Dream beheading redux.

It's been a month since my last dream entry about the beheading of Ariana Grande.

If you've taken a look at my older posts, such macabre dreams aren't new--I recalled before that I was only nine when I dreamt of a rogue militant group called K-19--and they're rather infrequent. They're intriguing nonetheless, for the obvious reasons. So I thought I'd bring up a dream I had three years ago, which was more random and intense than the Ariana Grande dream.

The dream played a bit like a prime-time drama, taking place on U of L's campus, on a cloudy winter day. I was the observer in this dream as well. I watched as a young female student, about in her late teens or early twenties, walking across the parking lot near the bank and the Playhouse Theater. I wasn't sure where she was going, but it seemed she was headed for the bookstore.

Suddenly, she looked up and saw an unidentifiable figure in front of her, and had a look of fear on her face. After that the dream skipped scenes, and the next thing I saw was the girl's headless body flailing around and convulsing as it moved toward the bookstore, where it banged against the window and fell back on the ground to its death. I saw the gruesome action from inside the bookstore, where others noticed the flailing body and panicked.

I remember posting this on DreamMoods, and got quite a bit of interesting feedback. I wrote that the dream had reminded me of a Wikipedia article about three Indonesian girls who were ambushed and beheaded on the way to school back in 2005, which I mentioned in the DreamMoods post. (Here's an article from BBC News.)

I recall that one person responded to me with some pretty good insight:

"You mention reading a similar story on online...It is very possible the story shook you at an emotional level that you were not aware of while awake and the dream was expressing the true depth of horror you did not entirely experience while awake. I find that through out the day, there are moments that push little emotional triggers, sometimes they are fleeting moments like whispers and thoughts that go in one ear and out the other, and then they decompress at night. Usually for me the last dream I have before I wake up is directly relevent to an emotional trigger of the previous day. 

"symbolicly[sic], there are two things in common - 1) the school setting 2) the decapitation. It is an image of denied education, of intellectual oppression etc... At an emotional level, there is the horror of the violence of the denial itself, but then their is also the grief of joyfully being on the way to school to make something of oneself and then forcibly being denied that right/ yerning[sic]. 

"I think the story you read not only wounded our altruistic sense of humanity, but also feminist instincts."--name of poster withheld

It made good sense to me at the time. I have long identified as a feminist, and at the time, I was dissatisfied with what was going on at the government level--particularly the Republican party's desire to strip away women's reproductive rights and overturn Roe v. Wade. I was worried that because so many people hated President Obama (and still hate him), a president might be elected that year who would allow those dangerous restrictions to become the law of the land.

I was also worried about the novel I was writing. It embraces an issue that is very important to me, as it is to many self-identifying feminists, and I was concerned about how I could best convey my message to a reading audience. The events in Washington fueled my desire to keep writing my story. Still, the story was fragmented (as first drafts actually should be), and being an aspiring author, I let the process confuse me. Add that to my obligations regarding school, work, and life in general.

So I guess you could say I was taking "sudden hits from all directions"--the nature of an ambush.

Three years later, I still haven't finished my first draft, as life eventually got in the way. But I haven't given up. Women's rights are still on the line more than ever, as Republicans have now taken both the House and the Senate. It's more important than ever that I finish my story.

I'm starting to think that the Ariana Grande and the young woman in the 2012 dream may be one and the same in the archetypal sense--they may both represent that young, fresh new aspect of myself that is being destroyed in each of these dreams, first by multiple responsibilities and worries at once, and then by my own personal confidence issues.

I have a feeling that this year will be a year of significant change and introspection. I believe that in spite of their dark nature, these dreams are pointing me in a direction toward something amazing, and I have a lot of work to do. Just writing this is inspiring me to get up and make something happen.

Reviving the dream blog...with the help of Ariana Grande.

I know--seems this blog is coming out of nowhere, but it's been here a while...

Life has gotten in the way over the years, and I've eventually lost interest in writing down my dreams. In an effort to renew my quest to delve deeper into myself, I have decided to revive my dream blog as well, as some of my dreams have begun to catch my attention again. One in particular, as of late...


The Execution of Ariana Grande

Yes, you read it right...

This dream was the other day. I dreamt that Ariana had been taken hostage by extremists* and beheaded on video. Instead of sawing through her neck--as has been done to others in actual waking-life execution videos--the headsman severed it with one clean swing of the blade. To make things more disturbing, Ariana was sobbing the whole time, and began screaming when her time came.

At some point in the dream her boyfriend saw it, but I couldn't catch his definite reaction.

I woke up kind of out of it, but in a bit of deep thought, as I had just had a fucked-up dream about a 20-something pop star I otherwise am not too crazy about.

This dream actually bothers me in part because lately, I've been having this feeling about Ariana Grande. Maybe it's because she's so young and her career had begun to skyrocket not too long ago, but I have been having this feeling that something unfortunate might happen, something that could severely impact her progress. The dream only amplified this concern.

Of course, the chances of Ariana being abducted and executed in waking life are slim to none. The beheading is symbolic, usually symbolizing poor judgment on the part of either the dreamer or someone else:

"To dream that you or someone else is being beheaded signifies poor judgment or a bad decision that you have made and regretted. You are not thinking clearly and are refusing to see the truth. You need to confront the situation or the person despite the pain and discomfort you might feel in doing so. The dream also suggests that you have the tendency to act before you think." (from DreamMoods.com)

Here's the catch: This interpretation is likely referring to beheadings as punishment for crimes being committed.

