Dreams: By Tag: Brown

Wednesday, March 25, 2009: Truck driving, white apartment

He was driving a UPS truck at night on very narrow streets. The brakes did not work. He downshifted and turned and turned, until he made a safe crash into a post.

He was living in an apartment with his friends. Everything was white: white furniture, white drapes, white floors, white walls.

Sunday, May 18, 2008: Three dollars

He walked on Plantation Street, near a brick school building. A man wearing a worn tuxedo and top hat was talking to him, spouting all kinds of nonsense of great interest only to himself. Another man stood nearby, a vagrant, a drifter, a drunk, in a shabby brown coat. He looked down and saw three dollars in the gutter. He took one, and handed each of the men one dollar.

Monday, April 21, 2008: Barracks

He found himself in sparse barracks of unpainted wood. Dark green shades were pulled down over window screens. A few others of the same rank milled about the barracks.

Two officers entered the barracks through a screen door. One officer ranked higher than the other. First, they taught him how to address them correctly. Second, they gave him a mission. Then they departed.

He departed the barracks alone. He walked to a remote part of the city at twilight. He stood quietly, waiting for a bus.

After some time, a bus drove along the street. It pulled up to the curb further away than he expected. He ran to the bus. Then he remembered that he left his bags where he had stood. He begged the bus-driver to wait while he went back and retrieved his bags.

Sunday, April 20, 2008: Seven stones

In the rain, he crouched down on the lower side of a green grassy embankment. On a narrow vertical strip of dirt dug into the embankment, he placed seven rough flat stones in a row, from the top of the embankment to the bottom. He looked up from his work. Raindrops splashed in brown muddy puddles beyond the embankment. He heard the voice of his wife behind him, calling gently for him to come out of the rain. The stones slid in the mud out of place slightly. He fixed the stones and turned home.

Sunday, January 27, 2008: Trip to the country

Matt, his older brother and I drove in a white car to a rural town. After parking the car, we parted ways.

I met a girl. She seemed to know me, or at least, she was interested in me, and friendly. She had long wavy brown hair, dark brown eyes, a light coffee complexion, full lips; her blouse and jeans fit her curvy figure. As we walked, she put her arm around me, hugged me, and kissed me. She brought me to her workplace, a home goods store, and introduced me to her coworkers. I jokingly put a square of plastic turf on my head before we departed; it was her day off.

We walked to a county fair. We looked around, and ate some food. A small swarm of beetles, joined by a long strand of material, flew at me and wrapped itself from my arm. It felt very irritating. She said that they were called bracelet beetles. I carefully peeled these bracelet beetles from my arm and tossed them away.

We drove back in her black sports car to the parking lot where Matt and his brother were waiting. His brother backed the car dangerously close to the edge of a cliff. I swore at him. He got mad. Matt calmed us down. We drove home.

Sunday, January 20, 2008: Between floors

We were living in a brownstone apartment building. I found a door that opened between the first and second floors to a half floor. The ceiling was only four feet from the floor. I explored the space for a little while, gathered up a few things, and exited through a door on the other side. I turned to look back, and the door and the space had grown smaller. I thought that I would not be able to return that way.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008: The monk

I found myself inside a long hall constructed from brown stone. It reminded me of a monastery. I walked towards the other end of the hall; I was looking for somebody. I was expecting somebody. Finally, they appeared at the other end of the hall. We ran towards each other, as an enemy confronts another. When we stood face to face, I saw that he was dressed in a black clothes, he had dark brown hair, his face was shaved clean, and he wore glasses with thin metal rims. He smiled was almost a sneer. He said, “This is not for you.” I wanted this information, but I did not feel relieved.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007: Tornado

I had a dream that I was walking around inside an apartment on the third floor of a three story building, similar to my childhood home. The walls were covered in cheap wood paneling, and the doors were not sturdy. My mother and father were there, and possibly my siblings, other relatives, and my wife and children. I could see through the window that the sky was cloudy. Somebody said that a tornado was coming. I picked up our dog, and we scrambled for the exit, to get into the cellar before the tornado hit.

Friday, November 09, 2007: Tall Brush, New Office

Bright, blue autumn day, wading through tall brown brush with a husky friend, and I am a teenager again. This is down a dirt road, near an abandoned factory. Through the brush, we spy girls sunbathing by a pool. They notice us, and call us over. We walk over, brushing the burrs from our clothes. One girl, a brunette wearing a light blue bikini, will talk to me, but not to my friend.

