To Dream The Impossible Dream

At a counter in an airport, I was sitting next to Dr. Phil. We were writing out birthday cards. I don't know who my recipient was, but Dr. Phil was writing his for a daughter from a previous marriage. 

Prior to the airport, I was sitting in a cafe by myself and I noticed a writer who had written a book I wanted to read. She was sitting with a couple of guys I'd never met. I must have left the cafe, but soon I was back with the book and when the people who had been sitting with the writer noticed my book, they invited me to join them at their table. I told them I had purchased it for research, but in reality I just wanted to join them and I was hoping they would notice the book and start talking to me. The girl who wrote it joined us and we clicked right away.

One of the guys who was sitting with us was paying a lot of attention to me and I was very attracted to him. Soon he and I were together while I joined my middle daughter in a gigantic elevator that would take us to our plane. But on our way to the elevator I ran into my former mother-in-law who looked suspiciously at the young man who respectfully backed away when he discovered who she was. I said my good-byes to her and climbed into the elevator.

People were shivering so I grabbed a straw that was so big it went from my mouth to the ground, and so wide I could have slipped a water glass through it. Somehow, though, it fit in my mouth effortlessly and I placed one end of it at the bottom of one of the ice-filled barrels and blew. Suddenly steam arose from the barrels slowly melting the ice and warming the elevator.

After walking through the airport, I am sitting at the counter next to Dr. Phil. When I look behind me I notice Oprah sitting in a wheelchair. She is shaking. I wonder if she has fallen or if she has become ill. I decide to let her know that she helped me through a lot of years while I was raising my children. She looks at me with a pleading, "Please don't approach me look," but I decide to be quick and not bother her other than to thank her.

After I thanked her, she got up and walked, albeit wobbly, with a friend.

Now it was time to board the plane. The Marines who were with us, had to leave us to board a different plane. When they left I realized that my daughter and I didn't have boarding passes. 

My daughter went to get hers and I thought she was getting mine too until I saw her sitting on the plane. So I took the shortest route, which was through some locked gates and across a bridge, but after attempting to cross the bridge and realizing the gates rose only so high because the massive locks prevented them from opening wider, I had to find another way to get my boarding pass.

There the dream ended.

So what's so impossible about this dream? First of all, Dr. Phil doesn't have a daughter from a previous marriage. Secondly, I would never date a man as young as the man in this dream, although in my defense, I didn't know how old he was :) Thirdly, I don't think I would buy another person's book solely to sit at a table with the author. 

Blowing air into the bottom of an ice-filled barrel would not create warmth and yes, I get the phallic symbol reference and the "bottom of the barrel" reference, but since nothing else in the dream was sexual I doubt this one had anything to do with sex, although the quality (bottom of the barrel) of the elevator was very poor. The dream probably had more to do with helping people – letting the author know I enjoyed her book – letting Oprah know she helped me – feeling empathy for my former mother-in-law.

I have reached a point in my life where I feel the need to "give back." The only way I can do that, however, is by crocheting hats for cancer patients. I don't send greeting cards, however (find out why HERE), and Oprah is not in a wheelchair. And finally, my daughter would never leave me at an airport without a boarding pass.

Occasionally I have dreams like this, and when I try to understand the reason for having this dream, I determine that the dream is trying to tell me that if most of what appears in the dream is untrue, likely everything else in the dream is untrue. I might be nervous or upset about an upcoming event and these types of dreams are either warning me to be prepared or letting me know I have nothing to worry about.

Prior to having this dream I had lost my driver's license. I was hoping I wouldn't forget to get a replacement because I would be visiting my son in Virginia and I would need a valid driver's license to get on base. The drive will be somewhat stressful with 6 kids in tow for 14 hours, but the reason for the trip is so that my son's sister, I, and 6 of my grandkids (three of whom are my son's), will be present for the pinning ceremony when my son becomes a Staff Sergeant as a United States Marine.

One take-away from this dream is that some obstacles truly are impossible to overcome. You just have to find another way around them, through them, or over them.

Vivid Dreams Disappear Over Time

When Nolan first told me his dream he said that he had been in a swamp with an alligator and that he was recusing his baby sister, Avery, from the alligator. He threw Avery up a hill to his mother and pried open the alligator's mouth with his bare hands. I was astounded by his aggression, his bravery, and his take-action ability in this dream. 