I decided to think of this dream in relation to current events. When a group of extremists behead a hostage on video, they usually hold a major figure or a collective group (e.g., the U.S. President, the western world, "infidels") responsible. The hostage becomes an innocent victim of murder.

In the context of this dream possibly being prophetic, the dream extremists could symbolize an issue perhaps caused by someone in Ariana's circle, and this issue (say, a rumor that, God forbid, Ariana's boyfriend--Big Sean in waking life--turned out to have been married to another woman and dated her behind his wife's back) causes the public to condemn Ariana, potentially costing her everything. Hence the beheading.

More likely, however, this dream is more about me than Ariana, and the beheading is due to my own poor judgment. Ariana, then, symbolizes an aspect of me, a hopeful part of me that's youthful and blossoming. Perhaps the execution is my way of suppressing or "killing" this new aspect.

I'm sure Ariana will be fine, and she'll continue to flourish. But this dream still caught me off guard, and truth be told, anything could still happen. So I guess I'll be keeping an eye out for something to come up.

*I won't specify if they were Islamic extremists. With all the Islamaphobia going on in the States, I do not intend to inadvertently contribute to it.

My apologies for my absence.

I know it's been nearly two years since the last post. To be honest, life got in the way--that, and conducting Angel readings, which I've been doing for about a year now--and various things have been sucking a considerable amount of my energy lately. I haven't even been tracking my dreams like before. Not many interesting dreams come my way nowadays, due to lack of adequate sleep.

Hopefully I'll get back to normal soon, and I'll start blogging dreams again. Right now I'm just trying to get my energy back.

An unwelcome golden shower... O_o

This dream was a couple of days ago. And yes, this one is about that same guy who's in my video classes. Like all other dreams I've had about him, this one was non-sexual as well. But the disturbing content of the dream seemed to compensate for the lack of sexual elements.

It started--or at least the part of the dream I remember started--with me coming into the photo lab at school. In my hands were a few items--perhaps books--that my classmate had misplaced somehow, and I had come to the lab to recover these to him. Although he's not a photo major in waking life and wouldn't really be attending class in the photo lab, in the dream he was, and I found him sitting at one of the back tables. I approached him with his items, placed them in a nearby chair, and sat down right in front of him. As I sat down, he leaned a bit toward me and said something that sounded like, "If you want to sleep with me, I have something to tell you first." The next thing I knew, he took out his penis (which, in the dream, was unusually small) and began urinating on me. He squirted urine all over my clothes, my face, in my hair, and some of it got into my mouth.

Shocked and disgusted, I sat there for a minute or two. Then I ran home in tears. Once I got home, I changed out of my clothes and put on a fresh tee shirt. For some reason, I chose not to take a shower before changing, in spite of how unclean I felt.

Throughout much of the dream after that, I kept rehashing on what this man did, saying that he had fooled me and that he wasn't the man he made himself out to be. I also kept vowing revenge against him for what he did.

When I recorded this in my journal at home, I concluded that this dream was a warning dream, telling me to be careful around this man--no, he's not dangerous, but he might be having some issues in his life that he's dealing with, and if I'm not careful in my interactions with him, he might take his frustration out on me.

What led me to my conclusion about this dream came from looking back at some recurring dreams I had been having about toilets. In general, a flushing toilet in a dream represents the purging of useless or unneeded feelings and emotions. If this is the case, then to expel waste from the body in a dream--in this case, urinating--must symbolize the release of said feelings and emotions. I believe that this was what my classmate was trying to do in this dream. And because I, myself, am an emotionally sensitive person, I allowed what he did to consume me, instead of "washing it away" and moving on with my life.

Because the message in this dream concerned me, I decided to stay clear of this man for at least a few days as far as communicating is concerned. I usually greet him each time I see him, but in order to keep from imposing on him, I decided not to. He may indeed be going through a tough time, and the last thing I want to do is make matters worse.

I've been researching dream art today.

I'm actually doing it for my art history class. I have to write a research paper on a topic relating to Renaissance or modern art. I chose, of course, to write about dream-inspired art.

It's kind of difficult to come up with references, but I'm trying. So far, I've found an article on Wikipedia, a few artists as examples, and an art show page on the IASD (International Association for the Study of Dreams) website. Now I need to look in actual books...and I have a feeling that I'll have a hell of a time. Anyway...

While I was looking at the Wikipedia page, I saw something I thought was cool. There was a link to another dream blog on which the blogger had posted drawings he had done based on his dreams. This gave me the idea that maybe I should do that with my dreams.

I want to see if I can find more sites like these. It would give me not only good examples for my paper, but also inspiration for creating my own art. I had always considered doing dream art, but I could never really make the desire into reality. This might be the chance.

An unfortunate event made for a hilarious dream. XD

It was disturbing, but funny nonetheless.

What happened to bring this dream on was that the guy I had talked about at the end of the last entry--the 27-year-old I'd been flirting with--had told me on April 29 (yes, I know, pathetic--I remember the exact date) that he was already seeing someone. "You're awesome," he said, "but I can't be with you." Of course, I took this kind of hard, and I cried off and on for about a week, but I kept myself together whenever I was around him; eventually, I got past my hurt feelings, and I continued to joke around with him. So far, everything's cool. He's thousands of miles away in Europe right now, and I kind of miss him, but hope he's having a good time. ("I'll stalk you when you get back," I told him the last day of class. LOL.)

