Tag: dreams

One of the things I’ve noticed about the dreams I remember recently is that I wake up in the middle of the night, go back to sleep, and a short time later, wake up again. I would have sworn I hadn’t slept at all, except that the dreams are so vivid.

This one from several weeks ago, I didn’t write down until three weeks later, and I still remember:

I am walking, with my daughter, from a house on a hill down to performance down into town. It should take about 15 minutes to get there, and we’re leaving an hour beforehand, so we should have plenty of time.

About five minutes later, I realize we forgot the tickets, so we attempt to go back. But we can’t. The streets are clogged with fire trucks and other emergency vehicles, and the streets are flooded, though it has not been raining. And I can’t keep going to the theater, perhaps buying new tickets, for the same reason. Every street is suddenly inaccessible, even the one we just came down to.

So we walk through alleyways, climbing in and out of non-residential buildings – ending up in the back of stores, sometimes having to jump from one incomplete stairway to another, and terribly worried that someone is going to shoot us. Then we end up having to climb up the sides of the building, through windows we have to open and climb through.

At some point, we come through the back of a store that was a bakery. It has an old-fashioned tile floor and has barrels of flour and other things to make food, but nothing prepared. And we finally see a large window and a door to the outside, and we look out and I have no idea where the heck I am.

[I wake up.]

This is an actual dream of mine from a few months back:

Two guys are driving around when they spot something interesting in some bushes by the road. It turns out to be a couple of cameras on the side of the road, expensive equipment. They see a name on one and decide to take them to the local police station, which is in an area of open spaces, not an urban setting. But as they approach the station from the rear, they see a cop shoot a guy who has his hands in the air. They then realize they are seen as well, and drive off in their car, being pursued by the local police.

The passenger pulls out his phone to dial 9-1-1 when the driver yells, “Where do you think the call will go to? The local cops!” Not knowing whether the whole force is on whatever nefarious activity is underway, they go to the nearby highway and begin speeding. They are pulled over by a state police trooper, which was their desire if they couldn’t get to the state police barracks. The driver tells the trooper the tale of the local cops and is about to give him the cameras when the state trooper is shot by someone, which turns out to be by the local cops, who come out of their car, guns were drawn.

Using the state trooper car as a shield, the protagonist driver pulls the car into reverse, does a 180, and drives back down the road against traffic, until they can get off the main road. They figure that, in the short term, the state police will believe THEY are the shooters, rather than the local cops. They take some back roads and try to wend their way to the neighboring state border. They’re now convinced that the cameras and the shootings are somehow related.

Then I wake up about 1:45 a.m., with my heart beating very fast. Don’t you hate it when that happens? Feel free to psychoanalyze.