Dream Heaver

[Taylor Bailey]

Hey there!  Below are some dreams I've had over the span of a few days.  I was wanting to get some feedback on them, and I think they could be a very useful recourse for myself and for the community.  I have included some of my history here as well, but I don't think it is sufficient.  It became a little overwhelming for me, as I did not know what to include and what to omit.  It seemed long enough already, and perhaps too long for most readers, so I tried to save some room for more posts later on and opted for posting it in its current state.  

 

11/12/13

I’m in a house with furniture from photographs of when I was a baby: ugly furniture and bare wood floors, and the staleness of low income houses in the early 90s.  There’s a large projection TV with a PlayStation 4 hooked up to it.  I think someone else wants to access their game file from it, and I’m looking through old wooden table drawers for this white USB button device or memory card;  I don’t know for sure.  I remember feeling frustrated, a bit like doing a favor for someone I didn’t really want to do a favor for.  Maybe because I recognized that this person wasn’t my friend, but continued acting in a way that friends would.

I remember I was now in a large warehouse type of building with concrete floors and large shelves and aisles.  That same television is there on display with a demo of a game on it, and I walk away from it.  There is an event being held there; something to do with combat, but I remember it being very benign, almost like a video game tournament.  I was entered into it, but don’t remember or didn’t see myself enter it.  However, I wasn’t worried like I would have been if it was something that was going to involve pain or discomfort.  There were teams of two, and different “classes” or specializations for each person.  My partner was my friend, Xavier, and I didn’t know where he was, I didn’t see him.  I just thought he was in another area of the warehouse that was fitted for his “class”.   I hadn’t chosen a class yet, so I was just walking through the aisles to see what I liked.  The first and only aisle I walked down had lots and lots of books, all soft cover and facing forward so you could see the front title.  I immediately noticed one of the books and thought, “Oh my!  Ha-ha!  I have got to show Xavier this because this just says everything about this place and what these people are doing in the world.”  It read in gold letters, “Mommy Beats Baby” or something like that, and looked like the cover of an adventure-fantasy story like Harry Potter or something.  I picked that book up to show Xavier, and another to use in the competition.  I don’t know what my “class” was called, but the books were the weapon of choice for the class.  The only other weapon I noticed was from a competition that had already been called out and was underway.  Names were called out and there was a lot of fun and laughter, although it seemed violent.  The weapon was a fat plastic whiffle ball bat or a bat made of foam, a bat for babies.  It was being thrust into the plastic mask of an opponent, who laughed as it happened.  It had a very amateur wrestling feel to it.  Mine and Xavier’s names are called, and instead I walk out of the warehouse, not because of nervousness or anxiety, but because that’s what I want to do.  I nice stroll sounded really pleasant.It’s bright and sunny outside.  The air is in full mixture with the still cold air that fall brings, but no clouds and pure sun that heats your clothing.  The climate swirls in warm and cool inside you and I feel like the surface of Jupiter.  I’m reading one of the books I’ve taken along with me.  I don’t remember what it’s about, and remember skipping large parts of it.  I remember there being a story about a Dragon who would not let go of the world, and fooled all humans into thinking that the world actually rested on his belly and claws; that he was at the bottom of it, keeping it up.  No one thought to look at themselves and say “then why am I not falling off of it?”  Instead they thanked and praised the Dragon, and showed great gratitude for what was in reality his fear of living and unclutching.  There was a picture of a giant dragon on his back holding onto the earth from below, like a komodo dragon clinging to a tree to escape the noxious maw of his father and uncles, or a cat in full vertical sprawl on a curtain.  There were authors notes I began reading, and I think that this is what the book was primarily about, the story was an example used to illustrate the main point.  The author talked about how he got into writing, and how he met this guy who he thought was just leagues above him as a writer.  When he was looking to get a book published, he went to his friend and asked him for feedback.  The friend let him know that his writing was not very good, but in a positive way apparently, seeing as this man now has published books.  He thought of the friend as very helpful, and didn’t hold on to his mistakes personally.  “Yeah, I got one of my drafts back from him and there were mistakes everywhere.  I asked him if he thought I was a good writer, and he didn’t want to tell me at first, but he was a better friend than that. ‘Well, no, you’re not.’  I remember him saying, and we both laughed and showed me where my mistakes were.  I got a sense that he genuinely wanted to help me, and that he knew exactly what I was asking him for.  He helped me more than anyone else ever has because he knew that I loved writing even though I was terrible at it, and I didn’t think I would or could reach the caliber or quality of my friend.  He just wrote beautifully, almost divinely inspired stuff, and I didn’t expect to get that good, but he helped me and now I’m as good in different ways.  But I wouldn’t be as good of a writer if he didn’t give me that reality check; if he didn’t let me know where I was while reassuring me that I didn’t have to stay that way.”  

