Dreams

 

By Ron Stultz

 

 

 

I read somewhere, that in some cultures, family members always discuss the night’s dreams the first thing each day at breakfast.

 

Dreams. It is my understanding that most everyone has them but in our culture, they are not so readily discussed or shared. Not sure why this is so as I find some of my dreams fascinating and thus below share some of them with you.

 

 

 

(Note: Newest additions are at top of list)

 

 

21. The Tiger. Walking along singing a song, not really, when a Bengal tiger jumps out onto me. Immediately, I am pinned to the ground and I can feel 500 pounds of pure muscle and as his claws latch into my flesh, I have this flash, that I am not going to get out of "this one". Have always had the confidence that no matter the situation, I would survive, get through it somehow. But this time, "fatal doubts". Not a terrified feeling but non-the-less, "fatal doubts". But then, a thought flashes through my mind and just in time: use my hands to gouge out his eyes. Interesting that as my life is surely in doubt, some natural objection to sticking fingers into soft eye matter. Weird. BUT I do it and the tiger releases me. So, although I got away from "this tiger", was told, if not taught, that there will be "a tiger" someday I will not be able to get away from.

 

20. Unable to remember another language. Am a helicopter pilot with 8 or so people in my helicopter and because of engine trouble, I have to land out in the desert, far from anywhere. In landing, although no one is hurt, the radio is damaged such that I can only send out Morse Code. Now I learned Morse Code when I was 11 or 12 years of age and thus have known it for almost 50 years now and about 10 years ago, passed the FCC's code requirement of 65 Morse Code characters in one minute to get my Extra class amateur radio license: so I know Morse Code. Well, not in this dream. Really, really struggled to remember the characters of Morse Code. Maybe one of the first dreams where I was trying to remember facts or something. I wonder if others who speak multiple languages have experienced dreams where they struggle to remember how to speak one of their languages? I bet they do.

 

19. Column of Numbers. Know there are all sorts of anxiety or frustration dreams, like searching for your car keys or worse, have lost a child and searching for them, but have neither of these or similar. What I do have, now and again, is frustration dreams. In these dreams, I am tasked to add up this 20 or 30, 5 digit, number column IN MY HEAD! Yep, add up the far right digits of the long column, carry over to the next column and remember the remainder or whatever it is called. And so I do this and maybe I get into the 3rd digit of the 4 , 5 or 6 digit numbers and all of a sudden, I can not remember the sum so far! Crap, have to start all over again and this continues over and over again, all night! A nightmare, I tell you. I think I would take a "lost my keys and searching for them" dream anytime over this column, mental add, dream.

 

18. Time Travel. So my now deceased friend, Murray, and I are on a road trip. Remember being in old VW bus I had one time. Anyway, we are riding along when Murray sees what likes initially like an old lawn mower sitting out beside the curb in a residential neighborhood, like it is there for garbage pickup. With neither of us wanting to pass up something free, which probably could be made to work with little or no real effort on our part, we stopped, got out and proceeded to check out this strange object. Upon closer examination, it clearly was not a lawnmower engine and after turning it this way and that and taking some parts off, whatever, we still had no clue as to what it was or ever had been. Anyway, the decision was made to leave it by the curb and we got back into the VW bus and headed on down the road. But we had not gotten very far when we drove through some sort of road air heat type ripple in front of us and we knew instantly that we had jumped back in time some 30 or more years. The thing beside the road was some sort of time adjuster and we had dialed in 30 years ago. So weird feeling back in time.  Stopped at a store to buy something and turned out that some film crew was shooting a scene of a movie and there in one corner of this supermarket type store was the actor Pierce Brosnan wearing this terrible looking, long, shaggy beard. As I could see he was in some very small part, I went up to him. "Pierce Brosnan?" "Yes," he replied looking at me like who was I to be talking to a nobody and how would I know his name. "Man, you gott'a hang with the acting as one day you are going to be a big star and in fact, be James Bond in many movies!" He looked at me like I was crazy.  Next thing I knew, Murray and I are in this house basement where this band is playing and there, wearing a hat and smiling like I have never seen him smile, was Bob Dylan. Came right over to us and starting talking, guitar still slung around his neck. So incredible to see him 30 years ago and be with him one-on-one. Then flash and all I can remember is worrying about what I may have done to the time-line between then and now. Like would me telling Brosnan to hang with acting have caused a butterfly effect Iraq war or worse? In the end, though, I have to tell you that the very, very, strong feelings of jumping back in time was one of the most incredible dreams I have ever had. The feelings were so strong, I just knew I had jumped time.

