JoannaB

Big Boys Don't Cry and Sad is Just Cold
I dreamed that my older son had learned that if one is feeling sad what one needs is physical warmth (because sad is actually just cold) and big boys don't cry. There was also something odd about taking off his shoes to get warmer. I corrected this misconception.

Kids Learn Life Lessons From the Homeless
My husband had gotten our two boys into a community service project which involved us dropping the boys off with a community of homeless people, and we would not stay, and there would be no one else just kids and homeless people, and the homeless people were teaching the kids about life. While I was a bit nervous about this, but at least I knew that a homeless woman we know and trust would be with them all the time.

Fragment 1: Playing a card game. My younger son's turn: he plays a powerful card.

Fragment 2: At work at someone else's computer. Discover right after sending an important email that one of the recipients was wrong. Frantically trying to recall it, but application closes and other frustrating things preventing me from doing anything useful. I see that it is already 10pm, but do not think that it is odd at all that I am still at work that late (in reality I never am).

Dream: Partying Trashed Place

After some partying that was related to a holiday, the vacation place my family staid at in this dream was completely trashed, and it appeared that this was too much for housekeeping to handle, so the place would stay trashed.

My husband and I had been hanging out with friends at a party. At the party one of our friends had a photos order form, and we were looking though and ordering photos.

I left for a potty break to a bathroom that was completely trashed. That's when I realized, we had forgotten all about the time. I had originally promised my mother and stepfather we would meet them for lunch, and now it was 7pm. I ran into my mom and stepfather on the way from the potty. I called my husband to say "Let's go with my folks to a restaurant." But he did not want to leave the party, whereas I had had more than enough. So i suggested that my husband stay on his own at the party if he liked.

I thought it would be good to take the boys with me and my folks to the restaurant. But I was confused on whether they were being babysat or whether they were at the grown up party with my husband. Either way there were no other kids there, and surely they would prefer to go out with their grandparents.

Fragment: Worrying about my husband, comparing to my father

In a phone call with my dad I mentioned the word death in passing, and he asked whether I am depressed. I said no, that I am just worried that my husband is working himself to death, working 12 hours and not sleeping enough at night despite being sick with the flu. But I guess it will be ok, because my father worked like this all the time and now he is fine. Side note: my dad worked like this all the time indeed, whereas my husband only now has deadlines at work and is indeed working long hours despite being sick, but the difference is that with my husband it is the exception not the rule, I still worry though, but not literally about death.

Fragment: emotional exchange with my mom
I had some sort of serious discussion with my mom, don't know about what. Then she argued that when she divorced my dad I was desperate but now I wouldn't be because I felt differently about it. Suddenly I was desperate again to show her that no that had not changed. She was shocked and concerned. I then told her, while it has not changed how I felt back then, but I do feel differently now about you, or else we would not be talking. We hugged.

In this fragment I recall some sort of card game about dreaming and there was magic involved. It does not help that I thought I had written this dream down, but apparently had not.

Emotional AI Research
I was working on an emotion recognition artificial intelligence research project which had lots of promise of good success, but no money to continue it. I was like a research student, but well paid, and in fact the cost of keeping me and several like me on the project was too high. At night I heard the AI system say something that made it clear that the computer was depressed. I forgot to tell about this to the researcher in charge, but luckily he discovered it when reviewing security footage. I emotionally felt sorry for the machine, whereas he thought of this as a major research breakthrough.

Lesson Against Racism

I was with my younger son on a playground and he had some stickers, and he all of a sudden said something I think because of something the stickers reminded him of "She should have gotten out of his way because she was Latino." I immediately intervened, "Who told you that?" He said the name of an older kid from our neighborhood who in real life once scared him into thinking that because he touched certain poison berries he was going to die the next day. In the dream my son says "He gave me these stickers." I said "Well, he was wrong to say that. Listen to me: it does not matter what the color of people's skin is, whether they are Black or White or Latino or others. No matter, they are all equally important, and should be treated with equal respect." While I was giving this lecture, I started speaking in a raised voice and my voice carried over the entire playground. On the other side of the playground a teacher was giving a class outdoors to a bunch of kindergartners, and she stopped and had them listen to me. My husband had also materialized next to me (when the dream started, it was just me and my younger son). So my husband said "You realize you just interrupted a kindergarten class? Why did you have to shout that for the whole playground to hear?" Me "The teacher did not seem to mind being interrupted. I think she appreciated the kids in her class being taught this lesson, too."

