A Dog at Work

Interestingly, the end of September and the beginning of October find me sleeping well and dreaming regularly. If that trend continues, there should be a good number of dream-related posts appearing here this month.

This first dream entry for October documents a strange one. It contains people from my past, an environment from my past, and a strange activity on my part.

In my dream…

…I was a UPS employee at the old Mexico Center (located in Denver, IN – long since closed, the territory it served now covered by larger, nearby operating centers). The two other people who appeared in this dream were a boy who was a high school classmate and football teammate of mine, and a woman with whom I worked in Bloomington, IN. They were fellow employees of mine in this dream, and we were all nearly the same age, mid-twenty somethings.

The three of us were conspiring to keep and care for a dog at the workplace, and to do so at company expense. The rationale we were using was that the dog was a”watchdog” providing an extra measure of security. We were taking the position that UPS should pay for the dog’s food and care, and that we should be allowed to shop for the dog’s food, take him to the vet, etc. while were on the clock, being paid for that time by UPS.

Within the dream, we were being successful in this little project, though justifying the time and cost to higher-ups was an an ongoing challenge.

Tonight it was a dog’s bark

At approximately 02:00 hours this morning I was in bed, under the covers, with the lights off and my eyes closed. I wasn’t asleep; I was relaxing, listening to the Coast to Coast AM radio show. Suddenly I was startled by the sound of a dog’s bark. Just one bark. And it seemed to be coming from right next to my bed.

Now, I don’t have a dog. Pets of any kind aren’t even allowed in my hotel, (which is one reason I like living here). But the bark was loud enough to temporarily drown out the sound of the radio playing on the other side of my room.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard the loud bark of a phantom dog next to my bed. Sometimes it shocks me awake. But this time the auditory lucid dream, if that’s what it was, came when I was very much awake, though in bed with the lights out.

That was an hour ago. Now, at 03:00 hours, I’m heading back to bed, hoping to listen to another hour of the radio show from there before drifting off to sleep.