Reading River

RiverLast night I had a dream.  I am at my house and I look out the front window and notice people gathering.  I step outside my front door to and see my neighbor Evelyn standing amongst a group of people.  She is giving them the news that she is moving out of the neighborhood after having lived in her house for over 30 years.  It is the end of an era. 

Upon hearing the news, I begin to cry.  I reach over to embrace my neighbor.  I am heartbroken.  She lovingly hugs me and tells me that everything is going to be ok.  She then draws my attention into the  distance. In front of my house there lies a river at the bottom of a hillside.  Along the bank of the river, I can see my nephew standing with an inflatable raft. 

There is something not quite right with the raft and this image.  I struggle to get a good look at the raft to figure out what is so unusual about it.  I notice that the raft does not have a place in which to sit.  It looks more like an inflatable mattress than a survival raft.  My nephew is fanning the ground with it causing dust to rise into the air like smoke signals.  I’m told he is waiting for his friends to arrive to go into the river with the raft.

My nephew’s behavior strikes me as curious.  I stand there puzzled trying to figure this out.  I have a vague awareness that I might be dreaming.  Nothing makes sense here.  As I’m standing there a strange man walks by.  I get the feeling the stranger does not belong in my dream.  He disappears out of sight. 

I then get in my car and drive around the neighborhood trying to be very observant.  I drive by old neighborhoods where I used to live.  All the housing in this area has been taken over by slumlords.  I attempt to read the writing along the streets paying close attention to the words.  The words don’t make any sense to me.  They are words I do not recognize or much less pronounce. I assume I must be dreaming.  At this moment I see the strange man again from before walk by.  He quickly gets lost in the heightened confusion but I am determined to make sense of this world.

I continue driving focusing hard on trying to take in all the information from this place.  I then notice that my car’s performance is not what it should be.  The car is stuck in second gear and it feels like it wants to stall.  I want to try to get to a place where I can pull over but I am currently driving through an underpass.  I need to make it to the other side.  I am looking over all the instrumentation gages in the car to see what might be wrong with it.  A small white navigational screen appears in the center console of the car.  It is displaying a single word.  Initially I do not recognize the word.  I can read the letters but not the word.   

Aggravated I turn to open the door and get out of the car.  The strange man is standing immediately outside my car.  Without thinking I reach over and grab him through the window of the car by his neck.  I take a firm grip of him and immediately wake up from the dream. 

I had literally sat up in bed when I grabbed for the stranger’s neck.  As I opened my eyes, I found the man clutched in my fist.  I could still see his face in my mind’s eye and before me with my naked physical eyes.  It was as if I had two copies of the same man in my head….one in the back of my mind and one out in the physical world in which I live.  His ethereal presence faded as I vehemently shook him in my physical world.  His expression was one of complete surprise.  He was not expecting me to do that.

Because I jerked myself awake when I reached over and grabbed him by the neck I inadvertently hurt my own neck as my sleeping head did not respond as gracefully to the request my body made to attack the man before me.  As I sat there in bed it occured to me that I did understand the meaning of the word displayed upon the navigational screen.  It’s meaning resonated deep within me with profound truth of which I cannot explain. 

3 days later my neck is still hurting from the incident. 

Addicted to Cold Cream

Cold CreamLast night I had a dream where I am living with my extended family in a big house.  I have a son in his late teens or early twenties who is mentally challenged.  There are some animosities among the family members because many have there own personal agendas they’d like to see materialize and some of those agendas conflict with one another.  Because of my son’s disability, we all share in the responsibility of his care. Of course being that he is my son, he is my primary responsibility.

On this day, I am away from the house for a short period of time.  While I am gone someone in the house purposely gave my son access to cold cream.  My son is addicted to cold cream.  When I arrive back at the house, I find him in the corner gorging himself with cold cream.  I am infuriated because I know this could have only happened on purpose.  I inform my mother who is unaware of the situation.  She has a look of surprise as her eyebrows go up and her eyes enlarge to the size of grapefruit in total disbelief.

As I go into action to bring justice to the situation, I experience a false awakening.  I am aware I am having a false awakening.  I am now standing in my bedroom and my roommate is standing beside me hunched over trying to hide from me.  I can see the dream I just left appear a like another dimension before me.  Everything is fuzzy.  It is as if life paused for a moment in a state of timelessness.  Knowing my roommate is responsible for the cold cream incident I place my arm around him and tell him that he must go back into the dream.  I know for justice to be served he can not remain in this in between state where he has too much influence over the events in my life. 

With the full pressure of my body and a forward thrust of my hips I push him forward returning him to the dimension of the dream from which we came.  Now that he is back in the dream I am confronted by the faces of others as they float one by one in front of me.  These faces are talking to me but I can’t hear what they are saying I can only see there lips move. 

A worm hole opens up and suddenly I’m in another dimension.  Before me I can see my reflection but it is more than just a reflection it is the other half of who I am.  Knowing this I struggle to get my attention.  I think if I can touch myself I can get my attention but in my present state I am an ethereal being unable to apply pressure to make my presence known. I finally figure out a way to touch myself such that I might question what is going on.  He (the other part of me) turns to look at me.  Things seem to be happening in slow motion.  As he turns to look at me a wave of energy goes forward from my being in his direction.  I can see the wave brush against his face.  He becomes aware of my presence.  

An 1814 poem credited to “Dr. Russell” gives the following account of the benefits attributed to cold cream in that day:
WHEN a pot of cold cream to Eliza you send,
You with words to this purpose your present commend;
Whoe’er with this cream shall her countenance smear,
All redness and roughness will strait disappear,
And the skin to a wonder be charmingly clear;
If pimples arise, this will take them away;
If the small-pox should mark you, those marks will decay;
If wrinkled through age, or dawbing the face is,
‘Twill be smooth in a trice, as the best Venice glass is;
All this and much more, could I spare time to write it,
Or my pen go as fast, as your lips would endite it)
You affirm of your cream: and I would not abuse it,
But pray tell me one thing–Do you yourself use it?