"Upstream"

Well, it has begun.
I have officially started my first "dream painting".
I actually started three yesterday and trashed the first two.
My husband encouraged me that I can't expect to get this right on the first try. I've never done it before... It may take time. I shouldn't assume that the first one I do will actually go into the show in August.
So I cut myself some slack and started another one thinking that it may end up in the trash too.
The painting I'm working on today is a dream from two days ago.

The dream went like this:
My friend Olivia and I were in an elevator trying to get to the 5th floor. There were digital clock type things sitting on pedestals around the elevator. Each one displayed the #5 in some way. I kept pushing the #5 on all the various screens and buttons, but we never went anywhere. At one point we pushed 7 accidentally (because the numbers on the clocks changed)and went to the 7th floor, but we stayed in and tried to push 5 again. The time was moving so slowly that Olivia started to deal with a lady behind a bank desk about her house mortgage (all inside the elevator). Finally we got out at the lobby which was a huge room like at a train station/mall with white marble floors with black tiles interspersed. Ahead of us down a long grand hall was a man dressed like a guard of some sort with another man in a trench coat standing/floating above his head. I announced to Olivia that the man on the guard's head was an angel. We saw the grand staircase to our left and decided to use it to get to the 5th floor.
As I walked up the stairway I was no longer with Olivia. My dad was with me. The stairway was now outside and it zigzagged like a typical outdoor stairway with gaps between the stairs. To the left of the stairs was a waterfall. At each landing the waterfall had a small pool about 4-5 feet long, just like the landing. There were coy fish swimming up the waterfall like salmon going upstream. At one of the landings I stopped to rub the scales of one of the coy, soothing it, trying to let it rest. Then I let it go again. At the next section of stairs I noticed that a red nose pit bull was swimming upstream. She was trying her hardest to make it out of the waterfall, but just like the coy, she was going up, not down. I knelt by the side of the small pool and pulled her out of the water. Then, pit bull by my side, we made our way up to the 5th floor. In the room, the dog rested. I was thinking about the pit bull's energy level and how she must be so used to swimming all day that she may be too high energy for someone like me. She was all muscle. There was no fat on her body, and you could see her ribs. At least for now, she was tired and would be resting for a long time. The scene changed and I was now bringing my new dog secretly down the back stairs (metal, like a fire escape, but not like a ladder) to go to the bathroom out back by the dumpsters. I found an old chain and a bike lock and made a leash out of it. I also found a small contraption that looked like a shower head from an old motel. At the bottom of the stairs on our way back up an old janitor stopped us and asked about the dog and the chain. He claimed that the chain was his and of course that I was not supposed to have that dog. He asked for the shower head contraption. It was supposed to tell the history of what it belonged to... in this case, the dog. I was scared that it would show that the dog belonged in the fountain, doomed to struggle all of her life. But instead, as he opened the top, by turning it half a turn to the right, it just let out a shot of air, no history. I was free to go and take the dog with me... though I did give back the old chain and bicycle lock to the janitor.

