Ancestral Eye-Contact / Glass Eating Cat / A Toast

 

Kiki

This first dream was from yesterday.   

     I woke up from a series of confusing, long dreams. Nothing would stick in memory, so I decided to go back to sleep, convinced once again that my dream recall has failed me and it would be time to finally quit. 

    As soon as I fell back to sleep, I quickly dropped into a dream, I was standing in a large courtyard or plaza. My attention was quickly drawn to a woman in the crowd that resembled Marsha Warfield, the actress - but she had darker, more indigenous skin-tone and oddly enough, Coolio styled braids. She was a maternal figure, one that commanded respect and stood out to me more than any other person in the crowd. When my attention was drawn to her magnificence, I could not help but lock eyes with her. Her message was clear and precise as her gaze. DO NOT GIVE IN.

This Morning...

    

    Waking up a few minutes to four this morning, I was coming out of a dream where we were trying desperately to get my cat Kiki to stop eating shards of glass. During the dream we were cleaning up broken glass and the cat kept eating, despite our protests for it to stop. After a visit to the vet and bringing her back home, we were told that nothing could be done but we had to watch her carefully. As soon as we were back home, she found more glass. We tried to corral her to finish cleaning up. I opened up the laundry room doors for her and she was spitting up glass on some white towels we placed on the floor, since the washer and dryer were no longer in the space. My grip on the dream was lost because of the missing appliances, I was still concerned for the cat who was slowly spitting up the shards with saliva and spots of blood.

A Toast

    Going back to sleep after thinking over the events of the first dream, I fell into another, longer dream. In the dream my involvement felt necessary to the activity - everything was mundane until I was having drinks with two men. The dilemma wasn't too harsh, but I was already interacting with the men inside a hotel room having drinks in celebration, or just because. My self-imposed abstinence from all things alcoholic kicked in, wondering what the liquor in my drink was. I spotted a bottle that looked like  Hennessy or Jack Daniels sitting on the night table between the two beds in the darkened room. Rewriting the dream didn't help. Without much effort, the dream rewound itself to the point where the younger man handed me my drink, I had specifically asked that no alcohol should be in my glass. Then after accepting the glass and taking the first sip, I could tell that there was alcohol in it.

    Disheartened by mindlessly ending my drought, the sweetness of the mixed drink and the calming effect of the alcohol kicked in after the familiar burn that I'm sure some part of me missed after only three or four years (I've lost count) I gave in to the error and finished up the glass. I wasn't done drinking. Another dream slipped in, piggybacking off of the first - now I was having a glass of Coquito, a mixed rum and coconut drink that is usually made for Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. My "Wife" commented about me drinking again, I felt ashamed saying "Let me finish this one off, so I can quit again" tipping back my head to finish off the sweet elixir.

    The dream changes and now I'm in a high-rise apartment building again. It's nighttime and our arrival in the tower was to meet with friends that lived in the building. Rain was coming down outside and for some reason I was nude in the middle of everyone. Was it because my clothes had gotten wet? My "Wife" was desperate to leave, not wanting to use the bathroom in this apartment, she asked me to go bring the car up to the front from the open air parking lot outside. In the darkened apartment I walked over to the window noticing that it was still raining outside, I said "It's still raining, how do you expect me go out there naked?" "Just go get the car…" my wife demanded. Worried that I couldn't see the car from this angle, I looked out the window again and finally saw the car outside. My sister-in-law was looking out the window at the building next door and shouted "I see Wilson!" The phrase snaps me out of the dream, since I didn't know who else was in the room with us.

After waking up, I was able to place where we were; my old neighborhood - back in the Bronx.

Open Door / Don’t Bank On It

 

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The mansion comes into play again. 

Waking up at 1:30 this morning, I remember the dream. I’m walking somewhere in the Bronx; actually, I know exactly where the street is. On the Southeast corner is the Chinese restaurant inside the building my friend’s dad owned, right next door is the convenience store “Bodega” if you will, also run by Joe Senior. On the Northwest corner is the building I grew up in, 765 E 163rd street - but the dream didn’t take me there. Stepping into the store from a new opening in the building, from the direction of Jane Addams H.S. (Occupying this side of the street from South to North) this is Tinton Avenue, my main route to and from the elevated trains on Prospect Avenue - the layout in the store is different because of the new entryway. The owner is a tall, handsome Dominican with a deep caramel skin tone and light hazel eyes, I disturbed him when I tried walking through an archway that was blocked by a wire comic book rack, tired of things in my way during dreams, I lift the rack and move it over to my left dropping it noisily. The sound it made was exaggerated, like when shopping carts are crashed together.

    The owner came over to see what happened, maybe he was concerned that I fell over the thing - he couldn’t afford a lawsuit, it was his idea to block the arch to deter shoplifting. Before a word could be spoken, my embarrassment from creating the ruckus made me avoid conflict with the man - a hasty exit was needed. Leaving the store via the correct entrance I begin walking in the direction of my old building…

    I’m inside a Mansion-sized brownstone now, never reaching my building. My “wife” just finished cleaning the downstairs area (A Virgo, she is always organizing and cleaning) and joins me upstairs. For some reason I want to go to the kitchen downstairs, maybe for some water or a snack. She warns me to wait till the floors dry and not to leave footprints on the tiles. I walk downstairs and feel a draft coming from somewhere. The white tile on the staircase is a bit moist, she mopped on her way up, painting the cleanliness up the stairs. The rest of the downstairs is covered in white tile, I creep along slowly because the bottom of my slippers are… slippery. Before entering the kitchen, the draft hits me again, I don’t know where it’s coming from. Turning around to look as I pass the dining room, my attention is drawn to the front room and I see it - The front door is wide open! In this neighborhood, despite the opulence of days gone by, has devolved into abject poverty bringing along everything that goes along with it. I’m certain that the door was opened to let the wind dry the tiles, but my wife forgot to close it before heading up the stairs. 

