What did you dream last night?

This was too real.
I was at work, trying to help a very irritated woman with some keys.
There was some griping, some ill-considered remarks, all by her. I was taken aback but kept moving forward.
After she left, I noticed she left the keys behind.

That's an interesting dream, Joe, given the circumstances.

I dreamed I was taking a walk with my mom through a beautiful autumn countryside. There was lots of detail from this dream, but the best parts started with the bear. Some people were coming towards us on the trail and said that a bear had been tracking them. We looked up and saw the bear on a hill, standing and surveying us little people. We stopped near a small group of people to lean on a fence and look out over a field pocked with brilliantly leaved trees. Suddenly, the bear is there, roaring and waving its paws in the air. The small group clusters together, I jump the fence wondering if it'll be enough to deter the bear from eating me. My mom, however, just stands there, tsking, with her back to the bear. She started to say, "It won't hurt us!" but before she could finish, the bear grabbed one of her feet and pulled. She grabbed the fence and I grabbed her from the other side of the fence. We got her away from the bear, but the bear stood up and said something like "there has to be a balance: if not her, than you."

The scene shifts. Now I'm in the field, sitting on golden grass. A tee nearby has golden leaves and draped on a low branch was a gossamer figure. A man dressed in silver and white. I understood he represented justice, or fate, or order. He said, "Someone has to die." As he spoke, a kitten appeared in my lap and the man materialized some floss that he looped in his hands. I said, "No". He demanded that I "Think about the order of things." As I started to think, I looked inward to contemplate. My focus fell off the cat and I snapped out of it after the floss had been wound around it's neck. I dug two fingers under the floss and snapped it to free the cat. We went around again with me saving the cat and then I woke up.

Man!

I had a political dream last night.

I was at some event, it may have been a convention although given the context it was more like a victory party or an end of campaign party. There was a very large crowd.

The PA system came on and someone announced that the song we all knew would be played. And it was something called "Madelyn, Madelyn". I don't know how I knew that was the spelling. And then the scene shifted and you saw a male candidate and his wife and the woman Madelyn who was apparently his running mate. And the man -- who I recognized as Mike Huckabee -- was trying to dance with both of them. He finally gave up and ended up dancing just with his wife.

Madelyn was alone on some sort of riser and during the chorus of her song, she pumped her fist in the air with each phrase. The chorus went:
........ White dress
........ red dress
........ green dress
........ tennis dress
and it was meant to symbolize all of the many roles that she and any other woman can and do fulfill.

Then I noticed Hillary Clinton was standing on a chair next to me, and she was wearing one of her usual black pantsuits and a peach-colored top and was pumping her fist along with the song. Someone made some sort of a wisecrack about her and she started to get down from the chair. I assisted her as she was wearing black high heels and I was afraid she'd fall (it was a standard brown metal folding chair). She thanked me and that's when I woke up.

damn.... we a2kers have some fine dreams!

Yes.

We do.

Joe(I hope you remember your dreams tonight.)Nation

you to, Joe!

You both -- what a great wish -- I hope you remember your dreams.

I had a dream that I was singing with this guy that I didn't know at all but he was singing this song that I loved and I was trying to harmonize but I didn't feel that I was doing a good job. And he asked me if I was an alto or soprano and I said that I was pretty substantially a second soprano, but I could do alto and enjoyed singing alto as I found it more interesting than just singing the melody. So he began singing the melody and I did the harmony and it was great.

Some are worth remembering but some aren't. This one I'd like to forget...last night i dreamt that I was in NYC with my aunt, two of her daughters and her granddaughter. We were doing some kind of family reunion that the granddaughter had been responsible for and she was very upset with me because i had not participated in helping her pull it together. And because she was upset with me, that meant that her grandmother, her mother and her aunt were also upset with me. My name was mud here.
Somehow, out on the street, I'd slipped down a slippery slope, literally, and found myself sprawled out underground, just below the sidewalk. I could see the ankles of the people above through the opening I'd fallen through. I tried to stand but kept slipping and losing my balance and in the meantime, a homeless person was crawling towards me and that scared me enough to get on my feet and although I saw my purse lying there, i was too afraid to stop and try and pick it up so i left it.
I had no money, no ID and because my family was perturbed with me, we all went shopping later but I didn't ask for their help. I had a flight that evening, had no way to get to the airport, no money for a cab and no ID. I was in a mess.

Woke up in a foul mood.

An odd one last night. Rich in detail.
We (I) was living in the old row houses just off Peoria in Tulsa. They were built as military housing in the 40's. Crumby place to be.
I am in the living room watching two cats battle over the sitting place on some kind of stool when there is a knock at the door. The fellow is from Oklahoma Natural Gas and wants to read the meter.
(Some of these places have the meter sticking out of the ground in the middle of the front yard by the curb.) (Very nice lawn ornament.) Anyway this one is in the kitchen, over in the corner.

