Debt & Housing

I dreamt a few nights ago that two other Fulbright ETA's lost their apartments somehow in their respective cities/towns here in the Czech Republic.  I met them at some conference and found that they had been forced to purchase houses here, leaving them in debt, and crown-less.  I pitifully gave them each 50 crowns (about $2.50).  I only had a few coins with me.

(Earlier in the day [before the dream] I had discussed renting and buying flats and homes in the Czech Republic.)

Bad Teacher

My most frequent stress dreams are those in which I am a terrible teacher.  I had a few of these over the Christmas holiday, likely because I was thinking of lessons I ought to be planning.  One went as follows:

I was substituting for a teacher that I had in high school by the name of Tammy. She is a language arts teacher and she had great confidence in me.  In my first lesson I collected exercises that the students had done.  They had created literacy and ESL activities for the schools library to use.  I spent way to much time going through the assignment, and felt guilty because I knew that I was just eating up class time rather than making the most profitable use of the time.

Frustrated and disappointed in myself, I decided to change the format and organization for the next class.  We did some different activities including going through some scripts and doing theatre exercises.  All in all, the lessons seemed a terrible mish-mash of lame attempts to fill time and kind of meet objectives.  My guilt was compounded by the fact that I didn't think Tammy would believe me when I told her how terrible the lesson went; she just has too much confidence in me.

Crocodiles, China, and a mini-poodle

Last night, my dream began in some trail/forested area.  It reminded me of the Green Belt Trail in Iowa.  The path was quite wide, and at times we would see people driving their cars on the trail.  After going into the thick of the wooded area, we somehow ended up on a mountain surrounded by a large bay.  I had the feeling I was in the Czech Republic, though there were no cues for it to be the CZ.  While we were on this high cliff, someone took a photo of Sarah K. (whom I went to China with in real life) doing a handstand near the edge of the cliff.  I climbed down to where the photo was taken and realized she must have been bracing herself against some rusted iron stairs.

As I beheld the view before me I noticed that the bay was thick with crocodiles.  I was quite surprised, for I had already swam in the bay myself.  I saw a person swimming in the midst of the crocodiles.  She had a baby crocodile or turtle (fake of course) strapped to her leg, and was using it to entice the crocodiles.  When one pursued her, she deftly swam off without any injury.

Soon we were back in the forest which led to this bay.  As we walked the path, my companions complained of the cars which often took the trail.  The trail was large enough to accommodate a single car without any shoulder.  Some cars and wagons came barreling through.  Then some flashy red Camaro tried to whip itself around a curve in the gravel and ended up with its nose off the road and having to back up.  The driver, a white-haired mid-life crisis man, was frustrated with the lacking agility of his vehicle.

After we left that location, the dream shifted and I was suddenly in China.  It was like an airport of sorts, and there were restaurants and shops around.  I also ran into some of my old African-American students there.  I was with Czechs or people that I knew from the Czech and we were waiting to choose at which restaurant we would eat. 

While we waited in a hotel room, someone gave me a present for my birthday.  It was a black poodle-schnauzer mix (or something like--it had black curly hair floppy ears).  Its ears were breaded--like řízek or chicken-fried steak.  One of the girls was afraid she'd harmed him because she tried to eat his ears.  I cleaned off his ears and gave him a bath.  It was then as if I'd scrubbed him vigorously and his ears had come off.  Then I realized his ears were merely cosmetic and could be pinned on.  I was so overwhelmed by the puppy, and I didn't know how to express that I'd never wanted a puppy.  I was worried about how I would train it, and how I would get the puppy through customs going back to the States.  Moreover, the puppy didn't seem to like me very much.  Finally, at the end of the dream, the dog came and nestled itself next to my sleeping form.

Umbrellicopter

Many people know my current Czech city for its historical smog.  This association has apparently become very integrated with my own perception of the city as seen in the following dream . . .

