Dreams

My dream life has been in a stupor for the past few months. I haven't had many, or just not many worth recalling. But this week, I've had a few doozies in a row. I'll share two of them that have really stuck with me, both visually and psychologically.

Dream No. 1

I am sitting on the grass high on an embankment alongside a great river, much like the Columbia or the Mississippi. There are dozens of people around, most of them enjoying the sun and picnicking. We (all of us people, as I am actually sitting alone) observe two planes taking off from a runway that runs along, then juts out into the river, kind of like the runways at SFO jut out into the bay.

One fixed-wing aircraft flies away. The second, a strangely shaped aircraft that is highly maneuverable, flips nose over tail several times as it ascends rapidly. It hovers above the embankment, and starts shooting small canon balls out it's "butt." They fall amongst the picnickers, causing pandemonium but hurting no one, as we are able to avoid them and they do not explode on impact.

Presently, the strange aircraft lands, and a crowd forms to scold its pilot for dropping those shot puts. Heavily armed men in black SWAT/assault team attire flood off the vehicle and start harassing the crowd, shaking, shoving and hitting them. People flee in all directions. It quickly becomes obvious that these dudes are dangerous, and none of us along the river are capable of responding without getting harmed. So we flee.

The guys in black rush toward me and another bystander. Just as he approaches, I drop down over the edge of the embankment and roll down the hill until I am standing next to the water. The bad dudes follow, and I am leaping and scrambling up and down the hill. I get up top again, thinking I will head for the highway, when I see the parking lots are being controlled by these invaders. People are still running in chaos on the grass. I hide at various times behind trees and benches as the bad guys run or march past. I see a young woman at a drinking fountain kneel as they pass, bowing her head to them in submission.

That's not going to help you, I whispered to her from behind a nearby tree. No sooner do I say it than she is grabbed by one of these men and hauled away.

I head toward a pavilion, where I find a star-shaped concrete construction of some sort. A bench? A table? I can't say, except that it had a large overhang with a void beneath it. I decided to hide in there, as does one other fellow. I push trash that has blown under there out the the lip of the opening, thinking it will make the site look undisturbed.

My ruse doesn't work. No one even bothers to look under the edge of the bench or whatever it is before sticking the end of what looks like a leaf blower under there and turning it on. Out rushes a fog of some gas. I try to hold my breath, but eventually must inhale and do so thinking I will surely die from whatever gas has been distributed.

Instead, it turns out that the gas alters my DNA, permanently changing me. I will, forever more as far as I can tell, smell and taste like cheese nachos. I learn this via an announcement from some unknown source. But after I get out from under the structure and try to flee the area, the news gets repeatedly confirmed. Wherever I walk people sniff hungrily in my direction. Several teenage boys claim they smell nachos.

I walk into a ferry terminal where hundreds of people wait, unaware of the chaos being caused by the invaders outside. A boy of about 9 whines at his mother, "But they must have nachos here somewhere! I can smell them! I'm hungry!"

I flee the building.

Down the river a few hundred yards, I see a small boat launch. I decided to enter the river there, thinking I might be able to wash off this smell, not really accepting my DNA has been altered. Just as I'm wading into the fuel-slicked water, I see S2 in a small motorboat pull into a floating dock about 25 yards from shore. I swim out to the dock.

As I climb out of the water, I notice Little Pea squat over the river and urinate. Her big sister, Getting to Yes, who's 7, instantly rats her out, saying, "Mom, Pea's polluting the Earth!"

I really think that's the least of our problems, I say to Getting to Yes.

GTY glares at me like I'm a traitor. "Pollution is a BIG problem," she corrects me.

S2 comes around the edge of the dock, surprisingly topless. Uh, I say, you might want to put your shirt back on.

"I'm sunbathing," she says. "What of it?"

I gesture up the river. I think we're being invaded or something.

She looks at the chaos continuing on the shore and shrugs a little, then wrinkles her nose. "What's that smell?" she asks, looking at me. I extend my hand. She sniffs it. "What is that?"

Cheese nachos? I offer.

"Yeah, kinda. I guess," she says, not convinced.

Taste it, I suggest. I'm supposed to taste like it, too.

She licks the back of my hand, then quickly spits. "You taste like gasoline-soaked nachos!" she says. "That's disgusting."

I wake up.


Dream No. 2

I am standing in the middle of what appears to be a dorm room. Stroking my chin, I realize there are long hairs hanging down below it. I feel around and discover they are braided, knotted messy things like dreadlocks. They hang like the giant whiskers of a catfish but instead of my cheek or chin, they are attached to the inside of my bottom lip. I tug on them, and they pull my lip into a frown.

"You really should stop playing with those," says a woman I recognize as a classmate from my internship class. She's a petite brunette who presents as demure in class. But in this dorm room, she's bossing me around. "Your side of the room is messy; you need to clean it up."

I look at the room and discover one side is an incredibly clean, simply appointed bed, desk and table of Japanese design. Two place mats with chopsticks and tightly folded napkins sit at corners of the table. On the other side of the room is a profusion of mess -- books tossed hither and yon, my sleigh bed covered in a quilt.

I tug on one of the dreadlocks hanging from my lip, trying to figure out how to get rid of them. "I'll get you some scissors and you can just cut them off," the classmate says. I nod my head. "And stop bowing your head to me," she snaps. "Just stop bowing down like that! I can't stand it!"

I am feeling verbally assaulted and confused. With my fingernail, I scrape at the skin on the inside of my lip. As I do, four dreadlocks fall out painlessly in a chunk, as an exceptionally loose tooth might. A second chunk of five dreadlocks comes out without much more effort than that.

My classmate returns with scissors in her hand and sees the dreadlocks -- with their spit-covered roots -- lying on the ground. "Those are really nasty," she says, then sighs, "Make sure you pick them up."

....

I'm not a dream analyst, but I have a feeling both of these dreams meant something. I'm going to ponder them for a while. If anyone knowledgeable in dream symbols has any ideas, let me know.