In the second dream, I am sitting with coworkers in an office different than my own. There are no cubicles. There are a lot of windows. Our work-group desks are clustered together. We are discussing things not related to work.

I just read Generation X, microserfs, and JPod, by Douglas Coupland. This may have contributed to the office dream.

Sunday, August 05, 2007: Downhill Race

I was outside my house, walking my silky terrier. The sky was overcast, and there were piles of brown leaves on the ground. The fence surrounding my house was rusted and broken; one section was closed off with a propped-up wooden fence. I chased my dog around the back of the house, and the properties of my neighbors had changed. There was a lot of grass, trees, and shrubs; also, an entire apartment had vanished. An old friend of mine, Stewart, was sitting on the grass, petting a cat. In another yard, a young brunette woman in a black dress was speaking to a person I could not see.

I started walking down my street. I found myself moving down the city streets on foot, other times by bus, sometimes with wuxia-style leaps through the air, and once, through a pizza parlor, but always downhill, faster and faster.

As I picked up speed, I also acquired followers. My sister, my mother, my aunts, my grandmother, eventually bystanders. We were speeding towards White City, a shopping center across a bridge. At the height of speed, I grabbed onto the hips of a roller-blading young blonde woman in a white bikini and zoomed off.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006: New Old Office, Firecrackers

I was assigned to a different office. The office was set up bullpen style, like an old newspaper office. My small gray metal desk was near a window. It was night outside. My window was above the city street, I am not sure how many stories up. I arranged several objects around my desk: a pair of brown leather cushions, a pair of green banana leaves, a pair of green glass and brass desklamps, a pair of gray metal desk fans.

Nearby was an eighteen-wheel truck. Several truck-drivers were gathered. One lit a string of firecrackers. They burst one by one, faster and faster, until all but a few exploded. One truck-driver picked up an unexploded firecracker. Suddenly, it went off in his hand. He looked at his hand, startled, then showed us, laughing: his hand was unharmed. My brother held up his hand, saying, “You’re lucky. I lost my pinky doing the same thing.”

Saturday, December 02, 2006: White Room of Cats, Apartment

I was living in a large house. I explored the basement. I found some strangely shaped heat radiators. After that, I found a golden curtained glass wall. I opened the curtain. Beyond the curtain was a white room. I marvelled that I found a white room here. As I peered into the room, I saw that there was a glass wall on the other side, and a door that opened to a lawn. At least a dozen cats came into the room. I thought to myself, “How am I going to get rid of all of these cats?”

I had a dream that I was in a bookstore with some friends: Bob, William, and William's father.

I had a dream that I was moving very quickly along a road, with a view of grass, trees, streams, and ponds.

Finally, I had a dream that my family was living in a third floor apartment. We found that the second floor apartment was unoccupied, so we explored it. The walls were covered with brown paper. The walls themselves, in some places, were very soft, as if they had nothing beneath them but insulation material. In the kitchen were large heating vents.

We went to a bank to take out a mortgage. The bank agent was a middle-age woman with brown hair and glasses. As we were talking to her, I wondered why we were taking out a mortgage on an apartment.

Thursday, November 16, 2006: Vermont Trip Preparations

My wife and I were outside, preparing for a trip to Vermont. As we packed our luggage into the car, I realized that I did not recognize the car. I examined the unfamiliar vehicle: it was a brown station wagon with a sunroof. On the back seat were several large bags of M&M candies. I asked, “Is this our car?” She replied, “Of course. We’ve had this car for a long time.”

We went back into our house. The interior of the house was a pastiche of all of the houses I have lived in before.

My wife sat down for a moment in the living room. A voice in my head said, “What is missing from this picture?” My daughter appeared, dressed for ballet, in white tights and slippers, dancing around my wife. I thought it was a riddle, but I could not discern the answer.

We said our farewells to our children. I hugged my daughter. Then, I hugged my son. After hugging him, I realized that he wasn’t my son; he was my daughter’s boyfriend: tall, with spiky bleach-blond hair.

As we were driving out of a parking garage, a white car appeared in front of our car. The driver looked like Tracy Morgan with wild hair. He looked angry. He pushed our car backwards with his car. After a brief car tug-of-war, we managed to get our car around his car and drove off.

Suddenly, I found myself inside a old workshop, with off-white walls and a white tin ceiling. There were small desks with sewing machines and old typewriters on them. My wife was not with me. I realized that I was dreaming, and that I needed to get back to my wife so that we could go on our trip.

