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other thoughts

Dreams

[Today’s run: 3.5 ]

I had an interesting dream last night.  Usually I don’t remember my dreams. But this one was a variation of a dream I have had in the past, one I have not had for a long time.  I used to have it often.

I’m exploring a big house, one that doesn’t belong to me and is abandoned.  The house has some furnishings but is mostly empty.  The layout of the house is confusing and as we explore it becomes clear that it is very, very large.  And there are serious signs of structural decay.  There are hidden or blocked passages, the “flow” doesn’t make sense as you would expect in a normal house.

This time I was showing off the house as one of a group of “boy scouts” and our leader. And I was extolling it’s virtues in a “just wait, I’ll show you even better” kind of way.  I was looking forward to showing the leader the attic, but, although I can vaguely remember the attic from previous dreams (a NASA-sized cavernous space under a peaked roof), I was having trouble finding my way to it.

But then we discovered signs that a man was living in part of the house (signs that were connected to ham radio).  Then the man was there!  And he got very upset and tried to get us to leave.  But he didn’t act like a caretaker: he started breaking things, throwing vases and such, not at people but crashing at their feet to intimidate them and make us all leave.  And I woke up.

Interesting.  This is the first time I can remember there being a man in the house.

My emotional flow during the dream is one of exploration but also with trepidation for the possible consequences of trespassing.  I remember former times, and a little bit this time, thinking, “this is so cool!” and want to have ownership of the place, to live in it, to use it for my purposes:  it is large, it is fun.  But always there is some sign of serious structural trouble, a disappointing sign of impending calamity.  In one version, the building has a “wing” and the farther down the wing I go, the more decrepit the building becomes until it is just a shell. This time it was the big square house with innumerable floors (and cavernous attic) with rusty beams flaking away at a touch.

In this recent dream I was acting like the expert and then embarrassed that we were caught, and unable to broker an understanding between my enthusiastic scout leader and this man in the house  (like some kind of trespassing real-estate agent) feeling foolish for acting like the expert, overselling and having no authority.

I don’t know much about dreams except that I usually forget mine.  I wouldn’t have remembered this one except that it was back in the quasi-familiar big-old-house scene.  I suspect dreams are a mishmash of recent thoughts and feelings:  we’ve been watching Band of Brothers, a WW2 series about a small group of men in danger; we recently visited Estes Park which is vaguely connected to the old house dream in my mind as the forbidden place;  and I had been “brokering” with some fellow runners about inviting someone else to what I consider their running group (practically speaking, I run too slow to fully participate even though I like to tag along).  None of that rises to the level of emotionally distressing in my waking life.  Band of Brothers ended, Estes Park is still there full of tourists as usual, and the running group said, “sure! invite her along”

And we had pizza for dinner too.

My feeling about the mechanics of my dreams is that they happen when I am waking up. But, surprisingly, this time it wasn’t digestional discomfort that woke me up.  I don’t know why I woke up.