 

17. After Death.  In May of 2005, my best friend Murray died. Since that time, he has been in my dreams many times but 2 dreams with him in them have been significant to me. In the first dream he and I are headed somewhere, I do not know where and he keeps stealing modes of transportation. At first it was a car, then a tractor trailer and finally a railroad locomotive. As we move from one transport to another, I am worried about being caught but it is clear that Murray is not. Finally, it becomes clear that he is not worried or has not fear as what are "they" going to do to him, he is dead. So from this dream I got that there is not fear after death. In the second dream I find myself at some sort of concert and have the feeling that getting there has been a very strange crossover. As the concert ends, I walk out into this beautiful park-like setting where people are camping, playing music around campfires and walking all about, all in a good mood and having a good time. As I stand and watch it all, not quite sure where I am, I see Murray or someone who looks like him a good distance away, walking towards me and when he gets close there is instant recognition between us. "What? How?" I ask and he tells me that he is jumping from reality to reality now and just having a great time. This place we are both in, is one of those places and everyone or nearly everyone here is dead. He wants me to stay with him and jump with him but I know I must go home and suddenly I see an old school bus painted dark blue and I know I need to get on it. I do get on the bus and as I ride along I have the feeling that  I have been to a very strange place in my dreams. That the route taken to get into and out of this dream has been very unlike me. As if the dream were a gift or something given to me.

 

16. Remembering One Dream Inside Another Dream.     In a dream and my brother appears, who I have not seen in a long time and I start to tell him about a recent trip I took when suddenly I realize in the dream that I am telling him not about a real event but, in fact, the events which occurred in another dream recently.  Realizing that I was dreaming about another dream I already had had, I started thinking, remembering the prior dream.  The original dream with my brother in it  continued on but I could not shake thinking about myself dreaming a prior dream.  The prior dream was a vivid as it was originally and I could remember every detail of the dream whereas I could remember nothing of it right after I had the dream and awoke.  Now, both dreams are vivid and available to me in my waking hours.  Just plain weird and the first time this has occurred for me.

 

15.Meeting the Devil (Again). In a prior dream defined below, I met the devil and was at first taken in by him but later in that dream told  him I was against him and would always be against him and somehow I  thought that was the end of it but NO!  Recently, he came again to visit  but this time, he knew my weakness for sex and tempted me with pornography and I had such a terrible time turning way, not to look.  Smart, sneaky, bastard.  Apparently, he never gives up even after I have  already made it clear where I stand.

 

14.Guilty on Both Counts.  I step out of the police car and am escorted into the court house.  I am not in handcuffs.  I do not have a clue as to why I am in police custody or what I might have done.  I can not remember doing anything wrong or against the law.  I enter the court house and a large crowd of people turn and look at me with very hostile eyes and there playing in the hallway on a TV and VCR is me or someone who looks a lot like me on video tape walking along an ocean beach somewhere, taking drinks from a whiskey bottle and randomly pointing and shoot a pistol at people laying on the sand.  The man sure looks like me but I have no memory of doing such a thing and it is something I would never do I tell myself.  But the angry crowd sure thinks it is me and I quickly devise a defense.  I was drunk, out of my right mind and I never thought the BB pistol would actually hurt anyone much less kill someone.  I cannot remember ever doing what I am accused of and I try and try to find some fragment of memory of the act and why I did it but there is nothing there.  A case of mistaken identify?  Court proceedings begin.  I wake up.  I cannot remember nailing Christ's hands to the cross.  Guilty on both charges.

