Visions in the Dark

This is the second dream I had on September 21st, 2009.


I am at Grandma Currie's house though it is somewhat distorted on the inside. It is winter and everything outside is covered in snow at first. Inside the house are my cousins Summer, Bailey, Keelan and Caleb as they appeared about a decade or so ago. Grandma Currie is there, as well as my parents, brother Ryan and Aunt Beth. For some reason Grandma Carelsa is also with Aunt Estelle. My family still owns the 1986 Westfalia (now sold) and it is parked outside.

The inside of grandma's house is distorted and everything is shaded in pale blue colours. At first there is discussion among the adults about where everyone is going to sleep because there are not enough beds. I suggest to dad that I would not mind sleeping in the our 1986 Westfalia camper if he hooked it up to the house to work the heater. The convesation changes and I lose interest and go and see my cousins Sumer and Keelan. They are upset because even though there are two computers in the house, neither one have sufficient internet capabilities for their satisfaction. One doesn't connect at all and the other is extremely slow having only a dial-up connection.

There is a meal being served and my cousin Caleb asks me to get a can of soda pop from the basement for Grandma Carelsa. I go downstairs and in an alcove in the stairwell is a pop machine selling a variety of sodas including a lemon flavored one. There is a small picture of a loonie near the change slot and I assume that this how much currency I need. Because I don't have any money I go back to Caleb and tell him so. He becomes upset and insults my stupidity because family members don't need to pay. I return to the machine and get a lemon soda and take it to my Grandma Carelsa, who is sitting in the distorted living room with Grandma Carelsa. I get the sense that they are watching t.v. yet I cannot see a t.v. in the room which is weird.

Nighttime is approaching the the issue of where everyone is going to sleep arises once again. Again I tell my dad that I wouldn't mind sleeping in the Westfalia if there isn't any room in the house but he tells me to stop being ridiculous. Mattresses and roll-out beds are placed on the floors throughout the house, three specifically in the basement. At first there is some confusion on whether I or my cousin Caleb is going to sleep on one of the matresses while my brother and one of my other cousins take the other two. Instead of discussing it Caleb just lays down on the mattress he wants and goes to sleep, while my brother and other cousin do the same to the last two mattresses. They won't even consider what I think or want and I am then left to sleep on the solid floor because all the other beds in the house are taken.

The dream distorts and on wall of the basement opens up to a hilly forest area in the midst of fall or winter, but there is not snow. The tress are bare of leaves and there are none on the ground. It is cold. At the bottom of a nearby hill my Aunt Estelle's car is parked and because the three mattresses in the basement are occupied, my aunt says that she will get me a sleeping bag from the trunk of her car. The sleeping bag is dark blue and zips up all the way to my head.

I crawl in it to sleep but notice my aunt returning to her car. She doesn't want it parked at the bottom of the hill and wants to move it somewhere else. She starts driving and the sleeping bag I am in gets dragged behind her by the foot end. I cannot see how the sleeping bag is attactched but I am terrified because the zipper is stuck and I cannot get out. My aunt starts driving very fast and circling aroung a very bumpy area of the forest. There are no roads so she is constantly driving over roots sticking out of the ground as well as rocks and sudden inclines or declines. Through my pain and terror I realize the forest we are in is at Lake Whittaker, the trailer park my parents go to every weekend in the summer. (I used to go as well when I was a kid.)

After a long time my aunt exits the forest and finally parks her car at the top of the hill which is somehow outside of my Grandma Currie's house. Aunt Estelle goes inside without noticing me still trapped in the sleeping bag behind her car badly injured. My cries of pain finally rouse my parents but they don't believe me at first what happened when I try to tell them. They become upset and demand I get inside but I cannot because I have two broken legs as well as an assortment of other injuries. Only after examining me do my parents finally believe me, but rather than sympathy they seem upset that they have to go out of their way to deal with me and call and ambulance.


Dream ends there.