As I was painting just now, I was overwhelmed by the emotion that I had seeing this poor pit bull swimming upstream. God gently whispered that He too cared about the mistreatment of the pitties around the US. Pit bulls and their mistreatment is a subject near and dear to my heart, because my baby, my precious 4 year old dog, is a pit bull. He is brindled and beautiful. It breaks my heart that pit bulls around the country are being killed because of breed legislation. Others are being fought, others are just misunderstood and feared. The dream was obviously about the struggle that pit bulls face, but what about the rest of the dream?
Well... the coy also swimming upstream speak to me of my other friend Barbara. She has coy fish that will let you pet them (well, they let her pet them). She is dealing with an "upstream" battle now, and though I'm no real help, I can provide a small rest.
The part with Olivia in the elevator is dealing with her wanting to get to a place of redemption. 5 is the number of grace, redemption, provision, and the like. We tried and tried to get there in the elevator. She even took time to go to the bank while waiting. But in the end we had to climb stairs. The easy way was put on pedestals... but it didn't work for us. As we charted our course in the grand hall we saw a guard with an angel. I had to point this out, it wasn't obvious to Olivia... but it was comforting, and it was inspiring. It sent us on our way. Now why she wasn't with me on the stairs I think is just a break in the story of the dream. I didn't need to dream about Olivia anymore because MY part with her was done... Now I was on my own stair climbing journey. My dad being with me, was just a picture of God with me, helping me to help my friend, and the pit bulls.
The old chain and the back stairs to the dumpster were symbolic of me just using trash to care for the pitties. I don't "DO" anything. I just post about them on facebook, and say nice things about them to people. There is no real sacrifice on my part. The fact that no history showed up from the "shower head contraption" speaks of a clean slate. God's perfect plan for these dogs is to not have a stereotype attached, no prejudices. I'm left with the question, now what? What do I do with that?
Well... at 12:00 I'm heading over to play a game with Barbara and her daughters.
My husband just yesterday asked which charities I would like to give to. I have never given anything substantial to a non-Christian charity, but I think this year I will be helping the pitties in a bigger way.
As for Olivia, I'm not sure I need to do anything. I'll have to talk to her and see how it's going. ;-)

White Water, and A Year Book Photo Shoot

So last night before 3:00 I had a strange dream of going from rock to rock in a white body of water. The rocks were all white and the water was milky. It was all white, and I was in the water, but didn't want to swim in it, instead I was trying to stay with at least one limb on a rock, like it was dangerous.
My dog Knuckles came in at 3:00 and woke me up.

After a brief potty break I went back to sleep and dreamed of high school. I was with my sister and two old boyfriends. My sister was with Donnie, and I was with Jay. We were all posing in various places for pictures for the year book. Mr. Leander (my old English teacher, and teacher in charge of Year book) was taking the pictures.
We were at a stadium of sorts, sometimes on the grass and sometimes on the bleachers. I walked behind Jay and felt his bare back. "You're back is great, and you have soft skin just like Michael." I said. (Speaking of my husband.) Jay's head was shaved (like now, not like in HS).
Half way through the picture taking, while we were at the top of the amphitheater in the middle of a picture of my sister and I, I got a zit on my upper lip on the left side. It hurt and was huge. I tried to pose in a way that it didn't show, but the first chance I got I ran down to the rest room. True to form, the line was out the door. I thought about it for a minute and rationalized that since I didn't need to pee I could skip the line and just go straight for the mirrors. I did. There were vanity stations in the middle of a large sterile room. The stations were made of stainless steel and the mirrors were behind cabinet doors on the stations. There was even a small round close up mirror at the station I chose. I popped the zit and it immediately subsided and I was able to go back with out worrying about it at all.
Then my alarm rang.

Pieces of the dream like the close up mirror and even the zit are things from yesterday. The zit being reminiscent of a picture I saw of my nephew with a swollen lip from an allergic reaction to Motrin. The mirror being from my son's bathroom, that I was telling him to use to brush his teeth so that he would do a better job.
Even the photo shoot was reminiscent of a shoot I recently did with one of my swell sister ladies for our portrait club. (My sister in the dream, could have been symbolically a "sister".)
Anyway... I have no idea about Donnie and Jay and Mr. Leander, or the settings.
Or the white water and rocks dream for that matter.
The white water dream actually intrigues me quite a bit more. I'll have to think about that one.

Island Vacation, Bath Cave, and Highrise Homework

In mt first dream I was swimming in an enormous man-made lake. We were on vacation of some sort and had just arrived to our island home. The scene around the side of the lake that we were on was very 'other worldly'. It looked like a movie set. The houses were built way too close to the water, jutting out of the (not very high) cliffs. There was brown showing around the homes, and vines hanging sporadically. There were wooden deck walkways from some houses and others you had to use the vines to get to.