 

 13. Wolves.  When I was a child, certainly under the age of 10, I would have the same terrifying dream over and over where I was being chased by a pack of wolves.  Always, just as the wolves were about to catch me, I would wake up and then shake and shiver for a while before going back to sleep.  One time though, after waking up from a wolf chased dream, I did this thing which today, now, I find amusing and actually rather ingenious.  Afraid the wolf dream would return when I went back to sleep, I envisioned myself unzipping the top of my head, hinge opening it and with a big ladle, reaching into my brain, stirring the ladle around and then scooping up the wolf dream and pitching it out on the floor of my bedroom.  After discovering this “trick” and using it enough times, apparently I managed to get the entire wolf dream out of my mind as eventually, it went away completely.  Wonder if the folks that live in that house, bedroom, have ever noticed the smell of rotting wolf dream and not be able to track down where it is coming from?

 

12.The Bomb.  Most times, I not aware if I dream in color or not but in a recurring dream I have had many times over the years, colors are a very significant part of the dream.  In this dream I am either outside in a field or inside a house looking out a bay or other large window and without warning, there is this brilliant flash which I instantly recognize as the flash of an atomic bomb exploding.  And then, I feel all this invisible atomic bomb rays penetrate my body and I know instantly that I am dead or soon will be but as I watch, I become completely fascinated with the beautiful multicolored mushroom cloud of the bomb.  Such vivid colors and so quietly rising into a clear blue sky.  Amazingly, it does not seem to matter to me that I have received a lethal does of radiation from the bomb but rather that I same so lucky to be able to see the colors of the cloud.  So pretty.

 

 

11. The Edge.  I walk towards the edge of the low grass covered cliff which I can sense drops off only feet away to what I do not know but I can sense it is very powerful and I am afraid.  As I near the cliff edge, I get down on my hands and knees and crawl the last few feet to the very edge and then laying completely flat on the ground, I slowly peer over the edge of the cliff.  And down below, way down below, is this body of deep, deep, darkish green, calm water, probably an ocean, but to me, I know, I can feel, it is God.  Not a burning bush this time, like Moses experienced, but  the effect is the same and I am glad I am down flat on the ground in homage.  Being there with him, so close, so powerful, so deep, frightens me and I wake up.

 

 

10. Meeting the Devil.  Just sitting in a bar, drinking a beer when this fellow comes in and sits down besides me and we strike up a conversation.  Turns out he is the one and only Devil, Satan and makes no effort to disguise it and actually seems pretty proud about it.  As for me, strangely, I am not afraid, and we talk for a while and as we talk, I try to with all my might, insights, feelings to see what is so very bad about this man who is beside me and can not find any reason to either fear or disdain him.  Finally, I say to him that I do not understand why he has gotten such a bad reputation and he seems like a good enough fellow to me and so we drink on and talk for a while before he says to me, “Hey, would you like to have some fun?” and so I say, “Sure.  Why not.” Without having a clue as to what was on his mind.  Anyway, he stands up and we head out of the bar on onto the street and Satan looks up the street and down and then he turns to me and says “Watch this.  This is going to be fun” and almost instantly, huge African lions appear out of alleys and begin to run down the men, woman and children walking the streets.  I am immediately horrified.  It is like the Christians being fed to the lions in old Rome and I turn to Satan and say “What?  What are you doing?  This is horrible and wrong” and Satan turns to me and with a face which now was the most evil looking, contoured thing I have ever seen, said to me, “Well, you are either with me or against me.” And I responded immediately that well if this was his idea of fun, “I was against him.".  To which he responded, “That if I was against him, he would make me pay very dearly”.  But I did not care and out of nowhere, I found a high power rife in my hands and I began killing Satan’s lions as fast as I could. And then afterwards, after all the lions had been killed and Satan had just disappeared, I sat alone for a long time and could not believe that I had not seen, detected, sensed, the evil in Satan while he sat there beside me for so long.  And in the end, I was left with the feeling, the confirmation, that Satan really is the prince of liars and that I could not count on my puny powers of detecting good from evil to ensure I would never got caught up in another of he Devils “fun” happenings again.