My father, mother, my brother Ryan, and myself are in this dream. We all look as we did approximately 15 years ago. I cannot remember the beginning of the dream but at some point we are in a one room shed-like building. The walls and roof are made of white aluminum and the ground is cold, hard dirt. There is no heat, and we are all dressed in heavy winter clothing. There is one door, no windows, and enough room for a large queen sized bed, a fridge, a cupboard and a small table for eating. My family and I are in this place because there is a snow storm outside and we are essentially trapped until it is over.

The bed has heavy, white arctic blankets on it, and my parents and Ryan spend most of their time underneath the covers trying to keep warm. Because there is no room for me, I am either at the foot of the bed or on the floor, with no blanket of my own. (I am usually on the floor because my brother Ryan literally kicks me off when my parents are asleep). I feel very cold throughout the entire dream, especially when I am on trying to sleep on the floor because a biting wind can be felt coming in from the gap underneath the door.

When the storm ends my parents start showing me where the provisions are. There seems to be too much of everything and the cupboard and fridge are overloaded with foodstuff. My parents then inform me that they and my brother are leaving and I am going to have to take care of myself while they are gone. My father opens the cupboard and shows me many bags of milk and says that they do not need refridgeration because it is so cold anyway that they will not go bad. There is a red box filled with Fruit Loops cereal and my mom says something about getting a discount on them. My parents and brother leave and I am left cold and alone, with no idea where they are going or when they are coming back.

I cannot remember the beginning of this dream but there was quite a bit about wandering around outside in a semi-arid setting. I was travelling with three women I do not know in what looked like a camp ground. Despite the dry arid atmosphere, there were many thick, dark green coniferous trees about - enough almost to classify the area as a forest in my opinion. I do not recall much detail about the appearance of the three women except the two were slightly younger than I (and one was wearing a pink, wool sweater) and the oldest woman was about middle aged and had short dark brown hair. The four of us walked for a while, seemingly lost in the desert forest the three women conversed with each other, but I lagged behind and was content to just enjoy the setting, though as we walked a growing apprehension developed in my mind and I found myself wanting to be in the company of my parents because I suddenly felt very vunerable and child-like.

I had not noticed that she had gone, but the oldest woman of the group suddenly turned a corner, driving a red four door car that looked like a Glendale from the Grand Theft Auto videogame series. I never got her actual name in the dream, but from this point on I refer to the oldest woman of the group as Glenda. I never learn the names of the other two women. Glenda tells us to get in and I make myself confortable in the rear rightside passenger seat. The young woman in the pink, hand-knit sweater sits in the left side and I notice at this point that she has shoulder length blond hair. I think that she looks like Cagalli Yula Athha from the Gundam Seed anime series.

The three women continue to talk amongst themselves but I roll down my window and am content to just stare outside, wondering where my parents are. Glenda drives along a lone dirt road out of the desert forest, heading east, and we travel for a long time with nothing in sight. Soon however there is a wooden ramp a head of us and though it appears that we could drive around it, Glenda is determined to jump the ramp. She floors the accelerator and we speed towards the jump, and I feel that this is a very bad idea. I cling to the Cagalli look-alike and she does the same to me. Everyone in the car is afraid of the worst happening and I cannot talk Glenda out of stopping the car or just driving around the ramp. The red four-door car is heavy and though it hits the wooden ramp at a fair speed and level angle, the vehicle inexplicably flips in mid air, crashes on the roof and slides upside down for a short distance.

The four of us are able to crawl out of the wreck, and though we are dazed, no one is seriously injured. Glenda is quick to rally the other two girls into following her again by saying something like "the Arizona border isn't far now," or something, but I am not interested in joining them. While they continue along the dirt road heading east, I notice something in the southernly direction that looks like a group of small buildings or tents. It is hazy because of the heat and I cannot tell if what I am looking at is real or an optical illusion, but I start walking in that direction anyway. It is very hot and I take off my overshirt and wrap it around my head as I walk.

