Dreams: By Tag: Dog

Thursday, September 02, 2010: Dog in the road

He ran into traffic to catch his small dog, Pippin. Pippin chased another dog into a busy intersection. He shouted at Pippin to come back. He shouted at the cars to stop.

Friday, July 09, 2010: Magic Carpet, Sunken Bridge

He hovered in the air, seated cross-legged on a small rectangular carpet, no larger than two feet by three feet. His small dog sat on his lap. There was another person nearby, seated on a similar carpet. It was night. They flew near two brick buildings and streetlights.

When day came, they flew towards Lake Quinsigamond. They saw that Lake Quinsigamond was overflowing its banks. A section of bridge was completely submerged.

Thursday, June 17, 2010: Seeking Shelter

From a wide picture window, they saw the circulation of clouds forming into a tornado. He, his wife, his two children, his friend, and his dog descended three flights of stairs, into the cellar. The cellar was partially submerged in water. Despite the water, the dog was able to swim and keep up. They exited the cellar, moving quickly towards a metal bunker.

Thursday, April 08, 2010: Black and White Cat

He found himself in an apartment that was not his own. There were many other people in the apartment. He moved from the kitchen into the living room.

A black and white cat began harassing him: scratching him, biting him, trying to climb up his clothes.

He asked the cat, "Are you hungry?" and tried to bring the cat over to his food dish in the kitchen. But instead, the cat continued to harass him.

His dog appeared, and the cat began to harass both of them. He tried to keep the cat and dog separated.

For a brief moment, the cat turned into a middle-aged Hispanic woman. She spoke in English on a cell phone. Then she turned back into a cat and resumed harassing them.

Finally, he picked up his dog and escaped outside.

His wife was there.

They sat together under a gazebo. Suddenly, black and white birds flew down, then black and white cats with wings flew down; then rabbits and other small animals with wings flew down.

"Look at them!" he laughed.

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.

Monday, January 11, 2010: Escaping the beast men

He descended the interior of a dark tower, pursued by goat men and wolf men. A wolf man met him on a stair and held him in its teeth. He wrestled himself from its grip and continued his descent.

He climbed down a ladder. A goat man ascended the ladder from the bottom, and another goat man descended the ladder from the top, trapping him. But he simply climbed down over the body of the lower goat man. He jumped from the ladder and stumbled to the floor, against a wall.

There was a crowd of Asian people and among them were goat men and wolf men. There was a camera, lights, and a man speaking behind a podium on the left, and the same on the right. The beast men snarled, waiting for the speakers to conclude before pouncing on him. They were counting on him not interrupting the conference. So he stood up and pushed his way across the lights and cameras and the podiums, and he found two doors.

He opened a door and closed it behind him. He could hear laughing. They were laughing at him because behind the door was a closet, full of junk, and to them he was trapped. He moved some of the junk and found another door, into the adjacent closet. Then he searched the walls of the adjacent closet and found a board high up on the wall. He removed the board and found a window. He climbed up and out the window and escaped into daylight.

Thursday, November 05, 2009: Dog

As he sat on the floor, an Alaskan Huskie grabbed his left hand and put it in its mouth. He tried to calm the wolf-like dog, so that it would not bite his hand or attack him.

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.

Saturday, October 11, 2008: Dog in tree

He walked down a dirt road through a forest. His small dog ran ahead of him. At the end of the road was a wall. The dog jumped over the wall. He ran up to the wall. On the other side of the wall was a long drop down. The dog landed in the branches of a leafless tree. Another large black dog was also caught in the tree. And on the ground below the tree, a tyrannosaurus rex prowled. He leaped up to the edge of the wall and jumped down to rescue his dog.

Sunday, September 21, 2008: Strange school

He found himself in a strange school. The teacher looked like Gene Wilder. He denied that he was the teacher, but he acted like he was the teacher. He also sometimes appeared to have assistants.

It seemed like there was plenty of work to be done in the school. Materials appeared to be laid out for various projects. But no assignment was given yet. Some adopted an attitude of watchfulness. Other adopted a devil-may-care attitude and did as they pleased.

