Godzilla is outside my trailer. (dream)

Image by Midjourney

DREAM 

I'm in a small trailer with a huge window to the city outside. I see Godzilla starting to come down the road. I'm scared, but I'm not that scared. I'm scared, but I'm not going to run. I'm going to seek shelter indoors and hope I'll be okay. 

I open a door. I see my black cat in the distance. I call for him. He comes towards me--a huge relief! I pick him up and put him inside. 

Then my little four-year-old cousin comes by. I let her in. She lets in about 3 of the neighborhood kids. I shoo all of the kids out. 

"Don't let anyone else inside my house!" I chastise. She looks like she feels bad. I shut the door on her as well. 

I feel the vibrations of the monster's footsteps. I can see him right outside my window. 

I go to my mother's pincushion. I realize she's dead and I don't need those sewing materials anymore. I pick them up to throw them away. One of the pins pricks my finger. I pull it out. It bleeds a little. 

A song begins to play in my head. It's only got one line: "Some people shouldn't have hopes and dreams." 

INTERPRETATION

When I think of Godzilla, I think of a big, big problem--like a natural disaster type of problem. I'm facing a lot of BIG changes right now. Changes in where I live, in employment, changes in my opinions about stuff like having children. I had been hoping for a change in my relationship status, which didn't happen. And that's why I think is why I dreamed about such a depressing song. 

I think I shooed the children out because I fear having children. What if I would be a terrible parent? What if the child is too intrusive, stepping on my limited resources? As a waking person, I know the right thing would be to let all the children stay in the trailer. In fact, I should compel them to stay in the trailer. Godzilla looked like he was looking for movement in the streets. But in the dream, it only felt natural to want that trailer space for myself, my cousin, and my cat. 

But I'm not running from my problems--or I don't feel as though I am. I'm just hunkering down for a little while. It's going to take patience sort all of this out. 

Naked at work. (dream)

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DREAM

I'm at work. I sit in a chair next to a coworker's desk and pull out my phone. I start to scroll, but it's only then that I'm aware of my nakedness. It surprises me, but I feel calm and still. It's okay. I don't mind being naked with him and the other coworker beside him. I continue to act naturally. I keep scrolling.

INTERPRETATION

A couple of months ago, I was experiencing a really difficult situation at work, and I came to this particular coworker in a panic. I didn't even think about what I was saying or how crazy or unpopular or stupid or wrong it might make me look. I was totally in the moment because I was having an internal crisis.

I don't exactly know why I went to him in particular. But I know that this particular coworker will give you his focus and attention when others won't. He listened to me, then gave his opinion, which guided me through the crisis. And in the long run, he ended up being correct. In the short run, he calmed my nervous system. 

I'll always be thankful to someone who made me feel comfortable when I was suddenly naked. I'll always be thankful to someone who doesn't make me feel ashamed after I've been naked. 

I think the thing about being naked in front of someone else that's scary is how that person will know every detail of every odd, organic little thing. And every odd, organic little thing can cause an instinctive, visceral reaction--good or bad. But that unique, organic mess is really what makes life interesting and beautiful. I'm in a place where I'm learning to accept that. 

Straddling between being an INFP and an INTP. (dream)

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DREAM

My modern art museum house is burning down, so I strip a painting of its gold foil, so I'll have some money. On the art, the foil is in a small, pouring, glass hourglass--crumpled like tiny Hershey Kiss wrappers. I crumple it all up together, and it's like it used to be a whole sheet. I take it with me on a journey. I'm in long, all-white robes--light for the summer, and I wear white shorts underneath.

As I walk outside in the sun, I pass by a huge parade of Chinese costumes worn by beautiful women with long, elegant necks in white and pink paint.

I forget where I stored my gold. I check my shorts. Still there.

I'm in a library now. I'm dressed in a black pea coat. I'm on my way out the door, passing the checkout desk.

I can see and hear a male librarian at the desk talking about a senior citizen who is so lonely that he has literally lost his mind. And coming to the library helped him become a little less lonely and regain some of his sanity.

"And the first thing he asked for was a book on theoretical physics." The librarian slumps over. "Why?"

I understand this to mean that in our society, some of our minds with the most potential and the most energy are suffering under unnecessary constraints. Things like loneliness. It's a waste of life. Why.

I suffer too. I lack time. I waste my time trying to make money. I'd like to check out books on theoretical physics too, but our society values money a heck of a lot more. I feel a sense of pride and yearning about this aspect to my identity.

The library lobby is expansive. The floors are mauve and smooth and have little chips of a darker color in them.

As I walk to the exit, I consider some things more deeply, like the recent time I entered a playwrighting contest and lost and decided that writing was a waste of time.

An inner voice starts speaking to me loudly. "You don't value your NFness enough. It's fine for you to idealize your NT interests. There's nothing wrong with that. And you seem comfortable doing it. But when it comes to your NF interests, you're willing to discard them. But your NF side is important too."

This seems like a divine message and I consider it deeply.

I consider how writing that play may have benefitted me. Maybe I learned something about personal expression. Maybe I learned some things I can incorporate into a different project.

I was just thinking about how not everything is about money. I guess that's fine for me when I think about doing physics, but I just ignore that when it comes to creative writing--which seems inconsistent.

After I walk through the RFID detectors of this beautiful library, I pass by several stores, including a place called "Sound Bar." They sell pancakes with a fluffy spread in the middle along with audio equipment. I remark at what a novel combination this is. I'm certain it helps them to be loved and remembered, and that seems so important to me right now.

INTERPRETATION

Yesterday, I finished the rough draft of my first memoir. I intend for it to be one of three books. And last night, as I was going back over the document, I ended on the chapter about my physics tutor.

I think all the time about how I need to be studying for more IT certificates instead of investing even more time in writing--which is something I've been doing pretty consistently for about 14 years now. I see no material returns from this investment in writing. The only returns are buried deep in my soul due to the power of organizing and articulating my thoughts and feelings. It's hard for me to get over that lack of material benefits for some reason--maybe because of internalized capitalism.