-This sounds spoken.  It sounds like it is “speaking to me” and that I’m not reading it, even though I am in the dream.As I’m reading the book, the streets all connect and morph, not visibly, but every time I look up I’m on a different street from a different place.  I’ll be walking toward the courthouse in Columbia one second, then down University Dr. in Huntsville the next.  It’s dark now and I’m at a street that crosses Sparkman and it’s very dark.  I feel anxiety like I shouldn’t be there at this time, like something bad might happen and begin to shame myself for ever having taken the stroll.  Ah shit, I shouldn’t have just left my sister’s thing like that.  It’s my parents I don’t want to be around, not her.  I bet she thinks I’m a bad person. There’s a stoplight and a cross walk and I’m waiting to cross but there’s no traffic.  I cross anyways and am walking and looking around me.  Old houses with chain link fences and grass that hasn’t been cut.  I notice an old lady in a heavy dress/turtle neck walking from the street to the sidewalk, almost as if she didn’t start moving until she noticed me, which bothered me.  She was about 40 or 50 feet away when she tried to get my attention.  I don’t remember what it said, but it seemed like she was overtly coming onto me which frightened me even more.  I’m now turning from the other side of the crosswalk onto the sidewalk to head back the way I came.  The woman is following me while talking.  It sounds like she wants to be with someone and is very lonely.  I look to the right, into a backyard of one of these dilapidated homes and there’s a police officer standing in golden grass up to his armpits just watching.  I keep looking forward and feel extremely nervous now.  He might have seen me jay walk.  When I look at him briefly he said nothing and just stared.  The woman noticed him too and turned her lusty wrinkled talons onto the policeman.  I didn’t hear what she asked him, only something muffled by distance.  He said nothing to her either.  Her interaction with someone more dead than she was must have livened her up a bit, because now when I looked back the dolled up old lady   (She looked somewhat like Xavier’s mom now that I think about it), but she had turned into a different person.  She was young and radiant, and it was daylight outside again.  I walked along and continued reading.  She came up beside me and the streets were alive again.  She was gorgeous.  Her dress was so clean, white and navy.  Her hair was dark brown and shining, not washed out and frizzy from bleach.  Her smile was warm,  and she didn’t seem to wear any make-up or need to, compared to the haggish woman with caked up mascara and eye liner.  Her voice was interested and curious.  At least that’s what I thought in the dream as I was talking to her.  I remember her introducing herself, but I didn’t remember her name.  She explained that she was going to Paris in a few weeks or that she was from Paris.  She talked about the Louvre and the style there.  I commented that I really liked way that place looked, and complimented her on her dress (Those legs!  How could I not like the aesthetic!).  She asked about the book I had and I told her it was written by a French guy.  We talked about beauty and meaning in beauty and the curse of beauty and things like that, and as we were walking I looked past her and saw a baseball field with football players being called up to a shitty white plastic table to receive plastic medals.  The player that I saw had on a royal blue uniform and was in full padding and helmet.  I felt disgusted at the ritual and the soft core war preparation that it represented, and told the girl that was walking by me that I really did enjoy aesthetics and beauty but that in my heart I cared most about truth and virtue.  Something about seeing the award ceremony awoke that inclination in me.  As I said this though a large truck or train came near and drowned out my voice in mechanized roars.  I don’t remember repeating it, but do remember feeling ill after it happened, like the clock work of the world was telling me that I didn’t. 

