Yet Another Dream Entry

I took a nap before dinner, don't know why except that I've been a little tired all day and a nap seemed like the right thing to do. Ordinarily I don't hit dream-phase sleep during a nap -- generally I find the most surreal and vividly recalled dreams come when I go back to sleep in the morning after waking up early -- but tonight seemed to be different. Now, throughout my life as a dreaming person I've had travel dreams. It's not the same dream over and over again, but there are repeating themes, to be sure.

I had gone to Seattle with my mom to deal with something having to do with her work. From there, I was to contiune on to San Jose, California. We were at the airport and I was saying goodbye. It seemed that I was going to have to fly to San Francisco instead. I cried out that I didn't know a soul in San Francisco. The terminal was dark, and the gate where my plane was supposed to be was the darkest part at all.

I went up to the counter to check in, because I knew I had an e-ticket, but I had no ID. I talked to the person at the counter, I showed her things bearing my name. Finally she was convinced by a number of bottles of prescription drugs. As I was going down the jetway, she called me back and asked me to confirm my name; when I did, she handed me a package wrapped in notebook paper.

It was from Catherine, a book about dance that she had worked on, some years ago, it looked like. I was overwhelmed with pride at her accomplishment and very pleased that she had thought to send me a copy. There was a long note with the package, written in French, English, and what looked very much like Farsi. Just when I was making sense of what I was reading, the language would change.

Now, I got on the plane. For some reason that I don't understand, I got off the plane to go to the bathroom and the plane took off without me, though I had intended to reboard. I stood there in the quiet, darkened terminal wondering what I was supposed to do. I remembered that I could still fly that day if I could find another plane leaving that day, but there was nobody around to ask. I went down to the main ticket counters to find out and I ran into Catherine and Jim -- in real life, the three of us were friends in high school. We went to the same college, but Jim went a little weird on us and we were rarely in the same circles -- and the three of us went to San Francisco.

We ended up in a crowded bar where Jim seemed to be about a head taller than everybody in the room....

That's all I remember. Honestly, I think I prefer the sort of dream in which a person I like very much persuades me that it's OK to have dessert.

The only comment is that this is the second time this year I've dreamed that Catherine was some kind of writer or editor. As far as I know, she's not, but it's interesting that I keep dreaming such a thing. I wonder if the books I dream that she's writing are my symbols of her children?

before - after