Writing this memoir has taken a lot out of me. It was very hard to do. But I'm proud of this achievement. It feels incredibly validating to have my perspectives on paper and to read excerpts out loud and get an audience reaction. I feel love and compassion radiating from people when I tell my story. It's a high. And I feel like this was something important for me to do.

In spite of these feelings, I lack confidence in the value of doing what my INFP instincts are driving me to do.

Myers-Briggs is another component of this dream. I think Myers-Briggs is woo woo, but I have a lot of fun with woo woo. I often test as an INFP, and the description fits me pretty well, but sometimes, and not infrequently, I test as an NT. I'm pretty certain about that IN, but the T versus F is something I don't think I have a consistent preference for. (I took one of those free online tests this morning, and it gave me INFP.)

I met someone else like me in this respect, and it's interesting to observe him. He used to test as an INTJ, but over time, started testing as an INFJ. I can see both in him. He has some of the vulnerabilities and strengths of each, but he doesn't fit neatly into a Myers-Briggs stereotype. So I know I'm not imagining things; people like me who straddle both do exist. 

There's never been any doubt that I'm a sexual 5 in the Enneagram, but my Myers-Briggs has never been consistent.

A dream I had while listening to someone's NDE.

This video is what I fell asleep to.

I fell asleep to Mayim Bialik's podcast again. The guest was describing their NDE (near death experience). 

I dreamed that the reason we come to Earth and live this life is to learn things that have to be learned viscerally as opposed to things that can be learned with head knowledge. 

When I wake up and speculate about why this could be, I remember my own "NDE." The place I went to was such a perfectly happy place. I had such a joyful, peaceful feeling that I don't know how easy it would be to put myself in the place of someone having a breakup and to learn those types of lessons that way. The extreme joyfulness would make it hard. It would be easier to temporarily put aside the joy to learn the lessons from that pain. 

Why would I need or want to learn those lessons if my home is a place of perfect happiness? I'm not entirely sure. 

For me, the lessons and sense of meaning I get from pain come with a lot of time. Maybe even 20 years or longer. I'm currently writing out the story of my life up until my mid-30s, and as I write it, I realize that that's how I've come to view a lot of my pain. I'm glad it's all over, but I'm actually glad I had those experiences. It makes it easier for me to relate to other people's struggles. 

3 dreams in 1 post: being a loser who flies, and the highly misleading horoscope.

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About a month ago, I dreamed that there are 5 levels of communication. At the 5th level, we reach the human limit. We start to enter stuff like telepathic communication of impressions and intuition. After this level, human communication becomes very deceptive on the mind and senses.

A couple nights ago, I dreamed that a woman is telling me my horoscope. And according to that horoscope, I'm destined for creative fulfilment, a soaring artistic career, huge audiences, and financial freedom. 

As I listen, I watch myself going to school and being a small success and enjoying my time there. Then the horoscope ends. I graduate. And now I'm in a tiny micro apartment doing the dishes in a sink with a counter with small, black and white tiles. I say to myself, "I'm thankful for my life here in Seoul, Korea." Then I remember that this is one of the suicide capitals of the world. Will I find out why? A lot of people don't live lives as happy as mine here. Could this be my attitude? My way of looking at the world? Or am I simply fresh and naive? 

I go to the office. I hate my new job. I hate my bosses. I've only been working here for two days, but I start to think of quitting. "Why did I quit my last job?" I liked it there! I decide to quit this job to try to go back to my old one.

And then last night, I dreamed that I was watching this scruffy boy in ragged, baggy clothes. He has shaggy, blonde hair. It feels to him like he's being made fun of as he sits on a couch across from a trio of three well-groomed black girls, but that doesn't quite describe what's going on. Those women are genuinely disturbed about his being there. There are murders that have been happening, and they are really, really creeped out by this boy. They think they have evidence that he's involved. He might even be the murderer himself. But he doesn't take any of this seriously, because he can fly. What does he care about anyone else's concerns when he can fly whenever he wants? 

I experience his point of view as he flies through the cold, dark winter at night in the city. We fly until morning. He flies onto the highway in the middle of a snowstorm. It's chilly, but it's not too uncomfortable. He grounds himself at an exit on the highway, but it's not a problem for him to start flying again any time he wants.

I don't know what to think about the first dream. It felt like something really interesting was being revealed to me. I had a partner. I did okay with the lower levels of communication, but I felt how confusing it was to try to communicate with the woman telepathically, only picking up on impressions and intuitions she had. They were hard to separate from my own impressions and intuitions. I couldn't tell where she and I were separate and I had a hard time discerning what was true or not.

With the second dream, I had fallen asleep to a video of my horoscope. I always feel like the best astrologers are really good at blowing smoke up your ass. The horoscope was talking about how I'm going to have all this great stuff happen to me, but the reality is, my life is usually lame. It's certainly not the fulfillment of some grandiose fantasy about fame and fortune. 

It's the second part of that dream that really interests me. In the dream, I left a job I liked for a job I didn't like. I feel like I'm not in a secure place with my job right now. It doesn't feel like a stable, long-term option. But I think I'm really going to miss it when my time is up for the experience. Maybe I'll wonder why I ever left.

And then the third dream about flying was a mixed bag. It was tons of fun feeling what it was like to fly, but it was very uncomfortable feeling as though I was being suspected of murder. But I was living a happy life doing stuff I loved, so it just didn't matter how people viewed me, or what trouble I might be in. This carefree feeling is what it's like for me in real life sometimes. I just love my life writing things. There have been times when that was all I had. Sometimes, it's enough. It can carry me through a lot.

I was watching a very woo woo podcast on Mayim Bialik's YouTube channel, and her partner, Jonathan, said that he had a dream about flying last night. I thought it was an interesting coincidence since I don't often dream about flying. So I thought I'd take the time to document my dreams today. 

The Mad Hatter casts a physics spell on us. (dream)

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DREAM

I'm at Costco. One of the workers has been expecting me. She takes me aside and lets me know that someone has ground up the bodies of two murdered people and hidden them in my stuff that's being shelved in a section of Costco. 