We are now at an outdoor mall in Huntsville.  I see an old high school friend who I haven’t seen in real life in years.  He didn’t have a nose ring or greasy hair like he used to, but he still looked like a skateboarder.  He was much cleaner and mature looking though.  We asked each other’s names then hugged and said it was good to see each other.  I introduced the girl to him, but didn’t remember her name.  She said it was Jessica (My other sister’s name), but not in an irritated way.  She wasn’t angry or irritated that I didn’t know it.  I got it the second time, and she might have understood her effect on me and why I wouldn’t have caught it.  I was surprised that she wasn’t offended, as I expect that from most women.  We were now walking through heavy foot traffic when I started noticing vaguely familiar people.  I got the sense that I was back where I began and that the ware-house  (war-house) was somewhere around.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Calem, an ex-friend that I’d had quite a disastrous falling out with, was walking past me to my left.  I don’t know if he saw me but I definitely saw him and heard him.  He was saying something that he thought was cool or beat-generationesque quality like “Take it easy, Stay breezy” or something like that.  It was something that made him sound like Bob Dylan, who he admired.  It was something that made him sound far more collected, insightful, and sane than he really is.  The next thing I know, I have no pants and socks are in my hands.  I have a shirt on and immediately begin trying to pull it down to cover my genitals and backside, praying that no one will do the natural thing and look at me.  I hobble panicked toward a clothing store, feeling the terrible conflict and impossibility of trying to open up each sock to put my feet into while still trying to conceal myself with my shirt.  I could see that my shirt was far too short to do that and lifting each leg for the sock increased the exposure.  I made it into the store and put on some underwear and pants, then went took the tags and bought them.  The clerk looked at me funny, like I shouldn’t be that excited to wear them, and common practice dictates that I take them home and wash them before wearing them.  He had no idea what I’d just been through!  I walked out of the store feeling safe and secure again, and no one was there outside.

11/14/13

I am driving to my ex-girlfriend’s new house that she lived in with her new boyfriend.  I thought she was in danger or that she could be seriously injured or killed.  It was about dusk and the sun was setting.  I kept imagining her lying on the floor in the fetal position.  I pulled in to the driveway, but felt hesitation about contacting her.  The homes were all very similar to those found in the subdivision next to mine in Tennessee called Baker’s Field.  The houses in Baker’s field were slightly larger, newer, and were mostly brick as opposed to the vinyl siding found in my subdivision.  So I was sitting in my car and felt like I really didn’t want to intrude if I was wrong about her being hurt and didn’t want to intervene if I was right.  The yards were spacious enough so that another home could fit comfortably between any two, and as I looked to my left, I saw a red truck swerve into the driveway of the house to the left.  The truck continued on and turned to the right of the garage door, going across the homes yard and into the backyard of my ex-girlfriend’s house.  The truck and its occupants slid to a stop in the back between her house and her neighbor to the right, so I could see it from her driveway.  I immediately turn my car off and do not move.  Two men get out and I see that they have large pistols with scopes attached to them (the kind you’d see deer hunters use, like a Raging Bull or Thompson Center with a scope on it).  The two men run left, back across my ex’s house, one running across the back yard, one coming around and running past the front of my car, and into the left neighbor’s yard and driveway.  The man does not notice me as he runs by, thank goodness.  It was now completely dark outside and I didn’t move a muscle.  The men both look like the same person.  I didn’t see their faces but they were both wearing sweat-shirts and jeans, probably wranglers.  One of them stands at the bottom of the left neighbor’s front yard (the houses are on a slight hill, like another subdivision near my neighborhood), and raises his gun to a small upstairs window where an old lady wearing a pink bath robe sits watching television.  The other man raises his gun as well, but only to watch through his scope as the first man shoots.  I immediately duck down, trying to cram my body as near to the floor pedals as I can.  I’m wearing a dark navy or black jacket and remember trying to position myself so that the back of my jacket would be all that was visible to them should they look in.  I hear them scramble back this way, hollering and whooping in excitement.  I imagine the old lady in the window and the pink mist clouding the room after impact, sticking to the TV screen.  I feel utter terror and my vision enters into one of the men’s bodies.  He’s (I’m) walking toward my car out some instinctual suspicion (one that I may be feeding into and helping him realize).  He looks into my car for what seems like far far too long and then turns around.  They both run back to the truck and drive off.