I asked Nolan if he would remember the dream the next day. And this was him retelling his dream the following day:

Maybe this dream was alerting Nolan to his inner warrior! It could also be that his paternal grandfather likened changing Avery's diaper to wrestling an alligator. In this dream Nolan might have been trying to pry Avery's mouth open to collect any of the myriad objects she keeps throwing into it.

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

Want to read more from this author? Look at the sidebar and thanks for visiting!

Maybe Now I'll Get Noticed

We entered the dark theater-type arena, the son of a friend of mine and me. I heard the roar of a lion, but I knew, having been there before, that the roar came from a giant mechanical animal with a huge trunk, more like a dinosaur than an elephant.

Chris had never been to this arena before but he apparently knew about the challenge before him, because I didn't tell him that by shooting through the trunk, he would make it through this first challenge. He immediately aimed through the trunk, shot through it, and passed the first challenge. Now it was my turn.

The audience included some famous actors I'd never seen before in person and I remember thinking, wow, this game is gaining some attention. Doris Roberts was one of the people who sat down in the bleachers. I sat in a corner on a stack of chairs awaiting my turn, knowing that after this challenge, one far more sinister awaited me.  But the dream ended with me thinking that maybe with this much attention, I could get some of these people to read my blog.

And now for the interpretation – I've been trying to reach this friend whose son appeared in my dream to interview him for a blog I want to write about him. He hasn't responded, not because he's ignoring me, but because he rarely goes online.

I'm not sure why I've had this dream before. It was very scary the first time I had it because I didn't know what was expected of me. I wasn't frightened this time, because I knew the drill. 

As far as lots of famous actors appearing in this arena are concerned, I think that because this friend I want to interview has been involved with many famous people in his past, and because I was with his son, the actors were there to support him and his son. I don't know if he ever met Doris Roberts.

So why did my dream include Doris Roberts? I keep seeing Everybody Loves Raymond in various places (I LOVED that show), so maybe that's why she appeared in my dream.

My immediate thought just before I awoke was that maybe some of those people would read my blog after I completed the challenge. Apparently my subconscious believes that I have to fight mechanical dinosaurs in order to garner any attention.

Hmm. I wonder what my subconscious interpreted mechanical dinosaurs to mean.

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

Share Your Weird Dreams

I know you have them. We all have them. Sometimes we can't remember them or we remember only snippets. That's OK. Even snippets will work for this blog.

For instance, last night I dreamed about a VERY tall man. The man was so tall, in fact, that he could look into the window of what appeared to be a twelve-story apartment building with ease. When I tried to get others to look in his direction, I couldn't get anyone's attention fast enough, so I assumed that nobody believed me.

Why did I have this dream? Perhaps I was talking about men or I was thinking about my ideal man, and maybe the man I've created in my mind to be my perfect soulmate is ultimately impossible. I think I'll bring my expectations down a few notches. He doesn't have to be twelve-stories high.

See? I KNOW you've had weird dreams. Send them to weirddreams@mail.com

Freddy Krueger Meets Mrs. Doubtfire

I was in a bed that wasn't mine, though it felt as if it could have been mine. Everything prior to this part of the dream has disappeared from my mind. What I do remember, though, starts with my expectations that someone was going to join me in bed.

I felt him climb in bed behind me, so I rolled over to face him. He wasn't who I thought he was going to be, so I rolled over again. His hands started to crawl all over me, so I grabbed what I think was a hatchet, turned around, and chopped off his arm, but the arm kept clawing and scratching me.

So I grabbed the arm claw that I had just chopped off and jumped out of bed holding it. I quickly ran to the railing on the balcony that was right outside the door and threw it over the ledge where it was immediately run over by a truck. However, it still worked. 

I don't remember feeling frightened – just frustrated that it wouldn't stop moving. 

When I awoke I felt I as if I was in the middle of a Mrs. Doubtfire/A Nightmare on Elm Street movie (Mrs. Doubtfire's face got run over by a truck, and Freddy Krueger's sword-bladed hand ran across a floor).  

In looking back at the night prior to the dream, I remembered talking with different people about both movies: Mrs. Doubtfire and A Nightmare on Elm Street, so I know why I combined these two movies in a dream. Strange thing was, a couple of days after I had this dream somebody else again mentioned Mrs. Doubtfire. 

This dream reminds me of another dream I had years ago when I was also lying in bed. I was awakened by a bright light and I was so excited, because I thought the light was God. But then the presence climbed into bed behind me and I knew it wasn't God but something very sinister.

