Movies, Art, Fashion, and a Machine Gun

Last night's dream started as a movie...
I was John Cusack and I was with a young Dan Aykroyd in a two-seater plane. We were laughing and talking about girls and sex.
The view changed and I was out of the movie and sitting in the theater with my husband. We got up to leave and I mentioned to him that I had forgotten to go see Laurelin's show. (A friend of mine just had her first solo art show up at a gallery, and I did forget to go "opening" night.) So I walked over with him to a gymnasium where the show was. (It was the gym from my HS.) Her art was everywhere. It was like a life time of art; hundreds of pieces. I started on the wall to my right where there was a nautical theme going on. Perfect paintings of boats and wharfs (not her "norm"). I was commenting on one when her fiance David told me there was another wing that held her crafts. (She is a knitter and crafter as well... when the mood strikes.) So I walked over to that wing and looked behind glass at dolls and jewelry and buttons and other crafty things she had made (again, not her "norm".)
Then the scene changed and I was going to visit my friend Ramin in New York. I got to his apartment and started working on patterns on his floor. I was waiting for him to get home, but in the mean time I had taken at least 8 articles of clothing and was tracing them on to dotted pattern paper. They were all ugly clothes, very matronly. The idea was that I was going to try to get a job back at the St. John's design house(where Ramin and I worked after we graduated college). He came home and asked what I was doing. He looked over the clothes and my work and told me I was doing it all wrong. He said the clothes were hideous, and that my pattern tracing skills were terrible. "Don't you remember anything from school?" he asked. He then stormed off. The scene changed again and I was in the bed of a truck with all of the pattern making equipment and my luggage. Ramin was walking away from me down the NY street. I jumped out of the truck and went to him begging him to help me. We stood by a car and talked for a brief minute and then I saw a man jump in the truck bed and start to load up my stuff. I ran back to stop him, but he had a machine gun and pointed it at my face. I still yelled at him, saying, "That's my stuff, how dare you take it!" Ramin yelled my name, "Are you crazy?" he asked. Then I grabbed the machine gun that was at my face and turned it to face the man. Ramin again said, "Are you crazy? If you shoot him you'll be the one in trouble." But I shot at his arm anyway. Nothing... just air. So I aimed the gun at the yard beside me and shot again... just air. Then I reprimanded the man in the truck, "You were going to steal my stuff with an unloaded weapon?" I was still yelling at him when the dog woke me up.

This dream has loads of guilt in it.
Things that are bothering me that I keep replaying in my head.
That I still watch ill-humored movies, that I forgot Laurelin's show, that I screwed up the pattern for my daughter's Halloween costume cause I don't remember how to make sleeves. (I haven't done them since college.) It even has a bit from the book I'm reading called "Son of Hamas" where the machine guns he bought didn't work. The chapters in the book since that moment have filled me with guilt because I relate to the Israeli side, and they have kept the writer of the book in a prison torturing him for the past few chapters. (A true story... good book.)
The truck bed I'm sure has to do with me driving my husband's truck the other day to pick up my son's bike. (I don't drive it often... it's too big.)
Ramin is always put in my dreams when there is advice about my fashion career, because he is a person I will listen to. I think he stayed in the dream for the machine gun part because he is originally from Iran... which fits the setting of my book, at least in that neck of the world.
I think that the part about Laurelin's art not being "her's", was about myself as well. I used her in the dream because she is one artist I know that has a very common theme through her work so it's easy to see when it's not coming from 'her'. Most likely this was a reminder to me to be true to myself... which was also emphasized by the horrible clothes I was tracing... They were SO not me. :)

Reunion at a Water Park

I was texting my old friend Paul last night shortly before bed time... telling him that facebook doesn't give me "enough" of him. It's all so surface driven (which is good for the internet,) but I wanted to know more about where he was at in life.

