Dreaming again...

I dream …

I dream of a world where every human being has clean water to drink, food to eat and a home to call his or her own. Where the needs, too, and the habitats of other beings, whether a palm tree or a panda bear, are no longer threatened.

Where there are no more borders, to keep anyone out or in. Nor any reason to do so.

Where there is no war. No tyrants who oppress. No bullies, no criminals, no abusers of any kind.

No need for armies, navies, lawyers, police, courts and judges. No locks on doors, no alarms.

No slums, no blighted inner cities.

Where people help each other by choice, not governments by compulsion and taxation.
Where resources are neither wasted by the cold hand of capitalism, nor made scarce through the schemes of socialism.

Where both security and freedom are present in equal measure.

I love the heritage of humanity, from the noble notions of the Jainists in India to the plays of William Shakespeare. I love English fish and chips, the rich breads of Germany and noodles from Vietnam. How delicious is a Magyar porkolt, and a Salvadoran-style papusa; and a glass of frothy, spicy Indian lassi!

What I know and have experienced, is a moment and a droplet. How little I still understand of Mani, the Yazidi, the Tao; of the poets of Mongolia, Malta and Madagascar. Unknown to me is the bite of a Dakota winter wind or a drift through the foggy fens of England or the sunrise in the Serengeti!

I have never seen the snowfields sparkle in Iceland, nor tasted kalamari in the Italian seaside sunshine. Nor have I walked through the ancient ruins in Iran, ascended the Khyber Pass in Afghanistan or climbed the craggy mountains of North Korea.

It is a dream. Just a dream.

Strange dream

"Those other 10 o'clock shows that come on, all you get from them is headaches and nightmares when you go to bed! At least we give you food, know what I mean?" -- Chef Emeril Lagasse.

What do you call a vision by night that is neither dream nor nightmare but something in between?

Returning home from a horribly lengthy work meeting (11 p.m. -- absolute insanity!), I stopped by Wendy's and bought an "Oriental" salad. My Beloved warned me that it would give me nightmares. I countered that only greasy, spicy foods do that and that I was so tired I would sleep like a baby.

We were both a little right and a little wrong.

My dream was simply bizzare. I was on my hands and knees in my front yard, weeding around a low berm of dirt. When I yanked up some tall crabgrass, a hole in the berm was revealed to me, a sort of entrance into a vast room carved out of the inside of the berm.

The cave-room was beautifully furnished, with a hardwood floor. But as I peered into it with amazement, a large cat shoved its way out the entrance, past me. I had a vague sense of foreboding about the animal but not quite fear. Another cat appeared but I don't remember what it did.

The narrator of the dream impressed upon my mind that these cats, not humans or hobgoblins or whatever, were the owners of the place.

And then I woke up.

I do not have a cat. Cats are not a part of my life. Neither are secret rooms in my front yard. I would be genuinely puzzled about why I would have such a weird dream, had I not realized long ago that my brain dreams randomly, assembling odd bits of this and that for its own amusement while it is forced to lie in the dark waiting for me to wake up.

In this case, the concept of cats in a cave only connects to an obscure book that I read at least 22 years ago -- a pun by Piers Anthony in one of his Xanth books on the subject of a cat-as-trophe.

That's a long reach back in the cranial file cabinet.

Dream details

I am back in the Pacific Northwest, trying to climb down a steep cliff. I tumble and land inside a giant nest, an eagle's aerie. I feel fear, knowing that the great bird will soon return. I scramble out of it and somehow climb down the tree to the beach far below.

There I find the carcass of a turtle which the eagle had dropped. I find its missing skull nearby and desire to take it with me, as I am a collector of skulls. [That last line is a real-world detail, readers; now you know something more about me].

Incomprehensible, disconnected details follow. Something about kids swimming in a dirty pool rather than a clear stream, and a debate over it.

