Stolen memories

(My grandmother just passed away last week; I'm sure that's relevant to this dream.)

A woman, along with her minions, has commandeered my grandmother's house. In actuality I don't recognize the house at all, but I know it's my grandmother's because it's full of a lifetime's worth of things. They are taking pictures off the walls, books off shelves, figurines from side tables.

The entire family is there at the house, since we are virtually prisoners now.

We are all working under the guise of "helping" this woman to dismantle the house, but in reality we are helping my grandmother to pack up a single bag of things that are truly special to her. It's a very large paper bag and we are stuffing it as full as possible. At one point my grandmother passes me a spatula and tells me it's OK to throw it away. Briefly I consider taking it for myself, but decide to just throw it away so I can continue to help her with her bag.

When it's all packed up we walk it out to the car and someone says, "OK, so this is the one that goes to our car?" and a minion overhears this and grabs the bag and promptly throws the whole thing in the trash compactor.

I woke up crying.

Swimming

I'm in a large room. The walls are painted a warm yellow, and there are a few people in the room with me -- most of them watching me. I'm swimming in the air. The more I kick my legs and move my arms, the higher I go. The higher I go, the easier it is to stay up. Once I'm up against the ceiling, I can almost float in place.

Then I come back down, exhausted from the exertion.

Stop singing

Christina Aguilera worked in the cubicle next to mine. She was having a big fight with her boyfriend and she would call him every day and sing a song of disgust and loathing at him right over the phone.

It was very distracting as I tried to work.

The white purse

The purse strap was draped over the back of the restaurant chair. My family was at the table, so I felt safe to get up and move about sans sac à main. It was a country restaurant, where you go up to the counter to order your plate of food. The food looked amazing (translate: fattening). When I went to sit back down, the family was gone and so was my purse. I was alone, with my plate of food, no way to pay for it, and I began to stress out.

I looked in my car, I searched the restaurant (including bathroom), and especially under the table where we had sat. I finally asked for help from the restaurant employees and one nice lady brought me into the back kitchen where they stored their lost & found bin. It was the size of a car! It was full of purses, blankets, toys, papers, etc. It was daunting just to weed through it looking for anything in particular. She held up one white purse after another but it was never the right one.

By this time I was late for everything. I had missed getting my son to school, I had missed getting to work on time, I was basically missing in general since no one knew where I was now. One helpful employee held up a white purse with a price tag of $9 on it -- since eventually they sold their unclaimed lost & found items. I tried to be nice in my response, but these people were not understanding that I couldn't care less about the actual purse -- it could have been a trash bag for all I cared -- I just needed the contents. I needed my driver's license, and my credit cards, and my cash! Who cares about the loss of the purse itself!

I never found it. Nor did I get to eat the yummy-looking food.

Mean buyers

The buyer put a contract on our house, then had to store all their stuff in our attic, then settlement was delayed by a year so their stuff was up there forever, then they had a pre-settlement walk-thru and the agent demanded I make them lunch. I hardly had any food in the fridge but I attempted to make some food and they ended up not eating any of it. Then, while I was slaving in the kitchen, their kids were drawing on the walls with crayons.

Yummy fingernail clippers

I have had a dream previously about eating paperclips, but in last night's dream I ate a fingernail clipper. I bit off the bottom part up to the larger part and left that on the plate. The fingernail clippers were part of my plate of food, like you may have a stalk of celery next to the rest of your food. I had fingernail clippers.

In both of these dreams the action of eating metal objects was completely natural. But each time when I woke up, it's bothered me.

So this morning I did a quick search on dream interpretation and came up with three completely different explanations. First I learned that the type of metal seems important, though I have no clue what type of metal is used for these items. Steel wire would be my guess for the paperclips, and stainless steel for the fingernail clippers. So "steel" is the common denominator. Both were shiny, which also seems to be important from my quick search. Though I don't know why.

1. One interpretation is that I rely too much on technology. Paperclips and fingernail clippers have been around for a long time, though, so I'm not sure how much I would rely on that interpretation.
2. The other interpretation is that I'm biting off more than I can chew, so to speak. Isn't everybody?
3. And the last was that the metal represents my sexual appetite or libido. But what does it mean? Do I have to see Vin Diesel more? or less? 

None of those interpretations seems related, so I'm not sure I really put any faith in any of them.

For whatever reason, lately I dream about eating metal. I think it's really weird.

Missing teeth

Last night I dreamed a tooth fell out.

