To sleep, perchance to dream wildly....

You all know I like to spin off my dreams as real life and then at the end mention it was a dream. Prime examples of this can be read here, and here.

Note though that after last nights nocturnal adventure, there's no way to spin it as a real story because it is just too bizarre! I've not been sleeping well at all since Sunday night due to the pain in my leg after falling and twisting it, and last night while I actually did get a bit more sleep, it was only a couple of hours. To sleep, perchance to dream.....a doozy!

In the dream I am here in my house at the start and it pretty much resembles my house. An EMT and ambulance has arrived, and the EMT himself is sitting on the floor of the hall outside my bedroom door with his kit all laid out as if he expects to be using it, but, he is watching the TV that is on in my bedroom. It seems to be showing nothing in particular just a jumble of incoherent images as though someone is constantly changing channels every second. Looking past the TV to the bedroom windows I see it is sunny and apparently warm outside.

I am carrying a load of wash which must be taken down to the machine in the basement. There is a sense of urgency that this wash must not leave my presence and it is imperative that it be done before the kids get home from school. I am at a loss as to this sense of urgency, but, it has me wanting to get the wash down to the machine in the basement quickly!

For a moment, the TVs mad changing of channels stops on a commercial for laundry detergent! I notice outside the windows now it is dark and stormy, with the rain pouring down and the wind howling to the point of trees bending and thrashing wildly in the gale-like conditions.

Suddenly my x-wife is there asking if I want her to try and sell the dirty laundry at a garage sale she is having. I tell her no, and after remarking that I could have made a pretty penny on this sale, she departs. Tails jumps up on the dresser in my bedroom to watch her go (as she often does in real life watching any one's arrival or departure from her perch) and I notice that outside is now blizzard-like conditions with a least a foot of snow on the ground though the X, seemingly unaffected by the cold, is sporting sun glasses and is dressed in shorts, a t-shirt, and wearing flip-flops! She pulls out of my driveway and zooms away without so much as removing the snow from the windshield of her car.

The urgency of getting the wash done continues to pressure me and I try to get to the machine but no matter where I walk to in the house I keep ending up back in my bedroom. I realize at this point I have a terrible headache (which in all actuality I did have when I went to bed, having had it most of the day. It was one of those throbbing "I have not slept properly in 72 hours" headaches. I begin ransacking the medicine cabinet which is full of medications galore except any analgesics!

I ask the EMT who is still sitting on the floor of my hallway if I can have a Tylenol so I do not have to go to the store with my leg hurting (which up until this point in the dream I was walking around fine). He hems and haws and says as I am not his patient it would be illegal. "Who the hell IS your patient!???" I demand and he simply shrugs his shoulders and returns to playing solitaire with a deck of cards on the floor. Several bottles of Tylenol are now lying visibly by his other equipment.

At this point I eject him from my residence and wonder why he was there at all. Suddenly my daughter is there and she asks me if I am ever going to take the wash to the machine and offers to do it for me. "No!" I tell her. For some reason in the dream the wash is important to me and I do not want to let it out of my hands.

I then start to walk through the house.....suddenly I am walking, without a load of dirty clothes, through a large industrial complex with a girl I used to work with at Smiths Aerospace many years ago back in New Jersey. She was an older woman named Linda(older than me anyway) who was very helpful to me as I established my carer. She passed away before I moved out to Michigan. In the dream this was not remembered by me and it was perfectly natural for me to be walking and talking with her.

"HR is over here, you can take care of your wash there." she said to me. Suddenly I was again carrying the load of dirty laundry and the urgency to get it cleaned was back. In the dream I am perplexed that I would be taking my wash to the HR department! I was also pleased that it looks like it would finally make it to a washing machine.

We enter Human Resources and the inside looks like a cross between my dream-scape and the old HR offices I remember in New Jersey at Smiths almost 10 years ago, but, there are washing machines hidden behind the filing cabinets. As I dump my laundry into one of the machines I turn and say hello to someone who works with me in Michigan in real life calling her by name. "What did you call me?" she says? I look at her again, and her face has changed, subtlety, but changed it has so now she just strongly resembles the person I first saw, but is obviously not her. I explain I though she was someone else, and she winks at me and and whispers conspiratorially "It's OK, I am someone else...in fact if I can tell you a secret, I am really...."

At that moment the door bangs opens and the HR manager from NJ walks in, says hello to me, and goes into her office and closes the door. I turn back to hear the secret but the girl is gone, the washing machine now takes quarters to do a load (of which I have none) and on the washing machine is a cat carrier with a mewling kitten in it!

As I go to open the door of the cat carrier, some guy I have never seen dressed like a maintenance worker says "You don't want to do that, Kitty has claws!". I look at the adorable innocent little kitten and chuckle as I open the door of the cage.

With the speed of a bolt of lightening the cat leaps from the cage and wraps itself around my arm and starts biting and scratching! "Ha ha! Told you so!" this strange guy says as he exits the area. In a mad attempt to free my arm of the biting, clawing, growling ball of fur, I fling my arm hard and the cat goes flying fast towards the concrete wall! I am worried the cat will be hurt, but it flips itself mid-air so it is now facing the walls with all four of its paws, and after landing on them like a coiled spring releasing it launches itself snarling right back at me once again attaching to my arm and attacking it with renewed vigor!

For some reason only my injured leg (which in the dream is not injured) feels the pain, and this is about the only part of the dream I understand.

All of a sudden the kitten and I are sitting in a nice large easy chair in a living room like setting that is still part of this mysterious HR department, and I am scratching her gently as she purrs loudly and relaxes. That's all she needed, I thought, some love!

At that moment some other girl I have never seen comes around the corner with a huge basket of folded laundry wrapped in plastic and announces my wash is done and I owe her 50 dollars in quarters!