Surprisingly, despite the disappointment on April 29, I still have yet to have a dream in which this man is the main subject. But because of the conversation between us that day, I had a dream about an acquaintance of mine from work--my classmate was in it, though--about two or three days later.

I remember that for much of the dream, I was in this strange room, and I sensed that it might have been my classmate's room. I think I was lying in bed, and my classmate was sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed, facing the bed.

Then the dream flashed forward to a scene in which I approached my work acquaintance somewhere outside and told him, "You know, since I can't do it with [name withheld], I'll have to do it with you." The next thing I knew, the dream had flashed forward to yet another scene in which my acquaintance and I were in my classmate's room, in bed together, naked. It appeared as if we were having sex, but I really wasn't sure; all I remember was that he was on top of me, and that he was kissing my neck. My classmate was no longer in the room.

(Now, what you should know about this guy is that he's a year younger than me and that prior to the dream, I was never attracted to him like that. But now I'm not so sure... O_o)

I don't remember what happened in the rest of the dream, but I know that it went on for a bit, and when I woke up, I was like, "What the hell?!".

I told my best friend first, because I know that she's been really good friends with this guy for a long time. Then I told the star of the dream himself, my work acquaintance, who thought it was hilarious (and now I mess with him about it every chance I get), as did my classmate when I told him. (I also told him that it was his fault.)

I don't really have much to say about the interpretation of this dream, except that this was obviously a remedy dream to get my mind off of feeling down about my classmate. It was a bit disturbing and quite amusing, but much needed.

A funny thing about my guy dreams...hehe...

Usually, whenever there was a certain guy that I had a crush on or obsessed over, I would have a vivid string of dreams about him. The dreams would be about anything--kissing, flirting, sex, marriage, babies, murder, even politics and current events. In one recent dream, I was standing in the front office lobby of my high school with my former crush--the same guy who was murdered in my mansion dream. But we were not back in high school; it was present day, and of all things, we were discussing the Iraq War!

The thing about these guys I liked was that none of them liked me back and, for the most part, avoided me like the plague. But then again I was in middle school and high school at these times; we were all kids, and as everyone knows, kids can be cruel...

Well, at 26, I find myself, once again, infatuated with someone--this time, it's a guy in my afternoon class. But what's different about this time around, besides our age and maturity level--he's 27, by the way--is that we have actually communicated with one another, on more than one occasion. I've also flirted with him a bit. (In the past, I had never had the courage to communicate or flirt with anyone, and instead, I would send intrusive little notes, thinking that this was the only way I could get anyone to speak to me.)

What's also different about this time around is that I have not had one dream about my colleague yet--no, wait, I take that back. I've had one dream about him, in which I kissed him and he pushed me away. Other than that, I've had none about him that I can remember.

I believe it's because I've actually talked to this man, rather than obsessing about him and sending creepy notes. Back in middle and high school, I had a desire to talk to the guys I was into, but was afraid to because of the rejection I was already experiencing, so it showed up in my dreams. More than anything, I just wanted communication, and to be accepted by these guys. And I got neither.

But my current situation seems to be working in my favor; the guy I'm talking to is a pretty nice guy and surprisingly easy to talk to--this is coming from someone who doesn't warm up to people very easily--and he seems to accept my company. Even if the two of us never hook up, chances are that I'll still have a friend, or at the very least, a good acquaintance.

I'm actually kind of pleased that I'm not having any dreams about this man. Less mental clutter for me to deal with... :p

Lights out.

Such was the case in a couple of recent, very short dreams, which I believe could go into recurring mode. The first, I believe, was either on Monday or Tuesday, and the second was on Friday.

In the first dream, there was still daylight outside, but the sky had dimmed a little, and the stove light in my kitchen, which I always keep on in waking life, had burned out, and so had the lights in my bathroom. Also, the television was off, there was no music playing on the radio, and even my cell phone had stopped working.

I remember waking up and noticing that all the lights were off. Then I saw that my phone wasn't working--specifically, the screen had gone black and the icons on the screen were scrambled--and I spent a few minutes trying to think of a way to fix it. After a while, I got up and looked around the apartment, puzzled as to why my lights had stopped working.

I don't remember everything that I looked at, but I remember seeing the darkness of the kitchen and the bathroom. In the last part of the dream, I was standing in my closet, facing out toward the window, when I suddenly felt myself being pushed back into the closet. Then I woke up.

In the second dream, the sky was darker, and it must have been pitch black outside, because there was no light shining through my window. I woke up and noticed that all the lights in my apartment were out except for one of the lights in the bathroom, which itself was extremely dim. This disturbed me greatly, and I got up out of bed to inspect and to replace the dead bulbs. I had realized that the lights in the bathroom and the kitchen had burned out, so I tried to turn on the overhead light in the kitchen, but that light, too, had burned out. Then I tried to turn on the wall light facing my bed, but that light was out as well. I finally tried turning on the lamp on my dresser, and of course...

At this point, I was thinking, "Great--all my lights are burned out." Part of me was thinking that maybe a fuse had blown. Then I remembered the light in the closet. So I flipped the switch and was relieved to see that the light still worked. I don't remember exactly what happened after that, but sometime after I turned the light on, the dream ended, and I woke up, relieved to see that there was daylight outside, and that my lights were still in working order.

