Bad Dream 149

I believe I've found a pattern in my recent dreaming that ties into my Blood Pressure Issues.  (FYI, my BP has bounced between the 150's and the 120's -- with the balance of the readings being in the middle to high end of that range.  I'm currently taking five different medications, none of which seem to be pulling the BP down...)

A couple of recent dreams have found me walking about in the downtown area of a city, looking at tall buildings that don't appear to have any signage.  There's nothing that feels sinister about this, but nothing that helps me find any recognizable places.  Dream #148 typifies this.

In this morning's dream, I am a passenger in a car with two delightful friends -- Li;sa and Gus -- and we're driving to some event which is probably musical.  It's mid-morning.  

I remember that I have an important appointment at a place in pretty much the opposite direction of how we're travelling.  The appointment is either at 10:00 this morning or 2:00 this afternoon -- I can't recall which.  I mention this to Gus and Li;sa and -- understandably -- Gus is a bit peeved.  Why didn't I tell him before we left?  Can't you remember or figure out whether it's 2:00 or 10:00?  We could be back in time for 2:00 PM but not 10:00 AM...

What these dreams have in common is "Lost."  Lost directions -- physical.  Lost directions -- personal.  Lost time.  

I feel that I've entered a new phase of life with plenty of opportunities and no sense of direction.  I've pretty much cut off connection to the Meeting and the School Board.  I'm still swimming in cardboard boxes and it doesn't seem to matter how much stuff I give away or throw away, there's still far too much stuff.  And Deb's condition -- her hearing, her mental capacities -- what's really going on there?  What does the future hold for her?  And what will I need to do to hold up my end of things?

Anxiety?  Oh yes.  Reflected in BP?  I think so.  Good answers?  Not forthcoming.

I'm starting a search for a talk therapist -- trying to straighten out what's really wrong and what I can do about it.  

Wish me luck.

Bad Dream 148 -- In Baltimore with Dad

In my dream, I'm in Baltimore with my Dad.  He has some kind of appointment downtown -- but I don't know what it's about.  Further, it seems that my presence at the appointment is not necessary and may, in fact, be prohibited by the subject of the meeting.  All I know is that he will be going over "there" and I will be free to wander around the city.  Unlike the last several meetings where I went someplace with Dad, I'm not concerned about his welfare or ability to navigate the city.

So I'm free to roam around Baltimore wherever I wish.  I wander around the downtown part of the city -- lots of tall buildings, most of which look a lot alike.  (In my dream as was the case when I lived in Maryland, I didn't know the city all that well.  I knew a few landmarks, but that was about it.)

I sense that I've lost track of time and that Dad's appointment -- whatever and wherever it was -- might well be over.  And it then strikes me that we didn't set up a rendezvous location or a time by which we could get back together.  It's not given to me in the dream that Dad has the car keys, but I do know that I won't be able to get home until and unless I link up with him in downtown Baltimore.  And I don't know when or where that could take place.  

I continue to wander from block to block, hoping that I would recognize something that would help me get my bearings -- and from that possibly figure out where Dad might be.  And I have no luck with any of that. 

I'm starting to feel hungry and decide that getting something to eat might somehow stabilize the situation.  At least getting food might help me think more clearly.  I wander into the ground floor of a large office building that has a coffee shop sort of place.  But the only things they have to eat are sweet pastries -- a nice array of them, but not a solid source of protein.  

I look through the glass display case and pick out the pastry that looks least lethal and ask for one and pay for it.  The lady behind the counter walks to the back of the shop to retrieve my order and comes back to the front with a plate carrying two or three pastries that look nothing like what I ordered.  I'm cheesed off at her and the store in general, but I'm more concerned about finding Dad than I am about getting my pastry order squared away.  If I can't link up with him, I have no idea how I will get home.  I decide to keep the pastries she handed me along with the nice-looking plate on which they were served.  (I'm sure she expected to get the plate back so she could wash it and reuse it.  But I will keep the plate to "punish" her.  Get even.)

I turn to leave the shop, but as I walk towards the door, Dad walks in.  And he looks terrific.  He's got this "movie star" glow about him, and he looks like he probably looked when he was 40 years old or thereabouts.

Needless to say, I'm delighted and relieved to see him, but he's taking it all in stride and walking past me as if he's got a task to do before he greets me.  

I wake up.

Bad Dream 147: A Couple of Oddities

 By this time, my Dream Analysis Procedure is pretty much routine: scribble a few notes when I awake from the dream, go back to sleep, get up and power up my Blogspot and write out what I wrote and what I remember and whatever elaborations seem appropriate.  But recently, there were two unrelated(?) dream segments that didn't fit this standard pattern.

