Weird Dreams, Subway Judgments, Hot Guys

I've had a myriad of odd dreams recently, and so I thought I'd share them.

1. The Four Seasons {last week}

I don't remember much of this one, and I really should have written it earlier, but basically it took place in the future, when I'm a bit older, and I was invited to some sort of reunion where I was asked to play Vivaldi's Four Seasons. It was weird because a girl who was considered the best violinist in our region growing up, Cynthia Fung (who I always knew was safe but not genius, as was shown when the girl who dethroned me as concertmaster came and immediately won everything Cynthia every had) was there, and in real life we didn't know each other well, but we were always nice -- there was nothing weirdly competitive about either of us. Anyway, in the dream I had agreed, on the spot, to play part of the piece, but then they wanted me to play a part of it that I'd never played before, and it hit me just as I was about to start playing "I don't know this piece and I can't do this," but she offered to play it for me. There was some panic in the dream, but overall the solution was a good one, and I didn't feel ashamed that I couldn't play it. There was this feeling like I tried to step up, couldn't do it, someone else could, and that was fine. It was a weird kind of teamwork dream.

2. Dating Desi's Boyfriend {two days ago}

This dream was truly odd. The whole premise was that Desi wanted me and his real-life boyfriend to go on a date, but I was starting to worry because for some reason it was becoming clear to me that the boyfriend (let's call him Chi-Chi) might be more into me than Desi. I didn't know what to do and really wanted to find a way to cancel the whole thing without offending Chi-Chi or hurting Desi. In the end, after a lot of anxiety I was like: "I know! I'll tell him that we both have to study for finals and should do this another time." lol I remember we were standing outside the restaurant (on this gorgeous cobble-stone street at the bottom of a hill) and I gave him the let down, and he was like "yeah, I totally agree" but not in the sense that he was also dreading the date, but more like "yeah I need to study too but I wanted to see you and so I didn't say anything." It was only a temporary fix in the dream, but I felt much better lol

3. Apartment Searching, SF {two days ago after alarm went off}

I blame this dream totally on Desi's endless apartment search, and on the fact that I woke up and checked email and then went back to sleep. One of the emails I got was from a friend (SF) who recently returned to NYC after a long period of therapy and detox following a really bad suicide attempt. I think I may have posted some of the poetry he's written (that just won a really big award, although I don't know the name off the top of my head), one of which was about me meeting a guy in Lebanon and one of which was about something I told him one of the times I tried unsuccessfully to intervene before going to Egypt.

Anyway, he emailed and just said "saving a place for you for after finals," and then I went back to sleep and had the oddest dream.

It was one of those dreams where the entire world is just a little different and messed up, like in a heavily stylized movie like Dark City or something.

The premise was that I was supposed to meet him somewhere, but needed to first look at some apartments. He put me in touch with people I could look with, but everything they were showing me was totally weird and unsatisfactory. Like, we'd go through all these complicated alleys and passageways and get to some totally weird apartment with slanted chess board floors, and super high ceilings with, you know, the super stylized enormous bathtub with the rococo fixtures, but really run-down. It was really weird.

I was upset that he sent me to meet these people, and they kept showing me such awful places, and then he showed up to meet me and I was even more upset because it seemed clear to me that he was on drugs.

The last thing I remember from the dream is that the last place we were all at had all these weird animals in it (you know, like ferrets and hedgehogs and loose birds along with cats and dogs, etc.) and it was like no one thought it was weird but me.

4. Fashion Opening & Subway Fiasco, LA {last night}

Both this dream and the next (final) one from last night had weird luxury themes going on. Even though they both actually had bad things happen in them, the overall experience was sort of so rich to the senses and aesthetically amazing that I really liked both dreams.

In this one, I was with a friend (LA) who I grew up with and who moved out to DC to do her MBA at Georgetown. We had been invited to some kind of fashion boutique opening and it was SO interesting. It was, like, this underground space that was rather small and had almost nothing in it, but everything that it had was absolutely gorgeous. Like, there were only a few racks of clothes, but EVERY piece was so simple and so beautiful, I was totally taken aback.

