The four-headed snake in a large, black RJ-45 cable connector. (dream)

Image by Midjourney

DREAM

I'm hungry, so I put my credit card into a vending machine. To my shock, the machine releases about fifty different food items: lots of dry packets of sauces and gravies, spices, artichokes, cantaloupes, tomatoes, zucchini bread... It's all pretty random, but healthy. 

I'm really worried about the charge to my credit card for all this. I'm guessing it will be well over $100. I had expected to get a little bag of Cheetos for $1.50. But I'm glad I have this store of healthy food now. 

Then the vending machine releases a tangle of snakes. 

I take a baby snake that's black and pink with four heads, and put each head into a specially-designed holder made of black plastic. The heads are threaded into grooves exactly like an RJ-45 ethernet cable connector. I remove the plastic reluctantly to readjust the heads, and realize I might not be able to get them back. But to my relief, all the heads thread back in place, despite everything wriggling around, and I shut the case. 

I worry about whether or not the snake will survive, and which of the heads will eat (if any), but I definitely think I picked the coolest snake.  

INTERPRETATION

I had a class in which we threaded (eight?) tiny, colored wires through a cable connector. It was a little tricky. I would get a little something from the vending machine downstairs during class breaks, but the machine was usually broken. So I'd swipe my card multiple times and worry about extra charges. And I'd feel guilty for not trying to eat something healthier. So I think this dream is just remembering and rehashing that time of my life.

Lost Atlantis 5-- now out on Kindle! FREE copies to be given away in September... (news)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CGKSK4B3

Free to download for the Amazon Kindle between 9/15/23 - 9/19/23.

I decided to release what I've written for the fifth and final Lost Atlantis book: Saga. I wouldn't recommend reading it without having read the other books in the series. It ties together loose ends from the overall series. 

It's a very short book, like the fourth one. It's only 27,600 words. 

To be honest, releasing this book feels very sad for me. I spent so many years of my life dreaming and fantasizing about these characters, and this imaginary world is now pinned down to a final set of black and white words. 

I have been working on a comedic "alternative universe." I never knew if I wanted this to be a comedy or a drama. But this mostly-serious, dramatic version is done now.  

I can't decide if this particular book feels incomplete because there was more I wanted to say and I just never found the words, or if I just don't want it to be over and it is. I'm guessing the latter. 

I guess I wanted to say more about trauma recovery, but... this is a fictional story. It's meant to move quickly along a narrative arc. It's not a series of creative non-fiction essays, which would probably be a better format for that topic.

But if you'd like to find out what happens at the very end of the series, this eBook is going to be FREE to download between September 15th and 19th. Just go to this link anytime before midnight (Pacific Time Zone) on those dates, and the regular $2.99 fee will be waived: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CGKSK4B3.

Just to let you know, you don't need a Kindle to read Kindle books! I no longer have a Kindle device. I have the free Kindle app on my phone, computer, and tablet. And the pages synchronize between devices.

The office house on a hill. (dream)

Image by Midjourney

DREAM

I'm outside on a grassy hill on a sunny day. Near the top, there's a huge, shaky wall I've erected. It's composed of the same stuff as cubicle dividers in an office. This is my house. 

There are bicycle rack-like cages holding the floppy walls up. Stray cats keep wandering into the area. I keep adopting all of them, but I feel guilty that I don't have a personal relationship with each of them.

I take the bus into the city I lived in in California. I get kind of lost, but the bus driver helps me. I get off at an interesting looking building. 

I look inside. There's a small clothing boutique, and a lot of closed rooms and stores that either aren't open yet or have gone out of business. I can't help but think that if this were a bigger city, more interesting things would be happening.

I exit, then look up. I see several apartments for rent by those awful companies that manage apartment rentals for property owners and do nothing for tenants. And I realize I don't miss this place like I thought I did.

I see some people crossing the street to get on the bus and realize I'm on the wrong side of the road to get back. I run across just as the bus arrives.

INTERPRETATION 

I definitely have some wanderlust these days, but I think more about moving someplace new rather than just traveling to someplace new. 