I then saw the problematic neighborhood kid again. We were in front of my home. He was there, I was, and some other kids but not mine. I told him "If you are hanging out with my kids do not teach them racism and such. If you cannot restrain such talk, I would rather you did not play with my kids." He denied having said anything like that, but I said "I do not trust you. I trust my kids."

fragment 1: I dreamed that in order to get a college degree I had to either choose a major or combine all the courses I had taken into a thesis somehow.

fragment 2: I was washing the dishes. (Alas I woke up and there are some dishes in the kitchen waiting to be done, so doing them in my sleep did not help.)

fragment 3: I walked into a hotel room, and was surprised to see my mother in law there. I asked my husband about it, and he said that this was not our room, that our room was up stairs and we were downstairs now. I explained that I was probably confused because I did not have my glasses on, though I secretly suspected that I would be confused even with my glasses on. I went upstairs, but a woman was there for housekeeping. I explained that I needed to use the bathroom.

dream 1: Bears country vacation with issues
We were vacationing in what was Bears country, but someone who knew and liked my husband gave him and my boys a special dispensation that would allow them to wear Green Bay Packers shirts, but shirts only not hats and such. Our car broke down, and the wheels had already been taken off, and I was carrying it with one hand by an open window to the mechanics. My husband was already there. He said the mechanics would fix this for free because they had an agreement with the mechanics that had failed to fix this in our area, but they still needed a valid credit card to run to check our credit, and my husband only had an expired card. So I gave them my card. Even though i was the one lugging the car, and providing the credit card, i looked to my husband for guidance on what to do. I remember thinking that I hated this vacation, but was not going to say anything because I knew the boys loved it.

dream 2: spies and memory wiping
So in this dream we were spies of some sort, or maybe amateurs who had found out spy stuff. I was male, and was traveling in separate cars from my wife. We needed to go through a checkpoint. I went through giving my story, but then circled back because I thought I needed to coach my wife in which story to give. I waited a long time, only to discover she had made it to the other side without my help.

We were given a chance to help the spy network (we had wanted to be involved), however with the understanding that afterwards the memories of our involvement would be erased. Some people could successfully function with partial memory; whereas, for others the destruction of those memories was too much especially after this procedure was done repeatedly, so we were advised to make a living will if we would like to be killed if we became like vegetables after memory erasure.

I woke up from a nap because a strange male voice called my husband's name. Neither of them were actually present.

Former coworker at funeral, generalizing in journal
My mother in law was telling me about the funeral of a grandfather of a kid we knew in this dream. She attended the funeral out of state. As she mentioned who was there, I noticed the name of a former coworker of mine.

I looked for the personal email address of this former coworker. At first could not find it, but then I found it and contacted him to tell him that my mother in law met him at that funeral.

Then it was as if I wrote this incident down in a journal. On one page I wrote the specifics of what happened, but on another page generalized from the specifics. I was telling someone else that this generalizing was important.

Fragment about forgotten purse
I forgot my purse in someone else's car. Luckily when I remembered it, this someone else also happened to be in the parking lot, so I could retrieve it.

Shushed and unnoticed

I went to talk to someone I do not know in real life at the office, but they shushed me, didn't want me to talk to him. In the dream I was not upset about that even though I did not understand why I had been shushed.

I went to the next office where a major boss (also not someone from real life) was to chat to him instead. He wanted to know where my desk was, since he did not know. I pointed out that my desk was right outside of his office that he could see it whenever he left his door open and looked out. He said that he had then seen it of course, but he just had not realized that was me.

Failed WBTB attempt 4:15 To 5:15

In this dream my mother was searching for a daughter of hers who had disappeared years ago. On the other hand she had kidnapped a boy to be her child in return.

Some distant relatives (who don't exist in real life) were visiting from out of town, and they had originally not planned to include my mother in their dinner get togethers because they blamed her for not giving up on finding her daughter. But because my mom had prepared sweets they liked, they included her in all their get togethers after all but as a second tier family member. I remember thinking that those relatives ate too much.

What complicated matters further was the child my mother had kidnapped was a child of those relatives of ours but they did not know that she had him.

In my dream I was talking to this boy, and telling him that his kidnapping was wrong and should have been reported to the police, but that my mom who now was his mom loves him very much. I said that I am to blame too, because I could have reported it to the police but chose not to, because I love him very much too. He said "Yea yea yea, whatever." That is something this boy often says in real life. I hugged him, and he was even more skin and bones than he is in reality, and in reality my son is very skinny - yes, the boy whom my mother had kidnapped in my dream, in reality is my son (and let me assure you no one in our family got kidnapped ever).

The hug was tight, and bittersweet, i felt deep love and remorse. As I hugged my son (whom I believed to be my kidnapped brother) in the dream, we were in a hallway, and there was some sort of bed frame there but not a full bed. The place was a mess. He commented on it why couldn't this bed be reassembled, and why couldn't he sleep here.

I am not sure, but I think I woke up after this.

I staid up a bit longer deliberately once my bed was free before going back to bed, but fell asleep without any awareness and was too tired to even remember right away that I had attempted to WBTB let alone anything after.

fragment: work related fragment. I was talking with people I do not usually interact with at work. They were commenting in an email exchange I had in real life with someone they work with. And they also told me something I did not know that I will need to periodically contact someone (don't know who or why) because a former coworker of mine it was his responsibility, so now it is mine. I said nobody told me, and I was grateful for their advice.

I was at my former daycare provider's home who continues to be a good friend of mine. I asked her whether she would be available to babysit my boys and I named a time. She said that alas she would not be, but that a friend of hers whom I do not know in real life might be. So I called this friend on the phone.