We were enraptured by this boutique and then Lauren realized that we had to leave so she could get back uptown (there was totally a frantic time pressure theme, the substance of which I don't recall) and so we were rushing to the subway. It was not unlike a real situation I encounter where there are four trains I can take to get back home uptown (two local and two express) but they come on two different subway levels, so you never know if you're standing on the best platform. You try to listen to see if one is coming on another level that you can rush up or down to, but it's almost impossible.

Anyway, LA and I frantically ran down to a lower platform to get the A train and I wasn't sure how far behind me she was, but I was lurching for the door to get an arm or something in so the conductor would see me and re-open the doors for us. I didn't get there in time, though, and was right at the front edge of the train when it was starting to move. Some guy yelled at me like "that's why you shouldn't try to hold the doors" as I was nearly losing my balance and was forced to swing around a pole extending from the railing at the edge of the platform so as to not fall onto the tracks, and in doing so my shoe fell onto the tracks.

I think the guy who had yelled at me, who was a track worker, felt bad and could see that I wasn't intending to hold up the train and had a woman with me and had lost my shoe. He said to me something about how it was safe for me, then, to hop down and get it, and I was a little pissed at the situation, but glad that he was helping out watching the tracks. I hopped down, grabbed it, hopped back up onto the railing and just then LA and I heard a train coming from up above. It was a D train and I was like "Can you take this?" and she was like "YES!" so we stated to rush back up to the other platform.

I remember that since I was on the railing already I could sort of hop up to a higher part of the stairs and looked back down and saw that she was somehow injured but motioning me to keep going and get the train (lol!). I ran upstairs, hoping that she was making her way up through the rushing crowd, and then I saw the train.

It was so weird! Imagine a brick wall running at varying heighs, stepping up and down with plateaus and pyramids, sometimes like you see on the side of the freeway. This is how the first few cars of the train were - just fluorescent, glowing orange brick. It was oddly beautiful. When that front part passed I was able to get in the train as the doors were closing and hold them open long enough for LA (who seemed to take forever) was able to jump on.

SIDENOTE: When people hold the doors on the subway and someone jumps on there is ALWAYS a divergent reaction amongst the crowd, and it's this immediate and inexplicable judgment about whether or not you are a likable person. You have to see it to know what I'm talking about. Like, someone might hold the doors for a friend and everyone is, like, booing and saying "Come ON!" and there's this collective hatred of the person willing the doors to shut. Then there are people (and thankfully I've always been in this group!) where the people are rooting you on, like as if you are this symbol of their OWN struggle, and if you can make it on it's a victory for everyone -- I swear I've snuck between the closing doors before and been met with almost applause from some of the other passengers.

Anyway everyone was happy for LA that she made it on, and then I started to wake up. I wanted to keep sleeping and so kind of returned to the dream about the odd, glowing train, but it morphed into a classroom discussion about trains that ran purely on the positive energy of the people in it. Then a character I was sort of creating in dream was like "well what sort of passenger 'positivity' or 'happiness' counts? I mean if they eat a pizza and have the euphoria of a glycemic rush and are temporarily happy, but are actually hurting themselves, does the train count that? What it it's a haphazard romantic encounter between two passengers that is physically gratifying but emotionally damaging?" They didn't know how to answer those questions, and I woke up lol

5. Hot Guy, Foreign Country, More Violins {this morning}

Well after my LA dream I woke up at 6am thinking I had slept as much as I possibly could and SHOCKED that I could possibly sleep until 6pm. I was so disoriented (and convinced that the orange sun in the sky outside my window was setting) that I actually changed the clock on my mobile phone, thinking "how did it get 12 hours off?" lol. I went to the bathroom and started to get ready, and then realized "wait...there's no way I slept for 15 hours...is it 6am??" It was, and I insisted upon going back to sleep lol

Boy am I glad that I did!

I totally had a really good (but also kind of really bad) HOT dream about some gorgeous man I was dating!!

Ok, so here's what happened:

We were in some foreign country that was reminiscent of Italy (sort of old and Mediterranean feeling, not unlike where Chi-Chi and I were going on a date in that other dream I told you about), but I couldn't understand the language at all...maybe it was Croatia or something.

I was walking towards my hotel with my boyfriend and our guide, but the feeling was more like the boyfriend was experienced in that country and was dropping me off there (like maybe he was working there on a film or something and I was just visiting for a while).

I was staying at one of these old hotels that is not supposed to be super modern and luxurious, but is lush in its own way and is really, kind of, like an old house or castle or something. Lots of stone, and wood, etc.