In the dream, Minneapolis, MN was integrated with my current Czech city.  Using an umbrella which functioned as a helicopter, I began to enter into Northeast Minneapolis from Brooklyn Park around 694.  However, as I got closer to the city, the smog was unbearable and visibility was almost completely impossible.  Moreover, the sky was dense with helicopter traffic.  These were proper, enclosed helicopters and not merely umbrella helicopters.  I was worried about potential accidents in the smog and decided to turn around.  As I left the city, the sky quickly cleared up and I found myself over the lawn of some pleasant rural home.  There were lovely tall trees which I had to carefully navigate under.  I also saw my mother walking and I flew above her.  I thought that it might be nice of me to write to her about my umbrella helicopter experience.  I didn't have much control over my umbrellicopter, and I was thankful for the landing which I was finally granted.

Home Alone and the Bayou

In part of my dream last night, I was at some beach-side eatery with some friends.  I have the feeling that it was owned by someone that I knew.  At this eatery, I was just lounging with some friends, and they announced some beach-side film.  It was to be Home Alone.   I overheard a group of Brits behind me; they either hadn't heard of the film or hadn't heard the name.  I turned around and told a distinguished looking middle-aged man wearing white that the movie was Home Alone, one of the quintessential American Christmas films.

He curled his lip at me and told me that they were more interested in a summer film.  Feeling a bit snubbed, I turned back to the bar and looked at the program played on the TV.  There was a surfing show.  It showed men surfing in perhaps the Bayou or otherwise in the Everglades.  How they were surfing is beyond me.  There were no waves, and the men were not on surfboards.  Rather, they glided along on makeshift crafts made from the remains of some rickety suspension footbridge.  The documentary showed them cruising through waterways filled with alligators, sharp rocks and sticks, as well as ample litter and polluted water.  Apparently the man featured in the film was brother to someone connected to the seaside eatery.

Before I knew it, the conversation had changed and an old coworker, Sarah H., was present.  She was talking about a former resident of the group home and how difficult it was to work with him.  I was surprised because Sarah H., is the embodiment of a cheerful worker. 

I'm a graduate student . . . in mathematics.

My dream began with me in some small group perusing through graduate programs.  I was on a time crunch, so I made a very quick decision.  And what did I select?  Mathematics.

I then found myself in a small classroom setting, akin to Mr. Armstrong's classroom in middle school.  We were plotting points on grids the shape of Minnesota and connecting the points.  As I exited the room, I was casually talking with another student, saying how it was an impulsive decision to study mathematics and I hadn't even studied calculus in high school.

***

A colleague and I discussed the dream the following morning.  She pointed out all the stats I've been looking at about the USA and all the graphs I've been making from those stats.  I then recalled that I had been working on my budget the night before.  Moreover, I have been thinking off and on about what will happen when this Fulbright ends.  Well, let's add graduate school in mathematics to the list of possibilities!

Billboard Dad

So, my schedule has put a hammer on my dreaming, but I've been remembering them again.  Last night I dreamt that I was watching an old family video.  I must have been only about 18 months in the video, and we were at the seaside.  As I watched the video, I could hear myself speaking.  I listened to my baby self, and distinguished the words "Billboard Dad."  (I never actually saw this film as a child, but I remember talking about this Mary Kate & Ashley film with friends.)  As I watched myself, I realized that I actually remembered this instance, making it the earliest memory I have ever had.

Student Expulsion

Last night I dreamed that I was substitute teaching.  The brick building I was in looked like it was built in the late 1800s.  I had the impression that it was the end of the school year.  While I was teaching, the students were quite out of control.  I told them that if they continued to misbehave I would send them out.  I proceeded to do so with one student, and I think it resulted in his expulsion.  Then I suddenly found myself seeing the world from his perspective, and learning things about his home life--mainly that he had to share a room with his sister.  I felt a bit guilty as I realized that his acting out was likely only over-compensation.

Blue Hair, Blue Shirt, Used Tissues.

