Garbage Run

Dream

My mother and I are going to throw away my old football gear. We each grab an armful and start out at a jog for the nearest dumpster. By nearest, I mean a few blocks away. We go past the junior high and decide to cut through the grounds to save time. The football teams are having practice but we just run past like we didn’t notice. The practices are all arranged like they were in real life, with the two seventh grade teams practicing on the upper field and the eighth and ninth grade teams practicing on the game field. It is the point in the season where they've just started to wear pads. The seventh grade kids haven’t had enough practices yet, but eighth grade is getting them for the first time and ninth has had them for a few days (you had to attend something like ten practices before you could wear pads and the higher grades always started practice sooner). When we get to the ninth grade team I notice that Taylor is now the coach (he was on my football team and his dad used to be the coach). He recognizes me and calls for another classmate of ours to come over, but my mom and I just jog right past him. We vault the fence that runs around the field area and start heading for the dumpster that is apparently next to the school. After dropping down a small retaining wall we come to a second higher wall. Along the one are standing sheets of plywood arranged like a line of dominoes. I put my hands on either side of a sheet and slide down it. At this point I notice that Leonard Nimoy is narrating. He’s talking about the nature of human beings or something. Suddenly I’m being attacked (possibly by my mother) and I get knocked through one of the plywood sheets. My body is lying mangled on the broken plywood with my stomach arched and my four limbs tucked underneath. Leonard says something about how the human body is like that of a scorpion.

Analysis

I was recently reminiscing about the first practice with pads during my waking hours, so that probably inspired this dream. It was always the first practice were everything we did wasn’t just physical conditioning which was nice, but we also spent the entire day doing the most hard hitting drills we had which was always fun. It was also the practice were whatever girl had joined the football team that year stopped showing up.

Leonard Nimoy is stupendous and I wish he would narrate all my dreams. I don’t even mind if it’s really bizarre.

I’ve been doing some research into yoga, so that is probably the source of the weird body position.  

Auguries

Never throw away perfectly good football pads when you could turn them into sweet dystopian future armor. Also be on your guard whenever near a wall that is convenient for someone to kick you through.  

Flipping Turtles and Shooting Coyotes

Date Dreamed: 2014-02-16

Dream

These are actually two separate dreams, but I’m only doing one write up since they are both so short. The first dream was about my sister's turtle. His name was Patches, and we were letting him roam around the vegetable garden. I ask what he’s doing and my sister says “He is clipping the asperagus”, but when I look, I see him flipped over onto his back. I place him back on his feet and he starts moving in a swimming motion through the semi-muddy dirt. My sister says “He’s going to call the pile that flipped him over ‘misses’”. I guess he got put on his back by climbing a steep pile of dirt and rolled off of it, and this is somehow analogous to a wife?

A coyote show up in our yard and my dad gives me a bolt action .22 to shoot it with. I deliver a few carefully aimed shots to its head, but it is still running around the yard. The animal is suddenly a bobcat and is showing signs of dying. I keep shooting it but get worried that the barrel of my gun is going to overheat.

Context Explanations

My sister and I had some pet turtles as children, but I don’t think any were named Patches. Never been coyote hunting.

Plot Holes

I know my dad has better guns for shooting coyotes than a .22.

Erection?

Accurately Yes

Analysis

Some mixed messages about the treatment of animals. At first I’m helping one, and then I’m shooting another in the head, multiple times. I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for turtles, and it is hard not to be sympathetic to a creature stuck on its back. Turtles also make great pets, as long as you’re not looking for something cuddly. On the other hand, coyotes and bobcats are not nearly as well regarded. They are considered pests in the part of the country where I live, and are often killed on site. The shooting I do in the dream was reminiscent of prairie dog hunting. This is something I’ve done with my dad before and it involves both careful aim and problems with barrels heating up; not to the point where the guns were damaged and not with .22s, but it was something we worried about for accuracy on longer shots. These dreams seem to show that I will help those who need it, but will also harm those that deserve it.

Auguries

I’ve already established that a turtle means I should stay home, but the addition of some small predators adds an element of danger. The weather isn’t very nice today so I think I’ll comply.