Going nowhere II

My most common dream-theme is being unable to make it somewhere. I had one a couple of months ago where I was in a high-rise building, in a lobby of some sort, waiting for an elevator. There were lines and lines of people waiting for the elevator and since I wasn't in a rush, I took a seat at a small table and enjoyed people-watching until the crowd cleared and I could get to the elevator. Finally the crowd cleared away and I got up to go to the elevator and half way there I realized I had forgotten my textbook back at the table. It was no big deal, I'd just go back and get the book and then catch the next elevator. So I went back and got the book and went back to the elevator and stood in line but there were too many people for me to get on that turn. I went and got a drink, and I helped someone find something out in the lobby as I waited. In the meantime I missed yet another elevator. So now I was starting to get stressed about not getting on the elevator. At first it was no big deal but it was becoming more problematic since I had a class to get to and I was not able to get on that elevator. So I gathered my things and went to the elevator and waited through one group who got on and finally I was right at the front of the elevator door -- first in line -- waiting for the next one. It was at that point that I realized my purse was nowhere to be found and I was forced to leave the line to look for it. I felt completely defeated and frustrated and I knew with all my heart that I would never make it onto the elevator.

What's so weird about that dream is that I easily could have walked around the lobby and found a set of stairs instead. Why did I need the elevator in the first place?

Then, the night before last, I had another one of these dreams. This time we're in a busy city and we need to get to the beach. I had the address of the street where we needed to be and I knew the general direction of where to go, but I had never been there before and was a little anxious about finding the right place. We set out on the walk and went a couple of blocks and seemed to be getting lost but then out of nowhere the street we were looking for was right there. We took the road and immediately came to our destination. In my dream I remember saying, "Oh, that wasn't so bad at all. That was pretty easy."

I've never in all my life actually made it to the destination I was heading to in a dream. Never. Until now.

I choose to believe that this means good things for my future.

Conversation with hubby

Lorelei: My dreams are making me fat - http://www.dietingtipsetc.com/can_you_gain_weight_just_looking_at_food.html

John: You don't think it's the cookies?

Going nowhere

Do you ever have those dreams where you need to go somewhere but you can't seem to get there? I have them every night, sometimes more than once a night. The last one was my whole family was piled into the car and John was driving, and all I had to do was run something up to my mother-in-law's front door and drop it off with her. It started to rain, and people were in my way, and the driveway was really long, and on and on and on, obstacle after obstacle. John yelled at me, "Hurry up! A storm is coming!" and I felt so stressed, trying to accomplish what should be a simple task so I could get in the car and we could go. I woke up without accomplishing it, and that was the start of my day.

New spectacles

It's difficult to capture on "film" the essence of these new specs. They are dark brown, with translucent turquoise on the inside and on the edges. They are super cool.

I had a dream last night that I saw my aunt wearing them and I ran up to her and was so excited, and I told her she had great taste in glasses.

Yes, I know, I'm a dork.


On a lighter note, I'm super stoked about spell check telling me that I spelled "translucent" correctly on my first try.

It's the little things.

Dog food

Last night I had a dream that I had loaded in a software program for learning Spanish, and the first flashcard that came up was "Beneful," which supposedly meant "fruits and vegetables" in Spanish.

I'm glad that my subconscious is on board with the whole "learning Spanish" thing, but I think it could have been more creative with that one.

Sleep: The mother of invention

When I was a little kid I invented the foon. It was a combination of a fork and a spoon and I was very excited to have made such an important invention, since obviously it was very badly needed. Needless to say I was devastated to learn it had already been invented, and jealous that they had a better name for it.

Last night in my dreams, I invented a germato. I don't know exactly what it is, but it's some sort of vegetable/fruit amalgamation with a tomato and garlic and I'm not sure what else.

I guess I'm hungry but that doesn't sound appetizing for breakfast.

Life in little gravity

I dreamt about falling. Not the bad type of falling, but more like the kind where you can jump really high and you know it will hurt a little when you land, but you won't get seriously injured or anything.

Maybe I'm the only one who has those types of dreams.

Zombies

Jenji posted a funny dream she had about working at a movie concession stand and overhearing President Obama saying they couldn't afford underpants. My dreams aren't usually that humorous, though sometimes they are.

Monday night I dreamt about zombies and natural disaster, in the same dream. First there was wide-spread flooding and after the water went away there was about 10 feet of oozing mud EVERYWHERE. People were stuck in their homes. You couldn't walk in the mud and you definitely couldn't drive in it. There was nothing to eat and everyone had cabin fever.

When I looked out the window I saw people walking effortlessly across the mud and they were in groups and they were ZOMBIES! Aaah! They came toward our house and I want to run away from them but John is telling me, "Don't run! Walk! It's the only way they won't see you! So I've got a zombie right on my tail and he's telling me they can't see me if I walk? I didn't believe him so I started to run and came to a cliff and wanted to jump off but the zombie caught me and tore off my arm or I tore off its arm. One or the other.

Then I'm back inside the house and we're all crowded around in a small room and all of a sudden I realize that the actual devil (not the dentist and not Evil from work) was sitting right there with us. He kept trying to touch me, reaching for my arm or my leg and I kept screaming at him, "STOP TOUCHING ME!"

Then I woke up.

What's really weird is that I just went to Jenji's site to get the link to her funny dream post and saw my favorite Martian's comment on her dream with his OWN dream and it very closely matches MY dream.

Get out of my head, you green tentacled alien!