When I was a teenager I often went out with guys just because they liked me. Paul was one of those guys that I never knew a thing about until we dated. It's a terrible method of dating and I preach against it to my daughter all the time, but that's what I did back then. If I found out they were "bad", or even if I knew they were beforehand, I hoped I would make them better. People call that missionary dating; I was queen of that method. Nothing ever happened to the boys I dated to make them better while I was in their life, but I have had multiple old boy friends tell me all these years later that I impacted them greatly. Few with stories of God, but most with stories of self-worth. I'm happy about that.

Well... last night I dreamed that I met Paul again at a reunion. The reunion was in a pool at a water park. All kinds of people from Aviano AFB HS were there, all swimming.
It was a deep pool with rocks on the sides and rivers trailing from it in a couple directions. The official reunion was only at that pool, though there were slides and other attractions all around. I was not aware of the other surroundings at the start of the dream... only the big pool with all my classmates.
I saw Paul and swam over to him. I floated my body up to the surface while we said our hellos and I took off something. Not sure if I had been fully dressed and was now in a swimsuit, or if I took off part of my swimsuit. I embraced Paul and then closed my eyes. He held me in a head lock and we talked. Only my head was above water now, with Paul's arm acting like a life preserver keeping me afloat. There was some "inappropriate" touching, and I asked if he should be doing that with all these people around. He laughed and said, "we're not there anymore", "I wouldn't do that in front of anyone." I opened my eyes and pulled away to find that we were now further down one of the lazy rivers that flowed from the pool. We continued down the river and on to multiple water slides, laughing and having a great time. After the third or fourth slide we went to get back into the lazy river but the entry stairs were over crowded with small children. Paul asked my what my intentions were. I explained to him that I had no desire to cheat on my husband and that I was very happy in my marriage. He was happy with that news. We stared at the obstacle of kids in front of us on the stairs and decided to try to jump over them. Right as I jumped the scene changed and I was no longer in the river or with Paul. I was now with my friends Shawn Kuver and the Rhodes sisters (Erin and Michelle), also from HS in Aviano. We were walking through a cruise ship type of hallway with red velvety carpets. There were trays of food and things nearby like we were at the back end of a restaurant. There was a piano sitting in the hallway and Shawn sat down to play, (well, goof off on it at least). One of my old youth group leaders, Jill, walked up to us and gave me a disapproving look. I took her queue and walked away.
Then I woke up.

Interesting dream, yes?
Water and pools etc. for me usually are about refreshing, cleansing, relaxing things. There was never a "bad" moment in the dream... even the inappropriate touch didn't feel "wrong". I think that with most dreams of sexual stuff the symbolism is more about intimacy than actual sex. (Of course, I could have been inputting my evening with my husband into part of my dream.) Anyway, I think that the dream speaks of having a private "deeper level" conversation with Paul (away from facebook... which is basically a reunion in itself), enjoying that, and both of us viewing our kids as obstacles that block that relaxing experience, the carefree life of when we knew each other.
As for the cruise ship part of the dream... I think it speaks of mischief. Shawn was most definitely one of my most troublesome friends. Especially given that Jill (a conscience symbol) snapped me out of it... I think that it was just a warning, still related to Paul... to not cause mischief.

Uninvited

Lots of crazy dreams lately...
No time to write them all.

Last night, one that sticks out was...

I was at a ball... all fancy and everything but I wasn't supposed to be there. I had snuck in with a friend of mine (can't remember who now). It was like a movie... I'm not even sure if I was myself. Somehow we talked our way into getting to stay but the lady in charge of security kept a close eye on us. We saw her walk away for a moment and went over to the sign in table that was unmanned, and grabbed a stack of invites. (The idea was that when you came in the door, you handed in your invitation as a pass to get in.) We stuffed the invitations into new cards and ran out of the door with them. The lady was looking around for us and noticed that we were gone and sent guards looking for us. In the parking lot (which was gravel on a big front lawn) we met up with some friends and crammed into a van. I sat on the passenger side floor board in front of a boy who was on the football team. There was one boy for each girl...
We hadn't pulled out of the driveway yet when my dog woke me up.

Yesterday I had a dream about a reoccurring futuristic airport. Checking in... going up elevators. This is the 4th dream I've had about that airport.