Then I am employed, working along with my parents for a boss who is not much of a Lady, at some sort of convenience store. Finally, in front of a bunch of smirking customers, the boss assigns me some menial task, something to do with figuring out how much I deserve to be paid, and I say:

"I quit. Find someone else to work in this hellhole."

The smirking stops.

[I awake for a few minutes. When I dream again, it is of things much more pleasant, at least to me, and with no apparent connection to the former sequence -- a Woman in a bank line blows cigarette smoke my way; two beautiful Girls decide that They are too pretty to use the sidewalk, and so, succesfully, They walk down the highway, casually tossing candy wrappers upon the asphalt, as traffic good-naturedly weaves around Them.]

Not quite Paradise City

"Get off my stage!"

I went to a Guns N Roses concert last night and those were the only words I heard from Axl Rose. And no, he didn't sing them.

You know I'm speaking of dreamland, not reality. My poor brain, bored by a week of endless meetings and Sharepoint computer classes, conjured up this would-be welcome diversion for itself as I slumbered. But, being my brain, it couldn't get the details quite right. It made Axl Rose into some kind of a whiny wimp, not a rock god.

And instead of my kicking back and groovin' to November Rain or Sweet Child of Mine, I found myself being yelled at for not sitting down in my chair, queried by the Axl as to whether or not I had paid yet for entrance, and searching my wallet to see if some guy who was wandering around paying fans for having brought donations to some cause, had paid me yet.

I never got to hear ANY damn music.

Strange dream

I had a short but odd dream last night. Funny rather than the usual horror scenario that my brain cooks up.

I was entering Costco (a big wholesale discount store) when a large Woman passed me in a great hurry. She had discovered that they were serving Italian sausage samples.

"I love sausage!" She yelled.

Dreamin'

"AHHH-hahahahaha."

-- "Windmill, Windmill," Gorillaz.

Last night my dream self drove alone on the outskirts of a huge city, to the edge of a great and terrifying mess of multiple freeway exits. I was lost -- which DOES NOT happen to me in real life. I had a map in the car but instead of consulting said map, I got out of my car and began to walk, apparently in search of someone to ask for directions.

Though moments ago I had been on the edge of a hulking metropolis, now I was in a quiet, leafy suburb. The first building that I saw was an odd little structure, almost overgrown by trees and shrubbery. I could see on its facade the familiar "M" of McDonalds. I could ascertain that there were children inside, which made me very angry, as I somehow realized that this was a sweatshop for child labor in service of McDonalds.

But as I entered, I saw shelves of medicine and personal supplies and realized that this was no sweatshop. It was one of those Ronald McDonald charity house places.

I walked on through without commenting to anyone and out the other door, back up the long hill towards my car. I passed a hickory tree covered with nuts, then another tree loaded with fruit. It took me a second to realize that it was an apple tree.

Set back behind it in the undergrowth was a house. I contemplated knocking on the door and asking permission to eat the apples.

Then I awoke.

King of weird dreams

I am the king of weird dreams. I challenge anyone to best me.

Last night's specialty, perhaps encouraged by a hearty German repast earlier in the evening:

I dreamt that Little Brother Number 1 and I robbed a bank. We knew the dye pack would explode in the bag but we were not concerned and even laughed about it. (I must note at this point that in real life, neither one of us are the bank-robbing type. Just in case you wondered.)

To get the cops off our trail, I threw the sack of money onto the top of a building and then calmly proceeded to some family get-together we were having across the street.

Later, I regretted what I had done and racked my dreamland-brain trying to figure out how to get the money bag down from the building-top without being seen.

I awoke briefly and then returned to the dream sequence. In this Part II, the money bag had changed into a peppermint candy, which apparently still urgently needed to be disposed of before the cops arrived. I tossed it hurriedly to some kid who was rolling in a wheelchair down a bridge towards me and he caught it in his mouth but then spit it out, meaning I still had to figure out how to get rid of it.

Mercifully, I woke up at this point.