Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Big Car Dream

Today when I came home, Gary was already there since he'd spent the day at home with the flu.

"One good thing about the flu," he said, "It gives you the coolest dreams. I had my recurring car dream again."

"What? There's  a recurring car dream? I thought the only recurring dream you have is the Big House dream." (See Life in the Big House.)

"Oh, really?" He shrugged. "I can't believe I've never told you about that. I have the Cool Car dream all the time."

So, I pressed for details.

In the Cool Car Dream:

• Gary buys a cool car, usually a Corvette,  but for some reason today it was a Ferrari. I do have a new job, so I suppose he upgraded.

• One the same day he buys said car -
  

  - He loses control of the car because of the handling, or
  - The car is stolen, or
  - The car is dismantled in garage of our house (not the big house of his dreams, but our current house) and left entirely in pieces, with significant pieces missing.

• Gary's response to the loss of the car is to shrug it off and go back to the same dealer and buy a cheaper car from the same manufacturer.

I'm just as baffled about this dream as I am about the Big House Dreams. I don't know what he's responding to. He did just get his yearly review. Maybe the car symbolizes his status in life? Maybe he's worried about losing the raise he got? And more important, why don't I have recurring dreams?

Speaking of my dreams:

You know, we've had a big influx of people here from the Lush site, and the MS people from the MS carnival and the Great Blog Link Experiment, so you old-timers know what this means.  This means I am compelled by forces beyond my control to confess something inappropriate.

But, what to do? Nothing even interesting happened to me yesterday, much less inappropriate, and I know that was a great disappointment to those of you who remember the Brazilian adventure after the Ships and Dippers crowd visited.

Well, my subconscious rectified the situation last night by giving me the most horribly, horribly inappropriate dream ever. So horrible I woke up and said, "Oh ... oh no one will ever hear about that one." And that just made it worse, because first: "Hi! New People! Gotta Humiliate Self!" followed by: "Keeping a Secret! Gotta Humiliate Self!"

So, I just want to say if anyone else has had a dream involving a three-way among themselves, a young Bruce Willis, and their seventy-one year old mother I want you to feel comfortable sharing.

Don't leave! Hear me out! Sure, a sex dream involving my Mom (Jesus what is wrong with me) is perverted on so many many levels. Still, I want to assure everyone (especially you, Mom, and Good Morning) that I did not have contact with Mom during the sex. Bruce Willis and I were having sex, and Mom decided to strip down and participate. She was focusing on Bruce, not me (because THAT, THAT would be sick), and I had just the most satisfying time.

Then I woke up and gouged my eyes out. The End. God, how I wish I were making this up.

Gary's Big House O'Fun

I suppose Valentine's Day inspired Gary to have another of the freaky Big House dreams. He was once again the owner of a Big House, and again strangers were milling around.

Gary reported this house was even larger than most houses in the Big House series of dreams. (Coming soon on DVD!)  So large he hadn't been in every room. One room he did visit was decorated like the inside of a pinball game. I asked if people were being run down by giant silver balls. Gary said no, but that there were targets that would pop up and we could shoot at them.

And oh, he mentioned, I left him for another couple.

"Couple?" I giggled, "Hey, thank you!"
"You just took off with them."
"Well sure. What did they look like?"
"The guy was kind of baby-faced with blond hair. The woman was young and brunette."
"Were you sad?"
"I punched the guy in the face."

Now, I confess the other Big House dreams have me perplexed, but this one is as clear as my conscience. Gary must be a little concerned that youth will lure me away from his fifty-three year-old self. Awwwww. I must make it a point to do something codgeresque this weekend. Well, after I go to another Girl's Night Out.

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Damn creepy UPDATE:
I just checked. Last year on Valentine's Day? He had a big house dream. A dream in which our dog Doug (who in truth was not long for this world) was dead. A premonition? And this dream coming at the same time, on Feb. 15th. Spooky.

Big Summer House

Big House Returns! Gary had another installment in the series of Big House Dreams.

Gary dreamed that we had a house: a house so big you could play golf in the hallways. There were plants and water features in the hallways, which made them particularly conducive to golf.

Evidently there was a big airport shutdown. Many many wealthy people were stranded at the airport and Gary invited them over to play golf in our hallways. I thought this was great and I encouraged Gary to turn our home into a vacation spot. Gary did not agree.

Finally, we had a big tractor. I don't know the significance of this. 

