Pay Attention to EVERYTHING!

I don't know if I was going for a new job, but for some reason I had to be somewhere to get tested and I was going with my granddaughter, Taylor.

I had to park in a parking lot and then walk to a stool outside the parking lot to sit down and wait. I saw one stool open so I walked to it, but somebody got there first and just as I was about to leave to find another spot, somebody pointed out another open stool.

Now I'm in a house, but I don't know whose, and, for some reason, I don't have shoes, so I have to borrow Taylor's shoes but Taylor's shoes don't fit, because they are too big. 

Before we leave, somebody tells us that we need to pay attention to EVERYTHING because the tiniest detail will be on the test. But EVERYTHING bores me apparently because I forget to pay attention until midway through the test when I realize that even the minutest detail, something in the background, for instance, might be on that test. So I start paying attention to EVERYTHING.

A rifle, or something that looks like a rifle must have been included in the instructions, too, because when it was time to leave I was told to hang it in the closet before I left.

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Any time anyone dreams about a test, the obvious thing to consider is that the person is about to be tested in some way, not in school necessarily, but in life. The fact that I was dreaming about my granddaughter and that I was wearing her shoes might have meant that she was being tested, and in order to understand how she was being tested, I needed to walk in her shoes.

I don't remember carrying a gun in this dream except for the part where I was told to hang it in the closet. Guns to me mean violence and protection. Perhaps I was trying to protect her, but in the dream I didn't need a gun to do it. This dream will take a little more contemplation on my part.

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My Newest Boyfriend

In this short dream, I had a boyfriend who looked amazingly similar to my daughter's fiance. All I kept thinking about was how lucky I was to have him in my life. It didn't disturb me at all that he was decades younger than I was – I just felt so lucky.

Yes that was a very short dream, and I can tell you immediately why I had it, because I knew upon awakening what the dream meant. 

The night before, my grandson, Zac, who is 5, crawled into bed with me (as he always does whenever he visits – unless his Daddy is here). He asked me (as he always does) to scratch his back (it helps him fall asleep).

I thought about how my daughter's fiance scratches her back every night to help her fall asleep, and I've always considered that small act to be a really sweet thing to do.

You see, when I was a little girl, my Auntie Alice scratched my back every time she saw me. She was the only person who ever did that for me, and she died when I was 10. 

And so on the night I scratched Zac's back, I remembered my Auntie Alice and thought about my ex-husband who always had me scratch his back but never scratched mine – I've never had that kind of affection from anyone other than my children when they were young. 

I must have fallen asleep wishing I had the kind of man in my life who would selflessly give of himself just because he is a good, loving, kind, and generous man. At least in my dream world, I have that kind of man in my life.

And just so you know, in case some of you are wondering, the dream was just as I explained it – nothing more.

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Another Impossible Dream

Every once in a while I have a dream that involves me doing things I would never do. Here is an example:

I am in my home surrounded by loved ones celebrating something. Dishes are piled in the sink (would never happen – any family function involves the use of the dishwasher). Among the items in the sink is a cookie sheet filled with water and ice cubes (what?).

On the counter is a package of sliced ham left from the day before (I do NOT like ham and even if I had it in my house, which I do from time to time for holidays or because my daughter makes it, I would never leave it on the counter overnight). 

I ask my grandson, Kaden, if he would like to spend the night. He says no. (He always wants to spend the night at my house).

I leave my family party (that would never happen unless I had a sudden heart attack and had to go to the hospital) because I want to WALK to Peotone (more than an hour and a half away BY CAR). When I get there, Peotone is holding a Scottish festival. I don't even know if Peotone has such a festival. After I watch some Scottish dancers, I head back home where I have to cross a road above an expressway and end up in Kankakee at a party for what, I don't know. There the dream ends.

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I have lots of friends and family members who live in the Kankakee area, so the likelihood of me going to Kankakee for a party is pretty high. But I would never walk there from Peotone or from my home, and I didn't recognize anybody at that party, nor was I familiar with the place where the party was being held.

So I have to ask myself, what was the point of this dream? And the answer I give myself is that maybe once in a while we all do what we think we will never do (I'm not a party goer, though I do attend family functions). We all go places we didn't expect to go. Maybe something is coming up that I might have thought wouldn't occur. But maybe it will. Who knows? Nothing, after all, is impossible, right?

I'm expecting to be surprised (in a good way).

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Meeting My Soul Mate

Several people were sitting on bleachers in a gymnasium watching a performance of some kind. I noticed Adam Goldberg among the performers, and I thought, there he is, the man who is supposed to be my soul mate (determined from a previous lucid dream). 

I avoided making eye contact with him because my discovery that he was my soul mate came only from that dream, and I was fully lucid in that dream. 

But despite my ignoring him, at the end of the performance he walked up to me and asked me if I would like to accompany him to some event the following night. I wasn't sure I wanted to drive all the way to Chicago for the event, but I wanted to play out the "soul mate" prediction from my previous dream, so I considered going.

