Anchors Aweigh!

01-12-2009 | 10:04 AM EST | 1 Interpretation

I'm at some sort of party. Friends and family are there. It's in some imaginary place--sort of a cross between San Francisco, rural Marin, Monterey and Santa Cruz. Pretty far into the party, an old friend of mine and I go for a short hike in the woods. To get to the trailhead, we leave the house, and walk a short way down a quiet country lane.

When we get to the trailhead, we start hiking up an easy grade through a meadow. We've only hiked a little ways when we come to an old, abandoned school bus in the middle of the meadow. As we're checking it out, we spot a mountain line stalking along the ridge above us. We can't tell if it smells or sees us yet, but it's coming our way, and we see it leave the ridge and start down the hill in our direction. So, naturally, we climb into the abandoned bus for protection. We close the old rickety door behind us, but we're not convinced it will hold back a full-grown mountain line. So, we climb onto the roof of the bus, which turns out to be the deck of a ship.

Not feeling safe yet, we climb up the mast of the ship. When we get to the top, we have nowhere else to go, so we stop and wait for the mountain lion to leave.

While we're waiting, we fall asleep. And when we awake, we're at sea.

We're clearly no longer on the bus that transformed into a ship. This ship is immensely bigger. It's roughly the size of a luxury cruise ship, but it's definitely not a cruise ship. It's a working ship. No luxury here. It's not unpleasant, but it's definitely a place where hard work gets done.

My friend and I climb down from our perch and find ourselves surrounded by a crowd of people. It turns out the ship is rather densely populated. Beyond the group that has gathered to greet us, there are clearly hundreds (thousands?) more, elewhere on the ship. It has the vibe of a bustling city.

The people are not hostile, but they're clearly surprised to see us. They're many weeks into their journey, far out at sea, and here we are--poof!--magically appearing.

They welcome us and begin integrating us into the crew. It's strange and a little frightening, but also exciting and fun. They're not overly friendly, but they're not hostile either. And there are so many people! It's like a city at sea. And it's quite the motley crew. This isn't a scrubbed and clean, professional crew. Instead it seems to be made up of all sorts of people from all walks of life, thrown more or less randomly together. It also has a bit of a Rainbow Gathering / Burning Man kind of vibe to it. But in work-mode. Everyone's getting stuff done and running the ship, but there are no uniforms, and the sense of purpose in the air is mingled with a sense of play.

My friend jumped over board (for a swim, not to escape), and climbed back aboard looking happy, relaxed and refreshed. We become separated at that point. I'm content to explore on my own, and the last I see him, he's joining the buffet line for dinner.

I'm hungry too, after our mysterious journey through space and possibly time. The buffet is very impressive. There are dozens and dozens of different kinds of food. I wander along the aisles of food, filling two plates with all sorts of strange food I've never seen before. As I browse, people explain the customs of the ship, which are complex and strange. Once my plates are full, I start to eat.

As I eat, I mingle with the crew. I have long conversations with each person I meet. (I wish I could remember the conversations now. There were many, and each seemed long and interesting. All I can remember now is that one of them was about the novel, Sea Wolf, by Jack London.)

Everyone I meet is fascinating in his or her own way. Colorful characters. I thoroughly enjoy eating and moving from conversation to conversation. It's clear that everyone on board has a job to do--there are no idle passengers. But everyone seems happy or at least reasonably content.

This dream was remarkable for its depth of detail and complexity. Sadly, I can only remember the portion I've described above. I wish I could fully relate the rich nuances and dialogues, but they're lost to me. Also, I believe the story of the sea voyage continued in some significant way, but that too is slipping away as I become ever more awake.

It seems like this dream is loaded with symbolism. I'd love to hear what you all think. Interpretations, anyone?