Gary's Good Dream

Gary reported a dream, not a Big House dream but one so unusual it deserved notice:

He had one of those "I'm taking an exam and I don't know any answers" dreams, but it didn't end with the cold sweat or the failing grade. His professor handed him back the paper and said, "I know this is an F, Gary, but we all like you so much it really doesn't matter." Then Gary was puzzled and the other students gathered round and said "We all love you Gary, you're just so great, we don't care about your grades."

He is eight years my senior, so now I can't wait for eight years from now when I can have my "you failed and we love you anyway" dream.

Baby Teeth

So, evidently dreams can be contagious. I didn't have Catherine's teeth falling out dream, but Gary did. And get this - in the dream:

1) He and I had a baby.
2) The Baby's teeth all fell out.
3) He made a guitar pick for me out of the baby's teeth. (Hey, not my dream, but I'm still getting stuff. And you know I would so love a guitar pick made of baby teeth.)

Then, in the dream, his mother asked "What's the baby's name?" and he replied, "Dunno. We might not keep it." She pointed out the baby was old enough to have lost all its teeth and we couldn't give it back now.

I can't even start muddling through what all this means. The dream site Catherine referenced doesn't mention my understanding of teeth falling out (losing ones children). Which in this case would mean our baby had had children, which I suppose is a dream complaining we won't have grandchildren (but we will have guitar picks). Then again, her site also mentioned control issues (which makes me wonder why all S_____s don't have this dream every night) or loss of innocence. This would make sense and probably be spurred by our niece's determination to grow up entirely just in her Sophomore high school  year.

I don't want dreams like this. I want my subconscious to send me PowerPoint slides with bullets.

Big House 2/14

Gary reported a Big House Dream this morning. He reported it because it was still haunting him. Doug, Mac, Gary and I were in the Big House, and the Big House in this particular dream had many rooms and doors that connected, and each room had a window that showed the adjacent rooms as well as doors. Gary said Mac and I were there but we were not in danger, but he was. Doug was not himself in danger but he was walking all through the hallways and starirways of the big dark empty house, in a ghostly fashion, as Gary grew increasingly sure something was stalking him. So Gary started locking all the doors, to escape the vague thing that was after him and no one else. He reported the creepiest thing was the way Doug kept emerging in the hallways and Gary could see Doug, but that Doug was oblivious to the horror in the house.

What happened on this day to provoke this dream? Well, it was Valentine's Day. Gary called his Mom, and she couldn't believe we had spent 23 Valentine's Days together. Plus, one of the higher-ups at work was fired for the failure of a project that Gary was going to be responsible for. He said all he had at work now was responsibility.

Gary fears something that the dogs and I cannot be harmed by. Monogamy? Age? Responsibility? Or perhaps illness, since Doug is our sickly dog.

The Big House

Gary has a recurring dream. It is the "Big House" dream, and I thought I might track it. He's been having it in some form all through our twenty-year marriage. I'll think I have it figured out, and then he'll come up with "The Big House - version 2001" which blows all my theories. There is only one thing completely consistent about the dream: we live in a Big House in various states of repair and occupancy. But always, always, always Big.  In previous versions of the dream:

Big House Occupied by Teenagers. Big House was part of an amusement park we had for ourselves, but then we got short on cash and opened it for a profit. However, teenagers got in and squatted in the house.

Big House with a Big Garage. Big House perched on top an enormous underground garage filled with cars.

Big House On Tour. Even though we were aristocrats, we were forced by financial necessity to rent the big house out for tours.  People who walked through tried to ignore us as we wandered around in our tatty bathrobes.

Big House from the Outside. Gary reported walking across an empty golf course trying to get to our Big House. It was empty, because I was lying on the grass by a small pond. A butler came out and served us lemonade. In this dream Gary never made it in the Big House but knows it was empty.

And the latest, Big House with a Piano in Every Room. Gary said "It was like the house in that Robert Redford movie." Mr. Redford is considered by many to be a well-known actor, and thus busy, which narrowed it down to only (...checking IMDB...) about sixty. "The Great Gatsby?" I guessed, not knowing of any other Redford movies in which he has a house. Yes, he said, and there was a perfectly tuned piano in every room. This one is obvious, right? I pick up the guitar and the Big House fills up with music (perfectly tuned, may I add).

Clearly Gary's dreams have little nuance; anyone should be able to figure out what they mean. Previously, some kind of S_____ family phone call has precipitated the Big House dream, but not this time. Therefore, I have decided to track of the Big House dream. Did he dream Big House Occupied by Teenagers when Arzaana-fay was visiting? Big House With a Big a Garage when we were car shopping? Clearly I need a database of some kind.