walk a couple hundred feet away, I turn to see the two young men have returned to my car and are no longer wearing bandana masks.  One of them opens the back lid of my SUV and start to examine the contents.  I call out to them and tell them to go away.  They scamper away again.  I start walking towards my next destination, but am now concerned about what the young men have in mind.  

I walk a little farther and turn once more to look at the car.  They have the doors open and are removing the packages that I've stored in the back seat and elsewhere in the car.  I call out to them, but this time they look up at me, then go back to looting my car.  

I reach into my pockets to grab the remote control.  I can't lock the doors, since they're already open, but I can at least set off the alarm.  And I find that I don't have my keys.  They must still be in the car!!  Now I'm concerned that I may lose all those packages as they steal my car as well.

I start running back towards the car, but I'm not very good at running anymore.  I find that I have a bottle in my hand and consider throwing it at the burglars.  I realize it won't do any good and that my chances of actually hitting one of them and not my car are very small.  But in frustration, I hurl the bottle anyway.