Nursery News

Last night's dream woke me up with a start this morning.
I can't remember the first half of it, though I know it was a long one from the fuzzy imagery that remained.
The last part however, I remember vividly.
I was helping at a nursery that was in a two story house. There were three other workers aside from myself, all female. We had a hand full of infants and a few toddlers. The workers were speaking in broken sentences mixed with baby sign-language. At first I didn't understand why they were not speaking the whole sentence, but then I watched the head chick and saw that she was acting out things and really only using the words that were important to the idea she was trying to convey. The head lady started going up stairs and I picked up a little Chinese girl. She was around 6 mos old and as I picked her up I felt that there was fat on the back of her head. It was an odd thing to notice, but that and her round face, and body swaddled in a white blanket were the things that stood out to me.
I put her down on a mat on the floor laying face up and then I turned to see breaking news on the TV to my right. The news was of a plane crash. My entire vision went completely to the screen. The picture was of a large cartoon statue of a guy in a baseball cap. The announcer said, "This is all the footage we have from the tragedy that just occurred in Florida." He mentioned Joe Maloof as the owner of the team who's stadium had been crashed into,(and who's image the cartoon figure was). I also saw my son's principle in the footage.
When the camera showing the cartoon figure stopped they cut to another camera that showed a large marching band dressed in sky blue and white leaping from the top of the stadium to their death. They were all looking up and behind them and screaming as they jumped. Another camera showed another area that looked more like an enormous mall with ladies with bags and other random people jumping off of glass partial walls and past escalators and fountains and other "mall fixtures". Everybody was running like chickens with their heads cut off and jumping off of walls. The plane they mentioned was a Pan Am flight (which of course went under in the early 90's).

What do you make of that?
Well... I can see some of my yesterday popping through...
I was talking with Kelly yesterday about adoption and the sad state of unwanted Chinese baby girls. That explains the baby, though not the fat on the back of her head.
I was also reading a book last night (while my son was at drum lessons) about WWII. The book is Noah Hutching's autobiography, and I just happen to be in the part of the book about his experience at the war and fighting the Japanese.
This could be why I was dreaming of a plane coming down... though I hadn't got to any planes crashing til my reading this morning. Plus, those were fighter planes, not passenger planes, and not Pan-Am, and not in Florida, and nothing to do with sports or any Maloof family member.
That's one reason I wanted to write about it this morning... I have no idea why I dreamed it. Nothing in my world relates.
So... that's it. I guess I'll think on it some more, but otherwise, I'll just wait and see if something pops up.

The past three nights

I have been able to sleep in the past three days which really makes a difference for how well I remember my dreams! With no alarm clock you are able to naturally wake up, and then sift through your thoughts without the pressure of time.

I'll start with last night:
I had a freeway dream... Pointing out that almost ALL of my freeway dreams are futuristic. Freeways with layers and various directions all intertwined. Well last night's I was NOT the driver, unless you count back seat driving. I was riding in a car with family (though I can't remember who was driving or which part of my family was with me. I think my mom was there.). Anyway, we were going somewhere but were unsure of which exit to take. The roads were so confusing cause there weren't signs that said things like "Sacramento next exit", you just had to look at which way the roads went and know which way you wanted to go. The ramps were like pretzels though, so you could tell which one led North or South or whatever. We wanted to go to the right but we missed the turn and didn't realize it until it was too late and we were headed for a long bridge. (It reminded me of driving into Long Beach from San Pedro.) We couldn't turn around and there were no exits until after the bridge which seemed to just get longer and longer as we drove. It started to look like a post apocalyptic scene from "The Book of Eli".
I woke up out of frustration that I couldn't turn around.

The night before I had a dream about my friend Barbara and her two daughters. My family lived across the hall from her in an apartment building with thin walls. We could hear everything that they said. I found out that they were baking a chocolate cake and I went over to taste it. As I ran out into the entry/stairwell area I noticed that there were no rails around the stairs and that I could fall to my death. We were at least 5 stories up and it looked very scary spiraling down. Her daughter Brooklyn ran up the stairs yelling. I stopped running and eased my way to her door. I went in, got some chocolate cake and went back to my apartment to taste the strawberry cake that my husband had made. (Yeah right :-) .) I tasted them both side by side and then went back into the entryway and looked at the stairwell again. It now had rails up and I wondered if it had ever been unsafe, or if I had imagined it.