There was an air of surveillance in the school, as if every behavior was being watched, even every emotion and thought. The teacher would appear suddenly, in the midst of some embarrassing situation that had arisen out of the tedium of being together in a school with no classes and no assignments. Sometimes, it seemed situations had been arranged, as if accomplices of the teacher were acting it out.

The teacher, from time to time, would appear to critique each student. At one point, he was critiquing students on one side of a large room. There was a lot of noise in the room, so students on the other side obviously strained their ears trying to hear the critiques. The teacher noticed this and said, “So you think you know what is going to happen, do you?” And he came over to the other side of the room, and stood so close that his arm brushed the teacher’s arm. He began to critique another student, but he couldn’t help but feel that the teacher in that short brush could pick up any stray thought.

There was one particularly strange situation in a dark kennel that was kept on the school grounds. The kennel was full of mud and filth. Large but friendly dogs were kept in this kennel. The dogs were filthy, too. He wondered if they were going to be required to clean the kennel out, but the task was never given. He had the impression that the dogs belonged to a person of higher authority than the teacher. At one point, the dogs were set loose. He felt afraid to be around such large dogs.

Monday, June 23, 2008: Night travel, morning dog walk

He was riding on a bus at night, seated near the driver. The driver was a familiar black man with white hair and moustache. The bus skidded on a patch of ice, but the driver kept control. They were heading down Lincoln Street.

Yet somehow, he found himself walking up Hamilton Street.

In the morning, he got out of bed to walk his dog. As he attached the leash to his collar, he noticed that the small silkie terrier was warm and had white gums. He thought that he was having a reaction to the shots he received at the vets office; he thought that he should return to the vets office right away.

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.

Saturday, January 26, 2008: White great cat again

I was in the backyard of my childhood home, walking my dog. A white great cat came up behind us. I picked up my dog, to protect him from the cat. I did not feel afraid, more than I felt that it was a really big nuisance.

Saturday, December 15, 2007: Sleep paralysis and seven other dreams

After falling asleep, I dreamed that I was lying in bed. The room was dark. The bedsheets were white. I could feel the dog lying on the bed at my feet, and my wife was lying to my left; I was turned on my side facing her. I could not move! I could not speak! I tried to wake up but I could not wake up. I could feel shapes sliding past me, shadows, nightmare thoughts, slipping past me, trying to emerge: a mouth, lips and teeth, fingertips. With great concentration, I moved my right hand over myself. I could feel it tingling, as if it were waking up. I tried to speak to my wife. Shelby, help me wake up! I repeated this over and over.

Finally, in real life, she woke me up. She said that she heard me while she was sleeping, asking her to help me. After sitting up with the lamp on for a few minutes, I returned to sleep.

I had a dream that I was investigating a cellar with my aunts Florence and Jeanne. It was dark, and made of old poured concrete. There was a door which we entered from the ground level. The cellar was cluttered with objects so covered with dust and cobwebs, I could not distinguish them. There were spiders and other insects crawling about. I kicked a piece of something, and silverfish crawled from under it. One spider was at least three feet across! At the other end of the cellar was a door, and stairs up to another door. Below the first door was a rectangular drop, without stairs, a ten foot cubic hollow with another door! I asked my aunts about it and they said they did not know where the door leads to. I considered how I would climb down to investigate

I had a dream that I was on a tour bus. The bus was full of people of all kinds. A group of children were sitting together. I told them the story of Jesus. When I concluded, one of them asked with astonishment if it was true. I laughed and said, no, it was not true.

I had a dream that my silky terrier was chasing rats around and bringing them back to me in his mouth. I felt worried that he would catch a disease from them. The rats he brought back had big teeth.

I had a dream that I was chewing something, and the teeth on the left side of my mouth crumbled to pieces. After, I inspected them, and they were all still intact.

I had a dream that I was walking up my street. An old high school friend, Brian, pulled over in a convertible and offered me a ride. I got in the car, and began to tell him everything that had happened since I saw him last.