"Okay," I say. I was prepared for this. They told me this over the phone, and I've spoken with police. 

The store associate takes me to the part of the store where my stuff is stored. I've got the kinds of supplies they might sell at Home Depot in my spot: lumber, wood chips, a mattress. They pull out the wood chips and show me that there's blood in them. I'm scared that I'm going to see chunks of flesh in them. If they're there, they're well ground up. 

The employees show me the mattress. There's a large, human-sized blotch of blood on it. They're going to confiscate these items. 

Somehow, this is connected to my mother's death, and I realize in that moment that she was murdered by a serial killer. I fall to my knees on the smooth concrete floor of Costco and break down in sobs. 

But I'm not actually feeling any of the emotions I'm going through. It's like I'm watching myself in a movie. But I'm also starring in the movie. Maybe it's similar to being an actor, but you're observing your performance while also experiencing those emotions. But even an actor will be viscerally moved by the emotions they're performing. Not me in this dream! I understand that this is very painful, but I'm not feeling what I look like I'm feeling. I'm an observer.

Then I'm in a back yard with my boyfriend. I pick up and hold a white cat. He transforms into a small Mad Hatter.

The Mad Hatter says that I will be perpetually in motion until I understand what momentum is. I have a vision of myself as having to keep running until I understand this concept. The Mad Hatter says that my boyfriend will keep experiencing force until he understands the force of an atom. I'm not certain what this means, but I think he will keep getting hit with something forceful until he understands something to do with the force of an atom. Maybe the force of a splitting atom. Magical lights surround us and I know the spell has taken hold. 

INTERPRETATION

I understand the part about observing emotions to be related to what I'm learning in my yoga certification course. 

In my understanding of yogic philosophy, a human is three parts: Sat, Chit, and Ananda. Sat is your nature as an eternal soul. You were, are, and will always be a part of the universe. Chit is how you are not your thoughts. You are the awareness behind your thoughts. Ananda is your nature as "ever blissful" or always whole. No matter what traumas you endure, you are always able to experience joyfulness or wholeness again.

I definitely felt like the Costco breakdown was me imagining what being the awareness behind the things that are going on in your material body and in the material world might be like. I watched a video that day about how Buddhist philosophy says that we suffer because we are attached to material things. And I wrestle with that concept, because I know that I suffer physically because I try to use the external world (food) for my internal happiness. And I suffer emotionally because I want my stepfather to live forever. His health is failing. But I also know that I can access a kind of serenity in the midst of struggles and suffering. But it's hard, and I don't always understand what I have to do to gain access. Is it simply awareness that negative emotions are temporary as well?

I think I dreamed about a physics charm because I feel as though I'm having to draw on the grit I developed by being someone bad at math who was majoring in physics. I'm struggling with answering phone calls at a new job, and it's a mental battle. It's an internal reorganization of my confidence, attention, mental endurance, faith, and a reduction of the ego, just like doing anything difficult. But the way I really developed the start of some of these character traits is though sucking at math. I still have a way to go with what it means to really endure until you understand. But that's my task at the moment. 

And it's interesting that it's the white cat that forces me to learn lessons in the dream, because in real life, my cat has forced some pretty significant lessons on me. And he's only about nine! We've got many years to go.

My dad is Chinese and my cat jumps into the ocean. (dream)

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DREAM

I'm on a floating, man-made island. I'm on vacation. Suddenly, a ton of homeless people come and sit where me and my parents were at. We leave because we don't want to get accused of their crimes. 

My fluffy white cat leads me to the stairs we need to go up to get to the main island. Suddenly he jumps in the ocean instead of taking the path on land. The water is clear, turquoise, and there is no turbulance. 

At first, he seems to find some stairs and swims towards them, but then, he deviates. I jump into the water after him, fully clothed. I wonder if I'll drown, but I'm okay. I manage to catch him and pick him up and carry him to the stairs. 

I'm in an office with a black man and his golden retriever. He gives me some advice. 

Then I find myself going against traffic on some spiral stairs again with my parents. It's mostly Japanese businessmen coming down, but a fat, middle aged woman in a huge, flamboyant, puffy red-orange kimono comes down too. Her shoes are pointed, curl and the ends, and are covered in golden beige silk.

I say to my parents, "All kinds of Asians are here in the Philippines, right?" My Chinese dad says yes.

I get absorbed in an eReader with a built-in token. It generates a password for me. I'll have to save it later. Don't want anyone to look up Dr. Alok Kanojia, who put out this eReader. He has gooning videos! And this app is mainly about gooning!

I go up the stairs by myself and end up in the small, cramped apartment of my nemesis acting teacher. There are other people milling around for this class. The decor is slightly themed in black and white with splashes of red. The teacher comes and tells us to play games. 

I empty out a laundry basket of board games. I see something that looks like that caterpillar children's game, Cootie, but it's themed around Beatles trivia. I ask the person next to me who is looking at another caterpillar came if he would like to play this one. We agree to this game, but then the teacher stops everyone and tells everyone but two of us to leave. 

I'm very nervous about this. I believe I'm in mild danger.

I sit in a chair that takes my flying out of there to another place on this metal island. The trip is nice. It's like flying on a plane.

INTERPRETATION

Lately, I've been having dreams that encapsulate my relationships with a broad demographic in addition to revisiting specific relationships I've had with people in my distant past. For example, I dreamed about a nun who had kids to support, and she was having sex and depending on an old boyfriend of mine. I was observing her feelings about sex and romance and this specific boyfriend, and it totally reminded me of my overall, general feelings about how my sexual relationships with men have been over the course of my life.

I think this dream draws out some of my concerns about the responsibilities of pet ownership. I love cats and dogs and animals in general, but I'm not sure I want to be a pet owner again. It's a huge responsibility. You can't really go on vacation without risk. You have to either invite someone into your home or you have to take the animal with you. If your cat jumps in the ocean, you've got to risk your life to jump in there after it. And it's a living creature, so it has a mind of its own (it won't do what you want), and it's prone to getting sick and injured. You can't have just the fun parts of pet ownership, like chilling with your handsome kitty, who's sitting on the counter as you cook breakfast in the morning.