I don't know exactly what to make of these dreams just yet. Part of me is hoping that these dreams are not some terrible omen about something in my life. But I believe that more likely, these dreams are expressing a fear that I have failed to acknowledge in waking life. Or perhaps they informative, telling me that I am "in the dark" about something.

I may have to meditate, and I'm definitely going to pray over this. Only God knows the answer to these dreams right now, and He's the only one who knows where this will take me.

"Some of the content before you..."

This dream was back in February, actually. I thought to write down the main elements and analyze them before putting it all in my journal.

Because of the varying themes, I believe that this was actually a series of several dreams in a single sleep cycle.

I remember that in the first scene, I was in my apartment, but my apartment was more like a spacious condo, with a beautiful wood finish, a huge living room, a nice, roomy kitchen, and steps leading to a foyer. There was plenty of light, and long, brown drapes that hung from tall windows. As I recall, I had several people visiting my apartment, none of whom I recognize from waking life, and some of them kept pulling down my drapes.

After the scene in my apartment came a scene with a strange warning. It was about a dangerous internet icon, a cartoon dog who hacked into people's personal information and used it to defraud them. This scene never popped up again.

Then came a recurring scenario about a group of miniature cartoon characters who appeared to be a cross between the Care Bears and another group of 80s cartoon characters called the Shirt Tails (at least that's what I think they were called), and they all lived in my apartment. There was also a middle-aged, blonde-haired madwoman, whom I'll call the "cookiemaker," because in the dream, she baked a batch of evil "killer cookies" that came to life and went out to kill the cartoon characters living in my apartment. Eventually, one of the cartoon characters was killed by the cookies while trying to fend them off along with his friends.

Somewhere down the line, a reenactment of Lord of the Flies began to play itself out, with Bruce Willis playing the part of "Simon." For those who haven't read the book, Lord of the Flies is a story about a group of adolescent boys who become stranded on a deserted island after their plane crashes. Somewhere in the story, the boys hunt and kill a wild boar for food. They cut off the head of the boar and impale it upright on a stick. "Simon" is the one who goes crazy and begins to believe that the boar's head is talking to him. In the dream's version, however, the "cookiemaker" is the one who is killed, not a wild boar, and her head is cut off also, but rather than being placed on a stick, the face on the severed head has transformed into a hideous monster. Also, while "Simon" eventually dies in the original story, in the dream, he is the last man standing, left to his madness.

Sometime after the death of one of the cartoon characters, and before her own death scene, the "cookiemaker" arrived at my apartment with her boyfriend, both of them dressed in swimwear (apparently I had a pool, although I had never seen it). For the entire scene, they stood outside the entrance to my apartment. But there was something different about the "cookiemaker"--rather than the evil, maniacal, middle-aged madwoman I had seen before, I saw a sweet young girl about my age, somewhat ditzy, and very much in love with her boyfriend. I began to feel sorry for her and grieve for her as I watched her with her boyfriend, because I knew what "Simon" was going to do to her. Fortunately for me, the scene changed before it got to that point.

The next thing I knew, I was going door-to-door with my mom, visiting relatives, mainly my nieces, nephews, and their parents. We had come to their homes to examine the toys that the kids were playing with. Each toy had a hidden message encoded within it, and Mom and I sought out to decipher these messages. Among these strange toys, I saw Barbie dolls with special-made, reinforced legs, and action figures whose heads popped off with little or no force.

During these toy examinations, the television was on, showing various programs. I paid no attention to the television until the very end of the dream, when an infomercial was about to air on FOX-41. Only the voice I heard on the preceding opening announcement was that of one of the WAVE-3 meteorologists, and the voice said, "Some of the content before you is a scene before you." Just as the infomercial was coming on, the dream ended, and I woke up.

As soon as I woke up, I tried as best I could to hold on to the key elements before my recall faded, wrote them down, and thought about what the dream was trying to say. It actually didn't take me very long to figure out the main message.

It's pretty obvious that this dream was an information dream, reminding me to look carefully at my life and the world around me--things are not as they seem. This is true for a lot of things. When you think about it, every one of us has had to put on some type of "game face" when presenting ourselves to the outside world--sometimes to be professional, sometimes to hide insecurities and inadequacies about ourselves, and sometimes to hide evil intentions.

The infomercial was a perfect example of this idea. Many of the infomercials we see on television offer products that the advertisers claim will change consumers' lives, and in many cases, they have to stretch the truth or exaggerate in order to get their products sold.

There were also other elements in the dream that conveyed this message. Take the "cookiemaker," for instance. She was at first portrayed as an evil mastermind, but later turned out to be a sweet, ditzy young girl who was in love. The Barbie dolls were stronger than they appeared to be, and the action figures were not so tough as they appeared to be.

I'm not quite sure where Lord of the Flies, the cartoon characters, the dangerous dog icon, or even my apartment fits in to all of this--this is why I said this might have been several dreams in one cycle--but this was the message behind all I had seen. Only time will tell how this will apply to my life.

Sorry for the long delay, people...

I haven't had any dreams to blog about lately.

Hopefully now, I'll be able to come on here more often. I've just had a little dry spell...

A possible connection between two car dreams, nine years apart.

The dreams I am about to describe each involved a car on an expressway. The first involved my entire family; the second, only certain members of my family.

The "Everlasting Love" Dream (1991)

I call this the "Everlasting Love" dream because Tony Terry's "Everlasting Love was playing on the radio and had bled into my dream. This dream has been the brunt of family members' jokes for years (LOL).

