Blue_Opossum

Morning of August 25, 2015. Tuesday.



Notes:

It always gives me an extraordinary sense of fulfillment when I get a continuous flow of insight and am able to more fully decode certain patterns in dreams over a lifetime since earliest memory. I am very grateful for the technology that has allowed me to do this; that is, type faster and with continuous editing potential (rather than writing and correcting and rewriting and correcting when I was little), put documents all together in one place, and have a listing and potential day to day timeline of my lifetime from around age four (with sparse family references and records since my birth date in 1960) as well as having access to resources that are able to validate and enhance so many of my earlier records. Not only will I be able to, in about ten years (only an optimistic estimate of course), bring all of my dream records and notes together as I want them, I will also have the ability to do extensive searches with a fair amount of precision. This dream, as odd and unlikely as it seems (even to me at first - I did not expect the flashes of realization when working with it), gave me the required focus somehow to unravel a small and isolated set of dream metaphors and associations going back to 1968 as well as relating to the path to my beautiful soulmate. There are too many layers to get into in this entry (and one would have to understand hundreds of summarized pages of my personal back story to “get” any of it anyway). I can only loosely touch upon some of it. Obviously, there are still limitations to my personal symbols and metaphors being fully decoded. This is mainly because some symbolic associations are rather sparse and fairly rare even at my present age. Still, I feel very happy today with another new breakthrough.

Sewing Machine Bulldozer:

I am mournfully back as I was when I was in my twenties and working for the Onalaska Street Department (not that I was sad at that time - it is just that something seems to be “missing” somehow in-dream). My job at this time was picking up large pieces of eroded embankment (on a fairly difficult inclination) and placing them on the roadside - placing them directly in front of the bulldozer. This was very difficult work and not many could do it for very long. Over time, I begin to be annoyed and tired over why I am even doing this. (It does not dawn on me that I am no longer this age, and do not even live in America anymore.) I am concerned about the speed of the other workers. The bulldozer even bumps me a few times, though not in any harmful way. I grow impatient and realize that I may have missed pieces a far distance back and think that the stretch will have to be worked over again. I do some of the work incorrectly, that is, I bend over to pick up a heavy piece instead of squatting and flinging back. Any sense of weariness of course, is an illusion in-dream. I start to ask myself what I am doing here. Is this where I am supposed to be?

I absentmindedly turn about and put my foot against the blade of the bulldozer. This results in a very strange event. The blade and push frame begin to wobble and very small “plates” fall off the front (reminding me vaguely of “Bathtub with Grill” from June 26, 2015). The exhaust pipe stack begins to move up and down like a “giant” sewing machine needle. It is almost like the tension building up in a cartoon (but not cartoon-like in any way). When I look down, I see that the bulldozer’s blade has actually transformed into an oversized antique sewing machine’s treadle (with floral scroll design), though at an angle and somewhat elevated. My leg is automatically working it to create (and actually sew together, apparently) some sort of clothing within the bulldozer’s cab. It is some sort of gossamer white lacy material flowing out from the side. Around this time there is a very strange mechanical sound behind me and when I dare look, it is a downward rolling “wave” suggesting a ghostly staircase. Soon, it is a luminescent staircase (recurring feature mostly from early 1991 to early 1994). My wife (as she was when we first made contact) in a glowing wedding dress and some sort of oversized tiara (somewhat like a crown) is standing there with a bouquet of flowers. I can see a blue layer of light just under her skin. “I’m not going to be late, am I?” I ask. “I never intended to be la…” (My dream is swept away.)

Connections:

Bulldozer history: I have found some links I did not really fully put together before. “The Dead One” dream (February 13, 1971, age ten - that is, first version of it) had a bulldozer run over Brenda W when I was taking flowers to her late at night on the eve of Valentine’s Day (so that only her hand is seen emerged from the soil and I feel a terrible sense of loss), yet she was resurrected (not in a zombie sense) near the end of my dream, yet “I could not yet have her”. (There were several dreams where she was resurrected, none of them relevant to any zombie lore - more in a divine “ascension” sense.) Brenda was the fully confirmed “stand-in” for my wife-to-be and also appeared in composite forms (such as “The Bad Witch” from March 18, 1978, which had a recurrence on March 23rd - the same date I got my first letter from my wife-to-be in 1991). Other layers - my sister died on February 13th (though the 14th from my perspective at one point in Australia as we are about a day ahead) and my father also died on the 14th of February. I have often associated the bulldozer with mortality and loss as such. Thus, there is very odd synchronicity with only a 1 in 365 chance it would be relevant as such - though it is - and all through my life extremely unlikely synchronicity continued with almost every event and association.

The origins of this (that is, the very seed) may or may not be related to the tree I used to spend time near at primary school. One of my friends used to take palmetto sticks and push sand off the concrete bench, chanting “bulldozer bulldozer”. This was the “same” bench that Brenda was seated in most versions of “Bridge Over a Prehistoric World” (though she also appeared in distorted composites associated with the “dream girl” or “mystery girl” as I preferred).

