Dreaming

I don't put much faith in dreams, although I dream every night and usually remember at least one or two. The most logical explanation for them seems to be that they're the unpredictable firing of brain cells while the owner of the brain is unconscious. Often I can tell some movie I watched has shown up mixed up with some other events that happened. More often they don't make sense at all, like they're just experimental stories or mind masturbation. I certainly don't believe in symbolism in dreams. But then there are those times when I have no choice but to believe ..... something--very much like I don't believe in Tarot except when I have no choice. When I dream and within days or weeks the dream turns out to be prophetic, and I can't deny that there's some weird thing that happens with dreams that I can neither predict nor understand.

Tonight I don't want to write about all the times that's happened. Unless I'm really interested in the person, I don't find their dreams all that interesting, so I'll assume the same of you. (Although I'm sure you'd find my dreams fascinating.) I seem to be in a phase of dream predictions the past week or so though, and I have to admit I'm both curious to see what will happen next and, as usual, a little freaked out about what might happen next.

Last week I wrote about a dream. Often I dream about people and they pop up unexpectedly the next day. I've gotten used to that, even if I haven't heard from the person in years. You all do that too, right?

Last night though, I dreamed I was driving on a highway near my hometown. Without warning, the highway ended, and in front of me was nothing but grassy prairie and stands of trees. I wasn't sure why, but it reminded me of a post-apocalyptic movie--only without the apocalypse. In the dream, I continued on foot to where I was going.

After several hours of doing dream stuff in that place, I found myself driving a car, trying to find my way to what was home in the dream. I took a different paved road that eventually and unexpectedly turned into a dirt road. When I looked behind me and couldn't see an alternative, I continued on the back roads. I was obviously lost, and although I kept trying to tell from the sun which direction I should go, I came to a place where I wasn't sure which way to turn. At the corner was an old farm house so I rode my bike--yep, that's how dreams work--up into the yard. There were a bunch of people there but they only stared at me. They knew I was lost, but they didn't want to help. I rode through the yard, past the people, until I came to a head lying on the ground. I was trying to figure out where the rest of his body was -- if maybe it was buried and just his head was sticking out -- when a woman came out on the porch and said, "Don't ask him. He ain't gonna tell you the truth anyway." So I chose a direction and rode away, still lost. The end.

I was telling my son Drake about the dream this afternoon and he had some ideas about relationships that have changed, how it might be about that. I said maybe so, but it felt like one of those prophetic dreams -- which, of course, it couldn't be because we weren't really expecting a fucking apocalypse.

After we talked, I got out my bike and headed off to the post office. I wasn't going to miss taking at least a short ride on a 70-degree, sunny day in March. After I left the post office, I decided to ride down to a nearby neighborhood and look at a house that was for sale there. I wanted to see what the ride was like, how near it was to downtown. I found the street and the house, and then decided to keep riding. City neighborhoods are tricky. A street with huge, lovely old houses, like the one I was on, can butt right up to streets with burned out or boarded up crack houses lined up in a row.

I rode past some nice, old houses and eventually a mix of nice and not-so-nice. So I headed back the way I'd come .... or so I thought. As I rode I realized I was on streets I hadn't been on before, but some of the names seemed familiar so I figured they had to lead back to the main road. I kept riding and turning down streets and sometimes finding the same street but still not finding my way out.

Eventually I was in one of those neighborhoods with the boarded up, burned out houses and the apartments with bars on the windows. Rough, pitted out streets with lots of speed bumps to slow down high-speed chases with cops and broken glass on the sidewalks. And the few people who were out just looked at me without expression, without saying hi as I road by in my sexy, stretchy cycling clothes on my expensive bike ... not saying hi like people do in my neighborhood (which also has boarded up houses, but not like this).

I saw a sign beside an apartment building and realized I was in a really bad part of the city -- a part I would only want to go through in my van with my doors locked. Only I was on my bicycle and I was lost. It was a neighborhood I'd read about just last week, in an article about how the police have failed to control the gang violence there.

I kept riding. I knew I could stop and call a friend to look up a map and give me directions to get out, but I didn't feel safe; I didn't want to stop and I didn't want to look lost. I knew I could call and a friend would fucking leave work and come pick me up. But I also knew I wouldn't feel safe waiting for him to get to me. I felt too vulnerable, too exposed, too obviously out of place. So I kept riding. And riding. As fast as I could given the condition of the streets and the pitch of some of the hills. I rode on streets I'd already been on. On streets I'd never seen before. I tried to think where the main road might be by where the sun was in the sky, but knowing where west was didn't help me because I didn't know where I was. And I also hadn't told anyone else where I was going.

It was ridiculous really. Stupid. I've been lost in cities all over the country. I sometimes take a wrong turn on purpose and get lost -- on fucking purpose -- just in case I find an adventure out there in the unknown. Getting lost doesn't fucking scare me. I always find my way home just fine. My city doesn't scare me. I ride my bike downtown late at night by myself, and I live in a neighborhood where they put in gates in the 90's to stop the high-speed chases. I'm not fucking scared ..... Except today there were times I was really scared and I can't even explain why.

Finally I came to a 4-way stop sign that was pretty busy. I had to stop, so I waited and noted most of the cars were going one direction. I decided to follow them. So I turned and rode with the traffic. Finally I could see a busier street up ahead and sure enough: it was the 4-lane street I needed to take home. As I turned onto the sidewalk, I realized I was a couple of miles north of where I'd turned off, and I was at the top of a huge hill. I didn't care now that I knew where the hell I was -- and some people would consider where I was hell.

I had ridden about half a block when I saw a young man walking toward me on the sidewalk. He was wearing gang colors. He looked up and saw me ... and then he squatted down in the middle of the sidewalk to tie his shoe. Fuck me, I thought. I finally find my way out of the jungle and now I run into a gang banger. Why is he tying his shoe? Nothing to do but keep riding. The traffic was heavy and whizzing by so I couldn't cross the street, and I sure as fuck couldn't turn back. I couldn't ride too fast because he was on the sidewalk. I eased up to him and edged by. He didn't even look up, but I took the brakes off and let the hill take me faster as soon as I was past.

When I could, I crossed to my own side of the road and eventually into my own neighborhood. As I turned down my own street, I was even relieved to see the drug dealer who lives three doors down sitting on his front steps. It all seemed pretty anticlimactic by the time I lifted my bike up my own front steps, but my lungs were burning because I've sat on my lazy, fat ass most of the winter and gotten out of shape and my legs were shakier than a ride of that length warranted.

It wasn't until I'd eaten lunch and was in the shower that I remembered the dream I had last night. The dream about getting lost and trying to find my way by the sun. It's just how these dreams go. The setting isn't the same, but the story is close. I don't really believe in dreams though. They're just the random firing of brain cells. Nothing a logical woman like me would believe in .... except when I have no choice.

Some people think prophetic dreams are a gift. I'm not too sure about that. Mostly it freaks me out because it doesn't make sense, and yet I can't deny that it happens. And I have no fucking control even when I know something is going to happen.

What about you? Do you believe in the prophecy of dreams? Have you ever had a sleeping dream come true in the waking world? If so, doesn't it just scare the ever-lovin' shit out of you?

Coda: Five and a half hours after I published this, I got up and read the following message from TUT in my email:

"Always trust your dreams, [reticula]. They've chosen you, as much as you've chosen them.

Tallyho,
    The Universe...

And it really ticked-off all the other dreams, too, [reticula]."