In the dream, the seven of us--my parents, brothers, sisters, and I--were riding in a car along the expressway, and the song was playing throughout. As the song played, the car bobbed up and down the road's many curves and grooves, dancing in a way as it drove along the expressway.

In one scene, the car had run off the side of the road, and for a moment, it appeared that it might crash into the ditch below. But then the car turned upward and started floating back up onto the expressway. Nothing else happened beyond that; the car just continued driving down the expressway until the dream ended.

The Expressway Accident Dream (2000)

In this dream, it was a full-moon night, and I was riding in a car with my parents and older sister. For some reason, my mother was in the back seat with me, while my sister was up front with my father. I think we were talking about something. Then I noticed that my father was sitting backwards in his seat, but still driving (that part still puzzles me to this day).

Suddenly, the car swerved to the right and ran off the side of the expressway. I can remember that everyone was screaming as the car made its descent towards the ground below us. In the final part of the dream, I remember looking up at the moon through the moonroof and praying: "Please, God, don't let us die..." Then, just before the moment of impact, the images faded to white, and the dream ended.

The connection...

I looked back on both of these dreams and thought hard about the corresponding elements.

I believe that these dreams were one and the same, and that the elements in the first dream were toned down a bit so as not to scare me, since I was 9 at the time and might have been very traumatized by an accident involving my family (I believe that the dream about K-19 was easier to stomach, as terrifying as it was, because my family wasn't fully involved). These dreams were both prophetic and informative, and were fortelling what was in store for my family and me--and neither message had anything to do with an actual car accident.

The first dream, I believe, was simply telling me that my family and I would experience many "twists and turns" on the "road" of our lives, but that we could get through our troubles.

The second dream really got to me, because looking back at this dream, I also reviewed some recent family situations in waking life, and there were a couple of major situations which stuck out to me--the first involving my parents, the second involving my older sister. I put the pieces together and realized that this dream was fortelling hard times for me and these specific members of my family.

I'm still not sure of exactly what situation the dream was fortelling in regards to me. I've had some crazy things occur in the past five years, but I don't know if any ot that would really qualify. Or maybe it would. Only God knows.

I thought that it was kind of cool to look back at these two dreams. I find it interesting how two separate dreams nine years apart could be connected in such a way and have such profound significance in my life and my family's lives.

The Dream About K-19 (1991)

This was perhaps the earliest violent dream that I can remember. It's amazing that I can still remember it so well after all these years.

What I remember was that I was in school, and all of the students and teachers were called outside. Everyone left class and went out to the front of the school.

I recall that we saw a blackened sky once we came outside, and all around us were huge tanks and several soldiers dressed in fatigues. For some reason, these people called themselves K-19.

I don't remember much from when the teachers and students first came outside, but it wasn't long before the soldiers began gathering people up to be killed.

Throughout the dream, I watched as adults and children were being brutally and methodically executed. I don't remember the exact ways in which they died, but I recall seeing blood and gore everywhere I looked. The dream ended before K-19 could claim my life.

I remember writing about this in my diary sometime after I had the dream, and that I made up macabre details about how my teacher and classmates were sliced, diced, shot, and beheaded, before I myself was blown up with an explosive hot dog (I remember I got the hot dog thing from the movie Leonard, Part 6--that movie with Bill Cosby). I didn't remember any major details involving the actual death scenes, nor did I try too; I just knew the dream scared me, and I guess I figured at the time that I could deal with my emotions about the dream by dramatizing it and blowing it out of proportion.

I still don't remember any major details from this dream (it has been 16 years), and my first interpretation of this dream seemed kind of outlandish.

My main concern, however, is not the dream's elements. What perplexes me is the fact that I would have such a violent dream at 9 years of age. Like other 9-year-olds at the time, I had no doubt seen my share of movies I shouldn't have seen, especially horror movies. But my dreams were usually the kind of lighthearted dreams one would expect a child to have and didn't involve violence. My dream about K-19 would be more suited for me today, at 25. I wonder what could have been going on then that could have triggered a dream of this nature.

I now want to revisit this dream. I am hoping that something can come about the next time around.

The "Frozen" Dream (1998)

This was a dream I had back in high school. I call it the "Frozen" dream because throughout the dream, Madonna's "Frozen" was playing in the background.

I remember that the dream was brief and took place in the 1930s or 1940s. It involved the same guy whom I had taken extreme interest in at the time--the same one who was killed in the "mansion" dream the following year.

I remember that I was standing in the entryway of what appeared to be a den or living room watching other people in the room. My view of most of them was blurred, because my main focus was on my crush, who was in the middle of the room, dancing with a little girl who was about a year old. As I watched them dancing, I had a feeling that the little girl may have been my daughter with this guy.

To this day, I still have no idea what this dream could mean. And my dream journals from high school, if I had still had them with me, would have been of no help; until four years ago, I had never actually attempted to interpret my dreams and just wrote them down. I once had a theory about what the meaning might have been, but I cannot remember it off the top of my head.

I'll think about it again when I have the chance. I know that whatever it is, it had to do with high school and the unfortunate relationship between this guy and me. And once I do figure it out, perhaps it could bring me closure in my present life.

More dreams about the Maryland town.

Sometime in May, having convinced myself that I was nuts, I decided to do a personal analysis on myself concerning Angelo and his hometown in Maryland. I typed up seven and a half pages of this, blaming my situation and all the things that stemmed from it (including Angelo) on a number of things ranging from your garden-variety lonliness to a possible psychotic depression. It actually saddened me to conjure up this analysis, but I felt it was for the best, as I was seeing that my fascination with this place in Maryland, so far, wasn't leading me anywhere.