 

09.Guiding Light. Somehow, I am inside the great stone pyramid at Giza in this small, tight, dark, unbearably hot, tunnel.  And crawling along on my hands and knees, alone in the dark and the heat, I can feel the terrible weight of all those tons of stone blocks all around me and just when I think I will go mad, that I can not stand it anymore, there appears a small light ahead of me and I hear this quiet whisper of a voice say, “Follow me.” and I do.  Slowly the tunnel becomes lighter and lighter and all of a sudden, I am out of the tunnel and into this wide open space of a spring day with clear blue skies, a brilliant, cool, sun and I am on some campus or in some park or what I felt and knew to be heaven with big old, mature, trees providing shade and the grass so green and everywhere people just relaxing and quieting talking and I knew I wanted to stay there forever.

 

08. Floating\Flying.  I find myself just floating, standing up, above the trees in a clear blue sky and a wonderful temperature.  Everything is perfect and as I float along, I am feeling so light and free and then, then, a dam thought crosses my mind.  “How am I doing this?” and as soon as that thought invades, I begin to drift slowly down to earth and at touch down, I try all I can to remember what I thought, did think, felt, didn’t feel which allowed me to be up there in the trees and sky so free and light but I cannot get back up there. 

 

07. My Dad’s Death.  My Dad was seriously ill for 6 months and he suffered a lot of pain and somewhere during the time he was ill, I started taking prescription Valium to help me through it all.  As the Valium just did not seem to help me very much and being a big person, I gradually started taking more and more, hoping the increased quantity would ease the pain I was feeling for his terrible situation.  Anyway, when he died, I was so doped up at his funeral I hardly remember it and at work the next day, at lunch, I decided I could use maybe a little liquor to help with the pain.  So I went to a liquor store and bought a bottle of whisky and began drinking it straight out of the bottle.  Well, if you do not know, it is very dangerous to drink alcohol while taking Valium and especially as much Valium as I was taking and at work that afternoon, I went into a coma.  Although not really a dream, while in the coma, somewhere, at sometime, I came aware that I was out in space, between the stars, traveling away from the earth and the quiet and peace of the place was wonderful but I must say that it was lonely out there and then, my Dad appeared just ahead of me and slowly shaking my hand, said, “You cannot come with me.  You must go back to your wife and family.”  And so I watched him go on ahead out into the darkness of space and I slowly opened my eyes to my wife and all that was back here waiting for me.  Although technically described as a suicide attempt, I have never considered it that way and have to tell you that, that quiet place, that dark deep space, quiet place and that final hand shake, letting go of my Dad, was exactly what I needed, had to have and after being released from the hospital, I was fine and quickly got off the Valium medication.

 

06.A Dream Inside a Dream.  I am in a complex dream with lots of characters and action and as a part of the dream I get on an airplane to return "home".  Then, I am awakened by something only I am not in my bed.  What?  It feels like I am awake and I should be in my bed and hear the sounds of my home, but instead I have dream characters talking to me and then I remember getting on the plane in a dream and leaning my head against the window of the plane and going to sleep. Never have gone to sleep inside a dream before. No dream in the airplane window sleep.  In fact, a completely empty frame. No activity, no nothing. Think that dreams inside of dreams is where I want to go.  Wonder how deep you can nest them (dreams inside of dreams inside of dreams, etc)?  Wonder if you can get lost down the chain of dreams and "wake up" in a different reality?

 

05. Polar Orbit Dreams.  I am in some high place, above the earth, looking down, kind of like a satellite and down below, I can see a dream going by like a film strip and down below the first dream is another dream film strip running at the same time in parallel to the first but some distance from it, closer to earth and below that dream another and then another and another and as I watch, all the dreams seem to make sense and be connected but I am aware that I am simply amazed to be seeing and experiencing this multiple polar orbit dream state.  Multiple, independent, spatially separated dreams.  Oh, boy.

 

04. Other People’s Dreams.  In most of my dreams, I am a character or part of the dream and then sometimes, the dream is just like a movie and I only watch as the dream moves along.  But sometimes, the dream is so foreign to me, so unlike me or my thoughts, desires, morals, everything about me, that when I wake, I just know that what I just experienced was someone else’s dream.  It does not happen very often and when it does, it is very disconcerting.

