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.