The dream I remember from last night began with me snoozing my alarm this morning.  While the alarm was going, I was imagining Czech words being drilled into my head.  Each beep was another word I was trying to memorize.  I recall turning over and thinking, "this isn't so bad."

Then my dream shifted and I was in my old middle school's library.  I was in a class, and I wasn't paying attention.  I missed the instructions about the homework assignment, so I went to the circulation desk to copy it from a free-standing calendar.  In order to do so I had to ask someone to move out of my way.  It was a guy I went to high school with and he had a bright blue button-up shirt on.  I had difficulty making out the words (in Waking Life [check out around minute 2:45], they would say this is a way to identify lucid dreaming). 

The class had ended and the professor walked in for the next class.  He was a professor that I recognized from my alma mater although I had never had a class from him.  Anyhow, we greeted each other and we started walking towards the table which still contained my belongings.  He asked me when the last time was that I had had undivided time with God, time of focused Bible study or prayer.  I was quite convicted.  As I went to gather my things from under my chair, everything was spilling over.  My bag was quite stuffed, and I spilled chocolate-covered nuts all over the floor.  I struggled to collect them again.  I was putting them into the plastic packaging they'd come in, only I had also stuffed used tissues in the bag, so it was quite unsanitary.  As I clumsily went along my task, I looked up and to my right and saw Lena sitting at another desk.  She had dyed a large portion of her dark hair bright blue.  It was quite becoming on her.

Brother's Cameo

I was relaxed as I woke this morning, ruminating over my dream and considering writing it down--but once I was out of bed, my mind was on the hike to come and the dream vanished.  Hours later I remembered that I had dreamed and scrambled to recall it.  All I know is that it had a positive tone overall and that my deceased brother was in it.  He's actually made quite a few visits to dreams recently, and I am only left with the glimmer of his presence and the strange knowledge that he is the same age as he was when he passed--19--but that I am my current age, which makes me older than him.  And yet, I continue to feel like the "younger sister."

I'll try to be a bit more faithful in jumping on recording my dreams in the future.

Carolina Chocolate Drops and Christmas Cheer

Last night I had a dream that the Carolina Chocolate Drops had set up some sort of arts house in some merge between L.A., San Fransisco, and New York City.  There was an old Victorian era house with art pouring off all the walls.  There were sculptures and paintings, and there was food that was cooked by the kids everywhere.  When I first entered, there was a golf and crayon stained-glass window/alter-esque depiction of the Virgin Mary propped up near a table.  The members of the band were teaching students about art, about cooking, and about Jesus.

The whole place was full of active color and active children, eagerly making art pieces, learning about everything under the sun, and running around like mad.  I saw pictures from previous days where girls had removed paintings and sculptures from the walls and had somehow managed to climb onto the walls and pose as if they themselves were the art.  They had edited the images to flatten themselves into the architecture.

One of the lectures/labs incorporated many historical objects that kept emerging from behind a screen.  This included candelabra as well as random wooden objects that had become fused together.  Later in the kitchen, there was an overwhelming amount of food, and people about my age that were helping were serving the food to the various kids from the neighborhood.  Later, at a workshop, we were given all sorts of candies, fruits, and marshmallows and had to mix them together with our hands until the stickiness of the marshmallows brought everything together.  I was a bit to vigorous, unleashing blackberries onto the walls.  Somehow my mixture was becoming a large tower, and I realized the band member had given me more material to work with than anyone else.  When I went to remove it from it's bowl, suddenly it became clay or sandstone, and as I set it out to dry, I began to remold different parts.  Instead of it being a tower, it suddenly looked like a maiden sitting with her legs outstretched with a leg becoming an abstract form and bits of the hand becoming like feathers.

People stood watching me put the final touches, and my father told me that I would overwork it and ruin the sculpture.  As the various fine arts activities continued, such as putting up photos and sculptures all the way up the wall (salon style), I was snapping away photos.  For some reason, I couldn't upload them to a computer and had to pay to have them put onto a disc or something.  Apparently I had taken so many, though, that I was charged an exorbitant amount of money, which was really rather consistent with the whole dream.