SNAP!

(I had made arrangements to meet my sister in Havre de Grace at 8:00 one morning.  And given the time it takes to get fully awake, dressed, fed, car packed, and drive to HdG, I set an alarm the night before to 4:00.  It seemed a bit early, but I wanted to be in HdG early to do a bit of birding. This is the dream I had that next morning.)

In my dream, I am standing in front of a four-burner gas stove that has the two burners on the left lit.  No pots, pans, or skillets there, mind you, just the nice blue flame.  

I go to light a third burner -- the one in the back on the right -- by turning on the gas and listening for the "tik/tik/tik" of the igniter.  As sometimes happens, the burner didn't "catch" immediately, but this time, it seemed unusually long before igniting.  I could hear the gas hissing, but no flame.  

Just as I started to get concerned about too much un-ignited gas in the room, I heard a loud SNAP!! and saw a bright yellow flame roughly 10 inches above the burner tapering slightly at the top and bottom.  Flame maybe 15 or 17 inches tall.  Those two sensations woke me up immediately -- not just groggy awake but wide awake just like that.  

I looked at my bedside clock, which read 3:57AM -- three minutes before the alarm was set to go off.  This allowed me to cancel the 4:00AM alarm, so that Deb didn't have to be awakened by the loud alarm.  

How thoughtful!

Swallowing Screws  

I'm writing up this little part of a larger dream because it's all I can remember AND that because I'm pretty sure that it's been an element of a number of other dreams I've had recently.  

In the course of other things happening in the dream (which, as mentioned above, I don't recall -- but the dream was rather busy and vivid as many of my recent dreams have been), I find that I have several wood screws in the palm of my hand.  Maybe 3 or 4.  They're all identical, all shiny as if they just came from the hardware store.  I estimate they were #10 screws at roughly 1-1/4 inches long.  

Without thinking much about it, I pop one or two into my mouth and swallow them.  This activity doesn't interrupt the flow of the rest of the dream.  No one else in the dream notices what I'm doing.  There is no pain or any discomfort resulting from this activity.  Shortly after this, I begin to wonder what those screws will do to my interior.  I think about my esophagus, my stomach, and my intestines.  Then, knowing that my body won't digest the screws, I think a little farther along in the digestive process...  It occurs to me that the screws might well do serious damage to some soft tissue along the digestive way.  But it's more an academic concern than a concern for my health.  I think that I may have done this before, and that I might be building up a supply of wood screws in my stomach.

As mentioned above, I feel that this interlude in the middle of a dream is something that has happened to me before in several other dreams.  

Bad Dream 146 -- Failing a Test and Explaning to Myself

 At the start of my dream, I am taking an exam.  It's an important one, but one for which I am poorly prepared.  There are two sections to the questions one of which looks for short, simple, factual answers and the other of which looks for essay type answers.  I'm struggling with the first part (but I don't remember which of the two the "first part" is...) and feel that if I can only get through that part, I can be more successful with the other part.  Whichever way the "first" and "second" are arranged.  And if I did that, I might score high enough to at least get a passing grade on the overall exam.  But something keeps me slogging away at this "first part."  Am I just being stubborn?

The other students taking the test are finishing up their submittals,submitting their papers to the instructor, gathering their belongings, and leaving.  I know I have some time left before the instructor comes and takes my test away, and I know it won't be enough time to get a passing grade.  In fact, if he/she gave me a week or two to finish, it still wouldn't be enough.  

I don't know what the consequences of this failure are going to be, but I know it's serious.  

My dream shifts to my presence in a group of people arranged in a circle.  We're sitting in those industrial type chairs that are almost comfortable, but not quite.  Many of the people in the circle are relatives of mine, although I don't recognize any individual.  At least not at this point in my dream -- with one exception: my Grandfather (hereinafter "GF") is sitting in one of these chairs and he knows about my failure in the aforementioned exam.  And while he's not pleased about my performance, he at least seems willing to listen to my version of what happened.  

For reasons that are certainly not clear here, some of the people sitting in the circle are Afro American.  And most everybody except GF are fairly young -- 20's and 30's.  And the topic of conversation is my exam performance.  

I feel that what I have to say is in the way a confession.  I'm opening up and letting it all out about why I think things went so badly on the exam.  I think about letting everyone know about my decision to stick with the hard part of the exam rather than switching to the easier part, but feel that would only lengthen the conversation and add more topics to explore that I don't feel would help anybody understand what happened -- and certainly not help me.  

After some chatter amongst many of the people sitting in the circle, GF takes over.  In a remarkably (to me!) even tone, he asks for my understanding of what took place.  After all, I'm such a bright guy, why can't I ace a test like this?

