Dreams: By Tag: Falling

Friday, September 03, 2010: Wife eats a peanut

He and his wife were standing in the kitchen. His wife ate a peanut to see how she would react. Her face swelled up and she feinted, falling into his arms. He picked up the phone and called an emergency number and shouted at them to hurry.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010: Jumping down

He and his wife looked out through a large window. The ground was three stories down. They discussed the safest way down: the tree, or a pile of boxes. She thought the tree would be best; he thought the tree was too far out to leap on. He thought the boxes were better because they were closer; she didn't think they would provide a soft enough landing. Both jumped. She landed in the tree and jumped down. He landed on the boxes, which broke his fall. They both laughed together at having survived a three story fall.

Friday, July 16, 2010: In Search of a Bus Stop

In search of a bus stop, he walked at night on a street in a strange city of low brick buildings, streetlights, and brightly lit shop interiors. Other people walked the streets, some entering and exiting the shops.

He walked into a building, climbing up and down many flights of stairs and through many corridors. He thought in general that he was moving below ground level. He entered a large room with a crowd gathered in a vague queue. He saw a concession stand with popcorn, a ticket booth, and a marquee. He realized it was a movie theater. He walked away in search of the bus stop.

He stood before a large platform open to daylight and a long descent to the ground. His father stood on the platform. A man made an announcement over a loudspeaker. His father shrugged and jumped to his death.

Tuesday, March 02, 2010: Dogs with parachutes, Egyptian party

He and his wife walked along Park Avenue near Elm Park at dusk. Airplanes released parachutists. Their parachutes failed and emergency parachutes were deployed. Still, their descent appeared too swift. But they landed safely in the pond. Now closer, he could see the parachutists were dogs.

He dreamed he was at a party in a lavish house of alabaster and marble. The guests wore royal Egyptian attire. He met his wife there, lounging on a couch, when she was younger.

He was on the street with his wife and teenage children. Some Christians were trying to guilt his children to return to the church.

Sunday, September 27, 2009: Fans, Mantis-Dogs

He was in the city at night with his wife, son, and daughter. They approached an array of cylindrical buildings topped with massive rotating fan blades. “I wonder what these look like from above,” he thought aloud. They made their way to a black mesh covered scaffolding. His wife found an opening in the mesh, and hanging from the scaffolding, dropped down to the floor below, then his daughter next, then he dropped; his son followed. The floor was smooth concrete.

He scrambled under the gray overhang of a cave riddled cliff that was covered with blankets. A giant tan-colored praying mantis dog was looking for him. He knew he had to face this threat, but he had no weapon in hand. He scrambled to the other side of the cliff-bed, and another mantis dog was waiting there as well, but as he delayed, the mantis dog grew smaller and he grew bigger until he could pat it and scratch it.

Friday, June 19, 2009: Some Days The World Stumbles

Some days the World stumbles.
You really cannot blame him.

He is only now learning
how to walk.

And trying to run
tumbles over and

skins his knee.
These things happen.

Kiss the ground
to make it better.

Thursday, March 19, 2009: Space Debris

He walked alone at night on a beach along a small body of water. Suddenly, a fiery space capsule fell from the sky. It crashed next to a beach house. He walked over to the crash site. He sifted through the debris. He found a blue metal object, round at one end, square at the other end. He was no longer alone: a crowd of people were approaching. He walked away from the crowd, away from the crash site, taking the object with him.

Sunday, August 03, 2008: Out the window

He steadied a ladder-desk-shelf against a wide window overlooking a city street from several stories above the pavement. Then the shelf moved, and its contents began to slide towards the open window. He braced the shelf with his arms and legs. With a free hand, he grabbed the mouse, but came away with only the cord. The laptop fell out the window to the pavement below.

Thursday, April 17, 2008: The man who fell to earth

He found himself riding in a shiny metal bus. The bus was floating through space. Neither the driver nor the passengers could control the bus as it floated through space. There was little they could do about their situation.

He could see that the bus and its passengers were floating towards a very bad, very dangerous part of space. Some passengers decided to abandon the bus. He did not know where they went, but they departed just the same. He and the few remaining passengers braved the dangerous part of space together.

Soon, asteroids struck the bus, and the thin metal of the bus tore open. The bus broke apart completely, spilling him and the rest of the passengers into cold dark space.

Alone, unprotected and adrift, he exhaled a final breath. He felt his body freeze solid.

And for a long time, nothing happened.

After some time, the man woke up. He found himself on planet earth. He examined himself, clenching and stretching out his softening hand. He felt warmth entering his body again. He realized what he had endured.