We had been dropped off somewhere in the lake and were swimming to shore with a group of people. The only person outside of my family that I recognized was our friend Greta. (That makes sense because we have been on vacation with her twice, and really don't see her otherwise.) A large man led us up the bank and then we made our way around the cliffs to our 'home'.  That's all the dream had in it.

The second one was also about water, and lots of it. It was a roman bath house type place, but huge, and more like a cave. I was with a few of my Swell Sister ladies and we were 'bathing'. There were a few tiers to the place, and above one was a large water fall that glowed with a golden hue. The whole dream was just swimming around and climbing and being in the water fall etc. No talking. I had to wake up from the dream to pee in the middle of the night.

The third one was in a city setting. I was with my dad and we were visiting my friend Dori. It was a school day and I had to get to school soon. We were up really high in a sky-rise in her apartment in down town LA. (Even though she doesn't live there, or in an apartment, but the school we went to together was.) She was showing us her new doggies. (She does have a new doggy since I saw her last, but these dogs were not the right breed.) The dogs in the dream were "purse dogs", one black and brown and white with furry pointy ears like a papillon, and  the other was like a white miniature poodle.  I was holding one and we were looking out the window talking about taking it down to pee. But I realized I was late for school and I started urging my dad to hurry and take me. I grabbed my back pack, but I didn't have my books. I scrambled to find the books, got them into the bag and then realized I hadn't done my homework. I had English and some sort of Science. Then I reasoned with myself that I wasn't going for a grade, I was a grown up, and it really didn't matter that I hadn't done my homework. Reasoning with myself led me to remember I'm not really in school, and then I woke up.

Once again, I am at a loss for any meaning... but they were interesting dreams none-the-less.

Awkward

My first dream:
I was with my mom and dad. We were at a mall because I wanted to go shopping. We had been walking for a very long time through halls with shops along the sides behind windows and doors. (It reminded me of Las Vegas when you have to go through a long hallway of shops from the parking garage to the main casino area.) The building we were in was old though; it was brick, and looked like a museum. After walking and still not shopping for a very long time, I actually said, "This mall is more like a museum." It was about at that point that we 'got some where'. My mom, in answer to my question, said, "Well let's go down this way." We started down some stairs that led to a Marie Calendars, but the stairs soon became a ladder. There were rungs every few feet, but the main handle on the sides was only every 6 feet. For some reason I wasn't using any of the middle rungs, only one every 6 feet that lined up with the handle. I was dropping, only holding the sides for the entire length of my body each time. My parents were coming down the ladder rung by rung, but face first... like they were crawling "spidey-style" down towards me.  I complained about the ladder. Almost directly after the complaint (and my mind thinking about what I was doing, and how I could do it differently) we were at the bottom. Instead of going through the restaurant, or sitting down, we went just to the right of the ladder where there was a bed. My mom lay on the bed on the right side, and I lay on my belly with my head and arms dangling off the end on the left side. Again, I stopped and realized what I was doing, and repositioned myself. The bed was very lumpy and I said it was better before. My mom thought that maybe I just needed less noise to be able to sleep, so I went to turn off the TV (no longer in the restaurant atmosphere). When I got to the TV I noticed that it had been recording every show for the past like 6 or so hours. I took some time to try to delete each show. (Probably more from my ipod frustration the other day... cause now I have so many unwanted songs to delete.)  The dream ended in frustration.


My next dream was far weirder.