There was something baroque or rococo about the atmosphere.  Everyone was spilling over with life and creativity.  The house overflowed with sound, color, and delicious food.  At one point I was talking with my old friend Jenn H. and I asked her if she was ready for lunch.  I myself was quite full from the wonderful breakfast.  She said she was trying to establish some rhythm to her eating and didn't want to take lunch till one or two.

In the mean time, I went with one girl (who was Czech) to the city center.  We linked arms and sang "Joy to the World" in two part harmony while crossing the street.  It was still October in my dream as well, and we felt that maybe it was a bit out of place, especially since we were suddenly in the Czech Republic again.  But the song seemed so fitting because the house we'd been in was so filled with life and hope and something like Christmas cheer.

Dream Lapse?

No, I haven't disappeared off the edge of the planet--just off America.  I relocated to the Czech Republic about a month ago, and what has it meant for my dream life?  Eh . . . it's finally returning to some form of normalcy.  The initial effect of the move was a series of dreams in which I was a homewrecker--not pleasant and I'm not wanting to record it here, though I think this turn in stress dreams is a bit interesting.

After those dreams fizzled out, I had a dream in which I became a mermaid.  Yes, mermaid (and you wonder why the posts stopped). 

After that I began having somewhat "normal" dreams.  Last night included a visit from my childhood best friend, and earlier this week my deceased brother appeared in one of my dreams.  My dream was mostly forgotten last night except for the vivid voice of Jana telling me to wake up in my dream as my alarm went off.  Perhaps as I get into waking up in a more timely fashion, I will be better able to hold onto my dreams again.

Meryl Streep and Michelle Obama

I've been dreaming plenty lately, but I've been lax recording them--what with preparing to move to Europe.

Last night I dreamed that Meryl Streep was pretty much God.  She was controlling what happened to various students at the school as if they were characters in a film.  Everyone yielded to her control, even her husband--which may have been Alec Baldwin.  I was a teacher in said school and when I was teaching one day I found that I had some repeat students in my class--some of whom were not such big fans of me.  In the dream I ran into my former principal, who apparently worked under Meryl Streep.

She was a bit of a tyrant and everyone seemed to fear her--including the Obama family.  I remember walking through a grocery store, and Michelle Obama was pushing a cart with a grimacing face.  The president was about 30 yards ahead going towards produce with a fairly full cart.  The girls were streaming behind them both.

Circuses, Carnivals, Churches

Last night I found myself at Marilyn and Gary's.  There house was quite a bit different than it is in real life.  There was some town festival or something going on, and many people from my church were somewhere in the house.  Apparently Dannette had a family member pass away and she was reclining on a giant bed in the living room very dejected.  Beth was in there with her and she wasn't doing well either.  I asked if I could help her at all, and she asked for some stew.

I think the circus was being played on tv.

Teaching

Last night's dream landed me in a school--quite fitting as my old high school starts classes today.  Only in my dream I was Will Schuester--it's not the first time I have been him in a dream (only a female version).  I was in his/my office, with everything locked up and a student requested entry.  I unlocked the room and let them in, only to have the requests multiply.  At one point a student sat outside the office and had a foot-high stack of textbooks in front of her.  She was fussy about carrying around the books.  I wondered whether to offer to put them in the office--then I questioned whether it would be more of a life lesson to her if I let her ask me first and understand that you must ask to have your requests filled by-and-large and people won't always predict them.

The dream swirled around the school with lessons and interactions--which are all a blur at this point.

Coffeehouses on the Honor System

Last night I dreamed that I was in some cross between central Iowa and northwestern Illinois.  I was living in some rural area.  I went for a walk down a gravel road and found myself at a very homey country house.  I walked in because it was a coffee house.  However, no one was in and the coffeehouse was based on the honor system.  There was a kitchen as cluttered and homey as any I'd ever seen.   I could make myself some coffee and then just leave cash there.

