A week in my Dreamscape...

Last week I decided to see if I could remember and try to analyze my dreams.  So each day when I woke up I opened up this post and added what I could remember from that nights dreams.  Often I couldn't remember much.  A couple of times it was pretty vivid.  I did not leave anything out that I could remember.  I thought about the idea of doing this every week...but it is just too damn difficult trying to remember your dreams.  I suggest giving it a try yourself to see if you can.  I was surprised at how difficult it was to remember, and when you did, how little you could recall.

Today - waking up on Monday morning, the first part of the dream I recall was me, at the age I am now, apparently in college.  I was roommates with a person who I've been friends with since my senior year of college, but never lived with.  Also, the people with whom I interacted with were a group of people I know now who I did not know in college.  It was a lot of law school people who I did not know then.  It wasn't a particularly vivid dream so I don't have a great many details.  As with any guy, there was a female star of the dream.  The one in this dream was not someone I recognized.  This is how my dreams seem to work.  The female I conjur is not someone I know if I'm "meeting" someone in the dream.  Sometimes I dream about the past, and of course then Aphrodite is there, but whenever I meet someone who's "new", it's a person who isn't recognizable at all.  In fact, I couldn't even describe her face for you because I'm not certain she had a face...that's how vague these people always appear in my dreams.  Anyway, all I know is in the dream I woke up one day quite hungover and then tried to exit the dorm building only to find strange circumstances outside such as a cold beach or a weird sidewalk (side note: I've recently watched both Inception (weird sidewalk) and Eternal Sunshines of the Spotless Mind (cold beach)).

The next part of the dream is a bit more vivid, though less meaningful in a way.  I was at a Casino.  This dream seemed odd because I was seeing it as if it was a first person shooter video game (think World of WarCraft or Call of Duty)...meaning I saw what was the view from my eyes and I could see my hands doing stuff in front of me, etc.  I wasn't seeing myself from above or from differing views.  I'm not sure if this is normal.  I'll try to track it in the rest of the week's dreams and see if this occurs regularly.  Anyway, once in the Casino I was apparently in full "guy casino" mode, so I was just walking around looking for an attractive girl to hit on when I stumbled upon a wedding.  I sat down at the wedding reception, which turned out to be a very snooty, rich person, Yale type wedding.  The groom or "bridegroom" as he was referred to brought out a basketball hoop (yeah, yeah, weird, but it's a dream, it could have been anything) because he was discussing memories with his best men with whom he used to play ball with and wanted to see if he could still dunk.  I then yelled a comment point out that not many guys who can dunk have tits that big....and then left.  I found the next sequence interesting.  When I left this room where the reception was I took exactly the opposite turns I did getting to the room and saw all the same people and things.  What I mean is, my mind apparently kept track of earlier in my dream when for example I may have walked through the casino first making two lefts, then three rights and two lefts....and then did the exact opposite to get me out of there.  Creepy.    And that's all I have for Sunday night.

I don't know exactly what any of it means.  I love gambling and am currently mad at rich, snootie people so I suppose that makes sense.  I also have a very unstable living situation so having new roommates or an odd place to live makes sense too.  I suppose my mind is trying to work out my fears with regard to my future housing.

Today - waking up on Tuesday morning I have very, very vague memories of one dream and a slightly more vivid memory of the later dream.  The first dream is about a very typical area of my dreamscape...baseball.  I played baseball throughout my whole life....from as soon as I could walk until I was twenty years old I played baseball five to six months out of every year.  It was a huge part of my life.  This dream had me at the age I am now playing on the field I played on in Little League.  The field was regulation size...meaning while the setting was my little league, the field was as big as a real field, not small like a little league field.  Also proof that it was a little league setting, I was playing short-stop, a position I never played after little league, when I became a second basemen and eventually a pitcher.  This is the dream I don't have a very good memory off.  I recall a tag play at second base where the runner slid into second and stopped about half a foot shy of the base and popped up as I tagged him.  The ump, thinking he popped up at the base, called him safe.  I argued vehemently, the umpires gathered, and called him out.  The next memory I have is of my two at-bats.  I hit two bullet line drives to center-field for two hits.  I also do that in my dreams.  The line drives were hit very hard but never became a HR because I didn't get under it enough, or for lack of a better term "just missed".  I played organized baseball for 16 years and never hit a homerun...one of the more disappointing facts of my childhood...my dreams often display that.  The funny part is, the pitcher for those at bats was MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and he smiled when I got the hits off of him.  Keith is in the news lately, so that is probably why he was in my dream.  However, he was one of my favorite Sportscenter anchors growing up.  That likely lent itself to him being in my sports dream.

