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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.

There is an old farmhouse and barn in front of me. I can see an older couple working in field out back. I am not sure which, but the couple is either just really old fashioned pioneers or menonites. There is a doorless shed by the east side of the house and I wandered into it. Along with an assortment of old fashioned farming implements, homemade brooms line the far wall. I ask the old mennonite man if I can buy one when he comes over to see what I am doing tresspassing in his shed. Instead I am hired (or forced?) to become a live-in-maid to keep the farmhouse clean.

The mennonite couple disappear and a new couple appear as owners of the farmhouse. They are still older, but they look like they come from the Victorian era. I cannot think of anyone whom the lady of the house (the Mistress) looks like, but the man of the house (the Master) looked very much like Christopher Walken. The outside of the farmhouse looked the same, as did the barn, but the doorless shed disappeared and a long covered porch now wrapped itself around the east side of the house.

The inside of the house was still mainly Victorian/Edwardian era but seemed to have some seemingly out-of-place modernizations scattered randomly about. Though the house wasn't all that large, there was another maid who lived there as well. We usually worked together and while I was relatively pragmatic, the other maid was extremely superstitious and constantly tried to convince me that every creak, or misplaced object, was caused by ghosts. I did not believe in the ghosts theory and tired to argue that the house was old and prone to creaking and that objects get misplaced all the time, but the other maid would have none of it.

The other maid and I were asked to clean out the sothern rooms of the farmhouse because the Master wanted to convert them into a variety store. It was at this time that I started to see unusal things happen, like curtains move when there was no breeze, electrical cords pull themselves from the wall, and doors open and close by themselves. In the main hall, drops of blood fell from the ceiling and pooled on the floor. No matter how many times the other maid and I cleaned up the blood, it always reappeared the next day. Most frustrating was the fact that the Master and Mistress of the house never experienced anything strange, nor saw the blood, and would dismiss our complaints as nonsense.

I was now convinced that the house was haunted afterall, but was still not all that creeped out until the drops of blood from the ceiling became bloody bootprints that appeared decending the stairs and entering the southern rooms. At one point I was cleaning something in the main hall and heard footfalls on the stairs. I turned and saw not the Master as I was expecting, but the bloody bootprints. I quickly tried to duck into one of the adjacent rooms, but the double glass doors either locked of their own accord or jammed. I quickly spun around so that my back was pressed up against the glass doors and the lights in the hall began flickering. The temperature in the room dropped dramatically and I could see my breath. I was frozen in terror as I watched the bloody bootprints slowly and ominously stomp towards me. I cowered and shut my eyes, but just before they reached me, the sound of the footfalls disappeared, the room temperature returned to normal, and the lights stopped flickering. The glass doors behind me swung open and I made a hasty exit from the main hall and ran into the other maid, who saw everything from the other side of the glass doors.

Not only did the other maid quit after that but the bloody bootprints following me around the house became a common occurance. While it did take me a while to get used to, I eventually figured out that if I made no attempt to run from the ghostly follower, or try to clean up the bloody mess, the ghost would soon leave and the bloody mess would eventually disappear on its own.

I was standing in the southern room at one point, brainstorming ideas for the variety store, when I was summoned by the Master. I went to his private study in the north end of the house and when I got there, he lectured me on how no women in his household should leave the premises without a male escort. I realized at this time that I had never so much as stepped out onto the porch in all my time of working there as a maid, let alone leave the property. I got angry and shouted "There is my escort!" I pointed to the bloody bootprints that followed me into the room and the Master finally sees them for the first time, but says nothing.

Almost immediately after the lecture, I began to see ghosts in and around the farmhouse. The first is a little boy in a blue coat and white shorts, playing with an orange ball, near the pond at the front of the house. One Sunday I am sitting with the Master and Mistress and their guests when I get up and go into the kitchen for something. When I return, there is an old man sitting in my seat. He looks exactly like the character Oscar Leroy from the show Corner Gas (baseball cap and all). I recognize him as a friend of the family in the dream and he starts telling me about how it is his birthday. I realize that the old man is a ghost and I exclaim outloud to the Master and Mistress that their friend is dead, but everyone in the room just looks at me like I am crazy. Some get angry because they think I am being disrespectful since they know that man I am talking about and that it is his birthday.