I woke up! After doing my morning routine I got the wash together and took it down the the machine. It had been accumulating for a few days, and obviously this must have been bothering me. I nodded to the EMT technician who was sitting on the floor by the washing machine playing solitaire and I woke up!!! A dream within a dream! I can't remember the last time that has happened to me.

After doing my morning routine I got the wash together and took it down the the machine. It had been accumulating for a few days, and obviously this must have been bothering me.

Here's to hoping for a better nights sleep this evening! Thank god the wash is done.....I'll leave the sink full of dirty dishes until tomorrow.......

What happened to me last night

I had been invited to dinner at the X's house with herself, Scott, and Danielle. Afterwards, the kids went off to play video games and the X and I were watching TV. She was channel surfing after the show we watched ended and a music video came on.

I do not know who the female artist was nor I did not recognize the song, but the twang of steel guitars was present and she sung it with a thick Southern drawl. While the exact words elude me today the subject matter was of a woman who had tired of her husband. She metaphorically ripped his still-beating heart from his chest and, after holding it at eye level for him to see, smashed it under her foot. In other words to his surprise she had told him she no longer loved him and was leaving him.

The X loved this song and was loudly saying things like "Yea!" and "That's the way to do it!" and other such phrases while looking coldly in my direction every few seconds. The song ended, she commented "Was that a great video or what!?!?" and she left the room. I was totally stunned by this, finally knowing the meaning of the word dumbfounded!!!

Needless to say my feelings were incredibly hurt so,without a word and filled with a great sadness, I left the room and exited her house. Incredibly hurt and upset, on the verge of tears in fact, I was not paying attention to where I was going as I fled her residence. I found myself in a very strange frame of mind walking along a road I did not recognize but seemed to me at the time to be reminiscent of the streets in Glen Ridge New Jersey where I grew up. VERY reminiscent! So much so that if I did not know better, since I live in Michigan and had not left the state to my recollection, I would swear at one point I was on High Street in Glen Ridge a block away from Bloomfield Avenue. This was, without a doubt, a very disturbing feeling! I continued walking in a very distracted manner not really paying attention to where I was going though my ultimate destination was to get to my house.

The fact that I was still in Michigan soon became evident as I found myself under a bridge on route I-96, which goes nowhere near New Jersey. Evidently I was so distracted I had wandered off the road or was subconciosuly following a shortcut after being distracted by the familiar nature of the previous road I had been walking on. This new area was a lightly wooded place at the bottom of a small gully so I surmised the bridge was an overpass over this area.

I heard the sounds of music and talking and ventured under the bridge. There were many people sitting, standing, and moving about. There were many conversations going on. To my eye this was a cross between a flea market and a Renaissance Fair because people, mostly female, clad in typical Medieval attire were circulating the crown offering goods for sale, such as hand-made jewelry, finely crafted boxes, and such, and there were many tables and tents with goods on display.

I found a place to sit and continued looking about the area. A very heavy woman passed by and, as she had done to other folks seated in this area gave me a little porcelain plate upon which rested several cookie-like pastries. I ate them while having a conversation with a gentleman I did not know sitting next to me. Upon chatting a bit as to how I had come to be here I discovered his wife had left him as well. Using this as common ground it was soon evident we shared many of the same interests and could easily become friends. He was also dressed in medieval attire such as you would expect a merchant to wear. Around his neck he wore a thick gold chain with an intricate jeweled medallion. He remarked that this gathering happened monthly weather permitting. I pronounced surprise at this news and remarked I had never heard of this in the 7+ years I had been living in the area.

Under one side of the bridge a large area was setup where food and beverages were being prepared and provided to those who desired them. Several large pigs were roasting on spits and the delicious aroma wafting my way was making me hungry. I mentioned to my new-found friend that I was going to journey over to procure some of the roasted porcine goodness and he elected to accompany me there.

When we neared the head of the line the large woman who had given me the plate of pastries appeared, shoved my friend to the ground, and, brandishing a large ornate medieval looking dagger threatened to "split him end to end" if he did not give her yon bejeweled pendant! To emphasize her serious nature she slashed out at him, tearing a rent in his sleeve and drawing blood! People started screaming, I saw several people making hurried cell phone calls!

The woman advanced, acting more threatening, and, on the spur of the moment almost without realizing I was doing so, I grabbed a large metal serving tray and, coming up behind her, smashed her over the head with it! She went down like a sack of wet sand without making a sound and before I could check on her condition the police appeared wanting to know what was transpiring.

I tried to explain what had happened, but I was shaken somewhat and could not raise my voice above a whisper which was drowned out by loud shouts of "I saw the whole thing! He bashed her over the head for no reason!!!" coming from an unseen female.

The crowd parted, and Crystal Bernard (for those of you not familiar with this name she played Helen Chapel on the TV show Wings) appeared, even more loudly repeating her affirmation of my guilt! While I was totally stunned by this her next comments really floored me; "I'm his ex-wife and I know he's capable of these things!". Needless to say I was flabbergasted! I was blown away by the total and utterly absurd untruth of this!! How could she lie in such a manner!!?? Of course I was not capable of these things!!!

I then tried to explain myself to the police, repeating what had happened and mentioned the incident that began this and the way the X had behaved at her house over that annoying music video! Before I knew it I was being roughly handcuffed and led away in total shock! They pushed me into the back seat of the Police Car and the door slammed!

I awoke; amazed at this dream I had experienced and wondering about Crystal Bernard and the role she played here! What was really weird was at that point in the dream she WAS my ex-wife in my mind, though in the beginning of this dream my ex-wife was my real ex-wife. I have not seen Wings in ages! The dreams I have featuring the X prior to this have virtually all been pleasant other than the sadness felt upon wakening. What a disturbingly strange and vivid dream!