everything seems to work fine, but something doesn't compute
This one was one of those very emotional ones that leaves a mark on you, whether or not it makes sense.
First, a portion of what might be a different dream or what might have been how this one started, but probably accounted for part of the heightened emotions of the dream(s). I was walking a crowded corridor and I heard O's voice up ahead, so I slowed. I saw her and some friends talking about something they did last night (I could hear it all clearly, and I even remember thinking, "It's been longer since I've heard her voice than I realized," but I don't remember now what she was saying), so I casually, not urgently or anything, ducked around a pillar and kept walking, figuring we'd just miss each other. (The pillars and walls of this corridor were a sort of orange sherbet color; the light coming in was a vaguely underwater green. So I definitely dream in color.)
But she had different plans this time, and ducked around the other way, loudly declaring, "Let's stop pretending we didn't just see each other, okay, Travis?" Sheepishly I reemerged and we did a sort of "hey how are ya" mini-wave and fake-smile. I remember the thought, "This isn't nearly as bad as it used to be, because I'm finally moving on, seeing other people." (This is true, I've had the same thought in real life: it's never been that I desperately want to go back, but I haven't been able to let go of my feelings of guilt or shame for leaving and the fact that I've been single for approaching three years hasn't really made the move easy to justify. I digress.) Anyway we didn't catch up or anything, and it still made me feel sort of sad, knowing we'd never be friends, seeing how little I knew about her or recognized who she was anymore, but it wasn't as day-shattering as other encounters had been.
And then, things shifted into the "real dream" I remember:
I can't remember now why, or if there was a why, but I lost a couple years of my life, like a black-out. The next thing I knew, I was living in a small house -- or was it a large apartment? -- just me and Spacecat (now grown) and my three year-old son Andy. Andy Boom Ezell was his name. Toeheaded, blue-eyed, precocious kid. My son! I didn't know his mother, who she was or where she went. No memory of her at all.
My extended family was over, playing some board game, various uncles and my father and brother. We got into a very heated thing about the lighting of my place, how it was apparently too low and in people's eyes, so they insisted we turn it off, play by the scant light coming in the windows. But that was way too dark for me, I could only see my cards if I put them directly into the sun light, scattered all over the table wherever the light fell, and my father and I got into some kind of fight over this. Nobody would back down about the lights while we played. Eventually everybody scrapped the game, frustrated and angry. I mean really angry, like this mattered a lot.
I went into the bathroom to find something and saw little Andy standing right on the heating vent, being rubbed against by our two cats (Spacecat and a second cat, a little guy -- Detective Inspector, maybe?). I rubbed on his tummy too, lovingly, because the vent made him so warm. "You're a clever boy, aren't ya?" I said to him. "If you stand on the vent everybody loves you." He smiled proudly and nodded. I picked him up and carried him back into the main room to tell my family how cute and smart my boy was being. They all awwww'd appropriately.
Someone, my dad or my uncle, asked to see a picture of his mother, and I was instantly grateful. (It was one of those dream moments where I'd been thinking, "Surely her picture must be somewhere in the house" and then lo, that became the next step in dream action.) Andy took me by the hand into his room and we looked around. On the way we passed, of all things, a daguerreotype of the family, together. Me, little Andy Boom, and his mother -- crimped 80s-style platinum hair almost silver, very young, eyes widely spaced, flat mouth, petite Jewish nose. I can picture this face (and Andy Boom's) perfectly, which is super strange. I asked him if that was her, and although I knew it was he said no. I rationalized in the dream he didn't like the silver-tinted version of us.
So he led me to his room and showed me his photo of her, a little younger and happier, same wideset eyes (boldly blue like his, of course; the little elves who construct my dreams have great script supervisor and casting departments). It felt so weird, like a Twilight Zone or Star Trek kind of feeling, not to remember this person in the slightest. We were obviously happy at some point, probably in love. Was she dead? Did she leave us? I had no idea. What was her name? I didn't know.
It was just me, two cats, and little Andy Boom.
I woke up very emotionally affected, kind of strange and vulnerable -- I missed my son and my life very badly, and felt bad for fighting with my family, and wondered where Andy's mother had gone and how I could just forget about her as entirely as that.