However, in the dream, the golden retriever was of great assistance to the man who was giving me advice. I wasn't exactly sure how the golden retriever was helping him, but I knew it was. So maybe pets give us benefits in subtle ways. 

Certainly, I love experiencing those feelings of love and affection for another being, and I love being reminded of what it was like to have a child's mind. (That's always what I think of when I'm around cats and dogs.)

And then the relationship with the acting teacher was pretty specific in this dream. He got away with bad stuff in one-on-one, private situations. Not stuff that would put you in fear for your life, but you were at risk of being harmed by this guy in lesser, but still impactful ways.

Between sleep and wakefulness. (dream)

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Some of the most interesting moments in my life have been those times between falling asleep and being awake. I might be more on the "being awake" side, or I might be more on the "falling asleep" side, but it's always a strange sensation. We should have a word for that. The closest one I could find is "hypnopompia." Google Gemini defines it as "lingering dream logic." 

But the other night, I was lying in bed, and I was almost asleep, but I was awake, and I found myself suddenly bathed in a bright, gauzy, white light. I was laying down, and I could see a small team of about four people standing over me, scanning me with their smartphones. They were very calm and attentive and tried to look me in the eye.

But I was definitely under the impression that these were aliens, not humans, and the smartphones were not smartphones, but some kind of alien technology disguised. 

I wasn't scared. I felt that what they were doing was either benefitting me, or benefitting them--but no one was going to be hurt by this. 

In particular, I remember the girl closest to me. She was very young (maybe in her very early 20s), blonde, with large, blue eyes. She was wearing a hot pink, velvet hoodie. Her hair was up in a pony tail.

It's a little scary to talk about now, but it felt fine at the time. It was like going to see the doctor for a minor checkup. Maybe it was even more than that. Maybe it was more like feeling the comfort of being taken care of by a medical team, combined with the comfort in knowing that there are forces in the universe looking out for you aside from what we can see on planet Earth.

I'm excited to do the coding for an assault rifle. (dream)

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Based on the two dreams I had last night, I think I'm having some kind of crisis about what to do with the remaining 20-30 years of my life. 

Last night, I dreamed that I was at work (not at my real life job and not with my real life coworkers). In this dream, I worked in a windowless bunker. My boss handed me a large, automatic rifle. It looked a little used--a little beat up. The handle looked like it had a rubber grip on it with nicks and scuffs. He said, "I need you to program this. All of this needs to happen..." He hands me a piece of laminated paper. On it is a table that has the descriptive names of various settings for the gun on it. 

I reflexively say, "Sure!" because I'm so excited to be useful to my boss. But I'm even more excited that I'm going to be programming something.

He says, "No one can see you working on it." I nod.

I take the rifle home and I draw the blinds. I start coding right away, excited for the challenge. It's only now, in the quiet and privacy of my own home, that I start to wonder more deeply about why I'm doing this. What's being planned for this rifle?

I woke up, peed, and went back to sleep.

I'm drawing a picture of some love birds with Prismacolor (artist quality) colored pencils. I've been working on two different poses for the love birds, which are green with a light blush of peachy pink and a spot of coral/maroon. Then I realize I've been working on the wrong piece of paper. I have another, larger piece of drawing paper where I've started two other poses for the love birds, with white flowers. 

"That's okay. I'll combine the two so the piece is tall, and there are four love birds instead of two. It'll be twice as nice." If there's one thing the arts will teach you, it's how to put in extra effort without necessarily seeing a payoff.

I'm combing a fringe of yarn in various, neutral shades with my fingers when a man comes up to me, looks at what I'm doing and says, "Oh! Well, you have to do that, don't you!"

Something about the way he said it implies that he doesn't know why someone would waste their time crafting and drawing. But maybe some people just have to be artists, and so... if this is just fun for the artist, it doesn't make sense to pay them to do what they do naturally. 

I'm annoyed, and I say, "No, I don't have to do this!" There are plenty of other things I could do with my time, and I wish someone would be grateful for the time I take to make art.

The dream ended there. 

The thing is, I've always said to myself and others that I do have to be an artist. That I have to write. That I have to express myself creatively. And I do think that in my life, this artistic side is a core component of who I am. I need to balance fun, creative projects with the stuff that actually pays my bills. At this point in my life, it is very clear that my creative work is not the thing that will take care of me, materially. 

But I think the love bird dream highlights two things: I can spend my time doing things other than creating art. The bulk of my time is spent doing non-creative things right now, and I'm surprisingly okay with that. I'm trying to address other parts of my life, like exercise, nutrition, education, and career. 

I think the first dream with the rifle is urging me to take a critical look at the direction my actual bill-paying career is taking me, and not allow myself to unconsciously, reflexively end up somewhere I don't want to be. In the dream, what I was doing was taking me down a path of hurting people. In real life, "the wrong path" could mean a lot of different things. 

And I am trying to avoid hurting people. I had to put aside my ego this week to avoid getting unpleasant with someone. But I felt mad. I've dropped any claim to getting emotionally compensated for that, which is how someone once described forgiveness to me. I like that description, because when I get mad, I often feel like the situation is a power and dominance struggle, there's a winner and a loser, and someone needs to compensate me for the suffering they caused me with suffering of their own.

I've been doing a yoga teaching certificate which started off as a way to get more knowledge about a Satyr Plays story I wanted to write, but has ended up being really good for me in a variety of ways. One of my favorite things about this certificate program is the section and live Zoom meetings on the philosophy of yoga. There's something in the yogic lifestyle called "Ahimsa" or non-violence, which means avoiding hurting people with either words or actions. This is something I want to put into practice in my own day-to-day life. And I think that the less you involve your ego in frustrating situations, the easier it is to avoid reactively harming people. But for me, I think it's something I need to practice again and again to train the nervous system to stay calm in the face of injury. So I had the opportunity to practice this week. ☺

I think the gun part of the dream might also be cautioning me against agreeing to things without thinking more deeply about them.

