9:12 p.m. - 2003-10-14
Childrens' Dreams
I had a dream last night where I was the oldest of three or four young sisters living in an apartment in a large city. We were on the second or third floor in a unit chosen for its security tucked back in a quiet corner along a long winding hallway. The was a walled garden - just trees and grass with benches, I think, reached by an enclosed locked stairwell located next to our unit. I don't think we shared it with very many others. The enclosing walls were mostly windowless.
I was trying to rearrange the furniture in the front parlor. It was an oddly shaped room with a lot of strange articles lying about. It was a lot of hard work lifting and shifting heavy pieces of furniture. It felt as though I had been at that task for most of the day. I had managed to clear a space around a full size electric organ. Three or four large beautifully framed old mirrors were now stacked up against one another waiting to be placed throughout the home. There were some wood panels - screens maybe - that also had been piled together against a short inner wall. There was a lot of fabric in the room - like brocaded wall hangings and tulle drapes to soften the lines of the room. There were no windows in the room so the light was dim, sunlight filtering in from the next room. At night old fashioned wrought brass lamps gave a light that made the space magical, but a little spooky all the same.
The next room was a very large modern kitchen. Huge open windows looked down onto our courtyard. Sunlight was pouring in. The colours in the room were white and pale gold. The gas stove was embedded in an island in the center. My two sisters who were next in age to me, were in there. They were supposedly making the evening meal, but from where I stood it appeared they were playing and making a mess with the food - honey that they were trying to feed each other on the end of a popsicle stick all over the counters. I could hears happy laughter from a bedroom toward the back of the apartment and the sound of a small child jumping on the bed - the youngest, and I think, a girl too. She had just woken from her nap.
Just then our Mom walked in. Her face was stern and quiet, not saying anything to us, just heading for her own room. The dream me felt as though it didn't matter how hard I tried, it was never good enough - my mother was never pleased with me. Even just "it looks good" would have made me ecstatic, coming from her. But there was never any acknowledgement. I knew she was under great pressure in her job and I understood her mind was on many things, but just once I wanted her to see me, just once I wanted to hear her say she cared about me. I always took care to show my sisters great affection so they wouldn't feel the deprivation so keenly. My mom was easier on them because they were younger and she expected nothing of them. I was caught in the middle, being the parent figure for my sibs and the partner figure for my mom without any of the benefits of either. I was so tired.
Just then there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find a man who I knew to be the landlord/superintendent standing there. He was a tall, lean Sikh about 35 to 40 years old. He wore the traditional turban and a placketed white shirt with some figuring on it. He wore western pants and shoes, loafers I think and wire-rim glasses. We were talking about an incident I had reported earlier to him where a stranger had been found loitering in the halls. I expressed my concerns about the breach in security and some other concern about the safety of the stairway to the courtyard. I was feeling very unsafe about the security provided for my home and family. He was calm and courteous - almost courtly. He apologized for the scare and promised no further problems would occur. I felt as though I could trust him. At least as far as I could trust anyone. I don't know where my Father was but it seemed to me that concern had been because of a violent attack on him and my mom. I'm not certain he survived it - it seemed to have happened sometime ago when the youngest child was just new born. Don't know.
Next up was a nightmare, but all I remember were big dogs barking and a paved street. Not an alley, but not a full residential or commercial throughway either. There were loading docks and a strong smell of the sea. Seabirds and bright sunlight in a deep blue sky overhead. I felt as though I was near the docks of a large port city on the Pacific ocean. I woke up then but the dream returned later after the dream I recorded above. It touched on the street scene, then switched to a hospital room. It was in the children's ward and a boy child of about eight years was on the telephone talking to me - his grandmother. It was not my current grandson. He was afraid and wanted me to come get him. He said he was afraid of the nurses. They didn't know he had access to a phone, nor did they seem to be aware that he was in the room where he was calling me from. When I scanned his body with my mind I could see no illness nor injury, nor could I detect any disturbance that might indicate a mental or emotional illness. I told him to lock his door and that I was on my way. I could see him doing that as I got into my car. I was living in a very well manicured, upscale community with broad quiet streets. It was late at night and the car moved noiselessly and smoothly along the road toward the hospital. The dreaming me seemed to know what was going on with the child, but the lucid me didn't understand the riddle. I could feel the woman's anger though. She seemed to see the incident almost as a hostage taking I think. I didn't understand, but the growing anger bumped me out of the dream. Strange night. Maybe it was too much turkey talking.
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