In My Dreams This Week

I've had some really insane dreams lately.

The other night I dreamed that my car had broken down and I somehow had gotten a man to help and was riding with the driver in his pickup truck down a back road with plowed fields on either side.

The man was older, gray, balding, and heavy set. Not long after we set off, police cars raced past us. This is unusual in any rural area. Then I look out the window and there is a man running down the field with a big gun. He is wearing all black.

The truck dissipates and we are running from the man as the police run in. He shoots at the driver-man but the big ol' guy keeps running without a scratch. I hardly heard the shot, so I decide the shooter has a silencer on his gun. Somehow this is scarier.

We end up in a sort of diner/bar. The gunman comes in and tries to blend in at the bar. He's really good at evading police, I guess.

http://www.betterbeerblog.com/index.php/2009/04/04/the-session-26-smoke-em-if-you-got-em/

The police come searching. I point at the man behind his back. When the officer calmly, but abruptly, approaches him, the gunman whips out his weapon and shoots. People dive to the floor. He escapes, police in hot pursuit. They close in. 

He runs behind a barn and I am scrambling to see if they get him, but also to stay out of range of his fire. The old man is still running with me. He's got some endurance! I assume they got the bad guy because I woke up.

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The following night I tossed and turned and remembered many dreams every time I rolled over. However, by morning, I only remember one long dream sequence. 

I was in my classroom, with all my students and my two aides. (For those who don't know I work in a special needs classroom in a middle school.) We seem to be coming back from a lunch break of some sort. Everyone is at their desks and there is an air of expectation. I'm supposed to DO something, but these boxes of items I haven't seen all year appear before me, on my desk, on the tables.

http://www.triblocal.com/wheaton/community/stories/2011/07/learning-resources-donates-more-than-250000-in-educational-tools-and-materials-to-joplin-missouri-schools/

Suddenly, I have to deal with them. I begin to sort one and my aide says something about going outside. "Yes, yes, go on outside," I agree. The class leaves, all but one. He hovers over my shoulder. "You are supposed to go with them!" Now I have to take him. I check the closest door, but they are not seen through the glass. I go to the next door around the corner. This next hallway transforms from my middle school to the high school I went to. They are all lined up waiting, one of my aides pushing the wheelchair and the other in line between students. "Well, push the light switch!" one of aides tells a student. He seems confused as to what light switch. I walk up and show him a switch that activates the door.(It wasn't a normal looking switch, it was yellow and round. This picture is close enough.)

http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/toggle-switch-plate

We exit the building. Instead of seeing the parking lot, we now see rows of one-story brick apartments. As we pass them, two boys of middle school age appear and begin to entice my students to get out of line and play among the saplings. I tell them not to.

http://dornob.com/concrete-cantilever-small-brick-home-second-story-box/

Then a white convertible appears, top down, to take us across the parking lot to the grassy area. (As if the wheelchair can get in there!!)

We ride to the yard and Senior class members appear and begin to set up carnival style games. There appears a baseball throwing game, a bowling game, and others.

One student sets up a table with popsicles on it. I go over to help him because the sun suddenly is too hot and the popsicles will melt. We move the table into the shade, but I suddenly realize I am topless. There is a huge crowd of people playing games now. My building principal stands tall in the crowd and I am grateful he doesn't see me. Where is my shirt!? I duck into a sort of wooden shed to look for something to clothe my top half with. I dig and dig in piles of stuff. I never seem to find anything, but the dream presses on.

Next, I am running out the back. I jump a low white picket fence and knock on the back door of a house.

A young couple are watching TV. I say, "I'm not gonna hurt you, but please can I call 911? I've been kidnapped!" Confused, they let me use their house phone (who has one of those anymore?!)

I must have called, because next I am waiting for the police while looking at their laptop. I find a YouTube video of myself speaking to Oprah on her show and I point. "See? I am famous. That's why I was kidnapped!" I am suddenly a black woman with a gorgeous head of fluffy hair.

Then I wake up.

I've never dreamed I changed race before. I've dreamed about school before, and being topless, and fleeing situations, even of gunmen as in the previous night's dream, but never have I changed races. That was very unique. Is it a sign of the times?

Dreams are all about emotions. What I felt more than what was going on is what is most significant. There was a sense of helplessness in each dream. I tried to interact, in many instances, with others in the dream. My role constantly changed as I felt new emotions. In both dreams, I woke up still looking for a hero, that moment when things were solved. I was close to an ending, but not quite.

I guess life feels like that a lot. We can't have a good ending because there is always something next on our agendas. We just hope that our schedules include good things.