I like where I live. It's nice. But it gets boring. I think the shaky walls of my home represent a sense of only being in a temporary home. And the large number of cats I'm taking care of in the dream might represent feeling kind of overwhelmed when I think about the home. I kind of waffled back and forth about wanting to be in that different city in California in the dream when I thought about the hassle of finding a place to rent. 

Still, I often think about what living in a bigger city again would be like for me now at this stage in my life, with my cat and my health conditions. 

Getting Hacked! (dream)

Image by Midjourney

DREAM

I'm standing outside late at night. I'm guiding my car into a parking lot from outside my car. 

I go inside into a community college. There are laundry machines everywhere. 

I bring my laptop in so I can learn some more about programming. When I open it up, there's a virus on my computer. I ask the tutor for help, but he makes it clear that I got myself into this mess and I'm responsible for getting myself out. 

I spend the rest of the dream intermittently trying to get rid of the virus myself by doing things like wiping and reinstalling the operating system, and seeking out other people who might know how to fix my computer.

I am deeply ashamed that I have a virus. People will either think I downloaded porn or something illegal, or that I'm just really dumb and clicked on something I obviously shouldn't have. And in the meantime, I can't do my schoolwork or my regular work.

INTERPRETATION

There's something scary about getting hacked. It's hard for me to say exactly what. But I think it goes beyond just losing data or having private information come out. I've embraced my fear of it by learning more about how it's done, but I'll never forget how scary the thought of getting hacked has been for me in the past. Now, I think I'd view it more as a (big and complicated) nuisance than something paralyzingly horrific, but I think I'm not the only one who sees it as scary. 

The machine designed to destroy all Icelandic people. (dream)

Image by Midjourney

DREAM 

It's the future.

I hang out with some friends and it goes pretty well. I sense that a girl going out with a friend of mine is hesitant and withdrawn though, and I'd like to know why. We split up the friend group, and I end up going home with this girl.

We start playing video games and getting to know each other, when this girl flips a holographic switch and reveals that she is actually a very masculine man. I ask why he's deceiving our friend, and he says that he just likes the company, but will reveal himself and see what happens soon. Then I realize he's actually a friend of mine.

I'd like to know what he's working on, and he pulls back a curtain to reveal a chair with a monitor. 

He has to go, so I just sit in the chair with the program running. An attendant comes up to me and asks if I need help. 

"I'm doing my friend's work for the weekend," I say.

He says, "Oh!" and reveals a massive machine several stories high in the middle of an ice rink behind another curtain.

I explore it. It's a machine designed to count and exterminate all Icelandic people. I have to destroy it! 

A woman claiming to be my mother comes out of nowhere before I can destroy the machine. She has force powers and starts choking me to death, taunting me about being a weak, pathetic daughter she'll be glad to be rid of. I start to find my own, inherited force powers and I counter hers. We fight for control of my throat. I win, and crush her machine. 

I run out of there, waiting to see which of her minions are going to fight me, but no one does. They were working there, but they didn't care about what they were doing.

INTERPRETATION

This dream doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Some dreams are more nonsensical than others, I think. For example, very little about this dream seems to relate to my friend, I haven't been around any ice rinks or exposed myself to Icelandic culture recently, and my mom is nothing like the woman who called herself my mother in this dream. I probably just choked in the dream due to sleep apnea. 

I think the fact that the minions didn't fight me is one of the more interesting things about the dream. Most people don't care that much about their work. It's true.

Swimming With Sea Monsters to Get to My Love (dream)

Image by Midjourney

DREAM

The sky is gray. It's cold and windy out on the deck of the ship I'm on. I have to get to another ship across from this one. I can see the other ship from where I stand. But there is a monster in the ocean between us. 

I live in a multiverse of scenarios though. In one scenario, I jump into the water and the monster gets me. In another, I make it. But it's the third scenario that engages me the most. 