In the nights that followed, something strange occurred: I had three separate dreams which, once interpreted, all appeared to have something to do with the town in Maryland.

The first dream was creepy. It involved me trying to restrain this live (as in living and moving of its own accord) metal spring which was gathering lint and forming this freakish-looking black ball. At first, the ball kept bouncing onto my shoulder every time I flung it on the floor. Throughout the dream, I tried to keep it from moving. The dream ended with the ball of lint chasing me down a hallway.

The second dream was brief--like a minute or so long--and rather mundane. I kept using Febreze to get rid of an odd, lingering odor that was in the kitchen.

The third dream was the most active, it seems to me. I was sitting at the front of a log-cabin classroom, where it appeared that everyone was dressed as if it were the turn of the 20th century. To my far left was a girl who, for the most part, was out of my view. Other than me and the mystery girl, there were only two other people in the classroom: a boy who appeared to be about 12 years old and, of course, the teacher. According to the dialogue of the dream, the teacher and the boy had been having an affair, which seemed to have come to a halt. The two were arguing in front of the blackboard. The boy said he wanted to continue with the affair; the teacher kept making it clear that it was over between them. After, I'd say, about five to ten minutes arguing back and forth, the teacher demanded that the boy take an ESL (English as a Second Language) class (although both the teacher and the boy were speaking crystal-clear English). On the blackboard was a date that I couldn't see because it was blurred; it appeared to be a date sometime in November and December, in a year between 2007 and 2009.

The first two dreams were ways of letting me know that my situation with the town in Maryland isn't near over, that it is very much a part of my life, and that, try as I might, I won't be able to make it go away, and it's always going to be there, haunting me for years to come. The third dream--all except the date--was telling me that instead of trying to discredit everything, I should perhaps try to turn it into a story--something others can understand and won't be so quick to judge because or unusual quirks (thus the ESL class; I need to "translate it into English").

What does the unknown date mean, exactly? There's no way of knowing. Right now, only God and time can be the judges of that. But I know that there's a prophetic message behind it.

The mystery surrounding Angelo and the town in Maryland is bound to continue for quite some time, and there is still much to find out about this. It's obvious that letting it all go isn't the answer. So then, what is? Hopefully, it will all unfold soon.

My First Pregnancy Dream (1994)

Yes, this was 13 years ago.

I was 12 and had been writing about my dreams for about a year. But that's all I did--write about the dreams. I had never even given any thought to the interpretations of them.

It was my parents whom I had consulted about a dream I had one day after dozing off in my room. In this dream, I was quite pregnant--I'd say about five months or so--and I didn't know the father. I remember that the dream had a very melancholy setting, and featured me walking along a wood fence, wondering what to do about the baby.

Lately, I've been looking back on some of my old dreams. This was one of the dreams that interested me most.

It is said that when a woman or girl dreams about being pregnant, it symbolizes the coming of a new gift, potential, or purpose; it hardly has anything to do with an actual baby.

I have had several pregnancy dreams since then, all of them much happier than the first.

My guess is that I was examining something new about myself and wasn't sure what to do with it. I did suffer from self-esteem issues all through adolescence, and so I was unsure about a lot of things.

Of course, as I grew older, that outlook changed, and the dream elements changed with them. Even though I am still trying to find myself as an adult, I am more sure of what I want and need than I was before, when all I was concerned about was others' opinions of me. I know that there a lot of things about me that still have yet to be discovered, and I really want to work on bringing them out into the open and using them.

The Message Dream Featuring a Star of "Passions" (2005)

Since 2000, my sisters and I have been tuning in to the NBC soap "Passions" (which will soon no longer be on NBC, but I digress). At first, I was more focused on its main heroine, "Theresa." But lately, I've been paying attention to "Simone," who has been Harmony's resident lesbian since 2005.

Over the years, "Simone's" face has changed twice. I have grown very fond of her latest portrayer, Cathy Jeneen Doe. (Yes, I know what that sounds like, but that wasn't the way I meant it.) And eventually, she began showing up in my dreams.

Some of those dreams were sexual, some a bit tragic. But there is one that still sticks out in my mind today, more than a year later.

While watching "Simone's" story unfold on "Passions," I began fearing for some reason that somehow, some way, "Spike," the resident pimp, would rape "Simone" and get her pregnant. That is exactly what happened in a dream I had sometime around Christmas, back in 2005. As the dream began, "TC" and "Eve," "Simone's" parents, were sitting at home, in their kitchen, sometime in the morning. Then came a knock on the door. "TC" and "Eve" answered the door to see a six-month-pregnant "Simone." She was glowing, and dressed in brand-new maternity clothes.

"Simone" proceeded to tell her parents her story of how "Spike" had abducted her, raped her, gotten her pregnant, and had been forcing her to turn tricks for him during the past six months before she finally escaped. (I guess "Spike" was telling potential johns that she had the "fertility goddess" thing going on?) She assured her parents that despite all this, she was okay, and everything would be fine.

This dream deeply disturbed me, but I knew that there was a message behind this--a message about my life situation.

See, I have for a long time been afraid that someone or something would get in the way of my life plans and devastate me to the point where my life would be beyond repair. I even have gone so far as to wonder if a situation like the one I dreamt that "Simone" was in would become my situation.

