Crowded Upstairs

For the second morning in a row, I had a really long, convaluted, makes-no-sense-by-the-light-of-day dream.

Yesterday's dream, Pastor was unavailable to do the sermon at a memorial service for some local actress, so they for whatever reason had me fill in. There were a lot of animals wandering around the museum/theater where the service was held, including a bear that was swimming in a pond just outside the window, and my speech was more than a little incoherent. "Sometimes we'll say to God, 'Lord, I'm tired, I just want to come home,' and He tells us that 'No, you need to stay there a little longer.' But one day for each of us, His answer is 'Yes, come on home,' and we lay down all our troubles. So it was for [whatever her name was], who I didn't have the pleasure of knowing, but who was clearly well loved, to judge by this beautiful full-color bulletin for the service which is just full of lovely pictures of her." Also, Pastor and his wife actually came to the service after all, saying that he thought he couldn't make it but when their plans got changed, he didn't want to take the job away from me because he knew I was excited about it. Pastor was hysterical when I told him about the dream.

Today's dream, Kevin rented our basement (which I should point out is unfinished and an entirely less-than-delightful place to be) to some couple without telling me. I found out about it because the wife had a tendency to scream during sex, which was annoying the hell out of the neighbors as well as me. They were also flat broke and behind on all their bills, and for some reason their debt collectors were calling us. When Kevin woke me up to say goodbye, I told him, "Don't ever rent the basement to anyone without talking to me first." I'm sure he was more than a little confused.

This was the strangest dream I've had in some time. The only cause of it I can fathom is that I ate my leftover steak not too long before going to bed.

I had joined the design team for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, one of my favorite shows. (If you don't watch the show, this might not make a lot of sense to you.) For some reason, I wasn't doing any actual designing; the only task I remember being given was to clean out the refrigerator.

Ty Pennington, the hunky host of the show, chewed me out (nicely) for throwing away some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches which were earmarked for the design team. I kept protesting that I hadn't done it. It got so bad that he at one point came up to me with bread, peanut butter, and jelly, so I could remake the sandwiches I had tossed. I burst into tears and repeated my assertions that I hadn't done this, and ran off.

For some reason, my focus in the dream stayed on the design crew rather than on myself, as if I were watching an episode of the show. Shortly after I ran off, a member of the catering crew came to the designers and reported that they had brought them new sandwiches. As it turned out, I hadn't thrown them away -- the caterers did, because the peanut butter used in the sandwiches came from a jar which was part of a batch that was recalled by the manufacturer. So as the dream ended, they were trying to figure out a good way to apologize to me.

Your interpretations welcome; I admit this one's eluding me.

All right, now that I've complained about zombies, let's move on to the chosen topic. I've had some noteworthy dreams lately.

Last week there was a dream in which I got to speak to my grandfather. Unlike the other dreams I've had about my grandparents, this one didn't freak me out. I don't know what we talked about, but I remember hugging him. It was extremely liberating, like it was the closure I'd been seeking.

This morning, by comparison, was very, very different.

( While some of you were playing with zombies, I was fighting demons. )