Spending a whole day at work not knowing what to do. (dream)

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Last night, I dreamed that I was a brand-new receptionist. This is a very basic, entry-level job. I'm dressed well for it in a cheetah print blouse with a nice skirt. I believed that dressing nice like this was a way for me to express my enthusiasm about this job. I look the part! 

Then, right when I get behind the desk, the phone rings. I answer. A customer asks a very, very simple question, but I can't answer it. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I couldn't answer any question that would come across my path. I don't think they trained me to do this, and I'm scared. I'm all by myself at the front desk. There's no one who can help me.

I'm very scared of the scenario in this dream (not knowing what I'm doing and being left alone to fend for myself). I'm scared about other scenarios related to work too, but this one is my main one. 

I can't let this happen!

*Update: A week later, I'm having even more dreams about picking up the phone and being unable to answer people's questions.

Feeding cats to snakes. (dream)

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DREAM

I'm responsible for helping some ladies exit an artistic/spiritual retreat safely. There's one gray haired lady who, before leaving, dumps out her duffel bags with cats into the terrariums of some large snakes. I am shocked and horrified at this. 

Then I look at the cats. They're undernourished. They're too small, even though I know they're adults. They are dirty. They probably won't be adopted. 

And I think to myself, they're part of the food chain just like other animals. If it wasn't these animals who aren't wanted or given a good life, it would be other animals we'd kill. But my gut is telling me that there is more to this situation than what I'm consciously taking into account, and that this is somehow worse than what one would ordinarily feed to a large, pet snake. 

INTERPRETATION

I used to have a lot more nightmares related to vegetarianism than I do now. I think this dream could relate to my concerns about not being a vegetarian or a vegan, but I think it also highlights those times that you have a mismatch between your gut feeling and what your head is telling you. In the dream, I think I was a lot more aware of this divide between head and gut than I am when I'm awake. 

In my opinion, my gut is like an emergency warning system that can put on the breaks or give me the go-ahead before my brain has had a chance to catch up. Because when I woke up, I could think of other reasons why it's worse to feed a cat to a snake. That's an animal that does have a chance at a good life in someone's home. There's probably not a future good life for a chicken or a rabbit bred for food. And we've domesticated cats and dogs to be tame and dependent on us as pets. It's a betrayal of trust to kill an animal that was promised a stable, comfortable life by our society for reasons other than offering them a kind exit from their suffering. It's a betrayal of our stewardship. It may not be a betrayal on an individual, one-on-one contract type of level, but it's a betrayal on a societal contract kind of level. It's true of chickens and cows too (that they're bred by us to be tame and dependent on us), but it's not so common to share as close a bond as the one we develop with cats and dogs. 

On the other hand, shouldn't the bond we've achieved with cats and dogs tell us that we could achieve that kind of a bond with nearly any other kind of animal to some extent--especially tame, domesticated animals like chickens and cows? And even with wild animals, we might not be able to bring them into our lives on a close basis, but we can relate, emotionally, to the experiences of nearly any kind of animal. 

It's just not good that we kill any animals for food. We have a lot in common with animals--similar senses, similar emotions, similar pains and joys. When they sleep, they dream. When they play, they're exercising their imaginations. I'm all for lab-grown meat in the future. With some animals that are true carnivores, like snakes, we might not be able to give them nutritionally complete meals without feeding them whole animals with organ meat and skeletons and all. But humans? Humans are omnivores. Humans can probably live on plant-based diets with occasional supplementation. 

So why am I not a vegetarian or a vegan? It's just too inconvenient not to eat meat. I've already got a lot to worry about with my diet as far as chronic disease goes without worrying about how to get all my nutrients in and how to cook special meals to accommodate a special meat-free diet. But I do think it's more morally correct to not kill animals for human food. And eating meat does contribute to that system. 

I've heard some people decrying the use of lab meats because it's "unnatural" and will likely have toxins in it. But we don't know that. It could be perfectly safe. We'd have to run tests over time. We wouldn't know if it's toxic or not just based on the fact that it's lab grown. I do hope they succeed at mass producing safe, lab grown meats in the future and that the skeptics end up in the minority. 

About to be killed in a base on an alien planet. (dream)

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DREAM

I live in a base of Earthlings on an alien planet. The base is in a secluded forest. We're being invaded by aliens that remind me of the Predators from the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. We have invisibility cloaks, but they have way better ones. And they can detect ours with only a little bit of effort. But we're still sending out men on assignments to try to counter this invasion.

They're aggressive, but I don't know if they're cruel. I do know that we will all die. There's no way we're going to be able to ward off this invasion. 

I watch the base from afar. It's being bombarded with laser like energy attacks. There's no way the base can keep withstanding all of that. The shields are failing. I go inside the base (it doesn't even occur to me that I could survive for any length of time in the forest) and I grab a cage that looks like a suet feeder with three birds lined up in a row in it. They're spray painted in different glittering, metallic colors. I release the sky-blue raven and say, "It's a raven." It replies, "I'm a raven." I'm hoping this raven will survive without us. 

I leave the metallic brown parrot and the myna bird in the cage. Someone might need them. And they're not as likely to survive without us. 

I run around the base trying to figure out what other last-minute tasks I need to do now that I'm at the very end of my life. The other colonists are running around in a panic as well. I wonder if the aliens will make us suffer before we die, but I try to put that out of my mind and focus on what needs to happen before any of that.



INTERPRETATION

I asked AI about different herbs and supplements that can enhance dreaming, and it said that there is scientific evidence that B6 enhances dream recall. I've been taking a pretty high dose of it, and I think it actually works! I've been remembering more dreams lately. They're often uninteresting or jumbled, so I haven't shared all of them. But this one almost had a story arc.

I think this dream describes how I've felt for the past several months. I'm really worried about a catastrophic future, but I need to focus on the very next thing I need to do. Am I and are the people around me ill equipped to survive the current environment? Yes. Will I suffer before I die? Probably. But that doesn't change the fact that there are things I have to do right now.

