Morning Commute

(in keeping with this publication's primary themes of infrequent updating and dream logging, this is a dream post, almost a year without updating)

I'm performing my usual morning commute, biking on the big dummy with my son on the back. This morning's commute differs from the usual in that my boss is also on the back of the bike, because she needs a ride to work. We roll along, and I'm able to manage a decent pace in spite of the increased weight. Part of the commute involves carrying the bike up several flights of stairs in a high rise, and leaping from one internal fire escape landing to another. This is considerably more difficult with an extra passenger (I am, apparently, not allowed to ask them to get off the bike for this). We get to the last leap before making the descent out of the building, and I have to hurl the bike across the open space before making the jump myself, and even though the destination is lower than where I jump from, i almost don't make it, meaning that return is impossible.

As I prepare to exit the window to descend, two young construction workers appear in the window (male and female, this seems relevant somehow) to y that the way down is closed, and they are seemingly very amused at my predicament. Amidst the complaints of the commuters backed up behind me (on the last landing), I realize that I could get the bike back across the gap if I ditched my boss (or my son, but that choice seems obvious)... But the dream ends with me standing frustrated at an apparent dead end, with the construction workers giggling in amusement.

rivers, children, the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide.

The boys are away for a couple of weeks, and this past weekend i took the opportunity to go to River Prom (which will get its own post). The combination of river rafting and drinking (by others) led me to drop into Dad mode, looking out for people struggling in the water, or otherwise acting more inebriated than anyone has a right to be around water.

Last night, i had a dream that Antonio and i were in the river, and that i was in Dad mode, but paying attention to everyone else, and lost track of the boy. And the worst happened, of course. Technically, this makes my dream a nightmare, but i didn't awake with a racing heart or cold sweat. I did remember the images vividly, and while he seemed peaceful, the sense of loss crushed my soul, even into waking.

Today, i talk to Andey on the phone... and lo, he and Antonio are going to the river. Just what i needed to hear!

The wrong technical decision

I awoke sometime before dawn and didn't bother to check the clock,
thinking I'd get back to sleep, as I usually do, without any trouble. The dream that I awoke from, however, must have been more disturbing than my usual bad dreams.

I sit in a conference room with a coworker whom I normally regard as
amiable and not harsh at all. The dream has distorted hir features,
but I know who it is. We discuss something about work, and I ask for
clarification about something.

Then he talked about a specific technique which I hadn't heard of
before (something sie described as "trapping"). I said as much which
elicited a sneer of condescension and the rebuke "you don't even know what... Which finally goaded me into a defense of my intelligence, and to assert that I could grasp the concept of whatever sie was talking about.

This sets hir off on a rant about how I will go round and round
seeking understanding, wasting hir and everyone else's time, and that eventually I'll make the wrong technical decision anyway which will necessitate me or someone else rewriting the functionality in
question, wasting yet more time. At which point the meeting ended, or i awoke.

Good dream to have the night before going back to work.

co-housing, exes, and flooring

This dream finds me (and my boys) living with my exes from Portland. The dream is mostly about the logistics of the four adults remodelling the house (the flooring is a contentious issue), but some of it deals with the renewed pseudo-romantic relationship between me and my exes. The dynamics haven't changed that much in my dream, except that now I'm strongly partnered with someone else and somewhat immune to the distance and inconsistency I felt with L while sie was with M.

Likely triggers for this dream: late night conversation about co-
housing in a non-monogamous context, and recently hearing that my exes are expecting.

relocation

Pixar has moved to a small european town, or at least opened a campus there, and i have gone to work there. We try to make nice with the locals, who are rich foreigners (americans) with isolated houses that don't like us... because we've sullied the extravagant opulence by creating an industry where once the only industry was tourism.

Part of making nice, apparently, involves going door to door to have personal conversations with the folks (which seems completely the opposite of helpful in the given environment), so i'm out on a jog (why is it a good idea to be all breathless and sweaty when talking to people you're trying to win over? i have no idea) going door to door. It reminded me of my days selling knives and how awkward i felt talking to some folks, in spite of my fervent belief in the product.

After one particularly awkward conversation, with an obviously hostile neighbor, i leave my wallet and phone at their house. I don't realize this until i'm nearly home, or back to campus. I can't find my way back, but do some ratatouille-game-like moves running around the town's facade trying to find the house (along wires, up drainpipes, etc.)