When he goes to it to read the numbers, it falls over, like the joint at the elbow is loose. It doesn't leak, but it shouldn't fall over. He takes the meter off. (No cooking for us.) But goes out to the truck and gets another one and gives it to me. I can see that it missing part of it's cover and say "A different meter doesn't fix the problem. That joint has to be tightened that's all." He says 'take it or leave it' and takes off.
I tell everyone that we are going to have to order in dinner until I can get to the hardware store.

==
Now I have to figure out what kind of different meter I am using to fix my problems.

Joe(I think I know.)Nation

Two nights in a row of dreams! (try having severe emotional distress and complicated legal/economic issues along with one glass of wine. You'll have interesting dreams.)
Thursday night I was in a class learning "Point of view with the artist in view." Don't ask. I can't explain but all of the artwork, seascapes, landscapes, views of the mountains showed the artist, not necessarily me, IN the artwork. There would be a lovely beach scene. Bathers, sunners and others walking and there is the corner of the frame would be a the artist with easel capturing the scene. Huh.
Suddenly, down at the beach I saw two huge crocodiles. Twelve feet long or more. They were headed for the ocean down a narrow drainage ditch. I had a chair leg in my hand and it was sharpened at one end. I threw it at the lead croc and the chairleg stuck in him. He began to roll around trying to get rid of it. Meanwhile, I ran towards the beach to warn people.

I looked back up the ditch and there was my brother, standing on the edge of the ditch, trying to get the chairleg out of the crocodile. Stop! I said, You'll get stuck in the mud and he will eat you. I started running back up the ditch but woke up before I reached my brother.
====
Last night, I was walking behind my high school. (I haven't been there since 1965.) with my mother. I wanted to talk to her but Creedence Clearwater was playing "Traveling Band" and she wanted to dance.
'Listen to the radio, talking 'bout the last show,
someone got excited, had to call the State Militia. Gotta move.'

I could never stop the music.

Joe(it's playing now in my head.)Nation

Point of view with the artist in view -- I think you might have a sense that the world is going on around you and you're just watching it all happen.

The crocodile and the dancing are similar, I think; people keeping you from doing what you feel is best, but they have good intentions and you can't just tell them offf.

Last night I dreamed that I worked as a graphic designer for the Obama campaign in Chicago. We were in our offices in Hyde Park, in one of the high-rise buildings on 47th and Lake Shore Drive, right across from the lake. During a meeting, while sitting next to Mr. Obama, I pulled out a drawer full of my sketches and ideas on paper and told him, "At any time when I'm not here and you need something, just look in this drawer."

But then I went outside and at the corner of 53rd and Hyde Park Blvd., it had been raining (although the sun was now shining) and I was dressed very fashionably, wearing high heels, but when I turned the corner on 53rd St., I slipped and fell. I was embarrassed but I got back up and kept on stepping. No one even seemed to notice.

Don't stop the music Joe!

I had a really bad night - I dreamed my dad passed away, my brother had a stroke and I got laid off from work.

Not a good night.

That sounds horrible!
Wishing better dreams for you tonight.

Hope so - maybe I will have the opposite tonight - think stress is having an impact!

Definitely have better dreams tonight.

Late dreams are the deepest it seems. I woke at three, peed and returned to toss around on the pillows for a half hour waiting for sleep to return.
When it did, I was looking out a window and saw that they were testing some sort of jet fighter. It was supposed to convert from a jet to a kind of gliding sled that could land inside a building. Apparently, (I knew in my mind), that they had had some problems with the conversion part and several crashes, but this one landed safely. Then I realized that it must be my first wife, Paula, who was piloting the craft. (?)
I was in a building full of artists and musicians. One asked me if I would like to attend a meeting where they didn't talk about God but "did refer occasionally to a kind of supreme being." I replied that I recently realized that I was a Buddhist and that another friend of mine had just asked me if I had been practicing and I said No, I had just been living.
Then I went down a hallway looking for the refrigerator where I had left some lunchmeat. (god. I love this dream) In walks my exwife and we talk and I try to tell her that the best times of my life were with her (Not NOT not true. I'm saying that because she needs to hear that sort of thing.) and I ask her about being a pilot and if she is afraid. She says No, but I can tell she is a little drunk. Her words are slurred and, at the end of her sentences, there is no sign of the West Texas Whipsnap.
==
I go outside to take a taxi and then realize that I can see my hotel from where I am. I go to bed and in the dream I hear someone come into the room and get into bed with me. I don't know who it is but the alarm goes off....... ... .... .

There was more in that dream. My son drifted in and out of it. I at one point was trying to fix my MP3 player. There was a silver Mag-lite AA flashlight laying on someone's stuff, I thought about stealing it. more.

Joe(I need coffee)Nation

I had a bit of a better night - no dreams that I remember - but I didn't sleep well - and it was confirmed today at work - there will be layoffs now and through the first quarter of next week. I also didn't mention that my dad has some degree of cancer and my brother spent all the previous day with him at the hospital (obviously prompting the dream as I worried about dad and my brother being so tired).