The massive fruit. (dream)

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I'm out in the back yard and I'm so excited about the plants I've grown. I've just watered these huge, spring green plants with broad leaves and massive, red fruits hanging off of them. 

There are creative writing friends in the room with a window to the yard, and I climb through the window to greet them. I can't wait to show them this plant.

Then I look a little closer at my yard, and I realize that there's a giant hole in the middle of it. I peer down into the hole. There's an enormous drop to another, floating island. I wonder how I could have let the guys working on our yard dig that deep! It was careless of me not to monitor the digging more carefully! It's scary hiring people to work on your house. Or did the dog dig the hole? And how did they get through a couple feet of rock? Then again, are we ever safe if the only thing preventing us from plunging to our death is a couple feet of rock and soil? 

This is my problem now, however it got started. What do I do? 

INTERPRETATION

This dream makes me want to cry, because it's clear what it means to me. I really, really want to get this project done for a writing contest, and I can't wait to show off the fruits of my efforts (the fruit from the plant I've grown in the dream). In the dream, I wanted to show off what I'd patiently grown and nurtured to writing friends, and in real life, it's the same thing. 

Oh, and that hole. Well, it just seems like there's no end to the number of problems around the house. Chores to be done. Things to be repaired. I don't always know what to do. Sometimes, I just let a problem sit there forever. 

There's also no end to the problems I have to face with my creative writing project. I get this helpless feeling staring at the screen sometimes.

Emperor Palpatine orders Darth Vader to kiss his toes. (dream)

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DREAM

I'm watching Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine interact in a large, open room. The emperor asks Darth Vader to do or say increasingly humiliating things. I can feel what Darth Vader feels. He's uncomfortable, but eager to show his loyalty. 

But after a couple of these minor requests for signs of compliance, the emperor takes his shoe off and asks Darth Vader, "Shouldn't you be willing to kiss my toes?" 

I can feel how embarrassed Vader is, but he gets down on the floor and kisses that stockinged foot anyway out of fear. 

Then the Emperor says, "A truly loyal servant would let me take one of his fingers." He eyes Darth Vader's fingers greedily and smiles, like he might bite one of them off. (These are Anakin's real, flesh fingers, not robotic ones.) 

Now, I feel that the emperor may have crossed a line. Vader might feel compelled to rebel now. I can feel that Vader is still afraid, but he's getting outraged now. 

Then, I find myself living in a dorm-like room with a public shower next to it. I take my shower in the only available stall. When my roommate comes back, I ask her how a lesbian takes a shower, as though that might give me insight into myself.

I wake up and go back to bed, and I'm in a restaurant with exclusively black women. Every single table is taken. I go into another section of the restaurant, and I see one, single open table. I squeeze by a young white girl's chair and she asks me, "Do you have to sit there?"

I say with relative calm, "You want every single table, don't you?"

Then there was a whole sequence about making dumplings and pasta. I had a pasta machine, flour and oil, and I was trying to make dough for dumplings, but there was obviously way too much oil, and I watched myself think that there wasn't enough oil. 

Then I was cuddling with my husband in a warm, red sweater with a cup of tea. We were both young, but inside, I felt middle aged. 

INTERPRETATION

I kinda feel as though labeling the antagonist in a piece of fiction "the dark side" is cheating. In real life, the dark side manifests subtly (unless we're talking about an extreme, like a serial killer). "The dark side" is usually more like "the gray area." It's someone who loves you making inappropriate demands that aren't in your best interest. It's someone asking for test after test of someone's affection and never being satisfied. It's an increasing need for power and control in a relationship. Stuff like that. Stuff that one person feels they need but causes the other person pain or fear.

With the restaurant dream, I talked a lot with someone yesterday about how some people have an insane amount of money. I took numbers given to me by Google Gemini and calculated that an annual, 2% wealth tax on the top 1% of wealthiest Americans would pay for all of the annual expenses of SNAP, Medicare, and Medicaid. That's insane. Think of how much money they would still have after a 2% annual tax. "You want every single table, don't you?" I think the racial divide in the dream reflects how you hear about the privileges some people have. In the dream, the privileges are associated with race. In real life, the privileges are associated with money.

Naming the 12 religions you believe in. (dream)

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DREAM

I'm driving and I see one of the characters from my Lost Atlantis series, Matt. He's on a road trip. He's driving a vehicle, and there's a separate car with a vinyl-covered, cardboard shell in which a fluffy, orange kitten is driven independently in traffic with a remote and a self-driving system. The kitten's vehicle is quiet, like a bicycle, but it's big enough and fast enough to be on the main road. I watch the kitten's car make a pretty sharp turn. I'm impressed. I'm convinced that the kitten will be safe, despite my initial fears. The kitten and Matt will meet up at a certain point later on, but the road is longer and gentler for the kitten's vehicle.

Matt parks at a rest stop. There's a hospital painted the color of adobe there, keeping sick patients captive inside the way a mental hospital would. But this is mainly a hospital for physical health. Matt decides to investigate. After a little exploration into the condition of the patients, a nurse in a cliched "sexy nurse" miniskirt uniform gets up on a ledge and goes a dance in the corner of the room. She moves her hips in a serpentine fashion, indicating to another nurse that she recognizes Matt from his legs. They try to nab Matt for spying, but he jumps out the bathroom window. 

They don't follow him outside and he isn't worried about it. 

As he sits out there, my best friend is sitting beside him and says Matt needs to name the 12 religions he has. Matt ponders what that could mean. Could that mean the religions he practices? What if he only believes part of a religion? He considers naming several theories in math, but a passing child does it first. 

Matt is close to achieving his goal with this road trip. Sandi (the main character from the Lost Atlantis series) is getting sloppy and leaving clues, like her scent. I feel as though I am the narrator and must come up with the best ideas I can for why Sandi is betraying herself. 

Matt gets back on the road. He finds Sandi. 

We see inside the lodge at the remote location where he finds her. A circle of people holding various appetizers and meals walks around that circle like it's a cake walk or musical chairs. In practice, it's like a human sushi bar--anyone seated in an outer circle can grab and eat what's on the marching, inner circle's plates. 