And something occurs to me that seems salient: I tell the circle of folks -- but mainly GF -- that being bright was actually an important part of the problem.  Being bright, I managed to get through public school and into college without learning how to study or how to do homework that was challenging.  Little did I face that required me to do either.  

So when I was faced with a course and an exam that required me to do at least one of those two things, I failed miserably.  And the exam that was given was perfectly fair in showing up this failure on my part.  As I explain this to everyone, I feel a renewed energy.  

I expect my GF to come down on me like a ton of bricks.  I'm fairly sure that my real life GF would have done that -- and do that because it would help shake me out of my complacency.  Much to my surprise, my GF nodded slowly as if to say "Yes, I can see how that would happen.  It's unfortunate but I understand it."  

My nephew Jay perks up and starts talking about how this phenomenon relates to Modern Society -- and as he talks he gets farther afield from the issues at hand.  But I'm impressed with his understanding of the World Around Us, and when he's done, I compliment him on his perspicacity and insights.   

I then take this opportunity to launch into a story that helps confirm this analysis of mine.  (As in: "I remember back when I was...")  After I start, I realize that the story will be a long and boring one for the people in my circle.  They won't really care and will consider my relating the story to be an intrusion of self-indulgence.  But I don't think I can stop now.

But as I start plodding through the story, our circle is beset by a bunch of kids who have just been let out of school.  (What school? and from where? are issues that don't show up in the dream.)  The volume of noise they bring easily drowns out my own story.   I try to raise my voice louder, but it clearly isn't going to work.

I wake up.  

Bad Dream 145 -- Morning of 6/1/21

 In my dream, I'm a Technical Trainer (aka. Teacher) again -- I think at Leeds & Northrup once more.  I'm preparing to teach a one-week course on a control system for level control on a large pond or similar body of water.  The system is totally mechanical -- no electronic components -- which is unusual for me, and I'm looking forward to the class.  The mechanical pieces are wonderfully clever and look to be foolproof, simple, easy to maintain, and durable.  

Somehow, I let time get away from me, and it is now the morning of the class to start.  Now, there are three components for presenting a class like this: a solid lecture with whiteboard sketches, physical "show-and-tell" pieces, and good documentation.  You can get by with two out of the three or, if you're lucky and talented, you can get by with only one.  I don't have any of the three ready to go.  Among other things, I can't recall the details of how the system actally works.  I do recall it's relatively simple, but that's hardly enough for a training course.

I visit an area where I might find actual pieces of the system or -- if incredibly lucky -- the complete package that we could disassemble and reassemble.  But there's no luck at all. Nothing available.  

For reasons unknown, I find myself outside, standing at the top of a considerable steep hill (bordering on a cliff) roughly 30 feet high or so and made entirely of loose soil.   And I need to get to the bottom to continue my search for anything that might be useful for the class.  I scramble down the cliff face getting considerably dusty and dirty.  (I'm wearing a nice shirt and necktie.)  At the bottom, I look around for whatever I thought would be helpful, but find nothing.  (At some point in my searching, I find myself just outside a shed with all sorts of mechanical stuff -- none of which look in the slightest as being helpful.  But I don't recall whether the shed is at the top of bottom of the cliff.)  

So I scramble back up the cliff, causing dirt to become dislodged under my feet and threatening to make me slide back down the hill.  

Somewhere along this process, I realize that my students are now likely gathering in the classroom waiting for me to start the program.  I can't recall whether the class is supposed to start at 8:00 AM or 9:00.  Nor do I know exactly what the time it is now.

The scene shifts and I'm in the hallway of some building or other with other people walking around.  I hear someone -- who might be Bob Hubby! -- talking fondly about Chuck Schumer's castigating of the Republican Party voting "No" on the January 6th commission.   I agree with him totally, but can't stop trying to find something -- anything! -- that will help me start the class.  

I wake up.

Bad Dream 144 -- Morning of 4/24/21

In my dream, I have just shown up at a camp of some sort.  In the woods -- a pleasant place to be -- with the aroma of the evergreen trees permeating most everything.  It is evening.  

I walk into a fairly large room -- maybe 30 feet on a side -- which has been set up as a "bunk house" for maybe eight or ten people.  And there are at least five or six people in the room at the moment.  All men.  Different sizes and ages and faces.  They seem to know each other by the chitchat they're sharing, and I guess I am known to them and they to me, because no introductions seem to be necessary.  And no one comes over to me to welcome me.  I know that I'm the last one to show up for whatever it is that we've come here for. 