Time passed and I found myself at the coffeehouse again.  This time I also brought two kinds of veggie burgers and was boiling them in a glass casserole dish.  Apparently others had used it and there were other mysterious things floating in it.  It wasn't gross in the dream--but right now I'm about to wretch at the thought of it.  I also noticed there to be many dirty dishes in the sink.  Apparently the owner would come by every once in a while, collect money, and do the dishes.

When I went into the living room Derek N. was there.  Apparently someone in his family had become the owner of the coffeehouse.

A Da Vinci Art Lesson of Epic Proportion

Last night had me in an Indiana-Jones esque cave.  I was suspended with another person above something like lava or acid.  Across from us was another pair suspended, and in between us was a the Mona Lisa.  It was the height of an action-film quandary.  Apparently all of us and the painting would be released at the same time to do battle over the painting before it or us were lost below.  Though I perceived the liquid to be caustic--somehow there was more concern that the painting would be sunk in the liquid than consumed.  As it was dropped, the painting shifted into Da Vinci's self-portrait and then into Botticelli's Birth of Venus.  There was a narrative going on about Da Vinci's life while these paintings shifted, and I wondered that they were suddenly showing a painting obviously done by Botticelli.  I then remembered that Da Vinci was influenced by Botticelli and had seen this painting.  I don't know (in real life) if this is true or not, though the timing makes it very possible.

Before I knew it I was out of the cave and outside.  I was sitting with my family and we were suddenly watching either an Indiana Jones film or The Lion King.  During the end credits, they showed a choir doing a gospel-version of Joy to the World.  It was the same rendition that my church sometimes sings at Christmas.  I was trying to get my father's attention to have him notice this particular arrangement of music.

Spain or Italy?

Unfortunately, the details of last night's dream were lost in my attempt to identify where it was located.  It seemed like Italy, but I had an overwhelming sense that it took place in Spain.  I think this was because Audra was there with me.

Colorado Engagements

Last night had me on a road trip to Colorado with Heather W.  We went out to see her family.  Colorado looked more like lush green foothills in Switzerland.  There were two trees in her yard which were connected by a rope.  On the rope where miniature houses.  Below was a stream or river.  I climbed across the rope, and by the time I got to the opposite side, it was decided that I would marry Heather's younger brother who was actually older than her.

At some point her family came home, including her three "younger" brothers and her sister.  Her mother had cooked up all sorts of delicious treats, including a surprise pot pie that Heather and her sister were supposed to take home with them.  It was "surprise" because no one knew what was in it.  The entire time at her family's place was spent outside in the lush greenery, throwing around balls, running, and swimming.  There was a treehouse or something like out in the water, which we had to swing or swim to.

The next thing I knew I was with Cassie S. in a car trying to get to a particular eating establishment.  I tried to tell her it was by the "Grove Cafe"--which is in Iowa, I think I meant the Aster Cafe--and she disagreed with me.  Finally we found wherever we were going, but we had to meander through endless twists and turns of that partition tape/ribbon stuff they use at movie theaters.  We were still waiting to get somewhere when I awoke.

Target Stairs

I think this dream took place during a nap today, but even now it's hard to place it.  I was inside a Target, trying to make my way around, but all the aisles were arranged in non sequitur way.  I would be looking for a particular aisle and somehow find myself at the dollar spot.  This particular target had very high ceilings and the whole of the shopping area was a skinny rectangle shape.  There was then a wall along the long side of the rectangle that went up to the ceiling.  It was painted with bright colors in an abstract way.  There was a long stairway that would take a person nearly to the ceiling, where there were some doors for offices or something mysterious.  My companion(s) and I kept discussing this stairway and were arguing about whether we ought to or would have to go up it.  I woke up shortly after we began mounting the stairs.