Dragonfly Wings; Bulging Dictionary: Aquarium; Phones; Snow; Monster Coach

1/21/10

At my grandmother's. Walking in the forest. It's very dense and the grass is incredibly high or I'm very small. There are insects and I keep finding dragonflies that have had the wings torn off--but not really torn off, because they're more like mechanical things or Legos where the wings snap off, but they're still suffering. I have to crush one to put it out of its misery and I'm upset. I climb up a slanted roof and see I'm about twenty feet above the ground. Everyone is cautioning me but I just jump down. I have stuff to do.

I leaf through a dictionary. I'm trying to find a certain kind of rat. I'm pretty sure it starts with the letter F. The illustrations or descriptions start to rise up off the page. There's a really scary one of potatoes or apples covered in hair or mold and spiderwebs. I get a little squeamish but keep looking and laugh with relief when I see it's just leftover Halloween decorations. I also realize I don't have to worry about finding the rats because I can just scoop up as many as I need from the living illustration. I fill my pockets with soft rats.

I pass by the big cage where my grandmother's rabbit is kept. I take it out to pet it and say goodbye and it faints in my hands. Feeling sort of guilty but hilarious, I put it back and make a big show of covering it with its soft blanket.

I go to the next room. Everything else has been dusty and dark and hairy, but here in my cousin's house it's all glossy and expensive-looking. There's a huge aquarium. They have adorable new pets, three big snails each with three antennae that get bigger as I watch. I realize that they're not real animals but like toys? Animation? Robots? Clones? I'm a little disappointed but I still have affection for them as if they were animals. The aquarium keeps getting bigger until it's over my head, or I'm in it. There's something else in the water besides the snails, like a big slow eel or catfish, white and long, that passes over our heads.

Later, Nap.

I'm at home in VA. My brother, his wife, my mom and two of my bro's friends are around. One of them is a stranger. Our friend B is in the kitchen. In the living room, we're waiting for a message, or the phones are screwed up or something. I keep reaching for the stranger's outmoded phone and picking it up. I'm embarassed but he doesn't seem to mind. I finally go to the kitchen to see what's the matter and find a bunch of swinging beepers in the tent-like play room.

I take the bus home. I offer half my sandwich to a woman on the bus. I've been carrrying her broken glasses and I sheepishly offer them back when I have to get off.

C and I walk down the snowy street. At first we're laughing but then we're throwing snowballs and it gets competetive. The snow falls apart in my hands, it's too dry, and I just throw handfulls of snow dust at her back. Finally I'm trapped in some deep snow and C dumps a shovelful of dirty snow on my head. I threaten her that it's the end of the friendship. I get up and walk away. She and a friend follow me. I start explaining in outrage why that's not an okay thing to do but soon it becomes clear that she and her friend are dealing with something much more serious--a love rivalry? We get to the tent like play room and go in. I turn a plastic table upright and there are little lights on its corners that light up. I also have like one of those pagers at the Shake Shack that light up when your food is read. C and her friend are recounting the story of Matt, the sports coach that they are both in love with. I'm shocked, because in the dream C is back in high school. She's speaking raptly and even laughing. It turns out the coach is also some kind of monster. I'm mostly worried about him being too old.

What an awesome series of dreams. I have been getting some serious sleep lately because of my cold but since I had to wake up with an alarm this morning I think I remember these better.

Animals, especially slightly upsetting animals, or ones that I feel tenderly for, have been a big feature in the dreams lately. Is there something I'm trying to protect? They're all kind of vulnerable but also sinister. Some sort of male genital metaphor?

I've been talking to a couple of people about Reading dreams lately. I think it might just be that we're all reading like crazy. The dictionary is the latest example. There was no text, but it was certainly in book shape and I could turn the pages. Seeing the horrible potatoes covered in hairy stuff was upsetting only until I remembered I could turn the page.

Interesting that I had such an antagonistic dream about C. She came and visited me in New York for the first time last weekend. There wasn't any snow, or confrontation of any kind. We get along well and I'm very fond of her and have vague plots to convince her to move here. I was hyper aware that we're different kinds of girls. Do I not want to have a super feminine friend enter my very guyish/tomboyish social circle?