Suddenly I am at home, talking to Adam on the phone, walking from room to room (in this dream I lived in a LONG home with several rooms) trying to get away from the noise of everybody living with me so I could hear what he was saying.

Unsure of how he might respond to what I was about to reveal, I decide anyway to tell him about my prior dream in which I discovered that he was my soul mate. I shared something else with him, too (can't remember what that was right now), but I didn't want to let him know my age or that I was a grandmother and great grandmother, since he might think I was much older than I already am.

In the midst of this dream, I think of my friend, Katherine (died in 2007), who would have loved to have heard about actually meeting "the man of my dreams".

Now Adam and I are sitting on the floor. Two babies and some other woman are with us. Adam is "playing" with the baby on his lap, and the other baby is sitting between him and the other woman. Adam is holding an object that could potentially hurt the baby and he's pointing it toward the baby's face, especially her eyes. She doesn't flinch, but she doesn't smile either. I wonder if she's played this game with him before and knows not to move, but I can't help myself from warning him that he might hurt the baby. I'm terrified that any small movement she makes will blind her. I ask him to please stop what he is doing. 

There the dream ends.

What I find interesting in this dream is that while most of this dream was an actual dream, part of it was lucid, as was the entire dream I had about Adam Goldberg several years ago. You can read A Lucid Dream With Adam Goldberg or Greg Giraldo – I'm Not Sure by clicking the link. 

Another element of this dream that I find interesting, as it was in the previous dream I had about Adam Goldberg, is the soul mate component. Never, and I mean never, would I date a man who played dangerous games with babies that could potentially harm or kill them. I have too many babies in my life to protect from men like the one in my dream.

I'm not saying that the real Adam Goldberg is anything like the Adam Goldberg I dream about, but if he represents someone in my personal life, I'm glad I'm not dating anyone. My antennas are up!

Do YOU have weird dreams? Send Your Weird Dreams to weirddreams@mail.com.

Too Bizarre to Explain

I love finding weird dreams by accident. Through one of my writing affiliations on Facebook, I discovered the following dream: Some Dreams Are Just Too Bizarre To Explain.

I found the dream so interesting, I asked the author if she would mind sharing it on this blog. She obviously said OK, because here it is.

To read the dream, please click the link. You'll find comments I made about the dream at the bottom of her dream.

Want to read more weird dreams? Feel feel free to explore Your Weird Dreams.

Have YOU had any weird dreams? Please share them here: weirddreams@mail.com. 

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Meeting Cast Members from Saturday Night Live

Dream from a few nights ago:

I am in a large building, something that looks like a cross between a mall and a hospital. I walk into a small room filled with people. I notice Seth Meyers and a couple of other comedians from SNL. Seth has what looks like a bullet hole in his back and I mention it to him while a woman tries to find the cause for the hole. Seth acts as if nothing is wrong. He is in no pain, so he ignores it.

Three SNL members stand together and I walk over to them. They ask me what I do. I say, "I'm a writer." In unison, they all say, "She's a writer," not in a way to sound condescending, but more to sound funny. I ask them how I can send in a skit to SNL, and I am met with an, "Ooh, that's really difficult." And, "Ooh, I don't know…" They then walk away.

I start to follow them because I want to tell them that I have been watching SNL since the early days when Gilda Radner was performing, but then I realized that I rarely watched it after that first season, so I decided to leave them and find a washroom.

The washroom is located down a hallway and down some steps. Though it is clearly marked for women, after I open the door, I see a bunch of filthy men smoking cigarettes, sitting on all kinds of things, including chairs, crates, and counter tops, but I don't see any toilets. The room is a mess filled with debris. 

The men let me know they are there for more sinister reasons as they wait for women to come in. They ask me where I'm from. When I tell them I'm from Chicago, they decide to allow me to be in there alone. But I don't know how to use the facility because I see no toilets. 

A little Oriental woman walks in and finds a kind of plastic chamber pot sitting on the floor. She uses that while I look for another one. Everything is out in the open. When I finally find one and use it, she notices something I've written on a piece of paper that sits on the floor. She reads it and tells me I'm really good and asks me if I would write a blog for her website. I feel honored and say yes.

As I walk out of the washroom, I am acutely aware that the men who allowed me into the washroom are probably still close by. I sneak out and as I round the corner in the hallway, they see me and come toward me. To diffuse what might be an uncomfortable situation, I thank them for leaving the washroom and I quickly return to the room where the SNL members are gathered to tell them that I'd found a writing job.

Suddenly though, I'm driving or walking down a street in a very cute neighborhood, thinking about possibly moving there. I am with my former daughter-in-law's mother, who agrees that it might be a good place to live. Shortly after the homes, I see lines and lines of apartment buildings, all of which appear to be very tiny. I recognize that I wouldn't be able to live in them, because animal dander and smoke might circulate through the vents and I would become sick. There the dream ends.