Coins for Crystals

Date Dreamed: 2014-02-14

Dream

This one is long and wandering, so bear with me. I start out at a class trip in sixth grade. We are staying at a hotel for the night, since it is apparently a multi-day thing. I’m in the basement with a couple of elderly people and find a large amount of change on the floor. I get the idea that I could use the coins to have a poker game with my classmates (I happen to be carrying playing cards). The old man helps me pick up the coins and there is more than enough for poker so I split the money with the man. On my way back to the lobby where all the other kids are hanging out I run into Kirk. I ask if he wants to play poker, but he seems apprehensive. When I tell him that I found a bunch of coins so that nobody has to use their own money he is much more willing to play. In the lobby I try to find more people to join us, but everyone else is busy with their own activities. Later we get on the bus to drive to our next historical site, or whatever our class is touring, and I still want to play poker. Nobody sits next to me on the bus and I don’t have the courage to ask anyone. I figure the bus might be a little too bumpy anyway. Next I’m fighting some evil crystalline aliens (with no transition to speak of). Some giant alien is apparently threatening Earth, and I’m battling him on a floating disc or crystal. I end up pounding him through the floor of the disc with a giant hammer and save the earth. I find the alien’s mother clinging to the broken edge of the disc and drained of all energy after he son’s defeat. I notice she has a bag of gem stones and when I ask her about them she explains that they have little value to her people (being made of crystal and what not). I offer to trader her my coins for the gems, and she jumps at the idea since she finds metal far more precious. Now I’m at a family reunion (huh?). I get the idea that my father once worked for the same company that I did, but this doesn’t make any sense and I struggle trying to figure out which office he would have been at. Then I give the gems to my cousins Brett and Trevor. They use the gems to gamble and make a bunch of money. Trevor meets a woman at the casino and they fall in love. Brett shows up and the woman instantly falls in love with him instead, and Trevor is hurt and mad at his brother. Later, we are eating in a cafeteria and I am obsessing about setting up chairs and trays for everyone. I don’t know how many people will be joining me and there is a policy where you need to stack the chairs and trays that you aren’t using. Eventually I’m joined by Brett, Trevor, Leah, Nick, and a two foot tall amoeba who can sit in a chair (the amoeba was even at the head of the table). Everybody finishes their lunch and leaves except for Nick, who help me put the chairs away. Then we hear that everyone is coming back so we have to place the chairs out again.

Context Explanations

We did have a class trip in sixth grade, but it was just a day trip. I carry a deck of playing cards now, but I didn’t back then. I was a big fan of poker in grade school, specifically five card three-two draw. Sixth grade was the year I moved between schools, hence the lack of friends, but Kirk was in my class and was always nice to me. Brett and Trevor are older cousins of mine and are brothers. Leah was a girl from early grade school, and Nick was from junior high.

Plot Holes

Why are we eating lunch with a giant amoeba? Also, it wasn’t very clear if I just left the alien's mother to fall to her death or not.

Erection?

Meanderingly Yes

Analysis

There is a pretty good mix of books, shows, and video games I’ve experienced in the recent past popping up here. Cutting all that stuff out, we’re left with some loose change, questions about my father’s work history, and setting up cafeteria chairs. The money might be a combination of the fact that I like to carry enough coins to make exact change and also that I recently made a chess set out of coins. I can’t say why I found the money on the floor in the basement of a hotel while elderly people were present. My dad and I went to the same college, but never worked for the same company. I did get a job with an uncle, so I think I just got all of that mixed up in the dream and this confused me as I knew the facts were false. The lunch scene is a little more analyzable. I always get anxious before social gatherings because I can’t be sure of how people will behave. Perfect preparations are hard to accomplish when you can’t even be sure who will show up. Having everything planned and understood ahead of time is just something I always try to do. This anxiety is the reason that I tend to avoid loose social gathers. I prefer things like sports, where you have a set time to arrive and specific actions to perform.

Auguries

I should stay on the lookout for an advantageous trade opportunity, possibly with a woman in need. 

