dream

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Dreaming: Grandma’s Gift

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Something was chasing me. It was fast, but not quite fast enough to catch me. It was probably some sort of zombie creature if I were to guess, because zombies are the things that make my blood run cold. The atmosphere was grey. What were once tall and majestic buildings were now piles of crumbling rubble. The gravel of the desolate city crunched beneath my boots.

I turned the corner and saw a lone structure still standing in the midst of the ruined city. It appeared to be a form of catacombs.

I ducked into the entrance to catch my breath. My heart was pounding. My pursuers were near.

Someone grabbed my arm.

I turned to scream, but it gurgled in my throat in recognition of the person who stood before me.

It was my grandmother, whom in life had passed away two years prior. I began to frantically ask her questions. “What was she doing here? Was she okay? What was I supposed to do?”

But she shook her head in response. She put her finger to her lips to summon me to be quiet.

Then she grabbed my elbow and began leading me further down into the catacombs. My head felt dizzy with exhilaration at seeing her again. The zombie creatures were almost forgotten.

We came to a dead end. A huge unyielding stone wall blocked our escape. I began to panic at the thought of being stuck down here trapped by the creatures who were surely on our trail. But again, my grandma shook her head. She inserted a key into a keyhole that I could not see into the wall. It twisted and turned and a small doorway opened. My grandmother gestured for me to go through the door.

I hurriedly did so. She followed me and locked the door behind us. The wall melted in upon itself and became whole once more. We were safe.

In fact, we were more than safe. We were in a new area. A new dream.

It was a dome-like structure covered in glass. It was bright and sunny although I could not see the sky nor anything outside of the dome. It raised above my head about thirty stories tall. There were no buildings inside of it. Just a giant tree that raised almost to the ceiling. I had a feeling that the dome grew tall as the tree did, so that the tree itself would never reach its top. I could hear birds chirping in its massive branches. The air was calm and cool.

I turned to my grandma.

She smiled at me. She led me to the edge of the grass and placed her hand at the small of my back. And then she pushed me gently.

I started to fall forward but instead of falling, I was caught in the air. Inside the dome I could fly. I wobbled at first, but soon I was taking experimental turns ten feet off of the ground. My grandmother’s face beamed up at me in delight. I soared higher, skimming the tree’s outstretched branches with my fingertips. The freedom and happiness bubbled up inside of me as I glided round and round inside of the dome.

The gift that she gave me in the dream was beautiful. The gift of the dream, itself, was even better.

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A Dream: The Baby Octopus

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The other night my brain tricked me.

I had settled into the most blissful sleep. In my dream my husband and I were strolling on a deserted beach. It was not too hot or too cold. If Peaceful painted a picture, this would have been Its masterpiece. I was wearing a white bathing suit that would never make an appearance on my real life body. The horror of seeing Suzy in the tenth grade get out of the swimming pool in her white swimsuit forever burned into my mind. But this was a dream. And in dreams white swimsuits don’t become completely see-through when they get wet. The tenth grade does not exist. And my thighs do not slap together when I walk. Which I kind of missed. It is nice always having your own applause.

The dream went on for a while this way. Walking and never tiring. Feet not burning in the hot sand. There was no tripping on seaweed. Just a blissful mist of seaspray in my hair. My husband stopped walking and turned to me. He never spoke in my dream. He simply opened his hand. In his hand was a shiny cotton candy colored pink Easter egg.

He solemnly handed it to me.

I rolled the smooth plastic between my hands. And then I cracked it open and peered inside.

Inside of the Easter egg lay the cutest, sweetest baby octopus. It was light brown in color and about three inches around if all of its tentacles stretched out in my palm, which it did as soon as I poured it from the pastel egg shell into my hand.

It tickled.

We continued to walk.

As we walked, I absentmindedly began to massage the octopus in my hand. I rolled it between my fingers. I stroked it with my thumb.

I did this until I noticed that something did not quite feel right. Something was not the same. The smooth skin of the octopus now felt sticky as if I had pulled all of its moisture from its body with my mindless kneading. My heart flipped in my chest. I opened my hand. The baby octopus lay in a still matted ball. It now resembled one of those sticky toys after it had been played with by a child for five minutes. Lint and stray hairs covered its now grey-tinged skin. It was a wadded-up mass of careless destruction.

Had I killed it?

I bent my face closer to see. I felt remorse all the way down to my sandy toes. Even my white bathing suit turned pink with shame.

My face grew closer and closer to the still octopus.

When it was about ten inches from the unfortunate creature, I paused and exhaled a breath.

It was dead.

Tears began to blur my vision. And just as I blinked and the world became clear again, it happened.

The balled up octopus unfurled itself in a red rage of flurry. Its beady black eyes were filled with the wrath only known to a creature used as a stress ball. Its beak screamed and it launched itself at my face in an unexpected and terrifying quickness of movement.

I woke up just as its sticky body was suffocating my nose and its tentacles were easing themselves down my throat.

And that is why I now have a new fear, folks. Of baby octopuses. Easter eggs. And gifts from my husband.

White bathing suits, on the other hand, are still fantastic… In dreams.

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Interpreting A Dream: The Beckhams Meet My Jelly Roll

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I know. I am aware that there are few things on Earth more boring than listening to someone else recant a dream they had. Well, maybe read about a dream someone else had. Maybe that.

But trust me.

This one was cringeworthy shareworthy.

It was disturbing amazing.