First, a portion of what might be a different dream or what might have been how this one started, but probably accounted for part of the heightened emotions of the dream(s). I was walking a crowded corridor and I heard O's voice up ahead, so I slowed. I saw her and some friends talking about something they did last night (I could hear it all clearly, and I even remember thinking, "It's been longer since I've heard her voice than I realized," but I don't remember now what she was saying), so I casually, not urgently or anything, ducked around a pillar and kept walking, figuring we'd just miss each other. (The pillars and walls of this corridor were a sort of orange sherbet color; the light coming in was a vaguely underwater green. So I definitely dream in color.)
But she had different plans this time, and ducked around the other way, loudly declaring, "Let's stop pretending we didn't just see each other, okay, Travis?" Sheepishly I reemerged and we did a sort of "hey how are ya" mini-wave and fake-smile. I remember the thought, "This isn't nearly as bad as it used to be, because I'm finally moving on, seeing other people." (This is true, I've had the same thought in real life: it's never been that I desperately want to go back, but I haven't been able to let go of my feelings of guilt or shame for leaving and the fact that I've been single for approaching three years hasn't really made the move easy to justify. I digress.) Anyway we didn't catch up or anything, and it still made me feel sort of sad, knowing we'd never be friends, seeing how little I knew about her or recognized who she was anymore, but it wasn't as day-shattering as other encounters had been.
And then, things shifted into the "real dream" I remember:
I can't remember now why, or if there was a why, but I lost a couple years of my life, like a black-out. The next thing I knew, I was living in a small house -- or was it a large apartment? -- just me and Spacecat (now grown) and my three year-old son Andy. Andy Boom Ezell was his name. Toeheaded, blue-eyed, precocious kid. My son! I didn't know his mother, who she was or where she went. No memory of her at all.
My extended family was over, playing some board game, various uncles and my father and brother. We got into a very heated thing about the lighting of my place, how it was apparently too low and in people's eyes, so they insisted we turn it off, play by the scant light coming in the windows. But that was way too dark for me, I could only see my cards if I put them directly into the sun light, scattered all over the table wherever the light fell, and my father and I got into some kind of fight over this. Nobody would back down about the lights while we played. Eventually everybody scrapped the game, frustrated and angry. I mean really angry, like this mattered a lot.
I went into the bathroom to find something and saw little Andy standing right on the heating vent, being rubbed against by our two cats (Spacecat and a second cat, a little guy -- Detective Inspector, maybe?). I rubbed on his tummy too, lovingly, because the vent made him so warm. "You're a clever boy, aren't ya?" I said to him. "If you stand on the vent everybody loves you." He smiled proudly and nodded. I picked him up and carried him back into the main room to tell my family how cute and smart my boy was being. They all awwww'd appropriately.
Someone, my dad or my uncle, asked to see a picture of his mother, and I was instantly grateful. (It was one of those dream moments where I'd been thinking, "Surely her picture must be somewhere in the house" and then lo, that became the next step in dream action.) Andy took me by the hand into his room and we looked around. On the way we passed, of all things, a daguerreotype of the family, together. Me, little Andy Boom, and his mother -- crimped 80s-style platinum hair almost silver, very young, eyes widely spaced, flat mouth, petite Jewish nose. I can picture this face (and Andy Boom's) perfectly, which is super strange. I asked him if that was her, and although I knew it was he said no. I rationalized in the dream he didn't like the silver-tinted version of us.
So he led me to his room and showed me his photo of her, a little younger and happier, same wideset eyes (boldly blue like his, of course; the little elves who construct my dreams have great script supervisor and casting departments). It felt so weird, like a Twilight Zone or Star Trek kind of feeling, not to remember this person in the slightest. We were obviously happy at some point, probably in love. Was she dead? Did she leave us? I had no idea. What was her name? I didn't know.
It was just me, two cats, and little Andy Boom.
I woke up very emotionally affected, kind of strange and vulnerable -- I missed my son and my life very badly, and felt bad for fighting with my family, and wondered where Andy's mother had gone and how I could just forget about her as entirely as that.