The second dream was more personal.  It dealt with two aspects of my life: my being broke right now and my issues with my father.  It all began in my childhood home, specifically my brothers bedroom, which later on in life became my bedroom.  Apparently in the dream, my mother broke my backpack, to which I demanded she replace or give me the money that would pay for it.  Next, my bank account was broken into and almost all of my money was gone, leaving me unable to buy anything I needed.  This led to an outpouring of support from friends (none of whom I recognized).  In a fancy jump that only happens in dreams, I ended up in the campground where my family used to spend the summer cleaning up my father's place because he wasn't keeping it clean, which annoyed me.  Later on he kept pestering me about jobs and money and kept saying insanely stupid things about politics and science until I got unbelievably angry and screamed horrible things at him at the top of my lungs.  I won't get into what they were, but I was loud, I was horribly mean, and I would have hated myself if it happened in real life.

Also, I did not notice whether or not these dreams took place in first-person shooter mode like the previous days dream.  I will try to notice that tonight.  That is all for today.

Today - waking up on Wednesday morning, my dreams were less clear to me than at any point all week.  I recall waking up in the middle of the night, immediately thinking to myself what did I dream about...and having absolutely no memory of it.  When I woke up a bit later to begin my day, I had the same first thought...Ok what did I dream about?  At first I could not think of anything much like earlier.  However, I sat there for a minute and tried to remember and was able to put together a piece here or there.  Probably could have done that earlier....ahh well.

As for the bits of the dream I did remember.  It once again involved living situations, which is very much on my mind lately.  And once again it appears to put me in an academic living situation.  I did not recognize the building at all...however I did meet for what appeared to be a law school like class in a room in the penthouse of that building.  That may seem odd, but in college I was involved in a special program called the Renaissance Project where people were housed, in a tall building, with those who had the same major...we often had class in a room either on the floor above us or in the penthouse of the building.  The only other part of the dream I recall is the teacher was either British or Australian.

I am sorry I couldn't remember more of the dream scape today.  I do wish to  point out one thing that is kind of embarrassing but true.  I find myself surprised by the utter lack of sex in these dreams.  My male readers know what I'm talking about.  I'm not leaving it out...if it were there I would tell you.  It's just not there, which is very odd.  I don't know if I'm abnormal or not but I would estimate at least 1/3 of my dreams include sex in some way....it's just the way I roll.  That may seem perverted, but dreams are where we work out some of our inner-most desires/problems/fears - and let's face it, sex is part of some of all of our biggest desires/problems/fears.  So, great, now I'm also not getting any in my subconscious.

Today, on Thursday morning, I woke up and again had several dreams.  The first one was odd and touched on some personal subject.  I cannot explain how I got there (watch Inception and you'll see this is normal) but the first thing I recall is sitting on the edge of a pool with my feet in it talking to a fellow law student with whom I've spoken too once in my entire life.  She's a sweet girl and I'm sure perfectly nice, but I was speaking about very personal things with her without ever having had a real conversation with her before.  It's strange how those things happen in dreams.  My only exposure to this person is facebook updates.  I guess that's enough nowadays.  Anyway, she somehow mentioned cheating spouses in our conversations and I chuckled sarcastically.  At this point she asked if it was OK if we talked about "it".  I said go ahead, ask your questions.  She didn't ask about Aphrodite, but rather about whether or not I had hooked up since she left.  I said No...which is true...I have I believe kissed one girl since she left, but have not really hooked up.  I then jumped into the pool and continued swimming to avoid the rest of that conversations.  I suppose I was embarrassed in the dream, even though I don't believe it bothers me in real life.