In the second part of the dream, I was fishing in a tan volcanic hot spring area with crystal clear steamy water and beige dead coral clinging under the shore, jutting out above the water in places.  I was out in the water, standing on a small sand bar, and I could see that there was a small pit where koi had gathered into.  I through my line directly to them and caught a very large one that was orange and pearl speckled.  It was about as long as my forearm and twice as wide.  I don’t think it even struggled.  It all seemed very ritualistic.  I throw the bait down; it swims up, sees the hook, chomps down and knows this is the way it has to be.  I take the fish under my arm and make my way to the shore where my sister is.  I start to dig into the ground with one had to make a holding pond for it.  My hand digs until I feel moisture.  I dig a bit further and water gathers into it.  My sister is telling me something.  I don’t remember what it was, but I do know that it sounded instructive so I tuned it out.  The dream camera showed her as she was talking, and when it went back to first person I looked at the fish, which was now about the size of my hand, and the once large holding pond was now about two cigarette packs large.  The fish shrunk even further after my eyes met it again after looking at the pond.  Now it was about the size of my thumb and able to swim comfortably in the shrunken pond.  I turned around to jump back in the water but suddenly stopped myself.  Simultaneous to this action, my sister shouted for me to be careful of the jagged corals because they go out further than I think and would not clear the jump.  I stopped for a moment and noticed the coral piercing through the water now that the steam was no longer hiding them. I also had a third dream, but do not remember what it was.

 

 

11/15/13

I am at the helm of a giant passenger cruise ship, one of the old ones like the Titanic.  I’m weaving narrow river channels one minute and through black, tree infested swamps the next. .  It was similar to when I would drive my dad’s aluminum fishing boat.  In the Duck River there in Columbia, I had to be careful not to run into any sunken trees, and it did feel like a floating go kart or race course since there were things I had to be mindful of.  The camera then zoomed out looking over the ship.  I saw the ship, but it was in 3d, and the surroundings looked like an over-world from Final Fantasy.  I was driving this big ship to park it somewhere, and for some reason I was now steering it through my small back yard here in Huntsville, even though the only water is in the pond.  I was rushing through fall leaves and dodging the mine field of dog crap that I had neglected to pick up for weeks.  I make a sharp turn and a large barn (it even dwarfs the ship) appears.  I feel like I have to hide the giant passenger liner and so I begin to steer it to hide it behind the large barn’s broad side, which was facing opposite the sun and cast a great shadow. 

-My first time feeling really free, and doing what I pleased: Me and a friend snuck into this man’s barn and jumped from hay bale to hay bale like spider man.  We didn’t break anything, including ourselves, and had a lot of fun.  I remember thinking that we would have gotten in trouble if we were caught, and that it would be because we were not trusted, not because we were actually doing something wrong.

 I remember that we’re on land and the boat isn’t actually floating.  It is “in” the land though.  Suddenly I am behind the boat, no bigger than a car to me now, pushing it with the greatest ease behind the barn.  I let go of it.  My hands are slightly muddy, as are my feet, from the golden soggy fall ground.  The ship rests at an angle, so that one could walk under its side alongside the barn. 

I am now on an old bike, with an old green military jacket flapping behind me.  The camera is facing the boat and barn, and captures me riding the bike toward it from the other side, so I get an idea of how hidden the ship is.  I rush myself to the shade of the barn’s broad side and walk the bike underneath the ship, as if attempting to hide that as well.  Someone is with me this whole time, though I don’t know who.  I sensed that they were helping me somehow by looking out or something like that.  They were risking themselves by helping me.