I thought hard about the dream's main elements, and it came to me. The dream was letting me know that no matter what happened, everything would be all right. Despite "Simone's" horrible ordeal with "Spike," she showed no signs or distress or trauma. And she was wearing new clothes, whereas in real life, if a woman had been held captive for six months, she'd have likely escaped in rags or even naked. This was more than enough to let me know that this was a message about overcoming my fears, rather than just a simple anxiety dream about the show "Passions." My subconscious mind was just using Cathy Doe and her character to represent me and to express my fears about my own life.

I still have a lot of anxiety about where my life is headed. But I'm trying to deal with it, one day at a time. I know my life can't really be as bad as it seems.

The Mansion Dream (1999)

I believe I had this dream exactly eight years before the dream about the town in Maryland (yes, I remember the exact date).

Before I share this dream with you, I'll give you a little backstory: I was 17 and a junior in high school at the time. I had a terrible time in high school, and was treated pretty much like an outcast. Many of my problems centered around a guy whom I like very much but who showed no interest in me whatsoever.

The dream began with me and a lot of my high-school classmates in an huge, spooky mansion. We were all adults in the dream, and some of us were married.

We were greeted by an elderly hostess with a British accent, whom I believe informed us that we were all to die at a certain time. Then she let us go our separate ways throughout the mansion.

The free time she allotted us did not go without the shedding of blood, as the hostess went around the mansion and began taking people's lives, one-by-one. I never saw exactly who she killed, but I knew it was a lot of people, all of whom I knew well.

Eventually, everyone was called back to the main den area, and the hostess announced that our death was near. She said she would allow us each to have one sexual experience before we died--or as she so bluntly put it, "one fuck before you die." Everyone complied and had their final sexual experience.

Finally, the time came for us to die, and she had intended to kill us off single-handedly. As her first victim, she chose my at-the-time object of desire. She took out a dagger and proceeded to attack him. I intervened and tried to stop her, but I was too late; she had killed him with a single stab wound to the heart.

Just as she had stabbed him, I spotted another dagger on the floor, picked it up, and moved in on the hostess, killing her as she had killed my crush. As I watched her die, the dream ended.

To this day, it is unclear to me what this dream's overall message is. But I have still managed to interpret a few principal elements.

Seeing as I was the only one in the dream who could stop the killer hostess, I concluded that the hostess represented me--a negative aspect of myself that had to be "killed" in order for me to grow and mature. And this negative aspect was affecting not only me but also many others around me, as suggested by the multiple killings. And perhaps the victims whose faces I didn't see were people who probably would have lent me a helping hand at the time, but who had distanced themselves after encountering this ugly side of me. The only victim whose face I had seen, my crush, was the one affected most of all.

This dream has all the makings of an informational dream, judging from what I could interpret, especially my own actions in the dream. I believe that my killing the hostess was a message to me telling me what I needed to do if I wanted things to improve in my life, socially and emotionally as well as spiritually.

Unfortunately, I did not listen, and high school continued to get worse for me. But I am listening now, eight years later, as a 25-year-old woman. That "madwoman" is still alive and well inside me, as strong as she ever was, attacking at a different front. She hasn't "killed" anyone yet, thank God. And I am taking steps to make sure that never happens.

A strange dream about that town in Maryland.

This dream happened on February 19. The entire dream was about a trip I took to the same Maryland town that Angelo would have come from had he existed.

It started with me in my hotel room, where I was watching a news report on the town's local station. I don't remember what the report was about, but I sensed that it had to do with my situation regarding this town. I also remember seeing an open pack of unused light bulbs sitting somewhere in my room.

Sometime in the dream, I remember standing in a high-school classroom, and the students' desks were positioned around me in a circle. Around the desks, hovering above the students' heads, was a series of odd, yet colorful sculptures, which appeared to be made of a plastic-like material.

A later scene placed me among a croud of young adults, no older than me, gathered in a main street somewhere in the town. Everyone, including me, was passing around cans of Coke and drinking them after each other.

While I was in this crowd of people, I began having thoughts about two people having come from this town to Louisville back in 2002: one of them was Angelo, and the other was a woman I had never seen before...or so it may seem.

Much of the dream included this mystery woman's memories, told from her point of view, but seen through my eyes. Among these memories was one of the hotel at which I was staying (and no, it did not involve sex). These memories were somewhat vague, but still stuck out in my mind.

I do believe that this dream is prophetic in some way. It does not have the characteristics of a dream that expresses a hidden desire or a fear. It happens in an unknown sequence, but the way everything is situated is still logical and realistic--a good characteristic of a prophetic dream.

I'll start with the significance of the unused light bulbs. Obviously, the bulbs represent unused ideas, and the open carton suggests to me that while these ideas have not been used, they are at least being taken into consideration.

It is still unclear what message the classroom sculpture sends. Maybe it was mind jargon that simply bled into a spot in the dream which might still have a significant meaning.

I'm guessing that the classroom represented something learned or taught, and me standing in the middle perhaps meant that I may have something to "teach" to someone. Then again, it could just as easily be the other way around.

The crowd of young people passing the Coke around seems to represent union and togetherness in some way, shape, or form--perhaps some type or synergy. But I'm still not sure of what the exact message is.

Now on to the most significant element in this dream--the unknown woman. At first glance, one might conclude that she is personally involved with Angelo, perhaps a spouse. But that's not what I'm getting at all. (Besides, if she were his wife, or even his girlfriend, then why would she have me viewing her memories?) I believe her to be the same thing I suspect that Angelo may be--a new, unexplored aspect of myself. Maybe she and Angelo represent some type of spiritual duality.

