Blue_Opossum

Morning of May 19, 2015. Tuesday.



Scenes in dreams like the following, related to digging through something like a couch, the floor, or a mattress, have not been that uncommon throughout my life since childhood but are usually fairly different in detail. Also, finding stuff in our house that had been left behind by any previous tenants or landlord (not necessarily requiring any digging in every case) is also recurring - though again, with different details, including previously “hidden” rooms or furniture we somehow had not noticed before. In addition to the fair amount of time spent in-dream looking for and finding things, there is often a mild sense of disappointment as well as having wasted time in some cases upon waking; a mood I usually do not acquire from a dream. In fact, as a child, when I did not know any better, I had a habit of holding onto the last item I found steadfastly in a futile attempt to wake up with it and have it in reality, though obviously, that never worked. I sometimes woke gripping my pillow or the sheet; other times just making a fist.

This dream has the recurring “couch filled with dirt” situation. My wife and I are in our present home on W Street and at one point I develop a vague curiosity about what may have been left behind by any previous tenants. It does not make all that much sense due to the fact that the couch, of the type that becomes a bed by the back dropping down (rather than the type we have in reality that folds out into a larger bed from under the seat) - and of the kind I had in Florida as a teenager for a time - is apparently our furniture in my dream (and thus moved here from a previous house regarding any in-dream back story, rendering my dream’s situation invalid). I start by ripping back the material near one end and digging through the dark dirt filling. At some points, I am able to go around the edges near the floor and find more items. Apparently, unlike in reality, there are no cushions; just “dirt bedding” within that goes all the way down to the floor.

What I find is typical of my in-dream “treasure hunts”. I find a few old random paperback novels; some science-fiction, some romance, and even a western or two (all unfamiliar). I find a couple board games that likely have missing tokens. There are some old magazines, larger documents that look like order blanks from A4-sized catalogs, but not any comic books that I can see. Being buried in rich soil for however long has not ruined anything, it seems. I eventually notice what may be some of our own paperback books (and some other items) close to the wall but behind the couch and stacked loosely on the floor, but am not exactly sure where our books end and the previously hidden items begin at one point since the dirt had become looser and some items came out from the back of the couch.

At one point, I find a longer mostly yellow commercial cardboard container (about one and a half feet by four inches high by eight inches wide) that apparently contains something related to sexuality or the enhancement thereof, though there are no graphic images on the box, just a few printed images of smooth paintings of the backs of a pair of female hands. For a short time, I think that I would probably not want something that belonged to someone else in this case, though the box turns out to be empty other than having two smaller additional featureless gray empty cardboard boxes inside. I am not sure what was in it - possibly only perfume containers or massage oils of some sort.

Eventually, after sorting out mostly the paperbacks into stacks, I also find a number of children’s cardboard frame tray puzzles farther down but do not see the pieces at first (just the shallow cardboard trays). I do eventually find most of the pieces in another area when almost all of the dirt has been moved and I am down to the surface of the wooden floor. One puzzle seems to just utilize a large piece with a drawing of a person’s head that fits in the frame tray (which has minor details of the shoulders and neck, etc.), though others are more complex and “realistic” in nature and including pieces shaped like stars, apples, houses, etc. I notice that some of the pieces have been ruined by someone’s attempt to pull the different layers apart (as younger children sometimes tend to do), some with thin parts of the layers or strips still attached and a couple missing the imagery ply. I decide to keep them to sort out later (for our children) to see which ones are still complete and undamaged.

After a long exploration and setting aside newly found items, I am somewhat frustrated over having reached the wooden floor via the couch, wondering if I should keep going with my quest, though which would require pulling up the planks to get to anything underneath them (which does not make any sense as in reality our house is up on posts and you can actually see through the floorboards to the ground below). I am also puzzled over what had happened to all the dirt since the couch seems somewhat “hollow” at this point (at least on one end) and I do not see any piles of dirt nearby. I do start to smooth over what dirt is left at the other end in the attempt to make the couch “solid” and evenly surfaced as it was, so that it is properly comfortable again. (This is somewhat illogical as the upholstery I had ripped and damaged in my quest would still need to be repaired.)

Finally, I seem to be able to look down under the house and beyond (towards the back of our house) and under a different room; some sort of odd viewpoint that would not be possible in reality (though which may otherwise imply some sort of open space between the lower part of the wall in the next room and the floor, similar to the setup way back on Rose Street as a young child). I see that there are a very large number of small wooden containers under the house in a (fictional) enclosed storage area, each filled with a very large number of vertically arranged seed packets, which I am aware are likely mostly edible plants including carrots, celery, lettuce, strawberry plants, and so on. I start to consider planting them everywhere and anywhere, as there are so many, we are bound to get something edible over time, and for a long time, as there seem to be thousands of packets. I wake up feeling slightly annoyed at having wasted time finding everything.