I wake up to the pitter-patter of little feet coming down the hall, so i don't know if i ever got my personal items back.

mad max-y

There's a caravan moving through crowded streets at high speed, the people lining the streets are mostly bystanders with no ill intent, but parts of the milling hordes are in league with the party in pursuit of the caravan. The dream includes ninja-esque combatants in powered armor. The scene appears to have been directed by Michael Bay. It's a conglomeration of scenes from Blackhawk Down, the Island, and the Grapes of Wrath.

The salient plot point comes with a closeup of an individual scout wading into the crowd and eliminating anyone that seemed like a threat, using split-second judgement calls that seemed very unlikely to have any accuracy. Every so often, passing similar groups of people, the scout kills clusters of five or six, leaving one or two alive, with apparently nothing indicating why some died and others lived. Hello, modern warfare.

This contrasted strongly with the scene in Grapes in which the committeemen organize a quashing of riot-inciters sent in by anti-labor groups, which was highly selective, and marginally violent: "If you gotta sock 'em, sock 'em where they ain't going to bleed."

crushes, milton bradley, and a sheriff

Last night's dream found me getting involved with a crush i've had for a while... this probably could have filled an entire dream, but in this case was merely the beginning of a truly bizarre series of events.

After staying the night at said crush's place, I went to an A's game. Home plate, and the batter's box, was up in the stands, and a woman next to me was ecstatically cheering on one of the players, Milton Bradley (i think that's an actual player). He called time, stepped from the box, and looked around for the source of the incredibly loud, screechy noise, looking enraged. He marched toward the woman, and i stood up next to her to try and help him understand that she was cheering for him. I failed, or he didn't care, or something else, and he punched her really hard in the stomach.

I took him into custody, citizen's arrest style, and marched him out of the park and to a sheriff.

End of weird part 1, segue to weird part 2:
The sheriff and i (why am i with him? i have no idea) arrive at Milton's house, only instead of being a big baseball player dude, it's the guy who plays Sylar, and he's threatening to do himself harm... until i show concern for him, when both he and the sheriff start canoodling and carrying on. It turns out, they're boyfriends, and the tell me how i'm done for. So i take off, and bicycle away, as they throw spinny-blade things which i dodge on my way out... down through some streets and bikepaths/greenways i remember from Portland. My recollection of the dream ends with me trying to get past a big group of little kids on bikes who are having a great time, and seem creepily oblivious to the peril i flee.

I woke up with the familiar feeling of dread that always comes when i reflect on ceasing to exist, because that seemed to be where the dream was headed... children are oblivious to this (at least, most of them are) and seem much happier for it. The fruit of knowledge totally sucks.

the mansion spaceship

A bit like an episode of Dr. Who, I find myself travelling in a spaceship that is very much like a mansion. There's a downstairs, where me and most of the crew reside, and an upstairs where nobody goes. The layout reminded me of my mom and stepfather's house, only on a much larger scale and with more metal and glass.

Everyone was afraid to go upstairs, but i'm not sure why. Periodically, crew would go missing. Eventually, someone saw a strange smokey-tentacle thing come down from the rafters (yeah... rafters between upstairs and down) and snatch someone from downstairs to up. I decided to mount a rescue expedition upstairs, to find creepy mostly empty rooms with kid sized rocking chairs and clown dolls with ceramic faces. Also, zombies, which were dressed in traditional English servant costume, doing things like tidying up. Apparently, the ship needed to replenish this zombie-crew from the living crew below, and so, periodically, plucked someone up at random.

My dreams are sadly without a compelling story arc.

p4wn goal

I watched some of the Detroit-Calgary game last night, including the first overtime. I spent the rest of the evening hanging out with Antonio, and he wasn't interested in hockey, so i didn't get to see the end of the game, but i dreamed that Calgary lost on an own-goal. I felt really bad for the guy in my dream who did it. I was glad to find out that that didn't happen (imagine the shame!) but it's too bad Calgary couldn't hang on against Detroit.

history

Last night's dream involved a return of someone to my life that i didn't expect to return, though i very much wanted it. The breakup happened less than a year ago, and is still fresh in my mind. The best part of the dream involved having all of the circumstances and personalities behind the breakup healed. People speaking who couldn't before, and a return of empathy and love that had once, however briefly, suffused the relationship(s).