At any rate, from here, I made somewhat of a breakthrough in one very early version of the “divine staircase”. However, the features are quite different. It turns out to be my “Rocket Science” dream from July 2, 1976. This is not the first version of the implied “soulmate staircase” by any stretch. One of the oldest appears in “The Ghost Marriage” dream from October 16, 1971. I am linking only to the “Rocket Science” dream because of a few odd parallels. Firstly, the white sheet of paper that makes the “staircase” is like a miniature implication of the one in this latest dream (which I never even began to note before for whatever absentminded reason) as well as the commonly recurring ones as already mentioned above. It moved exactly the same way; that is, like a diagonal wave that suggested a complete “pure” or “divine” staircase (phantom or not).

Aside from that, there is also the shared “whirligig” element and the strange “impossible” technology, the “whirligig” obviously being a Merkaba form, but I am not sure what the sewing machine needle and fictional helicopter rotary design “pumping” relates to (well, on a spiritual level that is - some sort of spiritual “motor” or cosmic mechanism perhaps). As most of this had already come about in 1994, it is more like a decoding breakthrough than anything relevant to what may come.

Night of November 29, 1968. Friday.



This (in quotes) is the original title and has remained so. I had entitled this as such due to there already being a story I was familiar with called “The Grasshopper and the Ants” (However, the Wikipedia entry is entitled “The Ant and the Grasshopper” - a variation I had never heard of before). This dream was one of many at a very early age that was very vivid and unforgettable in scenery and “momentum”. I am not even “in” this one. It is more like I am floating and viewing things in another world.

In my dream, there is a young female ant named Susanna (a variation of my wife Zsuzsanna’s name interestingly enough but pronounced without the “zhu” and “zha” sound although I did originally call her Susanna at times), possibly influenced by the Stephen Foster song “Oh! Susanna“. In that song, there is the line “The sun so hot I froze to death” and the grasshopper in the original story will supposedly starve in the winter or possibly freeze to death.

I have accepted the precognitive implications for four reasons; the bride’s name being Susanna, my wife being petite (thus much smaller than I), and the nature of our mixed marriage. She also has more than three younger brothers. Also, the building in this dream was similar to the one I first stayed at with my wife - even called Clarence (my middle name) House. There is also the association with “clodhopper” and “grasshopper” as detailed below. Though I was not certain of the grasshopper’s name, there was a vague association with Marco Polo.

This was a long dream, but I only summarized the main scenes originally. It involves the female ant being “courted” romantically and secretly in a “jungle” - or rather, an area with more grass and stones and such, a fair distance from her home. The female ant’s younger brothers were like composites of three Hot Stuffs and Huey, Dewey, and Louie - but with ant-like features. The scenes were not that cartoon-like at times, but rather like an animated painting. The ants seem to live in a scaled-down condominium rather than an anthill though, so it is kind of funny. There was also some sort of implied practical joke routine related to “condominium pandemonium”. I was not even quite sure what the words meant. I do not think I heard this exact term in real life, or maybe it had been a newspaper headline or some such.

Her rather mean-looking brothers do not want her involved with the grasshopper or any chance for a “mixed marriage” (which is rather a self-fulfilling prophecy, I suppose, as I have been technically in a mixed marriage all these years - even though one man, a Jehovah’s Witness, thought we were brother and sister).

The main, most vivid scene has an interesting meeting between the female ant and the male grasshopper (and note the play on my first name of Claude - I was actually called “Clodhopper” in real life for a short time by at least two classmates as well as “Kadiddlehopper” - from Red Skelton’s fictional comedic character Clem Kadiddlehopper).

I can sense or hear romantic music playing. The grasshopper offers his love a rose. She accepts it but says “Thank you, but I like dandelions much better” in the voice of a (unknown) human female. There is not much drama after this. I am not certain what happens, but I do know the three brothers will be bothersome to both their ant sister and their grasshopper brother-in-law.

The real-life joke has a couple variations, but only one relevant to the reversal of the romantic scene from my dream. A teacher asks a child what her favorite flower is and she says “dandelion” (or “chrysanthemum”). The teacher asks “Can you spell that?” and the child says, “Actually, I like roses much better”.

Morning of October 16, 1971. Saturday.



This was another November 6th dream (the first recorded title being “I Married a Ghost”) though the longest, most focused version was on October 16 (very early morning), 1971. In this case, it was mostly based on associations with the movie “Danza Macabra” (also known as “Castle of Blood”, but first seen as “Castle of Terror” on the “Shock Theatre” television series). To this day, I still have not seen, or even made any effort to see, the remake (“Web of the Spider” from 1971). This was quite odd I suppose (especially for a young boy), some sort of catalyst, perhaps, and came years before the “showdown” dream (the castle-of-winds one) between the “other” and my as-yet-unknown-to-be-real wife (in their actual forms rather than being represented by others). Had I not been influenced (or rather deliberately focused on with a higher clarity than with most movies, to be honest) to some degree by a few (to me) archetypical movies, it is likely my path would have been the same, just with a little less movie-based synchronicity and long-term memory of such, perhaps - the patterns and personal themes would likely have come from elsewhere as it is. I would likely have formed similar symbolic aspects from other things I saw or did not yet see.