What you need to know before I tell you my tale is that before I went to bed, I watched the episode of “Friends” where Phoebe pretends to be one of Ben’s mothers to meet the singer Sting and score tickets from him. If you don’t know which episode I speak of, then cross out my earlier boring assumption. And insert: nothing is more boring than listening to someone else recant an episode of a television show that you have not seen.

You’re welcome.

So, anyway, it stands to reason that my dream starts with my new neighbor, David Beckham, giving me a tour of his newly built house. We go through the house. Ooooh. Aaahhh. We go outside. Oooooh. Ahhhhh. We scramble onto the roof. Oooh – wait…what? Yea, well, David wanted to show me his roof tiles. And if David Beckham wants to show you his roof tiles, you shimmy up that darn roof.

Then we get to the finale. The piece de la resistance.

Victoria Beckham’s closet.

First, it was about ten times the size of my real house. It was gleaming white with gold crown molding. There was a swimming pool in the middle of it flanked by four small columns (you will want to remember this detail as it comes in to play later). There were gleaming ball gowns that made me shield my eyes with their sparkle. Beautiful clothes were lined meticulously around all of the walls. It was beautiful. A separate room housed all of her jewelry. Just as David is about to show me this room, Victoria comes home.

She is wearing a black leather catsuit.

I, for some reason, am not.

She saunters over to us, and quick as that darn cat, she gets naked.

Yep.

Then she dives into the pool. She does these freaking flips like a dolphin. Back and forth she goes. She nimbly jumps out of the pool and proceeds to wildly dance on all four columns. She ends this display with a backflip and lands next to her husband.

Then she rubs her hands up and down her magnificent gleaming body and says, “My husband likes me fit. He likes me lean and hard.” She purrs and ends her display.

I stand there taking all of this in. And then I do something unthinkable. I am blushing just thinking about it.

I call her bluff.

I get naked.

Let’s let that process.

And I stand there. And, you would think, in a mind that could invent me being acquainted with David Beckham. A mind that allowed me to climb a roof without falling. A mind that could allow Victoria Beckham to jump out of the darn water like freaking Shamu, I could maybe change my real body to a dream body. You would think that.

But you would be wrong.

Oh no, there I stood naked, just as in real life, in front of the Beckhams. Right down to my stubby-haired legs.

Then I do a trick the Beckhams have never seen.

I don’t dive into the water. I don’t glide onto the pole. Oh no. Not that old trick.

I proceed to shimmy. I proceed to body roll. I shake what the Good Lord gave me. And the Good Lord gave me a lot. My tummy sloshed up and down. And my thighs did their special clapping trick. And every part of my body rippled. It was truly horrifying spectacular.

I stopped, but of course, the motion I had set into play with my dance caused certain body parts to continue swaying. You can’t stop a wave, people.

The Beckham’s eyes were saucers.

And then I say, “yea, well, my husband likes me soft. He likes me jiggly.”

The word “jiggly” was said in slow motion, almost like it was being said underwater. “Jiii-i-g-g-e-llll-eeee.”

Victoria could not handle my truth. She covered her mouth and ran to the bathroom.

I faced David alone.

He turned to me and in the sexiest whisper he says, “I can see what he means.”

My legs joined the rest of my body and turned to jello. Then I woke up.

But, okay, was that not worth sharing? Was that not the best dream ever?

Now, I’m going to go not exercise… You never know who might move in next door.

A girl’s gotta be prepared.

Keep her moves ready…

Oh, can’t a girl dream around here?

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Interpreting A Dream: The Hamburglar

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Last week, I woke up in a cold sweat. Terrified.

I had been dreaming.

In my dream, my son was four (he is ten in real life).

In diapers. I know this because in my dream I tried to change his diaper with a maxi pad.

That wasn’t the disturbing part.

In my dream, my husband and I went to a tattoo parlor. My husband didn’t get a tattoo. I didn’t get a tattoo. We let our son get a tattoo.

On his forehead.

It took up the whole space.

It was of The Hamburglar.

What could that possibly mean?

It gets worse. In my dream, we loved the Hamburglar design so much on my son’s forehead (and who wouldn’t?), that we decided to go a little further and tattoo Scooby Doo on his neck.

We are fantastic dream parents.

But Scooby Doo wasn’t enough by himself.

So we added the whole theme song across his throat.

The piece de resistance was the “Rror Rror Rror Rror” speech bubble above Scooby Doo’s head.

I think dream Jenni spent too much time in Shaggy’s van.

Then I realized what we had done and that it was permanent. And now his life was ruined. Unless in the future, Hamburglar is President and our National Anthem begins with, “Scooby Dooby Doo, Where are you?”. I panicked and sobbed and sobbed.

I woke up crying.

I tried to look up the meaning with some key words: “dream interpretation four year old tattoo Hamburglar.” Google spit back a character name from Glee at the top of my search results, “Finn Hudson.”

Thanks for nothin’ Google.

Now I will never know what my sub-conscience was trying to tell me.

Although, if I were to guess, I would imagine it would have something to do with wanting a hamburger as a snack.

I think it has everything nothing to do with my parenting skills.

I also looked up “dream interpretation tattoo on forehead.” Some other poor soul had dreamed that they had tattooed a tattoo on their face. They asked, “What does it mean to dream you have a tattoo on your face?”

To which someone on the internet replied, “it means you shouldn’t always follow your dreams.”

Dream Jenni only has one response to that, “Rror. Rror. Rror. Rror.”