I had a dream that I walked the dog outside, and it was warm. When I went back inside the house, the house felt cold. I mentioned this to my wife, and suggested we open the windows of the house to let in the warm air.

The last dream left me with only vague impressions of being at a party, and meeting a celebrity, but I can remember no details.

Friday, December 14, 2007: Crap

I had a dream that my wife and I were cleaning up our neighborhood. We were walking along Dartmouth Street, picking up trash with small shovels and placing the trash into plastic bags. One of the pieces of trash was a glazed cinnamon roll. I saw a couple of piles of dog feces, and figured I should probably pick that up as well. But when I picked it up, I accidentally got some on my coat. This made me mad. There were neighbors nearby having a cookout, and I wondered if they thought it was my dog I was allowing to crap all over the neighborhood.

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.

Thursday, November 15, 2007: Woody

I had a dream that I was having lunch alfresco with Woody Allen. We discussed creative writing, and writer’s block and how to cope with it.

In another dream, I was playing with my dog in my living room.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007: Marble House, Sick Pet

Last night, I had a dream that my wife and I were touring the home of a strange woman. Each room had marble floors, or marble pillars, or marble walls, or intricate tiles. It looked beautiful and expensive. She showed us one room that was unfinished; it was painted light green.

In another dream, I was sitting in the kitchen, examining my dog. He was dirty and infested with worms.

In real life, my dog is sick. I woke at least four times last night to walk him. But he does not appear to have worms.

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, July 04, 2007: Fragments

I can only recall fragments of dreams... a strange house with narrow stairs... living with my father, sister, brother, and my dog... somebody says, “You take the blue room.”... a red door... my brother and a friend are welding metal... climbing rocks near the ocean... neighbors doing drugs...

Monday, January 01, 2007: Dog Tooth

My silky terrier had a bad tooth. He seemed very unhappy about it. I took him to the vet. She gave him anesthesia and pulled his tooth. He lay comfortably on the table, asleep, with his mouth open, showing a gap in his teeth.

Sunday, December 10, 2006: Too Close Shave, Strange Toilet, Dog Bite, Ice Cream

My wife gave me a facial hair trimmer for Christmas. I performed a test shave in the bathroom mirror. The trimmer shaved too close; it shaved off the skin on my chin in two places.

In another dream, I was hanging out with my old friend William, at his radio show, with a couple of well-known but much older rappers. We were discussing Rap Theory, the rise and decline of the music genre.

I had a dream that I was at a party. People were dancing, talking, drinking. I fondled two different women; they didn't seem to mind. During the dream, I found that I was describing the dream to somebody in a second separate dream. In the second separate dream, I was in a group therapy session, led by a husky, middle-aged black man.

In another dream, I was in my basement, examining the toilet in the bathroom. I noticed that there was a blue plastic skirt around the toilet base. I removed the skirt and discovered that there was nothing under it but a deep hole, to a sub-basement, with a blue pool of water. “Somebody is going to fall into that,” I thought to myself.

I had a dream that I was in the ice cream section of a supermarket. The ice cream was gourmet quality, in various delightful flavors and shapes. I selected an orange cream flavored gelato.

In the last dream I can recall, our little silky terrier was having a panic attack. He was lashing out, growling and biting at everything. I got his attention, to protect my wife, and to calm him down. He leaped up and latched onto my thumb with his back teeth. It doesn’t hurt; he doesn't even break the skin. His jaw jutted at an unusual angle. I held him in the air for a while. He seemed to ponder the situation and calmed down, releasing my thumb.

Saturday, November 25, 2006: Plant Dog

My wife and I were living in a well-lit home of light wood and glass, with danish furniture. I sat before a touch-screen computer, as wide as my arms. My silky terrier padded over to me. In place of a head, he had thin, straight branches, like a pruned plant. The branches bent slowly, as if they were looking around. I asked my wife, “How did he get like this?”

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.

Saturday, November 04, 2006: Game Room Preparations

My gaming friends were gathered in my house. My house appeared to be a mix of all of the apartments and houses I have lived in before. The windows in the large dining room needed repair. I pried nails out of the window frames that did not belong. There was a cold breeze blowing in through one window.

