TBTT#36 I JUST WANT TO SLEEP ~ 1/21/2016

I dreamed that I lived in a big house right along North Peters Street in the Marigny. There was a bar and grill right behind it, then a cemetery, then the road, then the river. I took on a friend of mine as a roommate, with the approval of my landlord, and everything was going fine, until…

I was up in the empty attic loft area, trying to find the kittens I kept hearing, but there were some college kids up there that I didn’t know. One of them gave me the name of the guy who let them in, and I knew him, as he was a friend of my roommates, whom I’d met. I asked if my roommate knew that her friend was letting people into our house, and they shrugged and said probably not. They turned away from me and went back to playing with the kittens. Since they weren’t hurting anything, I decided I could take my time to figure out what to do about this, because I really didn’t consider it acceptable, and I knew my roommate would agree.

So I started back downstairs, and I heard a lot of people down there. I hurried down to the living room, and that friend had let in even MORE people, and basically a huge drunken frat party was going on in my rented home. I only knew the one guy, and I tried to ask him what on earth made him think this was okay, but he couldn’t hear me over the music, and just grinned. I started hollering, “OUT! GET OUT!” at the top of my lungs, but no one could hear me. My landlord came in and was absolutely appalled. I explained that I was in no way responsible for this happening, but I would definitely fix it. My roommate came in, and was equally appalled, and angry at her friend, and together we began shoving people out of the door, killed the music, threatened to call the police, and managed to empty the apartment.

The people upstairs asked if they could stay, since they were being quiet and harmless, and I said just no, too much was going on that was wrong, and I wanted no strangers in my house while I sorted things out. I *did* allow two people to stay in the front hall for a while, because the guy said his sister, a tiny pixie of a girl with short dark hair, was still too drunk to leave, but she’d probably be better soon.

When I turned around, there were a handful of people in their fifties setting up chairs and music stands and getting ready to rehearse a brass quartet. I recognized them from my community band, but I had no idea why they were at my house. They said that someone had told them where I lived, and that I wouldn’t mind lending them some practice space, and they’d come in through the open back door. I told them that unfortunately I *did* mind, and they needed to leave.

I was going to follow them out and lock the back door, but then some music started up at the front of the house, and I turned around and found that a dance troupe was practicing out in the street, and rows of dancers were drifting forward and backward in their routine, but they were gradually getting closer and closer to the house. As I watched, the front row of dancers came up onto the porch, and began to file in through the door and French windows. I ran up and held up my hands commanding them to stay out of my house. They could have the porch if they needed to be there, but they were NOT coming in. They looked confused, but they obeyed, and I sighed in relief.

Until I turned around and found MORE people coming in through the back. The neighborhood social club for people of color were holding a meeting about cleaning up the cemetery between my house and the river, and they thought my house was a parish hall attached to the plot, and they wanted to have their meeting there. As I started to clear them out, more band members began to come in the front, and the college kids were trying to sneak back in through the attic.

At that point, I realized the pixie girl was in really, really bad shape, and her brother was nearly passed out, and I needed to call 911. I grabbed my cell phone, ignoring the hordes overrunning my house, and tried to punch in the numbers, but it just wasn’t working. Other numbers kept coming up and other parties kept answering, and when I finally got an emergency service, it was like some sort of contracted out private party that had an answering machine.

I finally got help started on the way to my house, and was looking around at the mass of revellers in despair, wondering when I’d ever get to sleep, because I was so tired and it was now so late at night, and then I woke up.

TBTT#35 Quitting Band and Taking Names ~ 6/9/2015

I dreamed we were all going into band class, rehearsing our entrance for a concert. I was wearing a heavy necklace, and wasn’t making very good time getting to my seat, so the band director called out to me that I needed to move my booty and get seated, that I was holding everyone up. Apparently I thoroughly objected to his mentioning my booty. I turned around and told him he was being completely inappropriate, and I was leaving. I walked right out of band class.