The night before that I had a dream about my grandparent's house. (Not the one they live in now... but the one they lived in during my childhood.) I always wanted to live in their house when I grew up. I thought it was a mansion when I was little. We lived in a trailer, and then in other small houses most of my childhood, so their three story house was huge to me.
Anyway, in the dream I was selling the house to a family with a little girl. It was like an open house viewing and then I invited them to stay (like on "Funny Farm"). I was cooking in a large kitchen (bigger than their actual kitchen) making them some dinner. The dad went to check on his daughter. I heard all of their names spoken. The dad was Eugene, the daughter was Emma-gene, and the mom had a "gene" name too. The daughter was only 3 or so and had gone upstairs. I went up too, and noticed that the stairs were not safe. They had gaps large enough for Emma-gene to fall through. (The stairs were very grand like on "Gone With the Wind"). I looked through a few rooms upstairs appreciating how royal looking and warm they were. I had in my mind that I would not sell the house. I came back down stairs sliding down the banister with Emma-gene in my arms and gave her to her parents.


I didn't mean to wait three days before posting... but often when you do wait (or if you'll go back to look at the weeks dreams before you analyze them) you'll find a common thread.
I could talk about these three as individuals, but for now I'm going to lump them together and see the common thread.
They are all about safety... and choosing one of two options.
All three deal with uncertainty, and not feeling safe.
Last night's dream, I knew where I wanted to go, but I let someone else choose the wrong way(they were driving),and I complained from the back seat. And the further we went down the "wrong" path, the more desolate and hopeless it became.
The middle dream (inspired no-doubt because Barb and her girls have been coming over making Christmas goodies with me three times in the past week,) dealt with the danger of the stairs and the choice of which cake was better.
Before that... I dealt again with dangerous stairs and the choice of whether or not to sell my grandparent's house.
Because the names were mentioned and because they all had the root of "gene" I thought I'd look that up. The name Eugene and just Gene mean "well-born, noble" Emma means "whole, complete, universal".
It's interesting because my grandparent's house means a lot to me. When I dream of them it is always in a mansion (way bigger than their real home) and it always has to do with their legacy of faith to me. I attribute my Christian heritage to them and their raising my dad to be who he is. (Both my grandpa and my dad are preachers.) I can't even imagine thinking of selling my faith... and what does it mean that I thought of selling it to people who were noble? Was I selling it for nobility? Well either way I'm glad I decided not to in the end... but why bring up that the stairs were dangerous for the little girl? hmmmm. Just an excuse?
Does that run into the other dream of making excuses for why not to go out to the entry way... "it's too dangerous". I have often debated if the friendship I have there is "good for me" or not. Knowing a lot about people (hence the thin walls that we could hear through) especially when you think what they are doing is dangerous... can be uneasy.
Then we have other people driving my life. It happens quite often with me.
I REALLY need to learn this lesson.

To me/from me:
"Drive your own life... You don't need excuses to make decisions that are about you to begin with. Safe is just a frame of mind... You're only scared because you're scared of what others will think/say/or be hurt by. Man up!"

"Where Is His Head?"

I'm on vacation in Spain right now. I wish I would have been able to use the computer every morning cause the dreams here are crazy, but I haven't had the time.

I'll start with Monday morning's dream, cause I did at least get to write that one down (just not on the blog...yet.)

Monday morning’s dream:
My husband, daughter, son, and I were all late for school and were driving all over an unfamiliar city trying to get there. (Yesterday we got a little lost in the city of Malaga,Spain, and drove around for a while frustrated. This was a lot like that.)
Anyway, I was in a horse drawn carriage driving and my husband was driving an open back vehicle (not sure what). My daughter was sitting beside me and my son was standing on the back of my husband’s vehicle in front of us. My son was holding on to a bar in the back and standing on the bumper area. I was fine with that. My husband, however, was turning around telling him to sit down. I started arguing with him saying to leave him alone. Then the unthinkable happened. My son let go of the bar he had been holding, and fell. I was directly after them, and had no time to stop. The horses barely missed him, as did my wheels. But the truck that was directly behind me ran over his head with its second wheel. By then we had stopped our vehicles, and I was running to see if he was dead. I saw his body, but not his head. (There was no blood.) I was screaming and bawling my eyes out. I frantically lifted (with super human strength) all the tires to look for his head. The tires were transparent and there was no head or splat anywhere. In one of the tires I thought I saw a baby’s head from the top, but it was just something round inside the tire. I was ballistic. Crying, screaming, throwing tires left and right. I was mad at my husband and daughter for not seeming sad. My husband was trying to stay calm and rationalize the event. He even pulled out my son’s baby book and looked through it. He found a poem about a river, and read it. He then asked (because the poem had a word that repeated over and over, sounded like “La”,) if all rivers were the same river because they all had that word. I threw a tire right by his head, and one by my daughter’s head. I thought about who was at fault, but settled on nothing. I was crying so hard that I woke myself up.
(…and I’m certainly glad I did; It was a terrible dream!)

