+ lauraTitian +

Speaking of journals:1000 Journals looks incredible.

Two nights in a row: dreams of snow. And cars. Cars in snow. On the hottest day of the summer, what does dreaming of snow mean? Just a reaction to the heat? My gut tells me non! It's much, much more than that... but what?

In each dream, I realize there's snow everywhere... and then I get into a car.

First night: Car is identical to ex-boyfriend's. I get into car alone, in drivers' seat. Car spins out of control immediately on a small decline as i pull into parking lot. Car sliding on fresh snow. Parkinglot is thankfully empty except for ambulance, being shovelled out. Car keeps spinning while I try unsuccessfully to steer, seeing the mall surrounding the parking lot spinning before me in fast spirals through the windshield. In a split second I see someone point to the left, directing me to steer my wheels that way. Doesn't help. Still spinning. Avoiding running into mall. Car finally comes to gradual stop in a narrow alley as I exit the parking lot.

Second night: The car is a beater, and I'm in San Diego on an extended layover from a flight I'm supposed to be taking to Africa. I comment that San Diego seems like a nice town, it's beautiful and sunny, but snow everywhere, and I get into this beater car which is supposed to be a cab. It's navy blue, and I cannot pull the door closed, from the passenger seat side. I keep trying and trying, slamming and slamming the door as the driver is pulling away, taking us to a chain restaurant ... finally with my hardest yank I get the door shut.

Sleeps Dream Dictionary analizes snow this way:
SNOW: To dream of snow in all its forms, on trees, storms, etc., is a dream of very good omen which shows you will have success in business or investments, but if you should eat the snow this will presage a long period of sadness for the dreamer.

I can report with great relief that I didn't eat the snow. But what about the cars? Do car dreams really symbolize your sex life? Lets See...

CARS: If you dream of a railroad car, or a cable car your dreams of being rich will always be dreams, but your income should be adequate for your lifestyle. See automobile.

okay... that makes some sense although kind of cramps my style with the snow definition.. so i'm going for autmobile, since that's what they really were...
Automobiles: Vehicles that you ride in usually reflect two things: the direction you are heading in life, and your body (the thing you travel or "ride" through life in). ...The condition of the vehicle might give you an idea of your health. Driving an old beat up car down a muddy road on a stormy night would be considered a pretty bad dream! However flying a Lear jet through blue skies with a song in your heart and the wind at your tail would be a rather good dream.

But, there was so much more to the dream, that might be more worthy of analysis (Oh go on, you're saying...)
So if you dare... here's the entire dream, unedited...

<unedited dream>
Burning house. I have foresite that this house, two stories, filled with some family i seem to know well, will be burned down, even though now there is only evidence of a scent and faint sight of smoke. I instruct: "Get the children out. Here's what you all need to do: go, get the baby... don't go looking for your favorite things, objects, etc. you need to just get out of the house." but then later, we had some time to go through and find stuff. searching through suitcases finding things i don't care about, deciding i can leave them behind, let them burn.

Then on my way out the door, on top of a large television set, (old 70s style, the kind that sits on the floor) i see a few ceramics items, Dave Tell things that i care dearly about. i grab them in my arms, balancing them, hoping they won't break, etc.

Later: we retreat to a local 'renovated' illegal type factory-loft, somewhere. But it is on the first floor. It's darkish, not many windows, but it's modern, intentionally designed. This is the home of are our friends. We know them to be Arabic. We are confidants, we can trust them. Its like we (we?) are hiding out here.

As i round a corner to enter the hideout's front room, I'm alone except that accompanied by our 'family dog' or a dog that i understand to be with me, mine... Medium sized, sandy, cute... We are rounded-- headed off-- by a pack of the Arabic families' pets: all dogs and cats, siamese cats, other cats, dogs. They form a swarm, almost. Their leader is a very large dog... a saint bernard of sorts, but bigger, big face, humerous face... he almost has glasses, a mustache, gold chains. He's part Big Pun, almost. Yet Dog. My dog barks and gears up to stand-off to him, protecting me... and also he's just being a dog... but the leader, big-dog-man-guy (did i say part Leon Redbone too? as if he might even sport a top hat?) just kind of puffs his chest out, and finds it humerous, my comaratively small dog trying to face off to him. Big dog laughs, smirks, even puts out a hand/paw, in the 'woah, hold up' motion... he says "now don't even attempt to do this little guy, just reeelax, relax, sit back..." I dont know if he was just going to let us into the room anyway, but he needed to establish his dominance first. He was humored, yet definitely displaying his bravado. he was good though. We knew this.

We were allowed into the room now, my dog subsiding... the dog/man/bigpun/leonredbone/arabic guy, for now he had morphed more into one of the family members, yet still the same character, was telling us about how he has been reading texts, has started to question certain aspects of his Arabic religion, or of it's traditions, and practices. not to deny the religious credibility, not to be 'heretic' but instead to try to cut through some of the possible customary, cultural obstacles, and get closer to the real Allah, to strengthen his Muslim practice. He knew it was risky. Many Muslims might not understand.... might think him blasphemous. but he likened it to trying to get closer to a Christian God by maybe questioning, studying or working around Jesus. i said i understood. thought it to be a highly evolved and intelligent thing to be thinking about. even for the questioning and the inquiry part of it. i didn't have any thoughts on if he were right or wrong. but one of the customs i knew and understood, for example, was the washing of the feet... before prayer. seems inconsequential, especially cause i myslef was washing my feet to clean and cool them off in the evening heat yesterday before i went to bed and had this dream. however, sometime after, i am talking with the big man dog, i notice my mouth is full of wax. i cannot talk, i cannot seem to get the wax out. its mushy, sticky, almost criscolike. i keep bunching up my lips, trying to expell it, but whenever i get some out, there's always more in there... i cannot talk.

Then: the car. I left the arabic hidout safe-haven, i had to go somewhere. i got into a car alone, a red stationwagon, identical to the one john my exboyfriend had left here when he moved away from nyc. i understood that i had already sold that car, so this wasn't the 'actual car' but i was confused as to why i had a replica of that old car.... maybe it was his cousins' or something. so i get in... and as i head out to drive (where am i going?) i have to go through a large parking lot. it's an empty mall lot. no other cars there, save an ambulance parked on the edge, near a building of the 'mall'... there is snow everwhere... a light fresh layer of white snow on everything. it isn't snowing now though. i see two employees of the 'ambulance service' cleaning up things around the ambulance... shovelling snow. first i wondered what they were doing up, out at this hour.. nobody else seemed to be around. Then i realized , they are the ambulance service. they always need to be prepared. even in this weather. as i drive into the lot, i have to go through a slight steep decline, and i immediately build up speed... it's so slippery from the snow, and at first i think oh its fun, i'll do a donut or two then the car will stop. But No, I am speeding forward out of control!!! i try stepping gingerly on the breaks. but i swerve. so i steer into it. no, i steer against it. i pump the breaks. i try everything.... the car keeps spinning, speeding, not slowing down at all.... i see out the windshield the mall zooming by in a spiral. i get a glimpse of a person sitting on a chair outside a store or building, and i see him point and gesture/point his thumb to the left, i had been rotating the wheel to the right. so i switched my steering, hoping this was the answer. it didn't really help, as i was still spinning out of control, so fast... sometimes getting near the buildings, then veering, steering, breaking enough to get away and out, back into the middle of the lot. Then ifinally find that i am speeding out of the lot, down an alley, and the car slowly seems like it's going to come to a stop. and i realzie that i'll be okay.... the car is finally slowing down. i knew it was bound to happen eventually.
</unedited dream>
whew. sorry about that.