The next thing I remember is being on a series of trains going across the country.  For some reason I remember crossing the border into Washington State - this makes about as much sense to me as it probably does to you.  Once I was where ever it was I was going, I found myself in what appeared to be an old west style saloon, meaning two floors with old-timey bannisters around the top floor, with people I did not know at all.  Also, we were all separated into groups based on our ethnic background.  I was of course, with the Irish.  We were on the first floor of the "saloon" and apparently someone we liked as well as someone we didn't like were on the second floor.  We noticed that there was a bit of a disagreement brewing between those we liked and those we didn't like, so we went up there to see what was going on.  Once on the second floor I found myself very aggravated by one of the people we didn't like and I went after them.  I don't fight in real life...in fact I've had one fight in my life (a year and a half ago, drunk at a bar), so my dreams appear to be where I get rid of these "animalistic" urges.  Thankfully, I won the fight.  I mean really dominated...which I suppose is a good sign for a persons confidence.  It's probably not healthy to lose a fight in ones own dream.  After this I recall going into yet another train station and waiting there with my former Torts professor, who is the scariest person in my law school, silently.  That is all I remember from that dream.  I have absolutely no idea what the trains mean.  It was a rather dark dream with grainy scenes and scary imagery.  Think of how movies like Trainspotting, or Snatch or Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels look...and then you'll understand how this dream was visually.

The second dream of the evening brought with it that sex, or at least sexual connotations, that was missing earlier.  It is odd that it happened where it did because this dream took place in my childhood summer vacation town.  I found myself walking down the curvy road just outside my summer campground, the one that is carved out of the woods and hills, with forest on both sides.  There was some sort of truck or cart going down the street with two beautiful women dressed in next to nothing sitting on it...don't ask me to explain that.  Naturally, I hopped on this truck with wonderful ideas in my head.  Unfortunately for my night, I wasn't able to bring any of those ideas to fruition.  This dream was not a really badly written adult film....it was a really badly written horror/rated R film.  The kind on Cinemax at 2am in October.  Once down the road a bit into the area with nothing on either side but trees really scary zombie-like people kept approaching us and...well...scaring the shit out of us.  It happened multiple times...sometimes it was a delivery man, sometimes a local hick, etc.  I don't know how it ended because I woke up rather suddenly from a scare.  I wonder if that counts as a nightmare?

Now, I spent the next two hours of my morning falling asleep and waking up, I believe, six different times.  I had several very small dreams.  One dream showed me the story of a southern trucker becoming successful, which is probably loosely based on the 30 for 30 documentary I watched the other day on ESPN where a former football player because a trucker.  That is all I can recall.

I did happen to notice that these dreams didn't entirely take place in first person shooter mode.  I was able to see myself as if from above in most of the dreams including the fight dream and the train station parts.  I think I was in first person shooter mode when I was talking to my law school friend.  So it seems whenever I have direct interaction with someone I go into first person shooter mode and when its sort of a transitional period of the dream I can see myself from above.  My dreams appear to be like a movie in that respect.  They zoom in when things need proper attention to detail and zoom out when the scenery is more important.

Today I woke up on Friday morning, and the dream that is most vivid for me is a rather short and pointless story.  I was at what I believe to be New Giants Stadium.  I say this because in my head I thought I was at a Giants game, plus I was actually there a few weeks ago.  The whole dream was strange because it merged the idea of a football game with the idea of an opening act at a concert.  It's worth noting my last concert, seen one year ago, was at the old Giants stadium.  There was apparently an opening game in this instance...but I hadn't realized it.  There was two teams playing, neither of which were the Giants, but in my dream I assumed one was the Giants because of the colors.  The "Giants" made a bad play, and I got up and booed obnoxiously loud.  What I didn't know up until this moment was that like most opening acts, nobody was in the stands yet.  So I booed loudly with a crowd a about fifty people.  This meant everyone could hear me and everyone turned and looked at me.  Then to make it even more exciting they played my "boo" on the jumbo-tron with sound and all.  I wasn't embarrased for some reason.  I have absolutely no idea what any of this means, it's just what happened.

I consider this experiment unsuccessful.  I don't  understand most of these dreams and they don't seem to work anything out.  If any of you have any theories I've be very happy to hear about them in the comments.  Also, I was disappointed with my ability to remember the dreams.  I always thought I was better at that than it appears I am.