    I head over to close the door and notice the front gate out to the street is open as well. Now my concern is having unwanted visitors seize the opportunity to take us up on our generous open door policy, availing themselves to everything in our home. Clomping outside through the garden path noticing everything is dried and in need of tending - I pull the wrought iron gate closed and try turning the heavy metal latch, but it just turns in a circle. Someone has sabotaged my gate! A few minutes later with tools in hand I begin to repair the damage as best as I could, the door now latched but it was only attached via the bottom hinge. You could push the door down with minimum effort, despite the lock. 

    Behind me, I hear someone singing a tune - my neighbor a Spanish woman that was vaguely familiar to me, was reciting something to a female officer that was registering her complaint about the crime, prostitution and drugs in the neighborhood. The lyrics recited in a sing-song rap ditty would make anyone blush, both women were smiling - this was just another day on the stoops of the brownstones.

    I wake up, it’s 1:30 - right on time. My obligatory bathroom trip to relieve the pressure from my bladder is necessary, or I will stay wide awake for at least an hour. I strap on my Apple Watch, that I left charging on the dresser, hook my CPAP hose to my face, and slide back into bed

    This morning, I check the watch and I didn’t wake up at 3:00, just a short REM dream and a blip of consciousness of one minute. The dream I had from 4:40 to almost 5:00 is what I woke up to.

    My “wife”is sorting through bags of items, like she does when she is preparing auction items for the Waterfowl rescue she volunteers at. Running the auction is a paid gig for her, even though she still volunteers hours of her time to care for the orphaned hatchlings brought in during the springtime. She is seriously at work, I am helping to bring stuff into the room where she is logging and counting every piece. This dream is mundane but fits into my ability of doing mindless work whenever multiple items need counting, I’m sure this is my one good Autistic trait. Something urgent is catching her attention, it’s time for her to close up shop - and begins organizing everything neatly for the next session. I’m still in counting mode, a sack of Lego-like blocks is in my hands and I bring it to her, despite the fact she is done for today. Annoyed by my robotic obsession with counting she yells at me “Put that back!” I look at the blocks through the clear plastic bag and begin sorting and counting in my head - she yells at me again “Put those back, I’m not banking them!” Her tolerance has hit the limit. I drop the bag near the table, defeated.

    I wake up, minutes to 5:00 again. Time to start my day.

P.S. ~ There was more to this dream in the beginning, but trying to remember the two dreams, separated by several hours is taxing on my recall ability. All I remember was a warehouse sized building, entering and then… poof?

The Drought

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   Dreaming in 2024 hasn’t been noteworthy as of late. Similar droughts where not even one dream came through, are baffling to me at this point; having spent nearly four years in and out of my own psyche, decoding the strange world of fiction created in my mind, while I sleep. 

   Declaring myself a “Dream Shaman” could help dissuade my own internal conclusions that I am actually just dancing literally on the tightropes edge of insanity. Which way I fall, or if I am able to maintain my balance is the question my consciousness wrestles with on a daily basis. The divide between the natural daily physical reality is not yet any closer to the metaphysical realm of unconscious creation, the two halves separated by a void - supposedly balanced? 

   Every day we have incursions of one into the other, a meeting of minds of  sorts, keeping the flow of information going like a river of give-and-take - a river of a life, moving in opposite directions. When the dam does finally burst - are we capable of stemming the tide, or do we jump on a surf board and ride the waves of the strongest current?

Dreams

Yesterday (Jan 15,2024) I woke up minutes to five, the tendrils of a dream grasping at my waking mind, like some Chulthonic entity being dragged back down into the murky depth's. Discouraged by my lack of recall - my natural reaction was to attempt more sleep. 

Less than a minute later, I was traveling on the bus again - on a desert highway, dust from the sands turned the daylight a yellow ochre tint. Waking up from this “Knock on the door” from my psyche, I had the feeling that the drought was over. Closing my eyes , I quickly fell asleep again.

Now we were in a living room, my “wife” and I, or just the ‘feeling’ of her. My arrival into this space prompted me to “Sit down” since I had been traveling. A small boy was playing while seated in a folding chair next to the leather La-Z-Boy (double meaning) that I was about to sit in. The boy had gathered sticks and a fuchsia colored carnation on the seat of the lounger, he wanted to build something for his mother, but couldn’t conceptualize how to do so. I lower myself in the chair, trying to avoid crushing the sticks and flower, we could work out some kind of diorama together with little we had at hand. My “wife” scolds me using a few choice words in Spanish warning me of not sitting on the boy or crushing the sticks. “I was being careful, we’re going to make a basket or something for the flower, out of the sticks” was my return for the exasperated tone she took with me. 

The dream, quick as it came - collapsed. I woke up.

   This morning (Jan 16, 2024) was strange; again I woke up minutes to five, nothing notable to report and I decided to crash back into slumber. 

Two men are on a rooftop, both men are shirtless - in a contest of strength or ability. This feels like the balcony of a Penthouse, both men possibly rich deciding to settle a score or debt by wrestling or some wildly attempted facsimile. Both men are of the balding persuasion, launching at each other - Greco-Roman style. The man closest to the balcony rail, loses his footing and almost slips through to his death below - the other man catches him by the arm, as if to say the battle isn’t over and I’m not going to be declared  winner by technicality. The battle rages on…

The dream dissipates, leaving me bewildered by what just transpired. This is the wackiest scene I’ve ever “witnessed” to date.

In January of 2020, it all began for me… Is this the new cycle?