The only other dreams I have ever had about my children dying were ones where they fell, and I dove after them. This is the first one that I could not follow or try to save them; It was horrible. I don’t know if I’ve ever cried that hard in a dream. I have no idea what it means, if anything. We are on vacation, and sleeping on hard uncomfortable beds, so maybe it’s just that. My only other thought is about how I am frustrated that my husband doesn’t seem to care about my son as much as my daughter. By that I don’t really mean less care as much as less time devoted. But the dream only says something about that in part. Why was his head missing? Why did the truck just run over his head? What about the horses? What about the river poem? I have lots of questions. I hope there is nothing to it… nothing at all.

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.

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?

"Chasms"

I forgot to post yesterday.

The dream was about my husband and I on a cruise ship.

There was a swimming "pool" in the middle of the ship that was actually a rectangular cut-out in the boat that opened up to the ocean water. I was walking around the "pool" in a robe/blanket and fell in. I was very close to the ladder, so it didn't take long to get out, but I was scared of the depth of the water and possible sharks.

When I got out I went straight to my room which was at the top right corner of the pool around a corner and up a few steps.

I stripped and followed my husband into the bathroom. We were both naked and I was embarrassed of my size. (My husband has recently lost 40+ pounds, and I have stayed put... so now we are within 5 pounds of each other.)

This past night's dream should have been memorable. However, a minute after I woke up I only remembered one part...  and here it is...

I was over a huge chasm in space.  I was standing on the edge of an asteroid and had to get across to another one that was like a block away. There were two smaller rocks floating below. They were gray and looked like lava rock. I jumped from one ledge and touched one of the lower rocks. It was just big enough for one foot, but the minute you touched it, you bounced/floated up and over to the next rock. (It was very video game-esk). I should have been jumping much higher, but with each jump the rocks kept going lower and lower. I went from 10 feet below the two asteroid ledges to 20ft, and it was becoming more and more obvious that I was not going to make it across.

That's all I can remember though I know the whole dream was pretty trippy.

It's a bit interesting that both dreams have a chasm of sorts. One of the ocean and one of space. I was fearful of both and trying to get out of both. One I fell in by accident, and One I jumped in because I thought I saw a clear way across.  One I got out of safely, the other I never got out of.

"Prayer in Dreams"

In last night's dream (the one I can remember), I was with my family in a Vegas type place.  We were in a nice hotel room/apartment looking out over the back wall of the building. The back of the building was covered in white twinkle lights. There was a party going on behind our building. I wanted to go.  We walked out of the room and down to our car. We got in and drove around back. It was just like Vegas where going around a hotel is an event in itself, so by the time we got to the back, we couldn't actually see the lights that I was aiming for. There was a massive parking structure and more 'hotel entry' road ahead that may have also led to parking, but my husband pulled into the first parking structure, a block or more away from our building. (My husband loves to take the tight turns up the parking levels fast when no one is around)... and that's just what he was doing. I was in the passengers seat scared as usual, and then it happened... He drove off the side of the structure! In front of us was a huge gorge with trees on the hill sides. The fall went on for miles. My kids and husband were silent as I said a family prayer out loud for all of us. "Thank you God, that we are coming home today..." The prayer went on and on with thanks. I thought of saying "please help..." but I stopped myself, knowing that we were surely dead at the bottom, so I just said "Thank you." I thought about my legs breaking on impact, but the impact never came. Still in my dream, I woke up surrounded by my family (Mom too). They told me I had been talking in my sleep. "You were about to die, and you were praying. It was beautiful," they said.

I can distantly remember having dreams where I woke up in the dream, but was still asleep; it usually had to do with needing to pee. I would dream that I woke up, got out of bed and went to the bathroom, only to realize that when I got back to bed, I still had to pee... and had to wake up for real.

I can't remember ever having a dream where I woke up to other people around me (all "Wizard of Oz' like).

I have woken up a few times before where my husband is there saying, "You were talking in your sleep." Nine out of ten times that I wake up talking, I'm praying. However, I am usually casting out a demon, or some other type of spiritual warfare, not "thanking" God. So this too, was a first.

And who knows if I was really speaking out loud this time. My husband didn't hear anything.