If both of them are just aspects of who I am, and they "traveled to Louisville" five years ago in search of me, then why the trip to the town from which they came? Perhaps it is for the purpose of further exploring these newfound aspects, along with the new potential that they may have brought with them. Or maybe this town might still have more to do with me than I believe it does.

I'm still trying to figure the ins and outs of this mystery. I know that something's there. For the past five years, this town in Maryland has taken up considerable thinking space in my brain. I refuse to believe that something that has gone on this long has absolutely no meaning at all. I'll keep praying and I'll keep pushing until I figure it out.

About the man in my dreams...

It's a long story...

It started nearly five years ago; I was at work, bagging packages for a town in Maryland. Eventually, the town's name grew on me mysteriously. And so I spent pretty much the rest of that year trying to figure out what was going on.

That December, something happened. On the way home from the mall, I began to get an image in my mind: a scene of Christmas Day, and someone coming in. It was me, and with me was a man. He was about 5'2", with a shaved head and slight facial hair. We were married, and I appeared to be at least five months pregnant. We were just arriving at my mother's place; we had come from the town I had been preoccupied with that entire year--his hometown.

This thought gave me a warm feeling. At the time, it was an innocent thought--one which, believe it or not, I tried to shut out of my mind, as I considered my being drawn to this town to be a bad thing, something to be avoided. Later, it would become something bigger and more odd than I had ever imagined...

The following year was a wild one, with a number of strange incidents that occurred, among which were a series of signs and coincidences that all centered around this Maryland town. (One of these was a series of clouds in the sky, in "V"-form, "pointing" in the northeast direction, like arrows. Not making this up.) Soon, I began having dreams about the strange man who was allegedly a native of said town--the man whom I now know as Angelo. I caught every detail of his face, his body, his personality. He even has a birthday--if he were an actual person, he would have turned 28 today.

For the past three years, I have wondered about his existence, and I have prayed for it again and again. So far, he hasn't materialized. But I never gave up hope that he existed; whenever I began having doubts, something always kept me holding my breath.

I now believe that I have fallen in love with Angelo. This, of course, has led me to question my own sanity a bit. There is that part of me that wants to believe that he's somewhere out in the world, perhaps thinking the same thing as me--that there's someone, somewhere, that he feels connected to, whose existence he questions. But then there is that logical part of me that keeps assuring me that Angelo is no more than a figament of my imagination, a delusion that I created in the depths of my subconscious. And as I've said before, he could just be a representative aspect of myself.

I have prayed and cried over this for so long, and I still don't know what it's all about. But I keep holding on, waiting for that one day when everything will come together, when everything will make sense.

The Photograph Dream

This dream was this past Saturday, and what I'm about to describe is actually a short fragment.

In this fragment, I kept seeing two photos of myself with a man whom I've never met in waking life, but whom has repeatedly shown up in my dreams. He was short--about 5'2"--with a shaved head and a slight beard, and he had a light complexion. In the dream, we were dating, and the photos were taken at some type of semi-formal party.

The first photo was of us kissing. My date was leaning away from the camera, to where I couldn't see his face. But I could still tell who he was without seeing his face.

I did see his face in the second photo, which was of the two of us smiling at the camera.

The two photos appeared over and over again in a steady loop; then the dream ended.

I have no definite idea what to make of this. I find rather strange that this same man would show up in so many of my dreams, although I am always happy to welcome him whenever he shows up.

When I see him, we are usually dating or married, and sometimes we have a child--a daughter.

I'm thinking that this man likely represents some aspect of myself that I either need to recognize or am in the process of recognizing. This would be well illustrated in the relationship that I have with him in my dreams. Our daughter, then, might represent the new ideas or gifts or potential that may be or may have been derived from such a realization of self.

Of course, I could also say that these dreams are semi-prophetic, fortelling of someone or something significant coming into my life and enhancing it, and that the child who sometimes shows in these dreams might, indeed, be an actual child. And I'll admit--part of me wants to believe that. I am a big believer in such phenomena. But who would believe me? And what evidence is there to back it up, if something is to actually happen?...

And the photos in the above dream? Well, I don't quite have any ideas on what these could mean. A few fellow members on DreamMoods and the DM Underground have told me that photos in a dream usually mean that a moment is being preserved, or that there is something that needs the attention of the dreamer. It can also mean that things are not as they appear, or that the dreamer may be holding on to false hope.

Certainly, I don't believe anything is being preserved, since there is nothing to preserve. And I don't see how this would necessarily need my attention.

I think there's possibility that this may be a false image, but it's a false image of me. If this man really is just an aspect of who I am, then perhaps this picture represents a false idea I might have given myself or others that all is well, that I have discovered this part of myself, when I actually haven't.

In the case of false hope, perhaps I may be holding on to the idea that this man might be real and that he might enter my life and change my life, or that something extraordinary might happen. This is not to say that it's impossible for something big to happen in my life. But one cannot be sure where his/her life will take him/her. Everyone has some amount of ambition, and we all think big, to some degree; we all wonder what purpose we have in life, and often, we hope for something larger than life. And some people don't seem to go any further than their own backyards, figuratively speaking. And maybe that's the case with me, too.

I guess time will tell what happens for sure. But this dream definitely has meaning, and it's worth looking into.