Small Thefts

Date Dreamed: 2014-02-05

Dream

I’m a tiny dude, and I’m sneaking around a terraced yard that may also be on a roof. I’m probably about four inches tall and there are normal size people wandering around. Stealing food is possibly my goal and I end up climbing onto a barbecue grill. Two of the relative giants and standing and talking to each other when a person who is a foot and a half tall approaches them. The medium person asks them for some kind of help, but one of the big people steps on him and squashes him. Dozens of the medium people then burst out and start attacking the large people. I try to keep out of site and away from danger.

Context Explanations

I’ve got nothing for this one.

Plot Holes

It was too short to have much of a plot.

Erection?

A small one, yes.

Analysis

Yesterday I was watching a little kid run around on ice and fall without even really feeling it. I mused about how it would be easier to live the smaller that you were. I wrote a whole essay about this earlier on my other blog. It looks like my subconscious wanted to show me the clear advantages of being big.

Auguries

Don’t ask tall people for favors.

Mall Mugging

Date Dreamed: 2014-02-03

Dream

I’m heading home from school, and I’m running because running is cool. The people I pass give me weird looks, but I ignore them and keep going. I get to the mall and start running around the side of the building. I get some vague memories of what may have been an earlier dream that took place inside the mall, but nothing specific. At the back of the mall I pass Rueben and a couple other skaters. They ask me to stop, and when I do they try to mug me. Rueben stands behind me with a knife, the leader (who I don’t recognize but is faintly familiar) holds a knife in front of me, and the third kid stands a short distance away with a gun. They ask for my wallet and I hand it to the leader. I trust Rueben not to stab me in the back and I doubt the other kid will use the gun, so when he is distracted by my wallet I grab the leader’s knife. I cut a big slash out of the front of his jacket to let him know I’m serious. He gives back my wallet, and then tries to give me his wallet. I don’t want it and it falls on the ground. The muggers start to run away and I throw the knife on the ground and run the other direction. The leader picks up his knife and I’m worried that he is going to come after me again but he does a butterfly knife trick to close it and follows his friends. I wonder if he is going to retrieve his wallet, but he leaves without it. I overhear Rueben comment that they shouldn’t mug people on Mondays anymore because they always resist. He theorizes that people are more likely to have a death wish on Mondays.

Context Explanations

Rueben was a skater in high school, but he wasn’t the kind of kid who would mug people. He was actually a really nice guy.

Plot Holes

A mall parking lot in broad daylight seems like a bad place to mug people.

Erection?

Vigilantely Yes

Analysis

The beginning part where I'm running is because I've always though it would be cool to run everywhere I go. I’ve never done it because people generally get suspicious when you run for no obvious reason, but I didn’t care about that in the dream, which was cool. The mugging is probably an extension of the brief jolt of fear I get whenever someone I don’t recognize stops me on the street. If I don’t understand why someone wants to talk to me I often assume the worst. I live in South Dakota, so mugging isn’t really what I’m afraid of, but I do assume less violent forms of confrontation. At the very least, conversations will lead to social awkwardness, so I have plenty of negative reinforcement in that area. I feel a little guilty that my dream propagates the stereotype that people who skateboard are criminals but the joke about Mondays sort of makes up for it.

Auguries

Standing up for myself or behaving boldly can turn a bad situation into a good.