Spider Overflow

12-18-2008 | 09:49 AM EST | 1 Interpretation

Last night I had a dream that I was in my bedroom minding my own business when I felt something bite my back.  I reached around to see if anything was there, and all of a sudden, a bright yellow and red spider jumped off of my back and onto the floor in front of me.  It took me a second to figure out what I was even looking at, because I'd never seen a spider like it.  (Actually, in thinking about it now, it looked a lot like a large Goldenrod Spider in shape, but the colors were way too bold.) 

The spider started hopping around, and I was worried it was going to  bite me again, so I started trying to jump out of its way.  And, in all that hopping around, I landed on it and killed it.  I looked down and the scene was a little gruesome.  There was a small circle of red blood where the spider's body was (in my dream, I assumed that this was blood taken from me during the bite) and small droplets of yellowish blood scattered around the room (which I assumed to be the spider's own blood).  

I left the bedroom and found my wife to tell her what had happened and to ask her to look at my back to see if she could see anything.  She said there was definitely a big bite mark on me and that we should go back to the bedroom and take a look at the spider.

When we got there, everything was exactly as I had left it, but after a couple of seconds we noticed that the little yellow drops all over the room started bubbling up and new spiders were coming out of the blood splatter from the first spider.  We quickly started trying to stomp out the new spiders as they were coming to life and then we got a can of Raid and tried to spray the other droplets before they could form new spiders.  

In the final moments of the dream, I remember looking around thinking that somehow, even though the first spider was already dead, it felt like more and more yellow drops of spider blood were appearing all over the room and that there was no way we'd ever be able to get them all.  Then I woke up.

That Christmas Wreath Is Terrible!

12-09-2008 | 11:38 AM EST | 2 Interpretations

A funny, odd dream I had sometime this morning. It might be kinda hard to describe scenes at parts of my dreams, because my view in it twists, blurs and distorts a bit sometimes, as if I'm drunk. No clue why. I don't drink.

Anyway, I go to Walmart, and by the electronics/books/movies sections, there are two men talking about Edgar Allan Poe. They are fighting about what's true about him, why he died, stuff like that. Knowing some facts about him from reading class, I join. So we debate for a couple minutes, then go off topic. I can't remember what we talk about at the moment. The younger looking guy says, "Hey, you go on YouTube much?"
"Yes," I reply.
"Cool. Check out my videos. My channel is -insert unsername here-. Oh, and here's my number" He hands me a note with his cellphone number. I tell him my number and username.
We talk more, then they say they have to leave. I go home, turn on the computer, and watch the videos. They are funny as heck! I watch them all, then go to bed.

*FAST FORWARD-ED!*

I wake up, look out the window. It's snowing. I suddenly think, "I should visit my grandma's house." So I walk to my grandma's house. Somehow. She lives thirty minutes away by car but I got there in five minutes by walking. Ha.
Yeah, so I knock on the door. She doesn't answer. I decide to check th internet on my cellphone. I go to YouTube.com, and see that the man had made a new video. In the video, it shows a huge, strange looking Christmas wreath on a house. The guys says, "My gosh, I was walking around and just saw this thing. Look! This Christmas wreath is terrible!"

Wait a second, I think, I've seen that before. I look up at the wall. Yep, there's the wreath. I quickly call the man.
"Hey, LitaJul"
"Uh... yeah. You know that wreath in your lastest video? That's my grandma's house! That's my grandma's wreath you saw!"

"Seriously?! We're coming over there, hold on."

I small 1950's-ish car parks in the driveway. My grandma appears on the other side of the road. She shouts my real name. "Oh shoot, my grandma sees me."
"Come on! Get in the car! Take the wreath!" The other man calls.
"What?!"

"Take the wreath! Come on!"

I take the wreath down and dash to the car. My grandma calls more and starts running toward us. The car suddenly backs up, hitting my grandma, making her fly back. That scares me, and I trip.

"What the he** was that for!" I scream as I stand back up.
"Sorry! Get in, now!" The guy shouts back.

...And then my dad woke me up for school. Darn, I wanted to see what would happen next....

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