 My uncle, Shannon, was there now around the corner of the barn that the sunlight touched.  I don’t remember feeling threatened by him, but I didn’t want to be around him either.  Then my Dad was there with some hunting buddies and friends he worked with.  They were all cutting up and telling jokes that I thought were mean.  About how fat this person was or how dumb another person was.  My dad said something to make fun of his brother, Shannon, and I began walking away.  I was at the corner of Bear Creek Pike and Patterson drive, the entrance to my neighborhood.  There are woods on either side, and the woods I’m closest to were those that my dad and I used to go hunting in when I was small.  It was there that I he had helped me kill a small raccoon; the first time I remember killing any mammal.  I was walking next to the woods to the side of the road, and as I’m walking away he starts dancing, as he would in real life to be silly, and he starts singing “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” by Brookes and Dunn.  “Get down, Turn around, Go to Town, Boot Scootin’ Boogie” is what he said like he was making fun of me for walking away from him.  I remember feeling rage at his mockery and kept walking without saying anything to him.

This seems like a completely absurd thing to do and say, except when you actually look at the content of the lyrics, which I didn’t realize until I wrote them down.  At the time it didn’t seem calculated, and the mindless harmful indulgence and mockery were superficial.  It lent itself towards a reaction in me “God, you’re dumb”-though not said aloud.  I felt frustrated, angry, sad, and contemptuous of him.  I realize how little of a personality I was allowed to have.  He would ask me if I wanted to come with him to look at cars.  That’s what we’d do; go to sonic and get something to eat, go rent a movie, go look at cars whenever we were out for anything.  He would ask me “That’s a good lookin’ car isn’t it?” with an expectation of me to say “Yes.”  I felt like I couldn’t say anything but “yes”.  I remember when I first got a guitar, every time he would come into my room, he could have a friend with him or not, he say “Hey, play that “Why do we always send the poor? Song” to which I would reply “by System of a Down?”  I knew exactly what he was talking about and felt bothered that he wanted me to play the same song every time I played guitar without even knowing what it was.

 

11/16/13

 

This dream was relatively brief, but its emotional impact was gigantic.  When I awoke from it, I realized that it was a dream I’d had at least ten times in a similar fashion but had forgotten.

In this dream, I am riding in my sister’s car, and I think we’re on the way to an exam of mine.  In the dream I had not prepared for the exam, nor done any homework or even been to class.  I remember feeling an utter sense of dread.   Nothing was said in the ride along the way, and the ride itself was almost paused in time as the fear accumulated and stagnated.  I then woke up.

-          In my sophomore year of college, I was very depressed.  I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I didn’t know how to figure out what I wanted to do.  I just knew that I had to do something and live with whatever it was.  This was a terrifying prospect for me.  It got to the point where I just wasn’t going to my classes and opted to sleep through the days.  When I woke up, I would alternate between playing World of Warcraft, going out to eat, and sleeping.  The most distinct memory I have is from lying in my bed unable to sleep from the anxiety of going to these classes and watching the sun rise.  I remember for brief moments the sky would turn green and then proceed on to the usual sun-rise hues.  I had joined a fraternity, which was just terrible.  I didn’t have a connection with anyone there, and my atheism was not something I could openly discuss.  I was sick that I had chosen something that had me doing blatantly Christian ritualistic nonsense around the zealotry and piety of medieval Christian knights.  Through all of this, though, I don’t remember having an ounce of empathy for myself.  I attended my final calculus exam and made a “C”, even though my attendance and lack of homework completion led me to fail the class.  All I remember was feeling sick to my stomach about what my Father was going to say.  That summer after the exams had been completed, I took a road trip to Colorado with one of the fraternity members that I was closest to.  I didn’t tell any of my family and turned my phone off for the entire week I was there.  When I came back, I faced the wrath from my dad that I was avoiding (and rightly so!).  He had received my final grades in the mail, and thought he knew exactly why I was avoiding him.  I tried to lie in order to squeeze out some sympathy from him by telling him that my role in the fraternity and the hour of classes I was taking was just too much on me.  I had too much on my plate.  He had none of that, and said that it was because I have no drive, I’m lazy, and that I don’t care about anything other than me.  I felt like I wasn’t allowed to do feel anything, to feel angry about how inconsistently he was applying his ethics toward me, to feel upset that it was his fault for giving such shitty guidance, to feel absolute rage that he was blaming me for what he had essentially created.