Black Market Child Smuggling

Date Dreamed: 2014-01-31

Dream

A roughly 16 year old version of me is working as a courier for the black market. My partner is a girl of about 18, and we work for and old man and drive a black hot rod. After finally making enough money to retire from this dangerous line of work we approach the old man. He offers us one last job and he describes it as delivering two young kids out of a bad situation and removing them to a place where they belong. The old man gives us a small box and direction on a route out of town, possibly to the boarder of a neighboring country. As we drive out of town we are going incredibly fast, and I’m giving rally style pace notes to my partner. At the border there is a volcanic swamp which we have to move through on foot. The swamp is full of knee deep ashy sludge, and pockets of magma can be seen venting to the surface. The magma pockets are glowing spots in the sludge that produce expanding bubbles. We have to cover our eyes when the bubbles burst to protect ourselves from the tiny fragments of lava. After trudging through the swamp we arrive at safety and meet two kids. We are devastated upon realizing that the job is actually to bring these kids back into the town that we were trying to escape from. When we get back to the car our packages exclaim as two helicopters appear, presumably to take them back. My partner and I both pull out sub-machine guns and spray the helicopters with bullets in a nonchalant manner. The smaller chopper crashes into a small shed like building and explodes, while the large troop transport helicopter crashes into a building that resembles an alpine hotel. The body of a soldier is thrown from the wreck, and I shoot it a few times to make sure it stays down. After a brief calm, gunfire begins issuing from the hotel and the soldier on the ground jumps up and runs into the building. The soldiers are wearing body armor that is too thick for the bullets of my sub-machine gun to penetrate so we have to shoot them in the face. A firefight ensues, in which I manage to take a shotgun from one of the soldiers, and my partner and I are able to triumph over a squad of trained soldiers (this part of the dream was fuzzily shown). In what may be a separate dream, I find myself at Shane’s house with him and his brother Jace. We are eating pizza and cheesy bread with two young girls who I take to be the refugees from earlier. I’m making sure that they get plenty to eat. The older girl, I would guess is about 14 years old, stands up and starts telling a story about her cousin. She says that he is always checking her out with the sides of his eyes. She gets right up in front of me and starts singing “Two Eyes, Two Eyes” over and over at me, about how he always had two eyes on her. This makes me extremely uncomfortable. I want to look away, but I think this will be seen as side eying her so I struggle to look directly at her. She is wearing a silk dress, and I admit to myself that she is attractive, but she is too young for me to be comfortable in acknowledging this. The song eventually switches to “Three Eyes, Three Eyes”, implying that an erect penis is now also gazing at her. I’m assuming I fugue out from embarrassment at this point, because next thing I know I’m semi-asleep in a dark room. I hear the door opening slowly and imagine that it is Shane coming in to check on me.

Context Explanations

Shane is my best friend, and his younger brother Jace often joined us in our activities. My first boy-girl party and other such events took place at Shane’s house.

Plot Holes

The soldiers surviving the helicopter crash was a stretch, and body armor doesn’t really work in a way that some bullets are incapable of penetrating it. Also, it would have made much more dramatic sense if the person coming into my bedroom had been the girl, but since my assumptions in dreams are rarely wrong it was probably Shane.

Erection?

No. Two eyes.

Analysis

The whole first part of the dreams seems like a typical fantasy of being a bad boy black market courier who drives around in a hot rod and shoots down helicopters. The emotionally charged part of the dream was when I was being tormented by the girl. This speaks of a few different issues I have in dealing with women. First is that I get uncomfortable when I’m coerced into being attracted to someone. I desire my affections to be determined by more than just physical appearance. The distressing fact is that my body usually fails to live up to this ideal and can easily be won over by an alluring form. The second thing is that barriers to relationships based on age differences seem kind of arbitrary to me. If two people enjoy each other’s company and get pleasure from a relationship, I don’t see what their ages have to do with anything. I understand that an older person can take advantage of the younger in situations like this, but if both are benefiting I don’t think it is always has to be seen as a bad thing.

Auguries

Cheesy bread will bring me nothing but pain.

Air Pirates

Date Dreamed: 2014-01-19

Dream

Kyle, Barkley, and I are fighter pilots in the military. We drive from a base in the north-west part of the state to another base in the east-central part. We run into my cousin Steph and promise to meet her for lunch the next day. The next morning we are sent on a mission to fly to the south-west corner of the state. Midway through the flight we are attacked by some rogue native fighter planes (sort of like sky pirates). They all seem to be shooting at just me, and Kyle and Barkley are trying to scare them off my tail without actually shooting them down. There is some tense flying while I am taking constant evasive actions, but the enemy planes eventually run away. We land at the base and I realize that we missed lunch with my cousin. We get ready to drive back to the base (the one in the east-central), and I tell the guys that we missed our lunch date. Barkley doesn’t seem real concerned and Kyle is busy writing out our mission report. I open the car door to start driving back, but Kyle has moved into the driver seat because it is easier to write in. I tell him that he doesn’t have to move because I’m going to call my cousin. When I apologize, Steph isn’t mad because she heard about our dogfight on the news and knew that we weren’t going to make it to lunch. She tells me that we were transferring a nuclear warhead, which happened to be on my plane, and the attack was an attempt to steal it. I hadn't known that our mission was such, but it does explain everything that happened.

