In the Cards

 I was in the street, late night in front of my building, a car full of kids pulls up. The occupants were suspiciously packed in together and in “drive-by” position - non threatening but menacing at the same time. The group of people I was with made the mistake of catching the car riders attention with an upturned look or gesture.

The Thugs took exception, the “Leader” steps out of the car to confront me as the opposing leader. We exchange looks and I mention to him before my personal space becomes invaded “It doesn’t have to go down this way”, he feints stabbing me with an overhand, I catch his arm but there isn’t a knife in his hand. I fall for it. He brings his other arm from behind with a knife in hand attempting to plunge it into my side…

My lucidity takes over. I see his tactics, sliding my body to avoid the sneaky maneuver, gripping the knife hand tightly and twisting it to make him drop it, shifting our position gaining better leverage…

He deftly moves his leg in between mine causing me to lose balance - I let go and he scrambles for the knife at the same time that I do. My minds eye sees him swing around aiming the knife for my neck. The fight is over, I can’t win against this guy - he might be a lucid dream combatant - I wake up from the premonition on another street far away from the scuffle (did I teleport?)

I’m dazed by the strong mental impression and look down into the street by the curb… I spot two playing cards. One is the King of Hearts, when I pick it up it turns into another card; the 10 or 9 of diamonds or spades. A miraculous thing happens next. The card becomes holographic in my hand, shining with prismatic colors that surge and glisten. I begin to see the card at a microscopic level, the spaces between the atoms and the connecting electrons like a framework of webs or the separations on a housefly's wing.

Placing this first card in my pocket, I know that it was meant for me, it IS mine. The other card is in the same position as the first, standing straight up between the blacktop and curb. This card is the Queen of Hearts, my favorite card in the deck. The dream morphs into the next…

The dream begins in a large apartment in an older building, this reminds me of a boarding hotel. The layout is confusing - I am helping to move things around again or there are movers helping to relocate all of my things. The narrative continues from room to room as items are being catalogued and put into boxes. Concern begins to rise in me because there are still closets and dressers full of things that haven’t been packed away.

A series of confusing transitions happen later as I walk in and out of the apartment following the “movers” to the truck and back, I remember commenting about the back three rooms that all had their own kitchen - a voice told me they were separate rooms or apartments that were rented out to travelers (The dream is actually correcting my confusion by giving me useable intel to help put things into context) My mind then sees the entire building as being a boarding hotel.

Heading back into the large apartment and making my way back to a dark bedroom, the fact that the closet items aren’t packed yet just adds to my frustration. I spot a bible on the dusty table, a red leather tattered cover that looks more than 70 years old with faded gold inlaid writing in front “Holy Bible” I could smell the age in the pages as I fan the book looking for “Bible Money” something I used to do to hide cash when I was younger. Instead of opening the book to stop at a random passage, I place the Bible back onto the table and follow the sounds of activity in the far rooms.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one living in this apartment, a handicapped man in his 30’s was in the far room at the end of the hallway past the kitchen that I stopped by to admire as if I hadn’t seen it before (Many times when the scenery is new I have to consciously take-it-in due to lack of familiarity) The man was in his room trying to have things organized for the move. 

The move couldn’t be completed in one day, that was the reason that everything in the closets weren’t touched yet. I went to bed and the next morning, went over to the handicapped man’s room to wake him up, pulling him up to a seated position since he didn’t have a pull up bar. He slid himself to the edge of the bed and I went to get his wheelchair - a woman was helping me open his folded chair when a child came in, mischievously touching things and took a blue and white broom and dust pail from the corner of the room - this upset the man we were helping. I had to chase down the kid and take the broom from him - the man wanted to help by sweeping up his own room. The kid disappeared. I decided to help by packing up the kitchen cabinets and pantry items…

The dream ended there. I think the small child was the reappearance of my old friend “Tricky”, up to no good and inserting his presence into the dream for good measure.

During a break in the dreams, when I was trying to go back to sleep from the second interruption by our dog Leo (He was awake at my usual hours? 1:30, 3:30…) he didn’t seem like he wanted to go to sleep after the 3:30 bathroom break. I fell asleep but cognizant that he was still pacing on our bed, as if someone was sitting in front of him making him restless. The short image that came into view was a man and woman sitting on a bench next to a wall, their outlines were visible as well as the clothes they were wearing, the man had a suit, the woman a dress.

I woke up from this “vision” before the two could come into full view - something was familiar about them that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Leo decided to get up again at 4 by jumping off the bed, I shuffled in the relative darkness - ushering him out of our bedroom to check if he needed to use the bathroom again. Leo wasn’t really interested in going outside again, much to my frustration. I decided to take a few minutes to write up my first dream from less than half an our ago, capturing enough detail so that putting it together in this essay would be easier. I make Leo wait since he was rude enough to interrupt my morning sleep hours. Twenty minutes later I pick him up and head back to bed. Just before falling asleep again the image of the two people popped up in my head again, I had first seen them as clothed shadow people, but then I remembered. They were the woman and her son that came in looking for the “Recruitment Office” from another recent dream (March 27th, Twitter) almost 2 months ago. Apparently they were still waiting, much to my dismay because I wasn’t able to help them the first time. Could they be spirits?

The last dream of the morning was a little emotional for me. My situation placed me directly in front of a baseball player, when introduced to him by the manager I excitedly spoke to the player in Spanish, mentioning that he was one of my deceased Father-In-Law’s favorite players on the Mets. As much as I tried not being a blubbering mess, the memory of my FIL and watching baseball games with him on the television was too much - the player was taken by my story and signed the official jersey I was wearing with his number and made it out to “Greg”. I knew that this would make my FIL happy that his memory was still cherished by me. Having to leave the clubhouse where the team was getting ready for a game wasn’t easy, the conditions of course were dream-like and strange. 

I had to fit myself through a rectangular hole in the door that was just wide enough for my body to fit through head first. Coming out on the other side, I have to put my hands on the floor and do a handstand and flip my body over to right myself. Players on the other side of the door were impressed by my feat since I was much older than them but handled the door trick with ease. The players were in a “Skybox” overlooking the field which had been converted to tennis - Serena Williams was playing a match down below. I asked “What about the game?” One of the coaches replied “Oh it started to rain so they started the tennis match to fill in the time of the delay”. This. Explanation made perfect sense to me as I looked out at the match.

I wake up from this short dream, totally aware of the dream that just took place. I was back.