I was riding the back seat of an open-air jeep type vehicle with four guys in the front and two more in the back with me. They almost all had guns (very skinny and short ones of varying colors, which they talked about,) and we were driving through a neighborhood to do a drive-by shooting. They weren't aiming for people, but they wanted to scare the residents. They were all very "hard" looking, and talked in a way that said "gang" to me. We went around this neighborhood like three times, each time I faced inward and didn't look at what they were shooting at off the left side. (I was in the far left of the back seat.) When they were satisfied with their shooting we headed for the leaders house. As we approached the house a small squirrelish animal (without a tail) got on my leg and tried to hump it. I grabbed him to remove him but he just grabbed on to my arm and did the same. I told the guy in the back seat about it and he said, "Just let him do his thing." At this the squirrel bit me and latched on again to my leg. I shook him off as we exited the car at the leader’s house. Once we were in I looked down at the clothes I was wearing. I was dressed like a streetwalker, and shortly after, treated like one. At this point in the dream, unlike in the car, I was playing the role. I smacked my gum, I spoke 'gangsta' and used my body (which was rather slim in the dream) to entertain. At one point there was poop on the floor and I had to clean it up before anyone saw. I knew my place in the gang; I was basically dirt.

A large screen came down from the ceiling and they began to play music videos. The walls of the house went away and the area became huge with three different levels for watching a concert. It wasn't like a stadium, but there were a few seats scattered around and outdoor heaters here and there. A band came to the screen/stage and started to set up. I started to make my way as far away from the gang as I could, I ran into my husband on the top level near a heater and stood with him. The youth pastor from our church, Josh, was there and was announcing this as a "Tribes" event. (That's the name of the youth's Wednesday night service.) I looked around and saw Tribes posters. The gang members and a whole bunch of other people scattered around the place.

Then I woke up.

Who am I?

Tis the week of disturbing dreams, I have decided.

Last night's started with my daughter and I going to her first 'female exam'. It was in a college class room on a table. The room was very large and upstairs. The table was near a window. There were a total of three doctors, each came in one at a time. They were going to fill her "cavity" with some sort of mold making plaster substance. (I think this strange concept came from my husband's inner ear sound system molds that arrived yesterday.)  When the last Dr. came in he wanted to shave her and give her a "wig" made of the hair on her head... which was red in the dream. I told him not to shave her completely, explaining to him and her that it would itch like crazy when the hair grew back in.  He left the room and we escaped. We went down a corridor and some stairs and ended up at my home from my late teens ;(the home that my daughter was born at).

While we were there my dad was talking to me about laundry and a trip. I went outside and sat on the driveway with my two dogs: one from then, and one from now. Back then I had a small Cocker Spaniel mix, and now I have an American Stoffordshire Terrier, so they were quite opposite sitting out there with me. A lady with a stroller walked by and my small dog walked over to see her. 

My parents came out and said it was time for our trip, so I put the dogs away and we got into a van. I sat in the back of the van. We drove to the snow to go skiing. There were a few of us that didn't have socks, so when we reached to snow we had to stop and buy some. I already had on my ski boots when we got out of the van to go in the store. I feel on my butt directly out of the van in some ice, and again inside the store. The whole time I was walking to the store and even inside for part of the time I was texting my daughter's ex-boyfriend, Nick. The store was open on one side like it had multiple garage doors that were all opened that day. It was a packed store and very "costco"-ish. After I looked at a few things I made my way to some metal steps by the street and sat down. I feel asleep. Water rising up to my feet woke me up. I was a little girl, like maybe 6 or 7. I knew I had left my younger sister on another step, so even though I heard my dad calling me, I went back into a tower of sorts that had another metal stairway going down the center to get my sister. She too was down in some water as I pulled her up and we climbed the stairs together. She was blonde and about 4. (My daughter was blonde when she was 4.   hmmm.)

And that was the end of the dream.

Aside from the inner ear molds, there is nothing about this dream that resembles anything from the past few weeks, so it is most definitely not just a compilation of my thoughts.

I'm not sure I want to find out what it all means. 

For reoccurring themes... there's the laundry... and that's about it. hmmmmm. Again, I have to wonder if I was me the whole time, or if while I was texting Nick, was I my daughter? 

Anyway, I'll think about it. For now, I have to go get my kids to school.