Another possible reason for having this new dream is that my mind is already working on combining different TV shows and movies to use in a sitcom I created. The sitcom is entitled, In Character. If you click the link you can read the logline and synopsis for the show. Look to the left for Spinoff Contest Winners.

If my teleplay gets produced, I just might just have to use Mrs. Doubtfire and Freddy Krueger together in a future scene. Now all I have to do is figure out who that claw belonged to.

Johnny Depp at an Indian Conference

I'm sure the reason I had this dream about Johnny Depp was because I had been writing an article and a blog on Johnny Depp's astrological profile. If you would like to read that profile, you can find a link to the blog in the article entitled, Johnny Depp, an Astrological Look.

Then, when Johnny Depp's 14 year relationship with Vanessa Paradis ended, he took center stage in the news. Thus this dream:

I was with my youngest daughter, Brittney. We were at a hotel (I think) and discovered the place was hosting an Indian Convention (Native American if I'm going to be politically correct). We didn't have a ticket though, so Brittney decided to see if we could get in. We are Cherokee after all. 

On her way out, she must have forgotten something, because she turned around to go back in and bumped into Johnny Depp, who was just walking out of the convention. Flustered and flirtatiously she giggled, and returned to me.

We couldn't get in. Then, all of a sudden, she is standing on the other side of a window and I can see her dancing with Johnny Depp, and I'm thinking, hmm, here I am single, and there she is married, and she's dancing with Johnny Depp. 

Their dance reminded me of the movie Benny & Joon. If you remember the scene where Johnny Depp's character is dancing with his fingers, you'll know what I mean. So they were dancing, and every time she would spin around, they would touch fingers. One time she missed his finger and a guy who knew she was married interrupted their dance and it was over.

To set the record straight, in real life, my daughter would not cheat on her husband, even with Johnny Depp. But here's my question – wouldn't you think that I – who was hosting my own dream – would make myself the recipient of a dance with Johnny Depp? He's much closer in age to me than he is to my daughter ;)

She Looked Like Me

In my dream early this morning, I saw a woman who looked exactly like me. She worked in an office that had a beautiful view of a forest with walking trails that looked much like Perry Farm in Bradley, Illinois. She was vibrant and happy, confident and busy. I couldn't believe how close our resemblance was, so much so, in fact, that I believed if I took a picture of her and sent it to my kids, they wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

I asked her if she would mind if I took her picture. She didn't mind, but my camera phone was set to movie and I was having all kinds of trouble getting it to perform properly. She was too busy to stick around and left for a walk with a friend or a coworker. I could see through the window that she was walking at a brisk pace and that I'd better hurry if I wanted to catch up with her.

When the camera was finally set up, I called out to her through her window as she was walking the trails, but by that time she was so far away she didn't hear me. I decided to wait until her return.

Now I'm in what appears to be my home, but it looks nothing like my home. It has a giant picture window that faces a beautifully landscaped front yard filled with tree-lined paths. I don't want to stop looking at it, because it's so beautiful. Some of my grandchildren are around and they are playing. One of them, Nolan maybe, tries to close the drapes, or close the windows, but I want the view to remain as it is.

Now I am sitting in what appears to be some kind of theater next to my dear friend, Nancy, who is sitting to my left. I am trying to show her the picture of the woman who looks exactly like me (somehow I must have gotten it), but my camera falls out of my hand and slides – on its side – all the way down the aisle toward the wall to my left. I climb over Nancy, chase the phone that curves toward the stage, fall to my knees, and crawl on the floor as I chase it all the way up to the stage on the far left hand side. When I return to my seat, Nancy and the guy in front of us are discussing the amazing games that are now available on phones.

Perhaps I had this dream because I've been sick lately. The woman I know I can be is vibrant and healthy, healthy enough to walk the trails at Perry Farm. I want to believe that this dream was showing me not only that my health will be good enough to walk for long periods of time, but also that I will return to that vibrant person I know I can be.

When I can't see my friends as much as I would like to see them, they appear in my dreams. I haven't seen Nancy in a long time. I miss her, and being with her in a dream will have to suffice until I see her again.

Homes generally represent the self. Mine was surrounded by beauty and healthy trees. Right now I'm going through numerous health issues, so I'm going to take this dream to mean that just outside my window (very close), even if I have to go through cancer again, I WILL become healthy.

To learn about those health issues, please read previous post.