In a separate dream, a friend and I were getting a tour of a haunted house. We doused any lights we came across during the tour, until the house was completely dark. As I began to wake, I saw circles of blue light.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005: Tornados

I was walking in a rural area. I crossed a road into a field. Everything was sepia-toned, yellows and browns, dusty, unpleasant. The wind picked up, and soon, there were brown tornados touching down in all directions. I ran back across the street, in search of a basement to take cover.

I also had a dream that I yelled at my son until he cried.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005: My Dog, War

I was in a strange house. It had a long porch running around the entire house, and it was painted gray. My sister-in-law was there, telling me that she saw Pippin, and to come quickly. I asked if he was hurt. She said she didn't know; he just kept licking his butt. When I got to Pippin, he wasn't hurt; he was just doing what dogs do naturally. I asked him if he needed to go out, and he perked up. He was fine.

Then I was standing in an intersection atop a hill. Down the hill, I could see brown mushroom clouds. I wondered if it was nuclear war. I learned that they were conventional bombs, when I saw strange ships dropping more bombs, whose explosions mushroomed into dirty clouds of debris. The explosions got closer and closer.

I saw a friend of mine, Molly. She was worried about the explosions. I was, too. I noticed that if the bombs did not detonate on impact, they would bounce back into the air, skipping around until they did explode. At least once, we narrowly avoided an explosion because one bounced over us instead of blowing up on impact.

Behind the bombers were these squat cylidrical rotating ground machines that were hunting down survivors. It look like a large gray metal cog, lying flat, and spinning very rapidly.

I asked Molly if she thought we would be safer if we split up? She said she didn't want to be alone. So we began searching for shelter frantically. We came across a building that had the appearance of both a church and a dark pink three decker. Night was approaching. We moved around back, climbed the stairs. There were no open doors, but at least we were on an mostly enclosed porch.

Suddenly, one of the machines extended eyestalks up to the porch window. We hid behind some long window blinds that were nearby. I told Molly not to move. The eyes watched us for sometime, until we fell asleep.

We awoke to a police officer and two elderly tennants asking us what we were doing here? We said that we were hiding from the machines. They said that they should turn us over to the machines, so we quickly departed.

Monday, October 18, 2004: Rivers of Coffee and Flying Bears

I followed one of my co-workers, Ray, around a busy factory floor. I felt concerned for him, as he has health problems in real life. We were trying to complete an agenda he had written out on his hand, but the task was overwhelming. We rode conveyor belts to move about the factory. Somehow, I lost him.

In another dream, I was in a sprawling apartment. The walls were painted white. There was clutter everywhere, mostly laundry. Downstairs, on the sidewalk outside of the building, police were inspecting a cargo container. It was strangely labeled. I don’t remember the exact wording, but it made the container seem safe, even though there were terrorists hiding inside the container. Upstairs, there was a party on a balcony. It was a bright day. Macaulay Culkin popped some kind of drug into my mouth... LSD? I didn’t notice anything unusual. I wondered when it would take effect. I walked into the apartment. I remember following a kid into a very messy room, cluttered with laundry, models, video games, etc.

The party and Macaulay Culkin are drawn from the movie Party Monster. The terrorists in the box... they’re probably from the presidential debate, where John Kerry has repeated over and over that the majority of containers coming into the United States ports are not inspected.

In another dream, I was outside, walking up my street, early in the morning, before the sun was up. I could hear a hair dryer whirring from from my neighbor’s house. I wondered, “Wow, that is a loud hairdryer, for me to hear it from outside.” I had a blanket wrapped around me. It was very cold. As I neared my fence, I suddenly sensed a large dog behind me. I wrapped the blanket around me tighter, and everything became darker.

I’m fairly certain somebody in my house was running a hair dryer in the morning, and I could hear it in my sleep.

In the final dream, I had crossed Hamilton Street. Suddenly, the street became a river of coffee. Across the river, a barn full of coffee beans sprung up, and a Starbucks-like building appeared at the top of the hill. The coffee smelled great, but I wondered how I would cross the river to go home. Somebody was with me... I’m not sure who. I told him, “They did this,” and pointed at two small brown bears with purple butterfly wings, hiding in the bushes. I caught one of the bears, and held it upside-down by its legs, demanding that he change the street back.

Maybe I’m craving coffee? The bears were drawn from real-life, where a couple days ago, my daughter had shown me a teddy bear she received at a party.