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.  

Bad Dream 172 -- Where's My Truck?

In my dream, I'm standing in a construction site.  It's a single level (so far) and the ground is essentially sandy soil with little or no vegetation.  What has been built is a series of concrete walls laid out to form rooms.  So there are openings between the vertical walls which will become hallways and rooms of various sizes.  It's quite a complex layout, and as I will discover later, the layout seems to change from time to time.  Some new walls appear and others disappear.  So it's tricky-to-impossible to find your way through what's been laid out so far.  

It's somewhere near mid-day, and there are construction workers moving about.  I can see them but at no time in the dream to I interact with them.   

I came to the site escorting two people (a man and a woman) who had important business -- either at the site or nearby.  I was to function, not only as a driver, but also as a resource for the two other people in case they needed some additional information on whatever their business was about.  They knew the higher level information, but I knew more of the "nuts and bolts" of the project.  (The dream wasn't clear about what the visit was all about, but I had the feeling that my two colleagues were discussing matters pertaining to the construction project.)

After wandering about through the construction site for a while, I somehow understand that my assistance for additional information would not be required.  So my job was simply to get back to our vehicle -- which was a dark-colored pickup truck -- and prepare to drive my associates back to where we started.  

I don't recall exactly where I left the truck, so I start wandering through the site with a purpose: Find my truck!  

As I move about the site, it becomes more and more obvious that the walls that are going up are also changing.  New walls appearing, others disappearing, some seeming to move or develop holes for windows or doors.  

Twice, as I roam about getting more and more concerned, I pass the place where this new construction meets the existing structure.  In that structure, there are large windows that enable me to look inside.  I see dozens of happy people in a "Holidome" setting of restaurant type chairs and tables with big umbrellas over top of them and a large swimming pool.  I have no idea how this seeming resort/holiday getaway type place will interact with the office-type setting of the construction site I'm wandering around in.  It does not occur to me to try and get inside this existing building to look for help.

Finding such concern and frustration with not finding my vehicle amongst the ever-changing walls, I decide to find the two people whom I brought to this place.  I feel that, whatever they were supposed to do here, they're probably finished and would like to start back to wherever it is we came from.  It's only then that I realize that I haven't seen either of these folks and have no idea as to where to go looking for them.  I think it's highly unlikely that any of the construction workers would know anything about where they might be -- and I haven't seen anyone who looked to be a supervisor.

I'm not panicked by having lost track of my vehicle or these two people.  Concerned, yes, but not freaking out.

Bad Dream 171 -- Hassles in Trying to Give a Speech

In my dream, I am supposed to be giving a speech for my employers at what I assume is a customers office and/or shop.  To get there, I spend the previous night at a hotel (suggesting that the speech site is far away from my home and office).  

The hotel room is somewhere between dreary and Spartan.  It contains a single-size bed that is small and not very comfortable.  The only furniture is an old dresser a small table, and a very simple and uncomfortable chair.  Nothing in the room suggests it is dirty or dusty, just very plain and minimal with nothing added for creature comforts.  

The room is on the fourth floor.  No elevators, just simple staircases winding up the hallways.  I start to descend the staircases in the morning carrying my suitcase when I realize that I may have left the radio on in my room.  I can clearly hear a radio playing somewhere up above me, which might be in my room with the door open or it might be someone else's room. 

I don't wish to annoy any other guests that might be staying at the hotel, so I turn around (me and my suitcase) and consider walking up the several sets of stairs to return to my room to see if the radio was in my room -- and then decide not to bother.  I don't wish to expend the energy to carry my suitcase back up the stairs and then back down.  

Getting outside and looking for breakfast, I pass by several "greasy spoon" eateries.  The food smells quite good and it's probably safe to eat, but I think there will be a light breakfast available at the site of the speech.

As I walk along the street, I see a man poking holes in the windows of a sports car that is parked along my way.  He seems very angry and is yelling at someone inside the car.  He's using what looks like a crowbar for this damage he's inflicting.  I consider getting involved, but decide not to do so.  I don't want to be late for my speech and the chances of getting into a violent confrontation with the man seem quite likely -- and he's armed with a crowbar.

