Farmhouse Hostages

April 21, 2009

I was someone in this dream, but wasn’t myself. I was taller and had really short brown hair. (This is the second dream with this pseudo – me, the first one was a few years ago – which I have documented – perhaps I will post that one at a later time). There was a group of us, with myself included, that traveled to this farm area that was out in the middle of nowhere. It was surrounded with a small rural city as well. We were there to specifically see one man who lived in a very old farmhouse and also rented out another farmhouse on his property. He was a very nice old farmer and was very helpful. We needed to stay with him a few days, trying to procure the things we needed from him for the T.I.M.E. – Digital Arts department (where I currently work) using purchase orders. Eventually, we went over a few things and I purchased copies of his books that we needed (copies from a copy machine). Three or four of the copies that we needed totaled $30.00 but one of the copies was $75.00. We purchased them, and then purchased something else of his for $75.00 as well. (I forget what it was now…) The next day I realized that we didn’t actually have that amount of money left in our budget and had gone over it. I asked the old man to come to the house we were staying at and to help me figure things out. I was hoping that I could ‘return’ the copies and the other thing that I had purchased from him for $75.00 and get my money back. He started getting incredibly irate with me over it and explained that he had already bought a tweed jacket from the internet and showed me a picture of it. It looked like the typical type of jacket that high school football players wear – the two toned colored ones with their number on the back. I finally said that I was sorry for the inconvenience and decided not to take the money back. He was still extremely angry with me and with everyone I was with (who I do not know in real life) and I explained that I didn’t want our discussion to ruin our friendship together. Somehow, after that, he would not let us leave the house and was keeping us there as hostages. The next day, his roof caved in because his house was so old. He had to ‘move’ in with us. This made it harder for us to escape, since, every time we tried he would be there – keeping us from leaving. I wondered if our employers wondered where we were. At one point, one of the houses close to the farmhouse where we were being imprisoned, was surprisingly closer. I was able to walk out onto the roof of the porch (by exiting a second story window) and jump onto the other houses’ roof. I jumped down and started running down the rural neighborhood street. A few houses down was a cop, dressed in his blue uniform and cap, raking leaves. I came up to him and explained what was going on and asked him to help me. He completely ignored me, as if I wasn’t there, and just kept raking leaves. I realized that he wouldn’t do anything about it because he was 100% aware of what our captor was doing and so was everyone else. They weren’t necessarily in on it, but they wouldn’t stop it either. I was afraid that there were people in on it, or people that would help the old man instead of us in this rural community. That made me apprehensive about which door I could knock on and ask to use the phone, or who I could cry and plead my case to in the neighborhood. I figured that no one would help and after walking a long way in both directions, I gave up and went back to the house because my friends were still imprisoned there. We would have to find a different way…

Note:

I wonder if this dream has something to do with a book I read about a year ago called “Escape” about a woman trying to escape from her Mormon husband, religion, and community. At one point, as she tries to leave, she is caught by the police in her area. Since they are Mormon too, they just take her back to her husband instead of hearing her pleas to be let free.

Wow, lately… my dreams have had a lot to do with religion. I blame it on Easter and my dislike for the holiday. I can usually skate through religious holidays because most of their ‘customs’ have little to do with religion. Easter is a bit different because there isn’t a bunch of crazy festivities (like Christmas has) to cover up it’s real meaning. I spend a lot of Easter dinner pretty silent so that I don’t offend my family with my religious (or lack there of) tendencies. I wonder if the uncomfort and angst I have around the holidays is coming out right now in my dreams…… !

Also, the old man was very nasty to us. He didn’t actually have a gun, exercise any type of force, or wield any other weapons but somehow we knew that we couldn’t leave and that he wouldn’t let us.