INTERPRETATION

There are a lot of odd things about this dream. I'd like to think about what each could mean. 

The kitten in the self-driving vehicle. I haven't really started trusting the idea of a self-driving vehicle until recently. It sounds like it's gaining popularity in Los Angeles and Phoenix, which boggles my mind. Maybe it really could happen one day, in spite of the fading of the painted lines and the confusing placement of traffic lights that don't go all the way across every lane of traffic. Where I live, it often looks like a lane in which people are supposed to go straight ahead at 55 MPH has a traffic light over it which says left turn only. Is a self-driving car going to get that right when it's really hard for a human to get that right? Hey--maybe one day. I've been driving a lot recently, and to not have to drive and to not have to deal with a human at all to get somewhere sounds like a utopian dream.

Restraining people for physical health problems. I guess I've been thinking about some of the unfairness with which society treats people facing mental health challenges. We definitely don't think of pain in your leg as the same as pain in your mind. It's crazy to think of a hospital forcing you to stay for a broken leg. I just finished a memoir in which a woman is treated horribly for reaching out for help with her mental suffering, and she couldn't leave the mental hospital even though she checked herself in (I think this was in the 1950s). I'm doing some training in the mental health field, and it's very interesting to contrast the official, theoretical attitude to which mental health professionals hold themselves for thinking about the mentally ill versus the reality of lay people and even some of these same professionals once they get into an actual work position. I'm really not sure what the solution is for the mistreatment of vulnerable adults. I've been listening to the YouTuber Asmongold, recently, and he did a video on Chris Chan. I have exactly the same perspective as he does about people treating that poor soul badly--humans are animals and you can't be too shocked about them being uncivil. That's just their animal nature. But I think that once we notice a pattern of behavior, we can put up systematic rules to counter that pattern.

12 religions and most of them are math. I've been thinking about my spiritual beliefs in recent years, and I was telling a friend that I had checked the Bhagavad Gita out from the library. I think I said something about not being Hindu, and she replied, "Why label your beliefs?" Indeed--why do I bother with that? That's a question I've been wrestling with lately. I believe many different things from many different sources. And I recently read about half of a book about the origins of math, and I was really surprised at how faith-based some of my beliefs about math were. (I had kind of bought into the idea of Platonic ideals.)

Sandi leaving her scent. Why does Sandi, the main character, betray herself by leaving behind clues about where she is? I often feel as though I betray myself by posting on the internet. It would be so much more safe and secure to say nothing online, and to do as little as possible. But then the quality of my life goes down if I can't say the things I want to or do the things I want to. So there's always that ambivalence.

A human sushi bar. I guess I think a lot these days about how we have spent millennia using people like machines, and perhaps that time in human history is ending. We're starting to get a little more serious about merging robots with AI with the creation of tools like the Optimus robot. 

Salting gloves. (dream)

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DREAM

I'm in an elementary school classroom, sitting crisscross apple sauce in a column of other seated adults. We all face forward. An old boss from a restaurant I used to work at passes around a bucket full of pairs of mitten and glove socks. (These are mittens and gloves that go up the arms.)

I see the girl behind me select a pair, then change her mind and put them back. I used to take a gym class with her when I was in high school. I take the mittens she rejects. They're made of a thin, stretchy, sage green material.

We put on the mittens and pick up grains of salt with them. We place the salt on our tongues and leave them there for about seven seconds, sitting quietly, observing the sensation. We do this several times, contrasting the feeling of salt vs. no salt.

Then I go out into the mall with a small group of friends. One of my wise friends suggests that we will want to have full calorie, full-fat ice cream. It will keep us full. Some of our group go looking for it. But I'm worried about parking.

I go outside to look for a place to park my big, yellow, school bus. I pick it up in my hands and struggle to get it to the first spot that looks good to me on the edges of a desert circle. There's a confusing sign on the white-painted parking spot. It says something about "No Parking." I can't tell which spot it's referring to. Does it mean both of the two parking spaces? The sign is really close to both of them.

I go across the desert circle to another, elevated pair of parking spaces. The same "No Parking" sign is there, but it's a little clearer. If I got towed, I could argue that the sign is in a different place than the spot where I parked.

I put my bus down in there. The bus has shrunk to about 25% of its original size.



INTERPRETATION

I think this is a mishmash of things I do these days. It's winter, so I wear mittens and gloves. I think about going back to meditating these days (the salt exercise is a little like mindfulness). I've been thinking about calling the wise friend. The full fat ice cream is how I want to get back on Keto. And I'm always worried about parking.

School busses are especially confusing, because what if they stop on the opposite side of traffic on a busy road? I guess you still have to stop. I've never encountered that situation myself, but I've seen other people have to deal with it. What if I just don't notice the bus driving on the opposite road? I hate it. I hate driving. I hate that a momentary lapse in judgment can result in thousands of dollars of essential, daily equipment being ruined, or it can result in metal and glass shards slicing through my face and body, or it can even result in a child or an elderly person getting killed. But driving is the only way to survive here.

Dating someone after burning a bridge. (dream)

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I had a dream last night. I'm fuzzy on the details, but in the dream, I bumped into this guy who (in real life) cut ties with me when my ex-roommate started a smear campaign against me. (I assume she was running a smear campaign because of the way I was treated by the other theater people after the falling out.) I stayed quiet for a while. I didn't see the point in indulging gossip. But after she got me fired from an acquaintance's film, I posted about it on Facebook. In response, this guy left a fairly cryptic, public goodbye message for someone on Facebook (I assumed it was me), and I assume that he decided to cancel a 10-minute play of mine that his small theater troupe was going to do, because he never contacted me again about when or where I could see them perform it. 

I don't think he's a bad guy. This was just the judgment call he felt pressured into making.

So in the dream, I was back in my hometown and I saw this guy. I thought it would be awkward, but we hit it off pretty well. We started talking. We started going to the park. After a while, he asked if we should date. I agreed to it, but I felt super weird about dating him. And at first, it was hard for me to tell if I felt weird because we burned a bridge a long, long time ago, and he might abandon me again, or if I would feel weird dating anyone at this point. After trying to feel it out for a while, I decided that mainly, I was uncomfortable dating anybody again. I'd forgiven him, and I felt as though could move beyond all of that. But I had been done bothering with doing the labor of trying to maintain a relationship and now this was throwing me for a loop.