I get to the site of my speech and find I was correct that there would be a light breakfast offered, but all I can find are some very uninteresting looking pastries.  I select the least objectionable pastries, put them on a small plate, and walk the plate to a table.  I put the plate down and go to get something (possibly silverware or a napkin), and when I look back, I see that someone is in the process of stealing the pastries I've chosen.  

Bad Dream 170 -- Wasn't at all Ready

In my dream, I am about to start teaching a class in power plant controls.  Very much the kind of work I did for Leeds & Northrup for so many years.  

This system being described is much smaller than the pulverized-coal utility boilers that would normally be the subject of my course.  And so the course is scheduled to be much shorter.  And I have some familiarity with the technicians who will be my students -- and they seem to be very good at their jobs.  And so, the course should be easy and fun. 

The students are starting to gather in the classroom and I should be going in myself sometime soon.  But it suddenly hits me that I haven't studied anything about the details of this system -- and I don't have any system documentation that would bring me "up to speed" quickly.  I recall what I would have to do to get a copy of the documents, but that would likely take a couple of days at least.  And I normally have a copy of these documents for each student, so he/she can make notes on the drawings and write notes in the text margins.  I don't have anything like that either.  

As a Plan B for today's work, I consider just talking about the equipment we're providing to control the customer's facility rather than the actual work that our system will perform.  But I'm not sure of exactly what we're providing, so I can't use that as a stalling technique.

I think about simply telling my customer contact person (someone with whom I have had an excellent relationship) the truth and asking to delay the class for a day or more.  I can see his face darken and a frown develop: I've let him down and made his job much more difficult.  The major problem for him is that this is a Union Shop and such a delay/rescheduling will allow the Union officials to demand additional pay for these technicians and possibly even days off.  And things like that will become part of his performance records -- with a negative affect on any future raises or promotions.  

Bad Dream 169 -- Couldn't Fix the Last One

In my dream, I'm doing essentially Field Service Engineering work, repairing something like shower heads, but they're not actual shower heads.  The devices I'm working on are located in or near closets (confined spaces) and are located maybe 7 feet up on a wall.  They're small devices -- roughly the size of a baseball -- and they're connected to the wall with a metal pipe or tube of some sort.  The device has both plumbing and electrical connectors.

There are eight of these devices, each located in a different area.  I'm not told what is wrong with each device.  I have to figure it out -- which is one of the great satisfactions of being a Field Service work: when you show up the gizmo doesn't work.  When you get ready to leave, the gizmo does work. 

As I move from fixing one to the next, I accumulate a small group of people watching what I'm doing and supporting my efforts.  My making these things work will make their lives a bit easier.  

And I know that we're approaching some kind of holiday, where most people don't have to work.  And I'm looking forward to being one of those people taking it easy away from work.  

Fixing some of the eight gizmos is pretty easy, as the problem is pretty obvious.  Some require some careful thinking and understanding as to what the gizmo does and how it does it.  

When I get to the eighth and last gizmo, I'm stymied.  It's not at all obvious what the problem is -- and not even whether the problem is with the plumbing or the electrical parts of the system. 

If I had my voltage meter, I would be in good shape as I could fairly easily establish whether the problem was water or electricity.  But I don't have my meter.  

If I had my standard set of tools, I would be in good shape as I could fairly easily disassemble the gizmo so that the problem would likely be fairly obvious.  But I don't have my tools.  

If I understood the fine details of the gizmo operation, I would be in good shape as I could see where the system started to work and where it halted in mid-operation.   But I don't have the documentation I needed.

So I'm completely at a standstill and I know that it's very important that I get all eight gizmos back in operating order before the holiday begins.  And if I can't, I would likely have to stay on the job through the holiday trying to fix Gizmo Number Eight without any support from my home office, as everyone there would be on holiday.  And I had plans for my holiday...

I'm not only frustrated.  I'm not only angry.  I'm completely furious.