It seems that everyone in the room is setting aside the day's activities and is at the starting point to getting ready for bed.  But everyone is still dressed in their street clothes.  Everyone has chosen their bed, and there are a variety of beds scattered across the room.  Some look quite sumptuous and others almost austere.  Understandably, being the last one to arrive, my bed is the least desirable: a very simple Army-variety of cot.  Single mattress maybe 4 inches thick on a metal network suspended on the edges with coiled springs.  

The chatter around me continues and little if any attention is paid to me.  It's all quite chummy.  They assume I understand what's going on and can take care of myself.  And maybe there's nothing really they could do to help me anyway.  

I can resign myself to the bed -- I've slept on these things before -- but I'm concerned about who's going to snore, which would certainly keep me awake.  And I don't like the position of my bed, which is towards the middle of the room.  I see space in the far corner, which would have the advantages of keeping me out of traffic, maybe a little less noise, and putting me closer to the windows.  The windows are on both walls near my corner, and there's a wonderfully cool and fragrant breeze travelling between them.  With all these grown-up men's bodies in this one room, a cool and fragrant breeze will be a blessing.  Yup, I'm fortunate to have this space for me!  So I pick up my cot (fortunately, being so simple, it's also lightweight) and carry it over to my corner.

The pleasant chatter continues and no one seems to be making arrangements to get to sleep.  I begin to wonder if anyone will get to sleep at all... 

I begin to consider how I will settle down for sleep myself, even if no one else in the room is going to do that.  I notice that there is a simple wall lamp attached to one of the walls that should shine a light directly over the place where I intend to lay my head.  Yay!  A reading lamp that shouldn't bother anyone else in the room!  

I reach up to turn the light on -- really just to test that the light works -- and it falls off the wall.  It had been held in place with two screws into the drywall without anchors.  So the screws simply pulled cones of drywall out with them when the lamp fell.  Meaning that the remaining holes are much larger in diameter than the screws, making the screws useless.  And there are no tools around to be had.  

I start to search for some other method of supporting the lamp.  I had felt so fortunate in having the lamp, I'm reluctant to give it up.  

Bad Dream 143 -- Morning of 4/23/21

I think context is important to understand what this dream was all about.  The dream happened on a Friday morning.  The previous Tuesday, I had a "Fusion MRI Prostate Biopsy" checking on the possibility of prostate cancer.  It was full, but relatively light anesthesia, and I felt pretty good immediately afterwards.  Deb drove me home, as it was required that I would not drive a car for 24 hours after the procedure.  But I felt that, if I had to drive, I could do so in safety.

On the way home, I became increasingly uncomfortable -- feeling a bit woozy and experiencing pain in my buttocks.  It got worse.  I asked Deb to stop at the Wawa we were approaching, and she said "Fine.  It give me a chance to pick up some milk."  I just wanted to get out in the fresh air and straighten my back.  She got out of the car to start walking in, and I got out of the car just because I felt so uncomfortable being in it.  I leaned up against the car, as I felt uncomfortable just being on my feet without support.  I felt a series of "intgernal subroutines" failing, just giving up, and thought to myself "I wonder if this is how it feels to die?"  The next thing I knew, I was on the ground and maneuvering my hands on the pavement to get back on my feet. So I didn't die, but I certainly did black out for a few moments.  

After getting fully erect, I felt better, got back into the car, and we drove home without further incident.  (BTW, Deb didn't get the milk.  Thought looking after me was more important.)   But that question about "Is this how people die?" has stayed with me.  This series of internal shut-downs over which I had no control...

Anyway, to the dream.  This is only a fragment of a dream, but I think it of value to document:

In what I remember of my dream, I am outside of a house.  It is a very pleasant evening with a moderate temperature and light breeze.  I can see a few streetlights as well as houselights in this quiet suburban neighborhood.  I think there was some kind of family/friends gathering inside the house that was just breaking up, and that I had been in that gathering.  And I'm fairly sure that Martha was also part of that gathering. 

I am walking towards the street where there is at least one car parked -- and I would need a ride to get home.  It's my brother David's first car -- the one that Dad gave him -- a Chevy Nova (I think) which was too small for most stuff and barely running.  It was only David's energy and insight as to what the car needed to keep going that kept it running.  And David was proud of his accomplishment, and justifiably so.  

I got into the car, which was a bit tricky, as the car was so small.  But once I got in, it was fine.  And David was nearby and I expected him to get in and drive me home.  All would be well.

I was then called to by other people, including Martha, that their car was also available to take me home.  But I decided to stay with David in his car.  

And what concerns me about this dream is that David died a number of years ago from prostate cancer. And the energy and insight that he applied to his car he also applied to himself as treatment after treatment almost worked...  So what, if anything, does it mean that I decided to stay in David's car??