Monday, April 07, 2008: Mechanical Hell

I had a dream that I saw a rectangular opening in the sidewalk. It was two feet wide, six feet long, and four feet deep. At the bottom was an opening. Rainwater flowed into the crack. Steam and smoke rose from the opening. A woman nearby warned me that it was an opening into hell.

I was foolishly curious, so I bent down and lay on my side to get a better angle to look through the opening at the bottom. And I fell into the hole.

I rolled onto a descending conveyor belt that was covered in what appeared to be lint, dust, or hair. The air was damp and smoky.

After riding this conveyor belt down for some distance and time, I reached a level place, and long rectangular room with more conveyor belts moving in different directions.

During this pause, a coworker appeared. His head and face were enormous. He asked me a question, and I insisted that I no longer handled that function; ask so-and-so about it. He left with his big head in a huff.

I crawled along a horizontal conveyor belt to a screen door. The door was flimsy but latched shut. I looked through the screen. I could see a vast abyss beyond the screen, dark and burning. There was a din of voices, and a deep commanding voice. A demon landed and clung to a perch just outside the screen door. He was naked. He had wings and claws. He appeared to have no eyes; he appeared to have ear holes and nose slits; he had a mouth of sharp teeth. He appeared to be made out of scar tissue.

Quite foolishly, I waved my hand at this demon, to see if he could see me. He looked at me. I realized what I had done, and I woke myself up.

Thursday, February 07, 2008: Fighting a dragon, dog injured and healed, suicide

Together, we were fighting a monster in a dark place. The monster was lit with flickering blue and violet flames.

During the fight, I found my dog, injured on the ground. His jaw was broken; he was in pain. I took a towel and wrapped him in it to carry him off to a vet. But I looked down in the towel, and he was completely healthy.

I was in a parking lot at night with several coworkers. I was standing with one coworker talking. Suddenly, as we looked beyond a fence, a woman jumped from a high brick building and died; I recognized her as yet another coworker. We were shocked and saddened.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007: Infiltration, trashscape, driving up a cliff

We infiltrated a dimly lit building, running down corridors and hiding briefly in rooms. We stole a square blue elevator car robot. We posed as students in a classroom, and traded illicit pencils.

I climbed carefully across a landscape of trash, a dump that stretched to the horizon.

I drove a car along a steep road. The incline rose until it the road became a cliff. Some cars tried to ascend the cliff, but they rolled back or came crashing down. Some cars tried to descend, but came crashing down as well. A police man tried to descend in his car and stuck half way. He attached a winch to the car and told me to grab the other end of a rope. I refused. I fell into a dumpster. I climbed out of the dumpster. I pulled clinging pieces of trash from me. I picked a small round black beetle off of my leg.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007: Monster under the floor, mountain top

Beyond a doorway, from a room on the right, I dragged out furniture and guns (check chambers and empty of bullets to be safe) and more clutter. Beneath the carpet was a grate, and beneath the grate was a monster, a green and black tentacled thing, lurking and lashing and caterwauling. With the last of our possessions removed, we closed the door behind us, and kept our guns at hand.

I climbed a cliff to a mountain top, but I was two persons: a boy who did the climbing, and a narrator, observer, or guide. The wind was cold, the sky slate gray. There were eagles perched on precipices. The height made me (us) feel afraid. We searched our backpack for... something. We found a parachute, and strapped it on for safety.

Monday, July 02, 2007: Capsized, Spinning, False Awakening

I stood on the covered deck of a wooden watercraft, cubic in shape, ten paces to each side. I leaned overboard, reaching towards the dark sea, and touched the bobbing green glass bottles that surrounded my craft. Suddenly, the ship rocked hard and capsized. I fell overboard, under-ship, falling into a bottomless hole in the sea.

Then I half woke and fell back asleep, dreaming of whirling circles before my eyes.

I tried to wake myself, making noises in my sleep. My wife shook my hand and woke me. I felt grateful. Suddenly, she craned her neck and back in an impossible pose, and asked, “How do I know that I am awake?” I shut my eyes and woke up.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007: Falling, Eating a Frog, Catching an Crocodile

I stood on the roof of a tall white apartment building. After looking over the edge, I stepped off. With my back to the white plastic siding, I fell five stories down. Yet I landed on my feet unharmed.

I was at a picnic. Between thumb and forefinger, I plucked up a live frog from my plate. I put its rubbery leg in my mouth and bit its leg off at the joint.

Down by a river, I caught a crocodile with a hook and line, baited with a fish. I lifted the reptile out of the water. It thrashed and snapped its teeth at my hand.

Sunday, November 12, 2006: School Party, Two Dogs, Cartoons

I found myself in a brick school building, with other children; I was a child myself. There were remnants of a party all around us: empty cups and trays of pastries. I gathered a plate of cookies and a cinnamon bun for myself. I think it was a celebration of a school reopening.