My Weight Journey

In last night's dream I was driving a car trying to get home. I was in college and going to my parent's house. (Part of the time that I was in college I lived with an older couple.) In the dream I was behind their car.  As I was driving (on the freeway) and my steering wheel stopped working and my brakes weren't working either. There was a small up-down, left-right control switchy thing on the dash board, so I started using it. (It was like a video game, where multiple fast small taps to the right were better than just holding it down.) I was supposed to go one way to my parent's house, but I didn't know completely how to get there, and now that my controls were out I thought it would be better to follow the old couple. I followed them until I was severely lost, and then we came to a bridge. I was so scared that I wouldn't have enough control, and that I'd drive off the edge. So I jumped out of the car. 

All of a sudden I was hanging off a drawbridge for dear life. (On the left side, on a rail)

A very large girl (I think Ashley from the biggest looser) came to help me. I held one hand on the rail, and reached up to her hand with the other. I couldn't quite reach her, so I repositioned and bumped up to the next rung. She grabbed my hand and pulled me up. Then as I was standing with the old couple a few feet away, she showed off by jumping down to the side of the rail and hanging by one arm and one leg. We all told her to get up and stop playing around. I walked to a rest area/ border patrol type place on the side of the road. (Don't really remember the walk, or where it was exactly.) But I was sitting on a wooden bench that was more like a wooden bunk bed. There was a top bunk and a bottom bench, and a bench that protruded from the bottom off in an L-shape. My mom was there, like signing me out, and my son was with her. As I waited alone outside on the bench a creature started swirling around me in mid air. It was a very short red snake. The head was like a cobra and the whole short body was fat. His head stayed up and the tail wiggled around like a slow propeller to help him glide in the air. I was very scared of him but he seemed to be friendly, never trying to attack, just 'smelling' me I guess. He hid under a blanket on the top bunk as my son came out to get me. I wanted to show him the snake that acted almost like a floating puppy. I slightly lifted the blanket for him to look, but then I  pushed him back and said, "Oh no, don't touch it."

There was another part of the dream back at my parent's house with food of some sort, but I don't remember it.

I would like to assume that the brakes and things not working on the car derived from going to see "Date Night" last night...  but...

I'd also like to assume that the snake was merely a representation of my son's animal planet show he watched yesterday about "the Creatures from the Bible", in which they had the serpent with legs, the leviathan, the behemoth, and even cherubim and other angelic creatures.

But, one cannot always assume that dreams are merely a jumble of things from the day before. Even if you use things from the day before, there may still be a message in it.

I made a commitment last night to start doing my Wii Fit again, and to going to water aerobics a couple times a week. So I know that loosing weight is heavily on my mind. (My husband has reached his goal, so it stares  me in the face every day.  Don't get me wrong, I love staring at him, but it highlights the fact that I am still miles away from my goal.)

I had a bunk bed when I was little. I slept on the bottom and my sister slept on the top. She would often scare me from the top bunk while we were trying to go to sleep. I was also very afraid of the flower people that I had imagined from the flower print on her mattress that I stared at at night. I have no doubt that demons love to scare children, and they know that their imaginations will help. Even if the snake in my dream is from yesterday's show (which I did not see... just got the run down from my son at bed time,) then it's perfectly safe to assume that it represents Satan anyway, because he is the serpent in the Bible. (I rarely ever dream of snakes, but when I do, they always represent lies. Satan is the father of lies.)

I tend to view this dream as my journey with my weight. It literally all started when I was living with the older couple my first year of college, when I was pregnant. Getting home was very important to me at that time, but the adoption agency that I was being counseled by didn't want me to have much contact with "influential parties". So I didn't go home, and I wasn't allowed to see my boyfriend. (Stupid really, because I just got more attached to the baby in my belly.. and far less likely to give her up for adoption.) 

