Giant, Smashed Cascarones

Last night’s sleep brought me yet another UPS-themed dream.

In this dream…

…I dealt with a package that never should have been loaded in my package car in the first place. The few folks with whom I interacted in the dream were UPS employees with whom I used to work.

Interestingly, while I was dressed in browns (the UPS term for the driver’s uniform) and was at work, I did no driving.

The setting of this dream was a UPS Center out of which I used to work. My start-time was later than the other drivers; when I reported for my shift they had all left and my package car was pulled out on the lot, parked and waiting for me.

As part of my pre-trip inspection, I looked quickly at the load in the package compartment of my truck and saw something there that frustrated me very much. It was a severely damaged package that never should have been loaded in its present condition. It appeared to be an over-sized styrofoam egg carton, maybe two and a half feet long, partly filled with giant, smashed cascarones.

Cascarones, by the way, are brightly colored, hollowed out egg shells filled with confetti. They’re popular festive items in this part of the country, reputed to bring good luck when smashed over the head of a loved one. I send a dozen to each of my granddaughters about this time of year, by the way. But I digress.

The cascarones in my dream were much bigger than the normal, chicken-egg size that one expects to see. These were maybe ostrich-egg sized. And the brown wrapping paper that had served as the only packing material, apparently, was shredded and loosely wrapped around the mess.

I carefully carried the damaged merchandise and its packaging material over to a table inside the building and told a clerk to process it as protocol required before repackaging it and sending it out for delivery.

Wondering how much time I’d lost from my delivery day by taking care of this, I looked over at a clock and…

The clock I saw was my bedside clock. I was waking up.

The 100 block of North College

March opened for me with a common-themed dream.

It’s interesting to note that for the longest time, a dream like this would have been nightmarish for me. But since I’ve become more serious about tracking my dreams, and since reading up on the experience and nature of lucid dreaming, I’m able to deal with these things more calmly and rationally.

In my dream…

…I was back in a UPS package car, making deliveries to stores and businesses located in the 100 block of North College in Bloomington IN. As they were in real life, my main concerns were four:

1. being under time-pressure, knowing that I had to complete a lot of work in a limited amount of time,
2. trying to find packages that were jammed into a too-small space in the package compartment of my truck, and many packages that were loaded “out of place,” so that I could make each delivery only once, without having to return to a store with boxes I’d found later,
3. dealing with traffic on the street where I was forced to double-park, or angry drivers whose cars I’d blocked while trying to do my job, and
4. presenting myself with an air of friendly efficiency to everyone with whom I interacted.

The visuals, tactile sensations, and sounds in the dream were vividly realistic, even though none of the people in it (other than me) were folks I recognized or remembered.

Quick, Efficient, and Happy

Last night’s dream was another of the rare, happy UPS-themed dreams. Most of that type are nightmarish in quality.

In this dream…

…there was only one scene, but it was a nice one. My very large UPS delivery truck was parked beside a small manufacturing plant, right next to the big door used for freight delivery and pickup. There was no loading dock as such, the operation was too small for that, but they did ship out a hundred or more packages per day, most of them by UPS.

To make this pickup I had a helper up in the package compartment of my truck, stacking the boxes that I was passing up to him. An employee of the shipper was rolling carts loaded with boxes of different sizes, shapes, and weights out to me. The merchandise was well-packed and in brand new boxes, all of which were well-labeled.

The day was sunny and the weather pleasant, my helper and I were ahead of schedule, and our operation was moving quickly and efficiently. It was a happy moment, a nice dream.