Context Explanations

Kyle and Barkley were friends of mine in grade school. Steph is my cousin who lives in the north-eastern part of a state, which is kind of close to the dream geography.

Plot Holes

The existence of sky pirates in the middle of the U.S. is improbable, and the fact that we didn’t want to shoot them down doesn’t really make any sense. A secret mission being explained on the news before the pilots who flew on it know the details is also strange. Another thing I don't get is why the driver seat of a car would be easier to write in. I figure the steering wheel would be more in the way, but what do I know.

Erection?

Fighter Planes = Yes

Analysis

The main components of the dream seem to be missing an appointment due to unavoidable circumstances, and getting attacked for something I didn’t know I was carrying. Both of these seem to speak of a feeling of undeserved persecution. This theory is kind of ruined by the fact that I didn’t feel that way in the dream. When I was attacked by the rogue fighters I remember thinking “now this is exciting”, and my cousin learned that we wouldn’t make it to lunch before it was a problem. I guess the dream was about failures to be undeservedly persecuted?

Auguries

Cross-state travel was in the dream quite a bit. Maybe I should drive somewhere?

Aircraft Attack

Date Dreamed: 2013-12-31

Dream

I’m with a group of people on a beach when a friend of ours lands a new fighter jet. He gets out of the cockpit and stands on the wing while we all admire his plane. Everyone panics when a squad of a dozen Japanese Zeros fly over the horizon. We have four planes of our own, counting the new one, and I jump into an older model jet. We scramble our planes to engage the Zeros above the beach. The dogfighting is incredibly compact and the main challenge is trying not to crash into the other planes as we weave through the sky, but I still have plenty of time to lock missiles and blow up some of the Zeros. The dream ends on what could have been stock footage for Top Gun but with WWII planes in the sights instead of MiGs.

Context Explanations

A Zero is a fighter aircraft used by the Japanese during World War II.

Plot Holes

No way could modern jet fighter and seventy year old propeller planes have anything resembling the dogfights that I was imagining. We also have to assume that this is the type of beach you could land a plane on.

Erection?

Top Gun Inspiredly Yes

Analysis

I’m a big fan of Top Gun, so I guess dreams about dog fighting are only natural. The beach is probably from an episode of Futurama I saw where they landed spaceships on a beach and the left huge furrows in the sand. A professor in college taught us about how capillary forces in sand can create a vacuum pressure that can increase the bearing capacity of sand to a level were planes can land (busting out facts like this is why I don't feel like I'm wasting my education). I also have a fondness for the aesthetic design of WWII era planes, although the Zero isn’t one of my favorites.

Auguries

The Zeros coming over the horizon are symbolic of the Pearl Harbor attack. An attack will come from an unexpected source.

Scrapyard Paintball

Date Dreamed: 2013-12-25

Dream

I’m playing paintball in a scrapyard, and everything is made of silvery metal (aluminum stockpile?). I’m up against roughly eight opponents and we are all equipped with inaccurate pistols. My enemies are dresses in black which stands out sharply against the silver metal, and they have the habit of standing half out of cover. I’m positioned behind some tipped over bleachers that offer me solid protection. My plan consists of slowly peeking around the left side to engage the guys in black one at a time (who are nicely spread out so that they can’t support each other). After easily shooting a few exposed enemies (the pistols are supposed to be inaccurate but I hit everyone with the first shot) one of them tries to run up to my cover and flank me, but I hear him coming. I switch to the right side of the bleachers and shoot him while he’s in the open. After shooting everyone I can see from the bleachers I move to the top of a stack of boxes. I have the high ground and pick off a couple more bad guys who are completely failing to hide. The last target is escorting two hostages and is standing in the middle of a metal building. After I give him a shot to center mass the game is over and I get debriefed by some military officers. It seems that this was training for an important mission (possibly a hostage rescue). The dream ends as a head to a transport plane to leave for the mission.

Context Explanations

I used to play paintball in high school, but we played in dry creek beds not scrapyards.

Plot Holes

No sugar plums.

Erection?

Covertly Yes

Analysis

I’m sad about the fact that I haven’t been paintballing in a long time, and I watch too many action movies.

Auguries

Shooting people in a silver environment means that I will kill to make money (metaphorically?).