The Gift of Dreams

Let me start with the beginning.  Last night when I slept, I dreamed.  The subconscious is a wonderful place, it does all sorts of amazing things, and one of the things it does very well, at least in my case, in fuel my dreams.  Last night, it decided to fuel up my stress/anxiety dreams and then add a twist. I had a set of anxiety dreams that were three parts bad and one part good.

Part One:  I dream I am at a restaurant trying to get a sandwich for lunch and they keep messing up my order.  The first time,, they bring me the wrong sandwich.  I send it back.  The second time, they bring me the wrong sandwich.  I send it back.  The third time they bring me a sandwich - and I can't even say that it is the wrong sandwich because it looks like it has been stepped on.  I completely lose my temper, starting swearing and yelling and throw the sandwich into the kitchen.  They kick me out.

Part Two:  Fuming mad, I go outside to discover someone has stolen my car.  (In the dream, it wasn't my current car, but rather the old Cadillac I loved so much.)  I rant and rave about that.  Frustrated, I walk over to El Camino Real to catch the bus home.

Part Three:  The bus shows up.  Only it isn't a VTA bus, it is a bus like you would see in third world country, an old, beat up, multicolored school bus.  It is crammed full of people.  People inside.  People on top. People outside.  There is no room for me.  The second bus, same story.  This third bus...same story.  Angry and frustrated I start the walk home.

Part Four:  It is about a six mile walk home.  When I get within the last mile I turn down a street that will shave some of the distance off.  I get almost to the end of the street and it is all cut off by a ten foot tall chain link fence topped with razor wire.  I seethe. I turn around to retrace my steps.  In one of the nearby buildings, a man waves me over. I walk over, expecting it to be a security guard about to tell me to get off their property. Instead, he holds the door open and says "We've been waiting for you.  Your suite is ready." He escorts me to the elevator.  I am puzzled, but heck, it is a dream so I go with it.  I ride the elevator up.  The door opens into a luxurious suite with a giant jacuzzi tub.  A room service cart covered in delicacies waits nearby. And there, in the jacuzzi tub - the beautiful actress Milla Jovovich!

The subconscious is an amazing place. It took me through a journey of my stress - and then provided me with stress release!  LOL - outside of the sheer amusement factor of the dream, it was essentially a map of my stress and then a reminder of what I needed to do to recover from it - so the plan this weekend is a nice and relaxing weekend. I won't get the spa with Milla, but I do get the idea.

The Amazing Subconscious

It was a relatively quick day today - about eight hours of meetings with some work accomplished during the in-between times.  All in all though, it was a good day.  I was a little frustrated by the time I reached the end of the day, but that is not an unusual thing. The small frustrations of the day add up and by the end of  the day they are carrying a certain weight. Then, if you drop something else on top of them it may be just enough to break the camels back for the day.  Just enough to take me past the tipping point.

But, then, the day is done and I head home to start the three day weekend.  I am sure I'll do a little work over the weekend, but not much - hopefully it will be mostly planning and such.  With the overload of meetings and tasks there has been very little time for simple thinking - and thinking is so crucial in an information job.  It always amazes me when I encounter people who do not understand that.  But then, LOL, I do work for an incompetent Director, so I guess that should not surprise me too much.

I am definitely looking forward to the weekend and I am going to start it with an easy night, some reading, then sleeping into the morning.  Last night I had two work related dreams.  First, I dreamed that I was in one of the bad meetings that have characterized this project - no agenda, no control, people talking over people and ignoring the conversations around them. That dream was followed by a dream of me yelling at people on the phone. I thought it was odd that first, I had a dream that built up the stress - then I had a dream that released the stress.  The subconscious is a pretty amazing place.

Strange Dreams and Ordinary Days

I had another strange dream last night. I dreamed that I was kicked out of a luxury hotel. (Basically, in the dream, I was escorted out because I questioned (forcefully) the quality of some of the services the hotel was providing and the overall quality of the facilities). I have no idea why that dream surfaced - I've had a few confrontations with hoteliers over the years - but I've never actually been kicked out of a hotel. My most recent hotel stay (at the Town & Country Resort in San Diego) was excellent.

It started thinking about the recent flurry of strange dreams I've had and I have an inclination to lay the root cause on my apartment floor - specifically, on the new carpet. Not the new carpet itself, but the extended game of Tetris and the very significant re-ordering of the interior of my apartment, the significant changes in my living spaces. I suspect those have reached fairly deeply into my subconscious and have caused those deep and still waters to be stirred, resulting in the strange dreams. They haven't been bad dreams - they've just been vivid, unusual, and strange.

I've been moving slowly in my game of reverse Tetris, but I am going to pick up the pace this week. The property management firm wants to come through and inspect the plumbing and the smoke detectors (a yearly inspection), so I'll have to move a few boxes so they can get easier access to the kitchen. I've still got the boxes to be sorted through in the kitchen.

With the start of waking from the strange dream, it has been a good day. I met T. and B. at the Hickory Pit for breakfast. From there we went and saw "Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes", which was very well done and enjoyable. A stop at the bank, a stop the gas the car, a hair-cut, a quick stop for lunch (sushi and Miso soup), then a couple of simple errands wrapped up the day. I swung home in the afternoon and took a short nap, then ordered pizza for dinner. Dinner is now done and I'm lazing my way into the evening, watching "The Last King of Scotland" on IFC and playing a bit of my game of reverse Tetris.