Will and I were discussing the short story I was writing. He said he could not determine the time period of the story. I said that detail was intentionally vague. I asked him if he knew where the story was set. He said he thought it was somewhere in the Middle East. I told him that was correct, and that is what I intended also.

We went to Musicquest, a music/comic/gaming store in our neighborhood. We flipped through RPG books.

We walked down Dartmouth Street, and came across a couple with three dogs: a large dog, a medium dog, and a small dog. The large dog appeared threatening and dangerous. The small dog appeared to be injured, as if somebody had stepped on it. We left the dogs quickly; it seemed like a bad situation.

Back at the apartment, I found two Stimpy keychains and two Stimpy plush toys near some stairs. An old church friend, Mike, appeared.

Separate from these dreams, I had a sex dream. My partner and I were trying to find a place to hide in a house full of people, so we hid in a pantry. Still, we found we couldn’t be alone for long.

Also separate from these dreams, I saw six elderly men sitting in chairs, waiting to dine in a restaurant. “Frickin’ fish,” one of them said. Another chided him, “Don’t say frickin’ fish.”

My dream frequency and recall is much better on the weekend, when I get to sleep longer.

Will and I both write and have discussed our writing in real life. The short story we were discussing is a story I am actually writing now.

There is a strong association with Mike and Stimpy; we were both big fans of The Ren & Stimpy Show.

My gaming group hasn’t gathered in a long time, and I do miss them. As I miss all of the places I have lived before.

Saturday, October 28, 2006: Road Trips, Pet Injured

A co-worker and I were driving down a long well-paved two-lane road. It was windy and raining. Apparently, the car was a convertible, but the top was so flimsy, I had to hold it down to keep it from flying off.

In another dream, I was in a chartered bus full of passengers. We were driving down the same road as the previous dream, but in the opposite direction. There were many obstacles on the road, some frighteningly difficult to navigate, including large patch of eroded road that threatened to swallow up the bus.

As we neared the end of our trip, we pulled over for a stretch. A passenger and I went for a walk with our dogs. We climbed down the embankment into a wooded area. We let our dogs wander far, but still on leashes. Suddenly, a blue car rolled down the embankment and struck our dogs. I don't know the condition of the other dog. My dog returned very slowly, as if he were injured. Indeed, when he approached me, his face appeared to be swollen. I immediately returned home, to take my dog to the vet. Before I left for the vet, I took my dog in our fenced-in back yard for a walk.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006: Apology

I was sitting in a dimly lit room. Seated with me was a male figure, I think a friend of mine, and another figure whose gender I cannot recall. We were sitting on the edges of a square area of sunken wooden floor. I apologized to the male figure, it seemed, as a demonstration of amicability to the other figure.

Sometimes, I wake with only a fleeting recollection of what I have dreamed while I slept. Several factors influence my dream recall: quantity and quality of sleep, gradual or sudden awakening, bright lights or distracting noises. Lying in bed a few extra minutes, when I have the luxury, benefits my recall, while immediately getting up to walk the dog in morning sunlight will cause me forget.

This amnesia distresses me, and in my distress, I search my thoughts for the memories that are lost somewhere in my head. These forced searches do not usually work. When I have relaxed, and I am no longer thinking about my forgetfulness, and my thoughts are wandering, I sometimes stumble across a thread that leads me back to my dream.

When I woke this morning, I could not remember my dream. Gradually, I recaptured small details, but most of the dream is still lost somewhere in my head.

Thursday, September 14, 2006: Waking Dream, Trees against Window

I was lying in bed and I was unable to rouse myself. My eyes were closed, yet I could perceive that my wife was sleeping next to me, and the dog was at the foot of the bed. I felt a sense of dread. I tried to wake myself up, but I could not do it. I tried speaking to my wife, to get her to wake me up. Finally, I woke, and my wife woke up at the same time. She said she could hear me breathing strangely, like I was having a nightmare.

I waited a half hour before resuming sleep, to avoid a recurring nightmare.