As I get closer to my destination I can see that it is some sort of outdoor event taking place infront of a large gothic styled building which I think at first much be a medieval church or something. There are stone pillars through the square, as well as consession stands and booths selling various consumer goods. There are many people casually browsing the things for sale or sitting on the many marble benchs scattered about. I am aching from the car crash and walk to the center of the bustle so see if I can find anyone I know. I look over my right shoulder and through the throng of people and booths I can see a Texaco gas station and feel drawn towards it. As I try to make my way there, my dad walks by infront of me and heads over to a coffee stand nearby. He did not notice me as he walked by and does not respond when I call out to him. I am sore and feeling needy and want sympathy because I was in an accident, but my dad completely ignores me as if I am not even there. He orders to hot drinks and walks toward a picnic table in the far end of the square, where my mom is sitting. I unwrap the overshirt from my head and follow my dad over to the table and try to get my parents attention, but again they do not respond. My anxiety increases and I desperately try yelling at them again they do not respond. What adds to my frustration is that I do not know if they cannot actually hear me, or if they are willfully ignoring my pleas for attention.

I briefly become lucid as I acknowledge that this is how it feels my parents treat me in real life, but I do not gain control of the dream because I feel rejected and psychologically exhausted.

Though I know they will still ignore me if I return to their company, I still desperately crave attention and affection from my parents - but it hurts too much to feel non-existant, so I head over to the large gothic style building and see if I can find a pillar or wall to hide behind. As I get closer to the building I notice that one of the huge wooden doors is slightly ajar. I make sure no one is looking and slip through the opening. While it looks like a midieval church on the outside, the interior looks much more like an elaborate palace. Lush carpets line the expansive halls; gold and jewels are woven into every decoration and peice of art; massive crystal chandeliers hang from the ceilings. I stand in awe for a moment, drinking in the magnificent excess of extravagance, until I hear footfalls coming from an adjacent room or hall near the entrance. Because the sound seems to be coming from behind me, I run away from the front doors and deeper into the mansion.

There seems to be some sort of party going on as in each room I pass I can hear people laughing and having fun, though the doors are closed and I cannot see anyone. I turn down one hall and almost trip over a stack of gifts wrapped in colourful papers and ribbons. Down another hall I find a long legless table with row upon row of crystaline bowls filled with either chocolate or vanilla ice cream. Because the hall is not air-conditioned, most of the ice cream is melting, and because the table has no legs and is effectively sitting on the floor, much of the melting ice cream is soaking into the lush red carpet. I walk through a set of doors beyond the legless table and find myself in watch appears to be a dinning hall. The place is set up as if to recieve and dine many guests, but I do not see anyone around. I can hear commotion from an adjacent room and hear a woman say something about "having the place ready for the afternoon guests." I quickly run through the room to a narrow hall on the other side. As I make my deeper into the mansion, a feeling of apprehension develops inside of me and I feel as if I am not suppost to be there.

I enter into a hall with a stairs to the left, a large open kitchen infront of me and a set of double doors to my right. There are cooks in white aprons, waiters in red jackets, and maids in black dresses all rushing around trying to get their jobs done. People do look in my direction, but no one stops what they are doing to say anything about the interloper. I stand in the middle of the hall and notice someone coming down the stairs in the corner of my left eye. A waiter with short black hair is slowing making his way down the stairs and he is holding something I cannot see in his left hand. He makes a funny face and then smiles at me, clearly trying to make me laugh. I do laugh, but try to stifle it with my hand and it is then that I notice that I am wearing a red waiter jacket like the man on the stairs. I am still afraid that I am going to get in trouble because I am not suppost to be there, but being near the man on the stairs seems to make me feel a bit calmer for some reason. Another waiter appears from behind me, carrying a silver tray full of silver dishes, walks past us and mutters to the waiter on the stairs to "leave the new girl alone," or something. The man on the stairs just gives him annoyed look. An aging woman with a scowl for a facial expression, wearing a long black Victorian-era dress and her gray hair up in a bun, appears in the kitchen entrance way and I only get to make brief eye-contact with her when the dream ends.


