A #Dream, a Woman in the Shadows

The second of today’s short sleep segments brought me a dream that was interesting not only in its extreme detail but also because it featured the return of a character from a previous dream, one from a few nights ago that I remembered while in this most recent dream and which I remember very well now, but that I didn’t remember when waking from the sleep segment in which that first dream happened. This returning character is one who only exists in my dreams, I can’t relate her to anyone I know, have known, or know about.

The setting of this dream was a tire store in Bloomington, IN, where I actually did work for a short time many years ago.

In my dream…
It was late at night, many years after I’d been employed at the store. I was passing by and noticed that the lights were on in the showroom and office area and a few of the big bay doors were standing wide open. But I couldn’t see any work going nor were any of the workers, salesmen, or managers anywhere to be seen. And it was several hours past the store’s closing time. Curious, that. I decided to check the situation out.

Walking into the showroom, I called out, “Hello there!” But I got no answer. After waiting a few minutes and still hearing nothing but silence I walked back into the darkened work area to see if I could find anyone there. I saw no one and no sign of any work going on. All the lights were off, the only illumination coming from the windows to the showroom and the open bay doors. Again I called out but again I heard no response.

Then I saw that other folks had noticed the store lights on. A few people had come into the showroom and were looking around at the displays as if they were wanting to buy something or schedule some work and were expecting a salesman to help them. I had to explain that the store was closed, even though it looked like it was open, and they should leave.

As they were leaving, I noticed some cars pulling up to the side of the store. Heading over to them I again found potential customers expecting service.

And… I also saw an attractive woman standing in the shadows by a workbench. I recognized her as the woman from that other dream of a few nights ago. And she recognized me, too! “Hey,” she smiled when I approached her, “I know you! You’re the guy who…” And then she reminded me of the time we spent together in that other dream, and she smiled again and hugged me.

I quickly explained the situation and asked her if she’d want to help me lock up the store after I got rid of the other people. “Just you and me?” she asked. “Oh yeah, let’s do it!”

The rest of the dream consisted of me trying to get rid of people who kept coming up to the store while I was trying to shut the doors and turn out the lights. I never did get to spend any alone time with that woman. Not in this dream, anyway.

I wonder if she’ll show up again?

Strange Grocery Shopping

Sunday’s second dream featured a very realistic (full colors, sound, tactile senses) grocery shopping excursion with a mysterious woman and her very strange daughter. This dream took place in two different settings: a large grocery store that seemed to be a composite of several that I patronized years ago, and the apartment of the woman and daughter.

In my dream…

I’d just entered the store and was beginning to move through the first aisle of groceries. There were only a few items I wanted, two or three small things, so I opted not to use a grocery cart nor a convenience basket; I figured I could just carry what I intended to pick up in my arms.

“Well, Hi there!” I heard a woman’s voice behind me. “Fancy running into you here!” Turning around I saw a woman who remained unidentified in the dream but was obviously someone with whom I had a very friendly relationship.

And, “Hi, hi, hi! Hee, hee, hee!” piped up the woman’s young daughter, who happened to bear a striking resemblance both in appearance and behavior to Radical Edward, the 13-year-old computer hacker from the Cowboy Bebop anime series.

It only seemed natural that the woman and I should do our shopping together. She and I chatted as we moved through the store and I placed my few items in her cart, planning to remove them and pay for them separately when we reached the checkout lanes. When we’d finished shopping she asked me to collect her daughter who had wandered away from us but whom we could hear laughing in another part of the store.

However, after I started looking for the girl her laughter faded away, and I was unable to find her. When I returned to the front of the store, expecting to find the mother and daughter together, I instead found them gone. And so were their groceries, And so were my groceries!

Scratching my head in momentary confusion, I saw the head cashier motion for me to come over to her. She laughed and explained that the woman had paid for my groceries with hers, and had left word that I should head over to her apartment.

The woman’s apartment provided the dream’s second setting.

When I arrived, she had my items setting on a table waiting for me. She also had a drink ready for me and said, “I hope you’re not in a hurry to leave.”

I stayed, and we got… friendlier. Then I woke up.

Who WAS that woman?!

Last night’s sleep was properly segmented, and the first such I’ve had in weeks. Some folks get all their nightly (or daily) sleep in one solid chunk. Sometimes I do, too. But usually my sleep is divided into two distinct parts: the first one being five or six hours long; and the second, coming sometime later in the day, is generally two or three hours long. And it’s this second sleep that usually contains my dreams. That was the case this morning.

In my dream…

…there was a higher degree of lucidity than is normally the case for me. This awareness that I was dreaming while I was in the dream manifested itself a number of times and finally allowed me to wake calmly from what would otherwise have been a rather disturbing situaton.

The setting of this dream was here in San Antonio. As a matter of fact, it began down in the residential foyer of the hotel in which I live.

As the door to the elevator opened, I found myself eye to eye with an attractive, smiling woman whom I apparently knew in the dream world, but whom I cannot place among the various women I know or have known in real life. I could see her very clearly, and heard the sound of her voice as we talked. I’m guessing that she may have been a composite of different individuals I know or have known. If I was an artist, (which I’m not, by the way), I could very easily draw a sketch of her.

She was headed out of the hotel as I was headed up to my apartment, but we decided to spend a little time together. We took a stroll down by the river, then rode the bus to a part of town where she was headed. At a number of times when we were walking and on the bus, things seemed more than a little strange, as they often do in dreams. When the strangeness would distract me from our conversation, I’d apologize to her, saying, “Oh, you’ll have to excuse me. I’m not usually this disoriented, but I’m dreaming.”

And she’d laugh lightly each time, telling me not to worry about it, that she understood completely. Then she’d put her hand on my arm or her arm in mine and I’d laugh, too. All would be well, then: happy and well.

When the bus finally dropped us off she used a pay phone at the bus stop to make a quick call. I looked around and realized that I didn’t know where we were at all. Looking back at where the pay phone had been I saw that it was gone, and so was the woman with whom I’d been spending time. The bus had pulled away. There I was standing in a strange place. But I realized that since I was dreaming, all I’d have to do is wake up and I’d know exactly where I was.

And that’s exactly what I did.

Such a short dream, so many elements

Last night’s sleep was a rough one; the wonky sinuses had me sort of awake but still half-asleep through much of it. But there was some dreaming in it, and that’s a good thing.

Though I suspect there were more dreams last night than what I can now remember, the one that was with me as I woke is freshly in mind.

In this dream:

I was much younger than I am now, probably in my thirties, and had just finished a leisure ride on my mountain bike. The “home” I was headed back to was a rented room in a big house that could have been a composite of houses I knew in Peru, Warsaw, or Bloomington IN.

When I was about a block away from the house, a mysterious woman appeared on the sidewalk next to me. She was wearing a flowered t-shirt and black lycra running shorts and seemed to be headed to my house, too.

As I approached the front porch and shouldered my bike to carry it up the steps, the mysterious woman bounced up to the porch and let herself in the front door ahead of me.

The scene then flashed, and I was standing in the house’s big common living room. Another blond woman, whom I only know in a very tangential way over the Internet, looked up at me from a couch, smiled and said, “Surprise! Bet you didn’t think I could come right into your dream like this, did you?”

And then I woke. Sort of. It was a sinus thing that made me sit upright for a few minutes, but I never came fully awake.

When I laid myself back down, I focused on the last image remembered from the dream just mentioned, and I smoothly transitioned back into it. The woman on the couch was still smiling up at me. This time she said, “Hey, let’s use Latin, okay?” And she started speaking to me in Latin. And she laughed. Then I woke for real.