During the conversation I realized I was not talking to the friend after all but to her young daughter. So I started speaking more slowly and more precisely, and asked the child to give her mom this message.

When the day came for the babysitting, we arrived there, but the woman of the house was not there. So I started folding towels in a weird way. I asked the child to fetch her father, so that he could take over the folding of the towels. When the father came I was almost done folding the towels though, only a couple remained, but he took over and finished.

My son reports 4 dream fragments today, the first was about racing (not sure whether cars or on foot), the second was about a theater play in his summer camp in the main room there, and he was being a web (like a spider web), and there was no talking, and he does not know what the play was about. Then he woke up. Then fell back asleep and was again acting in a play but does not remember what. Then woke up again, and another play.

July 6-7
To bed around 10:30pm
Woke 5:20am

Fragment: I dreamed that something had happened to make me single again ( my marriage failed somehow), and I sought out a young man who had declared that he loved me when we were both 18, and at that time I did not reciprocate.

Fragment: I was staying in a hotel suite, and my mom was too. I needed to figure out where my mom would sleep: would she share my bed but the mattress was not big enough for two, on the couch but it was not comfortable enough, there was another bed but it belonged to another patron who was absent but might return any time. At some point my mom left a note for that other patron, but I pointed out that the note was in Polish and they were unlikely to understand it.

Dream: I was looking for a job, and due to the impending war I was looking in the US and not abroad. I was looking somewhere on the other coast though. There was one executive who interviewed me who seemed like he had ulterior motives. When he asked me to go change into other clothes, I refused, but then he said that we would pretend I was an executive, and showed me a name tag with a title for me, and for some reason I wanted that. In the room I was changing, another woman was changing too. She warned me that this guy had ulterior motives, and I said I knew that.

Fragment: in pet store, measuring cups, aquarium, what's the default measure

My husband and I and our sons were house searching. Most of the homes we looked at were ones that we had already seen in a previous home search, or so I thought in the dream (they did not actually look familiar). There was one home which we decided to visit in the last moment, we knew they close the open house at 5pm, and it was 10 minutes before - during this part, I remember another relative was with us to, one of our mothers or stepmothers, but I do not remember which. Also the homes we looked at were mostly old homes, in not the best of conditions but with lots of potential. In one home a man showed us some stuff that looked like a large brown sponge with some green patches on top, and he asked if we knew what it was - we did not - it turned out that this was wheat flooring material with green peanut butter, and it was apparently what was inside or under the hardwood floor. I remember we found a house we wanted to buy, and I remember telling my son that he would need to change schools and after school care - he took it so well, that I thought he was not understanding what it really meant, most likely not seeing his current friends again. The house we decided on was huge, and it was right next to the coast overlooking the sea/ocean. Our future home may have actually been the last minute visit house and maybe even the one with green peanut butter wheat floors.

This dream was followed by a failed WBTB attempt. Staid up about 20 minutes during which time was on DV mostly but kept thinking how tired I am and that I need more sleep and that I shall dream and remember to realize I am dreaming. Then went back to bed but could not fall asleep for longer than I wished, and once I did drift off to sleep, I became unaware and have no dream recall from that.

This dream was about work. We had a presentation of a product idea by someone whom I do not know in real life. This character was very young, a teenager really. I thought he must have been a child genius, and in fact at some point he did say he got a job after elementary school. In my dream he worked for an organization we collaborate with in real life which is out of state, and he flew in for this presentation.

At some point in this presentation a former coworker who is no longer at my work, he chimed in during presentation that he had solutions for all this. Why did nobody even consider his solutions? My boss started looking at this former coworker's printouts, and agreed that it looked worthwhile. My former coworker was saying that his arms have not been given a chance to do anything in so long, and he bared his arms and showed them to us. Meanwhile I thought but did not say: why can't he (my boss) see that it is no good?

We returned to our desks. I saw the teen genius sitting at the computer of the former coworker, looking at his solutions. Meanwhile, I went to my desk, and closed down a very loud application that had been making loud music that was not any good (just as I thought the coworker's solution was no good, same with the music). The music was just noisy, and shutting it off cut down the noise.

My son's pet mice (my son's dream):

Meanwhile my son reports that he remembers a dream too: "I had pet mice. They kept on running away. They were big mice: about one foot including the tail. Two mice. And close to the end there was a thunderstorm and I went to a church, and I couldn't find my mice. There were small people, smaller than the mice - in the JCC (which is a place he goes to for camp). When I saw the people, the mice ran away." The mice kept hiding but I don't remember where. I at some point got small like the small people, but then I was big again. There was a toy race track, and a toy vehicle, and I had to try to keep the vehicle on the track, and I was not very good at it. (I asked whether the last bit was part of same dream, and he says, yes.)

Once again no recall, and this time I got excuses. I am a bit worried about the timing of the competition and this albeit fairly short dry spell of mine, but perhaps the competition is exactly what I need now to break out of this.