I then proceeded to tell everyone who asked me, stunned, why I had quit, the story of what had happened. Since I wasn’t the only person moving slow, but had been singled out, it really wasn’t fair. Also, I didn’t have the right stand to use the iPad for my music that the director wanted me to use, so I had been carrying my paper music as well, and that had slowed me up. People asked me if I was quitting band for good, and I said no, but I was going to stick to my more easy going ensembles that didn’t make a performance out of getting to your seat.

In my dream, I was a much better player than I am in real life, so this was a pretty big deal. But my mom agreed that the band director had been out of line to use the word booty with regard to me. When I got to concert band, though, and sat next to my friends Lynne and Joanna (because the saxophones could sit with the trumpets if they wanted), I learned that the objectionable band director was guest conducting my concert band. At least by now I had figured out the iPad music thing, and gotten rid of two of the heavy stone pendants on my necklace.

Since I sat in the back, the director didn’t really notice me. But I left as soon as rehearsal was over, and took a back way through the small, medieval village we were staying in, so I could get home unnoticed and sulk in private. Then I woke up.

Even in My Dreams Dating Sucks ~ 5/10/2018

I dreamed I was preparing to fight a war on the far side of the galaxy. I was part of a platoon digging ancient castles and other fortifications out of centuries of blown sand on a desert world. Once we got the sand cleared out, the engineers would come in and arm the towers, and we diggers could go on one last shore leave on our home planets before we got stationed for battle.

I was on a freight ship that had earth somewhere along the middle of its route. I was worried that it would take so long to get there that I wouldn’t get to see my friends and family. But I met some interesting people on the ship, and we all programmed each other into our comm links. The tall blond guy I had at comm channel 047 became a good friend, and we flirted a bit, and maybe would have dated, if there hadn’t been a war, we lived on the same planet, and he hadn’t turned out to be a huge misogynist when he didn’t get everything he wanted right away.

He tried to back track when I got pissed at him, but then I learned a bit more from people who’d known him longer, so I told him to leave me alone, and I ceremoniously cleared the programming from 047. The ship dropped me in British Columbia, where I’d moved to be in the forest. It was lovely after my desert stint, but before I could really enjoy what was left of my leave, I woke up.

TBTT#34 Navigating by Committee ~11/11/2013

I dreamed I was in a committee meeting, talking about how to get back to New Orleans from Houston, with a few stops along the way.  One part of the group traveling was going to drive I-10, but then go south on Hwy 37, then East on Hwy 101 (are these even roads in LA?) to make a particular stop. 101 would take them through a sandy, hilly, wooded region, with lots of metal truss bridges over small creeks. The other group was going to take I-10 all the way to New Orleans, then take Hwy 64 down to 101 to meet the first group, but they’d drop me off just before crossing over to the West Bank.

I ended up in a wide region of abandoned warehouses along the river between the French Quarter and Uptown, with no CBD or actual Warehouse District in between.  There were fields of parched grass along the levee, and rusted metal culverts running into concrete banks along the river.

There I was supposed to face some sort of monster or challenge with magical powers, and I could see my own human abilities in my mind like a translucent orange and white gingham mesh, the tiny squares each a human asset or a power or a small advantage.  Everything I did to try to improve my chances resulted in an exactly equal increase in the magical capabilities of my opponent, visible in my mind like an olive green gingham matrix exactly overlaying my own orange one. Then I woke up.

Epic ~ 4/7/2018

I dreamed I was spending Thanksgiving in a small town in west Texas. They were known for putting on a little Shakespearean festival every year at that time. What they didn't advertise was that Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint always showed up to join in the actors. So I got to watch the Harry Potter stars perform in Macbeth and Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night and Hamlet. It was absolutely grand.