St. Felicity - the Flamenco Dancer Saint

April, 17th 2009

I was attending Dan G.’s BFA thesis, which was located in a church instead of at CIA (Cleveland Institute of Art) or somewhere in University Circle. This church was an extremely large Roman Catholic Church, and filled with golden statues and crazy gold church things. Dan was standing, with his work, near the altar. Everyone that came to his thesis presentation/critique were all situated in the pews, except for the front right pew. The front right pew was reserved for his family (much like a wedding/funeral set up in church) and had two half-sized caskets set up vertically. They were the recently dug up bodies of his mother and aunt, who had (somehow) died in the 1920s. They were both buried with bouquets of golden flowers with yellow dresses and golden floral pattern casket lining. Instead of being propped up toward Dan, his artwork, and his presentation, they were propped up facing the crowd. I was sitting in the pew directly behind them, and, since I was so close to them, I could see that they were really dusty because they were buried for so long – but somehow they looked like the just died yesterday – very preserved. After his presentation, there was a food reception in the back of the church. I walked through the buffet and out into this half – open hallway (open into the main part of the church) filled with gigantic statues of saints with votive lighting set ups. The last one on the left was a saint dressed in a black Spanish dancing costume. I walked toward Dan in the main part of the church and pointed to the saint in a Spanish/ latin American dancing costume and asked: “Why is there a Carmen Miranda statue here?” He explained that it wasn’t a statue of Carmen Miranda but a statue of St. Felicity, who was a Flamenco Dancer. I went back and inspected it to make sure he was right, which he was.
I ended up taking a lot of the food from the buffet and leaving. I was going on some sort of hiking trip, hiking from one city to another. I came across an abandoned house and was in it’s cellar heating up my food by steaming them in a bamboo box on a set of shelves that happened to be there. A girl came in and stole my food from me.

Notes:

• Although I went to Catholic schools for K – 12 grade levels, I am definitely not a Catholic, or Christian and do not identify with any specific religion. I am probably slightly more ‘religious’ than someone who is agnostic (neither denies nor accepts that there is a God/ higher power) since I believe that there is a ‘higher power’.
• Carmen Miranda is one of my favorite famous people.

Margaret Cho's Monkey Lizards

April 2nd, 2009

I was in someone’s garage – a garage not connected to a house, and actually, there were no houses on that property. There was just a garage with a driveway leading to it and hedges on either side. Also, on either side of the garage’s property were two houses, one on the right had a garage attached to it and very close to the hedge boundary of the garage I was in. The person that owned that property must also this lonely garage. I walked around, admiring all the crazy clutter, when I saw a metal 8 ft tall shelf with a weird infestation. They were strange monkey like creatures with some black fur and hands with opposable thumbs, but their back ends were green and chameleon lizard like. I couldn’t decide, through the whole encounter, whether they were monkeys or lizards. The only thing I did know was they were a very common animal – like sparrows or squirrels, and were everywhere. I started trying to teach them things. I tried to teach them how to give the middle finger, since I didn’t know sign language. I kept giving them the middle finger until they caught on and did it back. When they did, it looked more like the way that Margaret Cho does it, which actually looks really awkward. They will be able to pull their middle finger up, but only halfway bending their other fingers down instead of holding them down with their thumb. Then, some man noticed that I was in his garage and came in yelling ‘What did you see!?’ I pointed at the monkey-lizards and walked past him down the driveway in the bright sun – I think I was in L.A. or somewhere else wonderfully sunny and warm. He started following me really discretely, under the impression that I wouldn’t know he was behind me. I think he thought I saw something illegal in his garage (which I didn’t) and wanted to get rid of me. I would start talking to people about my problems and my fears about this guy following me. The guy would actually switch them out for someone that looked very similar to the person I was talking to. This person would try to kill me and I eventually caught on that the guy following me was omnipotent and was finding hit men that looked like the people I was talking to. I started to get more and more wary, and during one conversation, I realized that I wasn’t talking to the same person any more and actually saw the swap take place. I started running away.

Notes:

We went to see Margaret Cho in November, who is my favorite comedian, and I marveled at how she could flip people off without holding her other fingers down – and so effortlessly.

I visited L.A. this year to research grad schools. I also went to Florida this year as well, so this dream could take place at either of those.