I beg the Master to call the family of their friend but they wil not. The ghost of the old man gets up and asks me to follow him outside into the front yard. I do so, and the family and their guests follow me to see what I am up to, though I suspect it is just to observe me because they think I have lost my mind. The ghost of the old man tells me about how he died peacefully in his sleep, and as a hearse drives by in the distance, he points to the completed variety store at the southern end of the house and to says "Never stop writing down your ideas." The ghost then fades away. I walk over to the pond (though it looks more like a muddy pit at this moment) and stare quietly into the murky water. The Master comes over to me and finally says that he will get someone to call the family of his friend, to confirm his condition, because no one else yet believes that the old man is dead.

The Mistress runs out of the house and proclaims that their friend is dead and that it was self-inflicted. While everyone reacts to the news of their friend's suicide, I walk away saying "He lied to me!" (about how the old man said he died). Later, the Master, Mistress and guests are sitting around talking about how strange it was that someone would want to kill themselves on their birthday, but no one seems particularily upset at the loss of thier friend. I am disturbed and upset at their apparent apathy.


The dream ends there.

The birthday-suicide thing is something that I had been ruminating about for a few days because I struggle with suicidal ideation as a result of clinical depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

I dreamed that I was back in grade six. The classroom was empty except for me and the teacher Ms. M. For some reason I was naked and all embarassed about it, but there was nothing around I could cover up with. Ms. M told me to stop being so worried because she had seen other naked women before. I was all wierded out by her comments and even more so when I noticed that she was wearing only a white Victorian style nightgown. There was something happening in the hall outside of the classroom but I cannot remember any more of this dream.

In the dream I appeared as I looked at about age 11 or 12. I was with my mom and dad and we were in our old 1986 Volkswagen Westfalia. We were driving down an urban street that was lined with old Victorian and Edwardian style buildings, as well as many trees. In the dream, this was supposed to be our hometown of London, Ontario, but the areas we travelled through looked nothing like any area of London that I recognize. I don't remember many of the buildings, but one stuck in my memory for some reason. It was a three story bulding made of dark grey bricks and a black tile roof. The front door was a dark red and there were vines growing up the entire front side. This building sat opposite of a three-way intersection and I recall noticing it the first time my parents and I drove past it because my dad had to make a left turn. Though it had a unique and vaguely farmiliar look in my dream, I cannot recognize it as anything I know in waking life.

My parents and I drove out into the country, though it did not look like the country surrounding my hometown (as I know it in waking life, anyway). We drove for a long time and came to a thicket of trees which seemed to have a picnic area in the middle. My dad drove the van towards the picnic tables but the westfalia got stuck in some mud that we had not noticed before. My parents got out of the van and walked towards the picnic tables and it was then that I noticed an old man in a blue uniform. He looked like a thin Captain Highliner. I walked amongst the trees while my parents talked to the captain. I found a little stream and noticed something moving in the water, but my mom called me back to the van before I could get a look at what it was. As we drove out of the grove (and almost got stuck in the mud again) I watched the old man walk towards the little stream with a blank expression on his face. He waded into the stream before the van turned onto the road and I could no longer see him.

We drove for miles again, past farmland and forests. I noticed that we travelled fairly far without seeing a single building. Soon though, my parents spotted group of white houses and they wanted to go check them out. Parking the westfalia behind one of the houses my mom and dad got out of the van and started snooping around. I was afraid of being caught doing something illegal so I stayed in the van. When my parents had not returned for a long time, I got out of the van and went to look for them. From the window of one of the white houses I could see someone looking at me and I was afraid that they were going to call the police on me for tresspassing. I started back to the van but I suddenly heard a group of people laughing and carrying on. Following the noise I came across my mom and dad and some strangers on the front balcony of one of the houses, opening champagne bottles and having some sort of celebration. The old man in the blue uniform was there as well. Apparently it was his house and he had just won it in a sweepstakes or something (and that is why everyone was celebrating?).

My parents had one glass of champagne before returning to the van and heading home. The trip home didn't seem nearly as long as the trip out there, and I don't recall seeing the picnic grove on the way back. When we returned to London, it again was the strange London with all of the Victorian and Edwardian building. When we came to the three-way interesection and my dad turned, I watched the vaguely farmiliar dark grey, three story bulding grow smaller and smaller in the rear view window. When we were some distance away I saw the dark red door swing open, but I woke up before I could see what was behind it.

I am in a old Victorian style looking house looking down a long hallway with many old wooden doors. There was something about a dark-haired man in a red checkered shirt in one of the rooms off to the left, but I cannot remember the significance. There was also something about a rocking chair and a fireplace but the significance of that is also lost to me. Despite the old Victorian appearance of the house, it had a very modern looking bathroom, though I only remember seeing it while I went down the hall towards the room with the man in the red checkered shirt.