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When the original Saturday Night Live aired, I watched every show and I decided I wanted to write for them, especially during a lengthy hospital stay back in 1977. I wrote several skits for them and even moved to New York, but I found myself in a whirlwind of obstacles I could not overcome. I recount that merry-go-round trip in the blog, Expectations of a Writing Career.

Seth Meyers appeared at the University of Illinois (my neighborhood) not long ago, and I'm sure the memory of SNL combined with his appearance in my town set the stage for this dream. My dream of Seth Meyers having a bullet hole occurred before the Connecticut murders, so the dream isn't connected at all to the murders. I don't know what the bullet hole represents, but Seth Meyers is obviously alive and well.

As far as the disgusting men in the women's bathroom is concerned, I don't know what part of my psyche put them there. To be honest, I have been thinking that my career is "in the toilet," so that part of the dream came as no surprise. But, even in the toilet, I found hope (through the woman who wanted me to write for her web site). So all hope is not lost (if you are an Oriental woman looking for a writer for your web site, I'm your girl).

I will not however be moving into an apartment now or ever, since I've already been in apartments where residents in the same building either smoked or had animals, and I had a bad reaction to the smoke and dander.

I could not imagine a scenario where my former daughter-in-law's mother and I would be walking anywhere together, and then this past weekend, after I exited my car in the parking lot where my grandson's soccer game was being held, I walked past my grandson's other grandmother and we walked into the game together.

Ringo Starr and the Consignment Shop

My youngest daughter and I were walking down a long path toward a field where some exhibition or festival was to take place. We must have been the first ones there, though, because we couldn't find anyone else.

We decided to go into a building located on the premises to wait for my mother, my youngest sister, and my daughter's only son. The chairs in the building looked like dental chairs so we sat on them while we waited. 

Not a minute after I sat down though, I needed to move. Waiting by the window, I finally saw my mom, sister, and grandson walking down the path. My daughter and I walked toward them.

The next thing I remember I'm in a consignment shop and Ringo Starr is pointing out various items. He and a friend of his own the store. 

Huge double-tiered racks of clothes in an M-shape greeted us on the right as we walked in, leaving only a small path to our left. The racks blocked the rest of the store from my view. My daughter walked to the rack furthest from us. I searched through the one closest to the door. I pulled some children's coats from the rack and asked my daughter if her kids needed any. They didn't.

After looking through the clothes, I walked beyond the racks to tables that at one time must have been filled with gems and jewelry, but the gem table was almost empty. Ringo's co-owner came up to me and told me that people must have stolen most of them.

Large pink plastic containers that looked like toys sat to the side of the tables and I picked one up. It had been filled with jewelry but was now nearly empty. I wanted to buy the container.

Now I'm in a room with various people, none of whom I recognize, but my youngest granddaughter is standing in a crib that is situated next to a table that holds a laptop. Before I can prevent her from pouring a cup that holds an oily substance on the laptop, she does. A man appears to tell me it's OK. He'll clean it up, but the liquid turns into wax, and he becomes frantic. 

I leave the room to look for something to clean it after Jim Carrey and another actor walk in. As I walk through another room, I find my daughter sitting on a couch with Jim Carrey talking to her as he stands above her. I tell her, "I told you he would flirt with you."

Then I walk into the kitchen where Jim Carrey is standing next to a refrigerator talking with somebody who is standing on the other side of a counter. I ask Jim if I can have some water. He gives me a dirty look (I felt as if I was annoying him, perhaps because of my earlier comment to my daughter) as he reaches into a large container, grabs me a bottle, and hands it to me.

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I don't know why I have so many dreams about Jim Carrey. The one thing that sticks out is his making out a one million dollar check to himself before he ever became famous. For so many reasons, I've always believed in the power of positive thinking, and Jim Carrey's million dollar check certainly proves his belief in himself. 

He was disappointed with me in a previous dream, though, so I think he represents somebody (I'll have to figure out who that is) who I believe is always disappointed by me – who knows? Maybe that somebody is me.

One of my interests is making jewelry, so the fact that gems and jewelry appeared in a dream about a consignment shop makes sense. I plan on making jewelry for my daughter's consignment shop when I get some time.

Pink is a color associated with breast cancer. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009. I'm not sure how that fits in here though. Come to think of it, I have a pink plastic bust I use to model scarves I've crocheted, so maybe having a container was related to my craft collection.

Ringo Starr, who will remain forever a Beatle in my mind, is one quarter of a group that defined my entire teenage years. He, along with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison held a special significance for me during those years (and beyond). I loved them all and KNEW, the first time they appeared in Life Magazine, that they would captivate the world.

My youngest daughter owns a consignment shop. From the day she told me she was going to open one, I KNEW it would be successful. Less than three years old, the shop is already more successful than even she could have imagined.

So perhaps the theme and the message here is to expect something or someone to succeed, to KNOW he or she will succeed, to watch success in action, to accept things as they are rather than be disappointed by how they are not, and to never leave a laptop anywhere near a baby holding a cup of liquid. 

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