Later, I had a dream that I was in a wood-paneled room, with large glass picture windows. Outside, the wind was whipping trees around. A branch hit a window, then a large branch, then entire trees. Yet, the window did not break. But I was afraid that it would break.

Monday, December 12, 2005: Sinister House

I was was a young boy. A young girl was with me. It was daylight, but everything seemed washed out and dull. We were investigating a strange house. The house was surrounded by a chain-link fence. The ground was dry, dusty, gray-brown dirt. The house was a three-decker sided in gray sandpaper. There was always a feeling that mean dogs were nearby.

We were confronted by a young shirtless boy and a young wavy-haired girl. They seemed threatening, and we dare not turn our backs on them for fear of harm. They had implements on them that could be used as weapons.

When the boy turned his back, I threw a rectangular piece of shiny metal at him. The piece stuck into his back, on the left shoulderblade. I felt terrible about what I had done, but the boy did not seem hurt. He wasn’t even bleeding. The girl pulled the metal from his back and handed it to me. I examined the metal. The metal was dull, except for one corner that was sharpened.

The boy and the girl went into the house. I followed them in, but the girl who was with me did not follow me in.

Suddenly, the hall was completely dark. As I felt my way down the hall, a blanket was thrown over me, and I was pushed down the cellar stairs.

I removed the blanket, and in the dim light of a small television, I could see a bedridden, morbidly-obese, retarded boy. I could also see my father in a chair nearby.

I left the room, trying to find my way out of the house. Upstairs, downstairs, down halls, nothing gave me a sense that I was near ground level.

I found a kitchen. The mother of the boy and the girl was there. She had wavy dull-brown hair, like her daughter. I tried to distract her with conversation, as I tried to find a way out. She agreed with what I was saying, but I didn't know if she was agreeing with me, or pretending to agree to stall me.

There was something religious but sinister about the whole family.

Eventually, I found my way out of the house, and we ran away.

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.

Friday, May 27, 2005: Kangaroo

My wife and I were walking our dog in the woods. As we walked along a path, we came upon a kangaroo. I wondered to myself, “What is a kangaroo doing here?” My dog barked and growled at it. I was afraid the kangaroo would kick my dog, so I picked him up. We followed the kangaroo to a clearing. From the clearing, we could see stone steps for ascending a green hill.

Wednesday, March 02, 2005: Nightmares

While lying in the middle of Plantation Street, I watched as a child hurled handfuls of sticks into the air from the back of a truck. I felt afraid that I would get hurt, and I felt angry that nobody was stopping him.

I started walking up Plantation Street. It was night. It was so dark, I could only see the headlights of cars. After crossing the street, there weren’t even any headlights. I stood in total darkness, wondering what was happening.

I realized that I was dreaming, and that I wanted to wake up. But instead, I found myself in a dream that I was lying in bed trying to wake up. In one part, the dog was climbing up the bedroom curtain. I was afraid he would get hurt. He was barking at something out the window.

In another part, I found myself floating out of bed, drawn to a window. In the darkness, outside the window, I could make out a man-like shape, and a face like a skull.

I tried to speak in my sleep to wake my wife, but she did not wake me. I did dream that she got out of bed. Later, I asked her if she got out of bed during that hour and she said that she did.

I woke up at 4 AM today and could not go back to sleep right away. After tossing and turning for an hour, I fell back to sleep.

I’ve been playing a lot of World of Warcraft lately. The WoW dreams have subsided; I’m having normal dreams again. But my newfound hobby leaves me with little spare time to log what I have dreamed. Not to worry, I’m catching up.

Dream-wise, I’d say that last night’s episodes stem from feelings of depression and thoughts of death.

Wednesday, November 17, 2004: Dogs, Church

Through light snow, I was walking up and down my street with two dogs: Pippin, my silky terrier, and Poppy, my terrier-poodle mix, who passed away. I saw a rottweiler, so I picked both of them up and ran back to my house.

In the second dream I had, my wife made me go to church. She was not going herself; I was there to meet her friend Dana, who was coming back to our house after church. I felt uncomfortable being there, sitting in a pew and standing up to sing.

