DREAMS ARCHIVE: SEPTEMBER 1999

"SOFT MONEY"

A young woman with long, wooly dark hair approached me. She wore a short white dress and seemed somewhat distraught. She told me that her church had donated a very large sum of money -- more money than it could afford to give -- to a political campaign that went bust. From a seated position, I motioned for her to come closer. I tried to console her by likening political campaign donations to "intellectualized gambling." Her legs straddled my knee as she approached me very closely, with the bottom of her dress brushing the top of my pants. Her face bore a look of excitement and anticipation -- I think she was preparing to kiss me.

"HALLMARK"

I browsed through a small crafts store with my brother-in-law. I noticed an older woman behind the counter while I moved about the store -- I believe she was the proprietor of the store. There were many small clear plastic displays in the interior of the store and I looked at the items on them.

After further browsing, I noticed that a younger woman stood behind the counter. I lost track of my brother-in-law; in fact, I think I was the only other person in the store with the woman. She was beautiful, with long, silky black hair. She walked to an area near me and tidied up a messy area. I approached her and offered my assistance. Her soft smile indicated that my help -- and company -- would be appreciated. I greatly enjoyed my time with her.

A cousin moved out of a house. She informed me that a man would not utilize all of the house. To demonstrate her point, she gave me a hypothetical item about a baby stroller being placed before a doorway and the guy would not move it and utilize the room. A young woman in a dress stood in the living room. I noticed she had pink areas on her shoulders -- the dress was open around her shoulders and her neck. The pink areas looked like raw skin after a band-aid is removed. I noticed another woman in a backless dress. The skin on her back seemed pale, dotted with small blackheads. She removed her dress but I could not see her because another woman sat on a couch between us and blocked my view.

I looked at some small lamps strung from a string near the ceiling. The lamps looked like coffee cans that had one side cut out of them, complete with small candles affixed to the bottom of the lamp/can. The candles were reminiscent of birthday candles. I think I tried to snuff the candles because their flames were burning beyond the lamps -- I feared they would burn the house down. An extension cord sparked and I tried to kick the connection apart with my foot. Several times I kicked at it but it remained connected. I expected it to burst into flame at any moment, that my attempts would be futile to prevent a potential danger. At the last possible moment, I kicked the connection apart. The area between the unconnected cord ends became a large bowie knife.

"INFANT INFERENCE"

I dreamt of a pregnant woman who looked like Gwyneth Paltrow. There was some discussion about the potential sex of the baby. Seated in a rocking chair, she held the unclad baby above her head. I stood behind her and observed her presentation of the unclad infant: it was a baby girl.

"TOURNIQUET: THE TOLERANCE OF EMOTION"

I was in a familiar college dormitory hall. I helped someone put a metal frame bed together. I walked around in the hall, reading notices on the walls.

My desk was on the other side of my dormitory room door, creating a small foyer area for the room. I stood on my desk chair and talked to a young woman standing on the other side of my desk, which was between us -- she was in the foyer area between the dormitory room door and the back of my desk. She talked about how hot it was in this dormitory last year.

During our conversation, she held my right index finger and squeezed it. I tried to get her to let go but my pleas fell on deaf ears because I was laughing too hard from the silliness of the whole situation. She was attractive and I enjoyed her company, so I was not ready to get rid of her and her finger squeezing. I could see that my finger was turning purple and it started to really, really hurt. I begged her -- still in a jovial fashion -- to not "flick" at it with her finger, for fear my finger might fall off.

"IMMINENCE"

I looked out of a plane window and watched the clouds beyond the wing of the plane. I was on the second deck of the plane, near the restroom. I watched a pair of young women run into the bathroom, giggling along the way. I wanted to return to my seat but I did not remember its number. I knew that a person I sat with would not be seated there so I could not look for him to ascertain the location of my seat. I thought about asking a flight attendent to assist me by giving her my name in the hopes of finding my seat. I found my seat and talked with some people. The person I was seated with stood with this group. He suggested the idea I previously thought of for locating the seat when I mentioned how I had lost and found my seat.

The plane was small -- commuter plane small. The pilot turned in his seat to talk to us. A discussion began about flight problems and how many in this day and age are weather and freak-of-nature related. Someone talked about a web site for looking up information on the subject. A young woman attempted to join the conversation but tried to talk as I began to talk, so she held back and waited for an opening in the conversation. This happened several times. I noticed this and gave her a cue that she could speak without hindrance after I finished my thought.

I sat toward the front of the plane. I noted this to the person next to me, telling them that I had sat in the middle on the only other plane trip I ever took, which was a trip to California. I saw a plane out of the front pilot's window -- impact was imminent. Death seemed certain so I said a quick prayer and bowed my head into the "crash position." We did not crash; we landed on a street and drove around instead. The wings of the plane swept back to accommodate our driving on the road.

I noticed that we were near my neighborhood. I felt I could have walked instead of flown to our destination. We walked up to some attack helicopters on a concrete concourse to finish our flight. I realized that I had not packed for this trip and I did not know the destination for nor the duration of our trip. A friend hopped into the passenger side of the helicopter and the pilot started the blades -- it took two ignition attempts. The roar from the engine and the whirling blades was impressive and loud. I proclaimed it "The World's Greatest Salad Shooter," envisioning lettuce being thrown up into the whirling blades and becoming minced bits of salad.

"SLEUTH"

I helped someone find a killer that lived upstairs in an apartment building. The murders had happened in apartment two and apartment six, so I deduced -- somehow -- that the culprit resided in apartment four. I had a vision of the person hastily moving about the apartment, telling accomplices what their story would be -- i.e. "so-and-so" was his daughter, etc.

I needed hard evidence and discussed what I knew with two people seated at a kitchen table. They did not seem that interested in what I knew. I was frustrated with their ennui.