It was really neat, approaching the place, because the old man who was walking me to my room was sort of trying to talk to me and my boyfriend (who could understand some of what he was saying, but this was not his country) and I can't describe the dynamic but it was really how it is when you go to one of these places where it's like you're the honoured guest and they're there to take care of you, but it's also not a hotel, so you work within their system. It's hard to describe, but like he'd be showing me how the water works or where the bedding is and he was really deferential but at the same time proud. He would sort of joke around in a really old man straightforward kind of way (like he'd been the keeper, serving people there since the place had a family living in it a hundred years ago) and I found the place so romantic even though it wasn't super luxurious in a traditional (contemporary, modern, high speed internet and marble) kind of way.

The room was so interesting -- stone walls and wooden furniture and my bed was sort of on a platform carved out of the wall with all these thick woolen blankets and it was really weird because (MORE VIOLINS) there was this blue and white painted violin that the old man was explaining was this antique. It was clear how valuable it was, and sort of fit in the theme of this place being really luxurious but in a historical, charm-internal-to-itself way.

My boyfriend saw how happy the violin made me and was like "this place is perfect, isn't it?" and I was like "Yes!" The old man said to let him know if I needed anything, and then left me and my bf to be alone.

WELL, it got SPICY (not THAT spicy...I actually don't have those dreams)!

I can't explain exactly what he looked like, but he was gorgeous. Sort of light brown hair, really silky, and just kind of lean and handsome. He wasn't, like, swarthy or handsome in a kind of brutal way like the Israeli in real life, but he wasn't pretty either. He was more like how French men can look both masculine but delicate at the same time, even if they aren't really brooding, usually.

I also remember that he had one of those circular little bandaids on his neck (like the kind that are the size of your thumb nail or something) and had the mark where there had been another one before.

Anyway, we started kissing and it was so passionate. Really hot loooooool. The thing is, we were really comfortable with each other, but had that excitement like we hadn't seen each other in a while.

Then it got kind of bad, because as we were kissing he asked me if I had been with anyone since the last time we saw each other, like when I was in Amsterdam.

I immediately thought of Swissy and didn't want to lie. I felt this simultaneous commitment to being honest with my boyfriend AND honest to my time with Swissy -- almost like he deserved me to admit his existence as much as my boyfriend deserved to know the truth.

I told him honestly that I had been with someone else, and he was kind of like "That's ok. Me too. Actually, twice."

It didn't just hurt me that he'd been with someone else, although I was shocked because needing to be with someone seemed understandable at some level, but to be with two other guys just seemed somehow more inexcusable. It hurt me more because he seemed to take US so casually...we'd both cheated, but I thought it was serious and he didn't. That really disturbed me.

He wanted to keep kissing and I sort of stopped him and was like: "Wait, this is a big deal." You could see that flash where he kind of understood that this was not going to just vanish and that things might be about to be lost, but he didn't know what to do. I'm not sure if he cared to know what to do. Anyway, he was trying to express to me that WE were closer than all of that, beyond all of that, and was trying to get me back to the moment that we were enjoying that WAS so blissful. I just couldn't go there, though. He was trying to get me to take my clothes off and I a part of me was physically nauseated by the collision of intimacy and disappointment/hurt in that way. I just refused and was thinking: "I can't believe I can't do this, because 5 min. ago he was wonderful, and he's still wonderful, but I can't do this."

There is no feeling worse in the world that that feeling where you are in pain and the person with you (be it a friend, family member, or lover) doesn't know how to reach you there, and so tried to continue through the moment. It's such a bad feeling not only because you're in pain, but because you're alone and feel "not only am I in pain for XYZ reason, but now I'm also realizing that this relationship cannot work because the person with me right now does not have the capacity to reach out to me, emotionally," and then that pain gets added on top.

That's the feeling I had the night before my exam last semester when I called DC guy and he just kept telling me (at 3am) to come over and spend the night with him, and I was trying to tell him that that wasn't the comfort that I needed, but rather than as me what I needed, or why that wasn't enough, he just tried to convince me, and when I kept saying no he just gave up...like all he had to offer was what HE could think of to offer, when I needed something maybe I knew he could give me, but he didn't realize was in his range.

Anyway, those are my dreams!

VC