I think I can sum this dream up quite easy: anxiety about relations with my parents and anger about the emotional neglect I experienced in childhood.

The dream starts off with me nine months pregnant with twins. I am lost and I have nothing to my name, and I wander aimlessly down a long stretch of road in the middle of nowhere. I walk for hours until I come across a little farm that seems vaguely farmiliar. I do not see any hydro lines or cars and it is soon aparent why: I am on a Mennonite farm. The Mennonite couple who answer the door are the same ones whom I remember from my youth: they owned a small store that they ran out of their house, close the the trailer park my parents and I went to every weekend in the summer. I have forgotten their names now though.

When the couple saw the state I was in, the husband rushed to hitch up the horses to the carriage and they took me to the nearest hospital, which was in a small town a few miles away. The showed great concern for me and even waited with me until I had been admitted. The Mennonite couple said they would come back the next day to check on me before they left. The hospital was a huge 5 story building that towered over everything else in the tiny town. It was strangley disproportioned compared to the area it was in, like it would be a hospital found in a busling metropolis, not a sleepy, country town. Despite its size, the hospital was unusually quiet and there seemed to be no one around.

A male nurse in green scrubs greeted the Mennonite couple plesantly but barely looked at me while he filled in the admission forms. The nurse still wouldn't look at me when he brought a gurney in for me to lay on and show the Mennonite couple out. As soon as the couple was gone the male nurse strode right past me and did not even acknowledge my presence from that point on. I was wisked away to another part of the hospital.

The female nurse pushing my gurney parked it in a hall outside of some rooms that had no one in them and I asked why I could not go into one of those rooms, but she ignored me. I was left alone in the hall and even though I could see all of the normal equipment that are in hospital halls, there was absolutely no one around. No nurses, no patients, no custodial staff: no one.

I layed on my gurney until I became restless and cold and got up to try and find someone. Just then three male doctors walked through some double doors at the end of the hall and came up to me. The one in the middle had a file that they were all looking at and discussing. I tried to get their attention, and though two of them glared at me for a second, none responded to my questions. When the three doctors were done reading the file, they finally addressed me, but said that, despite my condition, they had no rooms available for me and said that I would have to sleep outside in the grass.

I kind of stared at them dumbfounded and demanded to know why I had been admitted as a patient if they was no room - which I knew was a lie because all around me I could see rooms for patients that were completely empty, though ready for use. One of the doctors shook his head and said: "We have room for patients, just no room for you."

I broke down into bewildered tears as I was pushed to a pile of straw in a grassy spot by the hospital's main entrance and asked to get off the gurney. The female nurse threw a thin blanket over the straw and then turned around and went back into the hospital. I couldn't believe what was going on but I laid down on the pile of straw because I was exhausted and defeated. I could feel my babies kicking from the inside, as if they knew something was deeply wrong as well. I remember wishing that I was dead as night came, because it was so cold and the thin blanket did nothing to keep me warm. Only once or twice did a nurse come out to check on me, or offer me a sip of cold water.

When the sun began to rise it woke me up because it was right in my eyes. It was a bit foggy and everything was covered in a light frost. I was shivering violently and my lips were blue but I was much too weak to move and seriously thought I was going to die there. I suddenly felt some warm hands lift me up and I was tightly wrapped in a heavy blanket that smelled like barnyard animals. I opened my eyes and saw the Mennonite couple, who demanded to know right away why I was not in the hospital.

When they heard of my horrible treatment at the hospital, the Mennonite couple take me in their carriage back to the farm, insisting that I can give birth in the comfort of their home. I don't rememeber much else from the dream though I do know that I woke up before giving birth.