Then, as I was packing up at the end of the weekend to leave, I fell through some sort of crack in time and space, and found myself in a dense, ancient forest. The buildings were still there, but instead of being desert dry and dusty, they were covered by vines and ivy. One courtyard was now a meadow, sparkling with dewy grass. Tiny baby rabbits, only about two inches tall, hopped and scampered around, toppling dandelions ten times their size and cheerfully munching them down to nothing, like rabbits do. I went out into the courtyard meadow very slowly. I lowered myself to the grass. Slowly, slowly, slowly I reached out a hand. Some of the rabbits skittered away, but on stayed, and stretched its tiny, whiskery nose up to sniff my hand. I scratched its little head with the very tip of my finger, and gently lifted it up to my cheek. It snuggled against me, softer than soft, and we became friends.

Suddenly there were sounds of people tromping all around, and all the other rabbits whisked away, and my friend ducked into a pocket in my shirt. A Bronze Age people were on the march through the forest, returning to their homeland after a long foraging trip, and they had stopped at the ruined buildings to shelter for the night. They were as startled to see me, someone completely alone, and they were suspicious at first, but then the Lion tribe said if I wanted to join them, it would take me in as a lowest ranked member, and give me a chance to prove myself.

The daughter of their leader agreed to tutor me on their ways and my new duties. There would be long marches, and unexpected and unexplained tests. I would go through the same trials their young people faced when they came of age. She told me as much as was allowed, but she emphasized that the first rule was to keep up with the march. Anybody was allowed to stop and rest any time they wanted, but while the tribes were on the move, wherever you found yourself in the ranks at the end of the day was your new rank in your tribe. The tribes marched in a ranked order, too, and if you found yourself behind members of a lower ranked tribe three nights in a row, you'd have to join that tribe, if they'd have you, and you'd start at the bottom of their ranks the next day.

Since only Lion tribe was currently willing to have me, falling too far behind would pretty much get me kicked out and abandoned by the whole people. So the next morning, I shouldered my pack, and I marched. The headman's daughter, Jessica, was kind enough to start at the bottom of her tribe, so I could follow behind her. The first day was grueling, and I willed myself to only stop when she stopped. She didn't stop much. But toward the end of the day, I think she took pity on me, and since we were ahead of at least half of her tribe, she took a few breaks just for me. This was very kind of her, really, because no one had made any guarantees that she wouldn't lose her own high rank if she fell behind on the march because of me.

I woke up on the second day aching in every bone and muscle of my body, and I was pretty sure I'd fall really far behind as soon as we started. I told Jessica that she was absolutely not allowed to wait for me if I did. Her father, the leader, overheard me insisting on this, and was pleased at how considerate and concerned for her standing I was, even at the risk of my own. So he insisted in turn that I be part of my first trial that morning. In this trial, all of the young people would be left behind, and couldn't start out for an extra hour. But whatever rank they achieved by the end of that day, they would retain for three days, regardless of where they finished in the marches those days.

They left us in a large clearing, lit with torches since the woods were too dense to let in much sun. As we waited with a few elders, there to mark the time, I noticed the warm golden torchlight glinting off of metal near the edge of the clearing. I went to investigate, and found a small pile of machinery bits. They weren't overgrown, and looked too shiny and well maintained to be abandoned, and I thought they might be part of a surprise testing, so I knelt down to start going through them.

A few of the more curious young people joined me, though a lot of them took the opportunity to just rest a little longer. I found that some of the pieces seemed to fit together. When I tried to assemble them, they snapped right into place. I began hunting out more pieces and fitting them together, along with the others, but when the elders called our hour of waiting was up, everyone else grabbed their bags and plunged into the woods after the tribes as fast as they could.

But the machinery seemed important to me, so I stayed behind and kept fitting pieces together. As I did, I learned that these people were much more technologically advanced than they appeared to be from day to day, because what I was assembling was definitely a vehicle, something between a motorcycle and a four-wheeler. It was light and maneuverable, but hard to topple. I'm not even sure what fuel it ran on, but as soon as I snapped the last part into place, the motor started up, and I began to fly through the woods, following the glimmering torches far ahead.