A girl falls in love with the man I want to marry. I can't allow myself to die and leave him to her. So I recklessly jump into the water and cross to the other ship, barely even thinking about the monster. Then I cling to the man I believe I am destined to marry. She politely steps aside, not knowing that if I had died, she would have been his lover. And I don't plan on telling her.

INTERPRETATION

I'm heading for middle age now, but I still think about the boy I had a passionate crush on when I was a teenager--the man I was supposed to marry in this dream. In real life, he's got a wife and kids and a fancy job, and hopefully he's very happy! But I guess in this dream, history is rewritten, and I end up the winner. 

I can't leave the mental hospital until I pass an aptitude test for a job. (dream)

 

Image by Midjourney

DREAM

I wake up in a nightgown in a bed. It's daylight. There are other beds next to mine. People are milling about. Then I realize I'm in a mental hospital. I get up and explore my limited possibilities around the room. I talk with the fellow patients and the nurses. A nurse explains to be that I won't be allowed to leave unless I pass an aptitude test for the thing I studied in my master's program. 

"Can I study for this test?" 

The nurse laughs and says, "No!" 

I get that you're not supposed to study for an aptitude test, but it's not fair that I should have to see whether or not I would like this job before I can be released back into larger society. 

I don't think I'll pass, so I start looking around for ways to escape. I'm considering charging at the nurses at the front doors. 

INTERPRETATION

I'm not really interested in what I went to school for my master's degree anymore. So I'm looking for alternatives to traditional work, like freelancing, or maybe trying to get something traditionally published again. But I definitely feel a pressure from friends and random people, like neighbors, to pursue what I studied, or get some other traditional job. 

A unicorn watches over the innocent. (dream)

Image by Midjourney

DREAM

I call the police days in advance of someone being arrested and tell the police who they should arrest. I can't tell if I'm the reason they're being arrested or not though,  because I don't have evidence or anything close to evidence. I'll call and say something like, "So-and-so is trouble! You should keep an eye on them!" 

I pass by one girl I called the police about, and she is in the middle of being outraged about being arrested. She doesn't know about my connection, so I quietly pass by. 

One day, I'm passing through a forest, and I tip police off to a man who is molesting his son. The man is arrested and vows revenge, but I am out of there, probably never to return, and I never even met him. A unicorn sees the situation and decides to watch over the boy. 

Time passes, and the boy grows up. His father knows a unicorn is watching over them, and he resents it. He sends the son to catch the unicorn. The boy doesn't realize why the unicorn is watching over them. He's mostly forgotten since the father changed his behavior. The unicorn has disguised itself as a floating house and various other objects and doesn't get caught.

INTERPRETATION

I don't have much of an instinct for what this dream means except that it seems as though it's tied to the feeling of fate, or destiny. The bad guys are destined to get their comeuppance, and something magical is watching over the innocent. 

I also have a lot of ambivalent feelings about calling out bad behavior. I really don't like having to do it, but if I think the behavior is bad enough, I will bring it to some authority's attention. I'm a coward about it though, as you can see from the fact that I completely conceal myself when I make my accusations to the police. I wish I wasn't a coward about it. 

I don't pick my best song for my audition. (dream)

Image by Midjourney

DREAM

I'm casually hanging out with two other women, when it comes time for us to audition for our music teacher whose house we're at. The middle aged lady before me chooses to sing a piece from a Mozart opera. While she's singing I think about what I could do.

I want to sing and play the piano, but it's not my best instrument. I'd better go with the guitar. I get out my guitar, but then I remember each and every mistake I've ever made while playing it, and I wonder if I should be auditioning at all. Maybe I'm just not good at anything. 

Then the dream shifts. I'm half awake, and I think about going to college for physics. There's the STEM school that's always been here, and my college in California has decided to open a branch in town. So now, I can finish what I started years, and years ago. 

INTERPRETATION

I constantly dream about going back to college and finishing my physics degree or getting some other STEM degree. I have for years. That is not the path I ended up going down, and I regret it now. 

Also, I often feel as though I am just not that good at anything and should give up. So I'm surprised I don't have more dreams like this.