Anyway, I got fat, (not just pregnant fat). Now-a-days I watch The Biggest Looser as a motivation of sorts. (I fast forward quite a bit. But I love the results, and I love seeing them change.) So Ashley being in my dream fits with pulling me up from hanging off the edge. The snake and the bunk bed, I think, are very old lies that I have believed for most of my life. Things that hold me back in this and other journeys. My son, being overweight as well is believing the same lies. I even showed them to him. I introduced him. I may have said, "Don't touch," but when it all comes down to it, I led him straight down my own path.

Uggg. Please God, let this be the end! I need help.

"Up a Ladder"

I went to bed last night at 2:00. So I was OUT.

I do, however, remember part of one dream. 

I was at a house that I have dreamed of before. The closest thing to this house that I can think of is my Aunt Ella Ray's house. It's a big house, but has small rooms because it was built in a time that didn't do "great rooms" or "family/kitchen combos". In the dream I had to go upstairs and was holding an arm full of cosmetics/toiletries. There were two people at the bottom of the ladder I had to climb (like a drop down attic ladder, though upstairs was not an attic), and there was a small child/baby upstairs. I was climbing the ladder and I dropped a bottle of shampoo. I asked if someone below would hand it to me, but they wouldn't. At that point I only had like a third of the rungs of the ladder left to climb. The the baby started coming down the ladder. I was thrown off guard and started trying to help. I don't remember if I sat the rest of the toiletries on the landing, or if I dropped them too, but I had to grab on to the rails that were at the top blocking off the hole from the three sides that were not where the ladder attached. (My godparents had a stairway up to the rec- room floor that was blocked on three sides with a rail. I fell down those steps once when I was a little girl... knocked out my front tooth, which was fake, cause I had knocked out the real baby tooth earlier doing a flip off the side of the pool.)

Anyway, I held on to the rails, with my arms stretched to their fullest, as the baby was climbing down, (her butt in my face).  No one would help me. I was leaning back giving her room and was afraid to let go of one hand to help her with, because if she put her weight on me, we might both fall.

That's all I remember.

After I have a big enough pool of dreams on here, I'm looking forward to seeing patterns with the places I dream of.  I'm always very intrigued about where something is in dreams. Knowing that I have multiple reoccurring locations in my dreams that really aren't an actual place fascinates me.

When you dream, do you dream of places you know? Do you compile places together? Is it like mine where the place reminds you of somewhere but looks nothing like it?  Do you dream of houses? malls? hotels?  Do you dream in the outdoors more, or inside more?

Cliff Climbing

Well, we have a few minutes before we leave the hotel for the Roman Theater and Dead Sea, so I'll try to squeeze out a dream.

I was at church and Darnisha (worship leader) had me stand up to tell about my trip.  I stood up in the front row and the words I said, as I remembered the sites (which we haven't even seen yet) were, "It was like a fairytale."

After that I walked with Neva (another pastor who deals with hospital visits and calls and hospitality stuff) over to an area of bagged food for the homeless. We looked at it all and I picked up something with my dad and walked behind a crowd.

My dad went to get the car and I followed the crowd all with arms full of stuff. With me, was my sister and Guy (an old friend from HS). We arrived at a hill and started to climb.

Soon the hill was a cliff (still with grass though). We no longer had anything in our hands and the cliff was getting so steep that it was angling towards us. Right near the top I started hanging off the side of the cliff. I was pleading with Guy to help me. "Guy, Guy, please help. I can't pull myself up.  Please help, ....Guy, Guy..."

He pointed out a bar to me that was about 3 feet away from the cliff. I didn't want to go away from the cliff.

Finally he pulled himself into a window, as did my sister, and they started to help me.

The window had a glass that tilted on it's middle so that you could go in the top or the bottom. I came through the top. I was in my night shirt with nothing else on. I was upset that I didn't have on bottoms.

But I got in the window safely.

That was the end.

It was very interesting that I already had images of my trip in my mind when I was telling church about it.

I also found the cliff very intriguing.  Perhaps something will make sense later. 

Not sure if I'll have time to post tomorrow; we'll see.