In five minutes, I'd passed the young people who had been left behind. In ten more minutes, I could see the lights of the last tribe. But I heard a call behind me, and went back. The young people had found a set of rails and some cars, and they asked if I thought I could pull them along. I said I'd try, and found I could. We all agreed that if the tracks started going the wrong way, taking us farther away from the tribes, we'd give up. But they ran through a cutting that seemed to parallel the tribes' march, so I pulled us all along, and at the end of the day, we had outpaced all the tribes, and actually had to back track a bit to set up our camp in front of the leaders of the first tribe.

It turned out that I had won the contest of patience and curiosity, by taking the time, and the risk to find a better way. The young people who had found the tracks and called me back had won the contest of exploration and discovery. And I had won the contest of generosity by going back and bringing them all with me.

For the next three days, we all began the march first, no matter where we'd been when it ended the night before. I did my best to stay with the leaders as long as I could, and to try to get to know these highest ranked members of all the tribes. I didn't expect that any tribe other than Lion would have me, even if I kept up, but I wanted to learn what these people valued, how they lived when they weren't on the march, and if staying with them would even be better than trying to live alone.

I had started out with them the weakest and strangest person in the tribes, but as we marched I grew stronger, and as I proved myself to them, they became more open to my crazy suggestions about adding some deliberate agricultural pursuits to their hunting and gathering lifestyle. I learned that while they lacked that technology, they were otherwise every bit as advanced in other ways as the motorcycle had shown me. But while they valued the acuity and knowledge that went into designing and operating machinery, they mistrusted complete reliance on it, which is why they walked instead, and hunted with bows and arrows instead of guns.

I marched with them until we reached their homeland, high in the mountains. There were stunning towers of white marble, speaking and music halls with lushly cushioned seats in amphitheater tiers around the stage, sparkling waterfalls driving simple mechanisms, and brilliantly clear air. I was fully accepted as a member of Lion tribe. My time marching up with the Sun tribe had acquainted me with the son of their headwoman, and we had fallen in love, but there were a lot of people still opposed to me being considered one of them, much less marrying into their most esteemed family, so we were still working all of that out when I woke up.

Game of Dune ~3/15/2018

I dreamed I was Sansa Stark in a sort of Game of Thrones/Dune mashup. My father Ned/Leto had been killed. My mother and oldest brother were off being Bene Gesserit and Kwisatz Haderach in the desert somewhere, no idea where Arya/Alia was, and I was stuck taking care of my brother Bran in our spectacular imperial palace.

All of a sudden, everyone began to panic, and I could see a news program on the television, so I carried Bran over to watch. Apparently dinosaurs from our enemy house were going to invade our planet at any minute.

The rest of the dream was my scurrying up and down stairs and escalators and elevators into different wings, trying to find a place for us to hide. Bran got heavier and heavier, and needed a change of underclothes after a bit, but somehow I'd ended up in a part of the complex I'd never seen. You see, I'd always had someone with me, telling me where to go, and I'd only been allowed in certain parts of the palace.

I started out in a large amphitheater, that was partially open air. There were pine woods and snow behind me as I watched the news program, and campers were running about screaming. I found a door to get inside the palace, and found myself in a sort of shopping arcade. It was like a mall, but it only ran along one side of a huge convention center lobby.

I could see the stairwells and elevators and such were all numbered, and I knew that to get to the royal chambers, I needed stair 30 in the east wing. I kept finding every stair *but* stair 30, and I wasn't sure which wing I was in, anyhow.

Bran got heavier and heavier, as I ran up escalators to hallways carpeted in plush, dark blue, with dark blue walls and dark oak doors. There was a wing of elementary school classrooms, completely deserted. I thought about hiding here, because who would expect that, right? But none of the doors would lock.