I think the only reason I'm thinking of this guy again is because someone on LinkedIn reposted something he had posted. He referenced a video he had made which was getting a lot of views, so I went to see his channel for myself. It's kinda weird to look up someone you left behind in life, but I did it, and sure enough, it gave me weird feelings.

I guess this dream mainly lets me know that I've settled down into being single and wouldn't look forward to starting a new relationship. It also lets me know that I've forgiven this person. But another possible message from this dream is that you can forgive someone, but you'll probably always have the memory of what they're capable of (or not capable of).

Dreaming about writing. (dream)

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I had a funny dream last night. I was watching a middle-aged woman who just looked so tired and done with it all, and she was writing a document on a computer in kind of a NaNoWriMo (now renamed Novel November) style. You know what I mean--there's a daily quota and a schedule, and it has to be adhered to or else. 

As I watch this woman type and click, I can feel how she just wants to get her "work" for the day over with.

That woman kinda represents me! I want to enter my writing into a contest with a deadline, so I worry that if I don't make consistent, disciplined progress on the piece every day, I won't have anything to submit. But I have a hard time staying consistent and disciplined and focused on personal projects sometimes. I have more writing projects that I've started and not finished than I would like. Having a bunch of projects left hanging scatters the attention of my unconscious mind. Some part of my brain will wish it was working on a brand new mermaid project. Some part of my brain will want to brainstorm short story ideas for the third Satyr Plays. Some part of my brain will wish it was revising the third Dream Diary. Another part of my brain is wondering when I'm going to get back to working on my goal of making 100 YouTube videos. Etcetera. 

So there's a kind of drudgery in the writing I'm working on right now. It's not a passion project. I just want to have something to submit. I wonder if this is going to wind up being a high-quality piece of writing if it's kind of a joyless experience to create it. 

I feel as though that uncertainty shouldn't stop me though. You never know the outcome of your actions. You can only do the work. 

It seems as though it's getting harder and harder to plan for the future right now. So much unemployment/underemployment. So much economic uncertainty. AI. Policy changes. But artists have always faced tremendous uncertainty and poor odds about the outcome of their efforts. So you'd think I would be used to all this by now. 

Oh, melatonin. (dreams)

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DREAM

I'm at home thinking about my deceased mom. Then, all of a sudden, my memories of her lying in bed with her jet black hair pouring out behind her become real. My mom is there in the room talking to me. At first, I think it's a dream, but she persists throughout the day, giving advice and saying kind, wise things. It's an unbelievable miracle!

Then I'm called by a school bus driver to manually remove my cat, because she's fighting with another cat. I do pick up the cat and put her down somewhere else. 

Then I meet a girl who I think is great. She's very friendly and supportive. I walk barefoot across a beach city downtown in California to drop off a resume. The girl walks in sandals doing the same thing. I return across the board walk. There's broken glass everywhere now and it hurts my feet. 

I return to a TV show. In this TV show, the girl who used to be so kind and supportive is cruel, and I find out that my mother is actually a commercialized attempt to bring back people from the dead. 

I remark afterwards that it went from a 4 star movie to a 2 star movie. The girl thinks I'm crazy. She thinks the show was great! 

The director of the movie comes out and begins to mocks me relentlessly. I try to escape, but he and the cast keep following me, imitating me as though I'm a jerk. I don't know why they can't see why I'm upset. 

Then I realize I'm in a time loop, forever destined to relive these moments in a haze of confusion, never to fully understand. Forever destined to believe my mother is alive as a supernatural miracle, only to find out she's a Frankenstein's monster.

INTERPRETATION

I've only just stopped taking a medication that was giving me horrible anxiety and insomnia, so I've been giving myself a little boost with melatonin at night. I think I had such a deeply offensive and upsetting dream because melatonin dreams are just weirder. I've also had some really nice, fun dreams on melatonin recently, like a dream in which I was in college, and everyone in the class had to make a fun YouTube reels type of short video as an assignment. The five or so people I watched and experienced what they experienced were so creative. 

I very much so wish that my mother was still alive. When she was alive, I always knew that someone out there would support me, no matter what. I no longer have that. 

I think the time loop is panic that the pain in life will never end. 

I have to decide whether to be a cop or a firefighter. (dream)

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DREAM

I pass by a desk. A cop and a firefighter are relaxing on either side. I have to pick which job I want to have. I pick cop, because fire fighters are too nice to be me. I watch myself as I train, and there's something different about me that makes me stand out among the others. It's in my personality. A depression. But it's a part of me and I see from this outside vantage point that it's endearing. 

I'm watching Paul Blart 2, and there are some pretty cliche scenes. "These movies really follow a formula!" remarks a coworker who majored in film for a while. But I actually like parts of it. In particular, I like this one lady who runs around sleeping with everyone but the balding office dork. She saves the planet by kissing an alien and giving it herpes. 

Then, I'm on a starship with Captain Jean Luc Picard. He's allowed an alien species on his ship, but they've stolen his droids, like R2-D2 and C-3P0. He learns that there's a price to pay for being too open and free with his friendship as he scrambles to get the droids back (and does).

INTERPRETATION

I think the first part of the dream points out how self-esteem can impact where you end up in life. I was fine training as a cop versus a firefighter, but that self-esteem issue had an influence. I don't know what to make of the fact that in the dream, my depression was something lovable. Maybe that's connected to the theme of self-esteem. I think it's very easy to feel unloved when you're depressed, but that's not necessarily the fuller picture. 

I liked how in the part with the lady who sleeps around, we're laughing at this nature she has to be very sexual, but it also ends up being the thing that saves us. 

I think there's a similarly mixed message at the very end of the dream. Yes, there's a price to pay for being too trusting too fast, but he also had the inner resources to manage the situation so that everything turned out okay in the end.