 

03.Freshman Congressman.  I am a newly elected Congressman.  The first day of the new Congress, I report and am told, I will have to be "briefed in" and am led out to a waiting limousine.  When I set inside, there is the most beautiful young black woman I have ever seen and she immediately tells me "She is mine for the night".  I am taken back and concerned that maybe someone is taping this for potential blackmail later, tell her I would be more comfortable if she would please leave the car.  She gets out of the car and in steps a secret service agent who tells me I must now put on a blindfold as I am going to be taken to a secret location.  I comply.  I ride along, wearing the blindfold for sometime, wondering where I could being taken until finally the car stops, the door opens and someone escorts me through a building door.  I am then told to remove my blindfold and there on the back wall of a huge, otherwise empty room, is this giant machine of gears turning.  Small gears, large gears, levers, all sorts of mechanical moving and I marvel at its complexity but "What is it?", I ask.  From behind me comes a voice. "It is the engine of the economy.  It is what makes and controls the economy."  At first I can not believe it.  How?  How could it control anything?  But the more I watch it's movements, the more I begin to believe what I have heard.  I can feel that it is the engine of the economy.  After a while, I am told it is time to go and again, I am blindfolded and lead out to the limousine.  I am returned to Congress but told that there is a tape of me with the black woman and if I should ever tell anyone what I  have seen, the tape of the black woman and me, properly doctored to show me in a comprising situation, will be released to the public.  I say "I will not tell." and join the other freshman Congressmen who have been "briefed in".

 

02.Jane Fonda.  Poof.  Pop. Without any run up at all, no foreplay, all of a sudden I am standing on a deserted 2 lane highway out in the middle of Arizona.  I know I am hitch hiking but do not have a clue why or to where but does not seem to matter or be a part of the dream.  I do not stand long, when down the road I can see coming towards me a big convertible just speeding along.  As the convertible nears me, I stick out my thumb and see, as the speeder passes me, that a woman is driving a big, new, pink, Cadillac.  No sooner has she past me, but she slams on your brakes, the tires squeal on the asphalt and she comes to a complete stop right in the road, about 100 feet beyond me.  When this lady driver turns around in her seat and yells, "You coming?"   So as was the custom, courtesy of the day, I run to the car so she would not have to wait and slow down her trip anymore and when I get to the car, she opens her door, comes around to the trunk opens it for me to put my stuff in and there on the floor of the trunk is at least 1 pound of cocaine and when I look up to say something about all that coke, there stands Jane Fonda, the movie actress and this was when she was one fine babe (Viet Nam activities or not).  So in the car I go and from then on, it is only a blur of high living, sex everywhere and lots and lots of cocaine with Jane, the Fonda.  One of the best times of my life, I can tell you that and then, without a warning of any kind, poof, pop, I am awake.  No!  Not yet.  I want to sleep, dream some more.  I close my eyes, and think of her and run through my memories of being with her, but she is gone.  Gone on down the road and apparently I am now were I was hitching hiking to.  Back to my own bed and the alarm clock blaring way at me to get up and get to work.  Jane, oh Jane.  It was so nice to know you, over and over again.

 

01.The Hitchhiker.  The alarm wakes me and I struggle into the bathroom for my morning shower.  Then I get dressed, into the car and out onto the road to work.  I am awake but not really.  I cannot remember the dream I was having before the alarm went off but know I want to be back there, in the dream,  in bed, instead of out here on the highway.  Then, I see a man standing beside the road, hitchhiking, and without a thought, I stop and pick him up.  No sooner has he shut the car door than I know it is Jesus Christ, right there in the car with me.  At first, I am taken back by his being there but then again, not really.  I am still in some dream-like state and it just seems right that he should be there in the seat beside me and so I pull back on the highway and we begin to talk and I like him a lot and he smiles and asks me questions and I ask him questions and we ride along for a long time, just talking back and forth.  Then I come to a traffic light near where I work and have to stop for the light and he turns to me and says this is where he gets out and we shake hands and he leaves.  Again, all seems as it should be and I drive on to work.  It is only after I am at work awhile that I actually wake up and then I cannot determine if meeting Christ was a daydream, or the dream I was having before the alarm went off or was 100 percent real and no dream at all.  And in a way, it does not matter what the nature of the meeting was, as I seem to have been forever touched by our meeting and sure would love to pick him up again along the road and just talk for awhile as we ride along together.