I came out into a courtyard, and we had guests there. They were young men from a noble family who had been visiting to discuss marriage with me and my sister. They offered to help hide me, but I just didn't trust them, and I ran and ran and ran and ran, hoping to lose them, hoping they weren't following me.

There was a deep, forest green hall, and a hall of blinding, antiseptic white and glistening steel and frosted glass. Finally, I found stair 30, and I bolted up it and into the royal wing of cream walls and golden wood and garnet carpets. I locked us in the King's Suite, because I'd heard my brother had died, and Bran would now being king. And then I woke up.

LEGO, Ship Building, and Proper Cups of Tea ~ 3/10/2018

I dreamed I was wandering through a world built from LEGO. I was staying in a French mountain town, and I had to wait while they rebuilt my room, since a prince had just stayed there, and they needed to remove his exclusive specifications. So I wandered up the street, past a pastry shop and a dress shop, along a small stream, down out of the mountains and onto a desert plain.

There I found an oasis palace, the court of an Arabian nobleman, mosques, markets, small homes, all built of LEGO. To the north I found a jungle temple, then more sand and an ancient Nubian fortress town. Lots of gold LEGO used there. I headed east, through a rocky canyon, and at the other side I found a charming Bavarian village, which lay to the north of a Jewish enclave with a temple more beautiful than any of the ones I saw in Prague, all, of course, built from LEGO.

Eventually I found the end of the LEGO world, and entered the back halls of the home of its creator. Draped in sheets and dust, I found huge sections of the Taj Mahal under construction, and I made a mental note to encourage her to finish it. But I never did find her, and my mom called and wanted me to meet her in Paris, so I left for France.

In Paris I found that my mom was staying in a hostel where her room was a small wooden clipper ship. She needed my help because she was going to sail the ship home, but first she needed to disassemble it and rebuild it at the port. They’d told her all the pieces were interchangeable, so she’d started a quick but haphazard disassembly. But I took a closer look, and, in fact, every piece was unique, and would need to be fitted back in the exact same place, so the first thing we had to do was put it all back together.

An older English gentleman came to help us, which was good because it had started raining. The wood was getting a bit damp, and became harder to take apart. I looked closely at one of the ends and found an intricate series of notches where the pieces fit together. It was really ingenious. As long as the wood was quite dry, the pieces came apart and went together easily. But once the wood got damp, like it would at sea, it would swell and the pieces would lock together and be waterproof.

The problem was, of course, that it was raining, so the wood was getting all wet. Me and Mom and the Englishman worked hard to keep things dry, and I began disassembling at the prow, making sure to keep all the pieces stacked in exactly the order I'd removed them in. I'm not at all clear on how we managed it, but somehow we did. We picked up a crew and some paying passengers in the port, and the Englishman agreed to come along and run the gift shop counter.

I had become very fond of him, and I thought he might also be quite fond of me.  I was the only person on board whom he'd trust to make him tea while he was working, because he said I was the only person who knew what a proper cup of tea was. Somehow, though, I never noticed if he took milk or sugar, though I pretty well assumed he did NOT take sugar. But instead of asking, I'd always just bring them, and bring enough tea for me, too, so I could use whatever he didn't.

I was in the galley, and I was having a horrible day. I poured the water into the teapot instead of the kettle by mistake. I thought of just microwaving the whole mess and calling it tea, but I knew it wouldn't turn out to his standards, so I dumped the whole thing, and a friend came in and put the kettle on the boil for me while I tried to reconstitute some powdered milk, because we'd run out of fresh that morning. I wasn't as worried about that, since I was pretty sure that was just for me, but I kept getting the proportions wrong, and filled a tiny pitcher with sludge that wouldn't dissolve. I was so tied up with the milk that I let the tea leaves steep for too long, so it was all bitter, and I just couldn't seem to do anything right, and I knew I was going to let my Englishman down, but then I woke up.