The dream was mostly joyous, but held a hint of menace, in that a boyfriend (or ex?) of my ex entered into my life along with her. He was largely based on a roommate i had years ago that annoyed the hell out of me. In the dream, he came to the apartment to pick her up, and was obnoxious about... just about everything. He probably represents my view of reality... that there will always be circumstances and personalities that don't work well together, but which interact.

I don't hold any conscious hope that the person i miss will ever speak with me again, but clearly there are parts of my subconscious that don't feel the same. Perhaps re-connecting with an ex from high school via email triggered this dream.

I don't dream all that often. At least, i often don't remember them. Remembering two dreams in a row is extremely rare, and i wonder if a third is on its way.

Superposition

Last night i dreamed about having two social-circles overlap. The first was my Portuguese family, who live in the south bay. The second were my new Mission-dyke, FTM, genderqueer, and anarchist friends. We (the younger, more queer) group were in the driveway trying to get a car started (dead battery), when a larger group of my more conservative, catholic, extended family arrived... and chose to enter the house by an entrance that didn't require walking past us.

It's pretty obvious what this dream refers to; I think a visit with my family is in order to help me remember that they haven't shunned me and mine.

Dream Log

I find myself working at google, but it mostly involves sitting at cafeteria/cafe benches with some old timers, talking about a position called "Total Enrichment" which only five people had been promoted to. According to some of them, it meant that those that were promoted couldn't be constructive or productive in an ordered setting, so they're given salary to goof off. The other perspectives are that not having any order or direction allowed the most creative people to find the right things to work on.

(this dream was surely prompted by a conversation at dinner last night about a friend-of-a-friend who got lost in the chaos at google, and an earlier conversation with a libertarian co-worker)

Edit: I remembered, also, that ascending to "Total Enrichment" required going to classes and seminars, which, consciously, reminds me of scientology.

Dream Log

Andy and i have a moment of tension that doesn't get resolved, and i rush off to get on an airplane; i'm on the plane with a male acquaintance or good friend, but i can't remember who. The plane is buffeted about by strong winds, which i normally love, but this time makes me feel uneasy. The plane eventually nicks a building or maybe a high-tension power line tower, and goes down. I have just enough time to think of what a jerk i was before we're all smeared on the ground.

As i die, i feel the energy released from every single cell in my body as it dies; i feel heat unlike any fever, and feel my consciousness leave the physical. I am filled with love, and even the regret i felt right before i died goes away. I know everything is going to be fine.

Dream Log

As part of my Krav Maga (very light, one-class-per-week) training, Keith (the head of security at Pixar, and the instructor of the class) had me undergo something that seemed more like hazing than training, and had me take an ambien and see how long i could keep my elbows off the floor.

The setting for the dream was, i think, the gazebo/classroom from River's dream in Serenity.

I took the challenge very seriously, and fought off the effects of the ambien, and various temptations to sleep, in addition to some more physical challenges in the form of people trying to force me to the ground. I refused to lay down. I ended up getting very paranoid in my sleepless state, and woke up before i actually ended the challenge, feeling very smug.

Then, i realized i was in bed, and my elbows were down.

What does it mean to dream about not sleeping? About succeeding at something that, while you're sleeping and when you awake, you are a total failure at?

Dream Log

I had a dream last night that Andy (and maybe John) conspired to track down my old friend from elementary school, Mike O'Neil. My brain had age-changed his appearance, but left enough similarities there that i would recognize him.

We hugged and started catching up, and that's all i can recall.

I think that's why today i've felt so disconnected. I'm realizing how few friends i have from my time growing up. Paul and Mike are the only two i miss. I think i can still get back in touch with Paul; each time we've tried to reconnect, time and family obligations seem to get in the way.

Mike, though, has been missing for much longer. Or maybe i've been missing.

Dream Log

I had to watch as my underwater city was attacked and destroyed, despite the valiant efforts of my niece, Penny (i guess that makes me inspector gadget?). Antonio survived, as did Andy, but i remember waking up sad that my niece, Penny, was no longer with us.

This could take some analysis.