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.

Wednesday, October 06, 2004: Gaming Group, Waking Dream

I was at home at night with my gaming group. We stepped off the back porch for a break, and to walk my dog. The cement steps were under repair, so I had to carefully step off of them, since there was no railing. The house was unfamiliar to me. There was a green dumpster tipped on its side, and a television was inside the dumpster. I was opening a bottle of soda. As I twisted the cap, the rush of carbonated air between my fingers made a weird whistling or droning sound. I tried to demonstrate it to my gaming group, but the TV was on, and its volume was loud. The cartoon “Ed, Edd n Eddy” was playing. I asked Josh if he could turn the TV off. He tried to, but it kept turning back on. I tried to shut it off, but the same thing happened. Finally, I figured out that Jeremy had a remote control, and was keeping the TV turned on. But the carbonation had run out of the soda. “Great job,” I said, frustrated, “That’s what everybody wanted to see.”

I am often annoyed at the distracting conversations and activities that take place instead of gaming, while we are gaming.

I had a waking dream. I wake up in bed, facing a window. The window is open, and it is day. Outside the window, I see a swing suspended from a tree branch. The swing is swinging by itself. I notice a branch from an arbor vitae is caught in the swing. The momentum of the swing grows, and as the swing goes higher, the branch of arbor vitae grows. It takes on a man-shape. Finally, I realize that I am dreaming. I try to wake up, but I can’t. I whisper to my wife to help me to wake up. But only my dream-wife hears me. She shakes me a little, and I wake up.

I don't know why an arbor vitae on a swing would be so scary to me, but it was.

Tuesday, October 05, 2004: Storm, Tree on a Hill

I was in my house. I could see that it was day outside my windows, but that a storm was brewing. I picked up my dog and carried him into the basement, to wait out the storm with the rest of my family and friends.

In the other dream I remember, my gaming group was gathered on a low hill under a tree.

Tuesday, September 14, 2004: Leak, Dogs

It was raining outside. There was a leak under the sink. I checked the leak and it started gushing. All of the wood in the pantry became saturated with water. It was so soft, it gave under a little foot pressure.

I had a dream that I was preaching to a crowd of dogs. I was quoting scripture from a dog bible.

In the last dream, I was taking my dog for a walk, outside of the fence around our house. A gang of roaming dogs approached. I picked up Pippin to protect him from the dogs, and made my way back to the house.

Tuesday, August 03, 2004: Apartments

I was standing across the street from a pair of three-story apartments, sitting on an open plain. The apartments had flat roofs and were constructed, if you had a bird’s-eye view, to resemble the letter W. The house on the left was yellow; the house on the right was white. By way of color, position, and height, the apartment on the right resembled my childhood home on Dartmouth Street, and the apartment on the left resembled... the apartment to the left of my childhood home. Because the apartments were on an open plain, I felt nervous about approaching tornados, though there wasn't a cloud in sight.

A woman was selling the yellow house. It seems I had already bought the white house. “If I had the money,” I thought, “I would buy both houses.”

As I examined the house, I discovered that the basement ceiling was very low, and I was able to move the floorboards overhead. The upper interior of the house had a wide open space with heavy, movable wrought-iron stairs, platforms, and even stranger structures, one of which I think was a folding cube.

My father, brother, uncles, and my father’s (now deceased) dog were in the house. As Bandit, my father’s dead dog approached me, I felt apprehensive, because I knew that, in real life, the dog was dead.

In another dream I had, I was in a hotel bed. I had a cold. My nose was very runny. I blew my nose frequently and put the tissues on the floor next to the bed. Steve (Jack Davenport) and Susan (Sarah Alexander) from the BBC TV show Coupling were in the bed next to me, arguing.

I had a dream that I was living in a first-floor studio of an apartment complex. A young black man outside my window was complaining about how loud my music was.

I had a dream that I was reading RPG review online, something that I was doing frequently last night.

Finally, in the last dream I remember, I was talking to a small latino boy and his family. He had a black pet that could talk, though I can’t remember if it was a cat or a dog.