For many years after, I had this focus around November 2nd (related to the “Night of the Dead” event in the movie - which of course is not Halloween as some have claimed - guess they did not really watch the movie they wrote about so much - which often seems to be the case even with so-called movie critics). Thus, dreams relating to around that date sometimes centered around certain ideas even when I had not seen the movie for awhile. Interestingly, as a young boy, I even perceived November 2nd to be the “real” Halloween even though I never mentioned it to others much at all. I guess because it was sort of like “my” private Halloween.

The main point of my dream was that I was originally going to marry the Julia character (Margarete Robsahm). However, there were scene changes and parts with wandering about in a mist. Eventually I married the Barbara Steele character (Elisabeth Blackwood). I guess the reason was that at least she tried to save poor Alan (me?). I did not die, however - only everyone else was a ghost. The marriage took place in an unusual location. It was outside in a mist on the top of a fairly high isolated staircase (at least twenty steps) with nothing beyond the top landing. Everything had a sort of grayish and bluish transparent look. The preacher (unknown) stood reading for some time. In the background, below, there was a very vague association with a white horse and hippies on motorcycles in the fog - seems to be from the episode of “The Immortal” (“White Horse, Steel Horse”). There are also scenes of wandering around in a library after-hours (recurring). This time, also in a mist. Being in a mist was far more common when I was younger, becoming fairly rare after the age of sixteen unless I instigated the idea with lucidity. (Age sixteen is when I developed what I considered amazing full control over some dreams for nearly a year - usually the last ones of a series).

Curiously, the movie characters, depending on angle, lighting, and expression, were similar to the real-life associations (which of course I did not associate with my wife at the earlier times, as this was years before she first wrote to me), including the same hair colors. I did include an image, but I cannot find the photo where my wife looks so much like the first image I actually mistook it for her once, the third being the “other” symbol. Again, it all depends on angle, expression, and lighting; otherwise, there is not that much of a resemblance at all. It could have been the other way around (hair, looks, and character intent different), but was not.

Morning of April 4, 1971. Sunday.



My dream renders what is intended to be an area of the West Elementary school grounds for playing games, though it is in an incorrect (though not regarded as incorrect by my dream self) featureless location that is implied to be northwest of the elementary school building.

It seems to be late morning. My schoolmates are sitting in a circle and a game of “Duck, Duck, Goose” is in progress. In the back of my mind is a vague idea that I am in a movie that is presently being filmed (which was a recurring aspect of my childhood dreams that suggests subliminal conscious self awareness of being in the dream state, yet without viable lucidity).

In this version of “Duck, Duck, Goose” I am aware that the person who is caught is to eventually marry the person who catches them. I find myself walking clockwise in a circle around the seated group of our schoolmates, with Toby a few feet in front of me (even though there is only one “it” in “Duck, Duck, Goose”). Toby intends to tap Brenda on the head, much to my dismay. However, instead of Brenda being tapped and getting up to chase Toby, she dodges Toby’s attempt to tap her and the roles become reversed. Toby ends up chasing Brenda around the circular group of seated schoolmates.

I decide to start running after her as well, to get to her before Toby does, though I remain at a distance. Still, Toby never comes any closer to her than about six feet. We run around and around and it seems to go on for a long time. The three of us never leave the circle to run elsewhere. For a time, I contemplate the adult paperback Western “The War on Charity Ross” (by Jack M. Bickham), which I had recently read. I start to contemplate that this event is “The War on Brenda Wilson”. There is a sense of drama and anticipation, though my dream eventually fades without a victor.

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The failure of my personified subconscious to perceive the setting as wrong yet still possess the memory of a paperback I had recently read is typical of the unusual erroneous neural gating of the dream state.

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My dream designates Brenda as the Vestibular System Personification (a waking alert factor which RAS mediates due to the biological vestibular system ambiguity of being unconscious), though she does not fall or fly but runs in a circle, though there is the implied vestibular-system-based flight symbol of being a “goose”.

Even here at age ten, my dream self was thinking of life partnership. Brenda was validated, in a prescient sense, to symbolize Zsuzsanna long before we met (even though Zsuzsanna often appeared literally as herself, though sometimes as part of a composite which also integrated Brenda, even directly before Zsuzsanna first made contact with me, mainly because I did not learn that Zsuzsanna was a real person until March 1991). Zsuzsanna and I were married on April 9, 1994. (One of the stories she wrote when she was fourteen was called “Wilson’s Dream”, which was about dream state adventures into other worlds. Her first tribal name from the PAIA was “Magic Pen”, which I viewed as a play on female swan, which has a loose association with “Duck, Duck, Goose”.)

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This online dream journal entry was reformatted from the source material, abridged, and clarified on Wednesday, 21 February 2018.

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