In another dream, my wife and I were living in a brick apartment. We had two strange dogs under our care, one large and one small. I got out of bed and opened a door to a balcony. The dogs took this as an opportunity to escape. They jumped off the balcony. I looked down, several stories, and they landed without harm. Other dogs were gathering in the street. The big dog and the small dog approached these other dogs. At first, I felt concerned for them. Then I remembered that these were not my dogs, and that I didn't care what happened to them, beyond simple humaneness. I closed the door, happy to be rid of the dogs.

I vaguely recall dreaming about a living cartoon creature, like a koosh ball with legs. Its name was Norubunga.

Thursday, October 19, 2006: Bedside Visitations

While napping in an out-of-the-way room, I felt a presence enter. I opened my eyes. An old friend, Josh, entered the room and sat down at a computer. I sat up and said, “Hello.” He said, “Hello.” He apologized for waking me, and said that he was just going to be a moment; he was checking his email. The room got brighter, and another old friend, Bob, suddenly appeared. “You old hippie,” I joked. He laughed and hugged me.

These visitors departed, and I continued to nap. My wife wandered into the room with a basket of laundry. I showed her the book I had cut and taped together into two strips, joined, and twisted, to form a Möbius loop.

I napped more. My son came into the room and left.

Still I napped more. My daughter came into the room. She sat at the foot of the bed and asked what I was reading. I opened the book, and began to read from it.

As I read, my own voice became the voice of a narrator, and I was in the story, guiding a white sports car along snowy hills, simultaneously a passenger inside the car, driving, and outside the car, holding in my hand a small replica of the car. The car skidded off the road, crashed, and drove on.

I have been reading Mark Z Danielewski's Only Revolutions. This is the source of the Möbius loop and the driving narrative.

In the dream, I felt as if I was more than napping; I was convalescing. I felt at peace, but I was resting because of illness or age.

Saturday, October 07, 2006: Hospital Escape, Musical, Snail and Moth

A friend of mine, William, was having an artistic crisis. We were hanging out at his apartment. I was talking to him about the dream blog I was putting together. He interrupted me, but I did not understand what he said, as if there were a loud mental noise in the room. He seemed extremely agitaged. I asked him to repeat what he said, but I couldn’t understand him again. He gestured towards what I thought was a dresser with a cardboard box under it, but I still could not understand him.

Suddenly we were surrounded by doctors and nurses. They explained that there was a procedure that could be done to alleviate his condition. We were escorted into an operating room. As a nurse prepped a needle, I realized that they were going to operate on me! I knocked the needle out of the nurse’s hand and ran. The hospital staff chased me, but I eluded them, and escaped through an exit. But I was still on hospital property, surrounded by a high fence. I looked around. I could hear a police officer’s stream of conciousness as he stalked me, but I crawled on the ground near some bushes, climbed the fence, and was out.

Now I found myself falling. But I had transformed into a spiky pink haired anime character, so falling wasn’t a big deal. I landed on the roof of a semi, and jumped down to ground level.

Artistic crisis averted, I saw a club with a scrolling LED sign. A Misfits cover band was performing there soon, but they needed a lead singer. I found myself singing Die, Die, my Darling, and singing it rather well.

As I walked down the street singing, I came across some teenagers hanging out in front of my elementary school. I stopped singing, and they began to sing their own songs, about smoking and drinking and doing drugs.

As they sang, I noticed a tiny moth riding on the back of a tiny snail.

Monday, June 27, 2005: Ice

I opened the back porch door, and sleet and hail were falling from the sky.

In a separate dream, I looked out the pantry window, and there was a puddle of frozen water in my back yard.

Friday, August 27, 2004: Stone Church, Green Hill

My wife and I were atop the high wall of a ruined stone church. There were no exits or stairs down. We searched for the lowest part of the wall, where we hoped to climb down without too much risk of falling. Shelby said that she was just going to drop from where she was hanging. When she let go, a breeze caught her and she drifted far from the wall, where the drop onto the green hillside would be too long for safety.

I seem to be having a lot of marriage-themed dreams lately.

Recently, my wife left the church. I had left the church years ago and she remained. But now I feel like I have... all of her again.

Monday, August 23, 2004: Edge of Dreams

Lately, I've been experiencing a new dream state. Just as I am falling asleep, I am aware that my thoughts have begun to wander. A dream begins to form, a half-lit vision. I can still feel my physical body, and still perceive the dream. I can only maintain this state for a short time before I fully wake up.

One of the brief half-dreams I had was a crowd of cheering, happy people carrying signs.