01-02-2012, 11:23 AM
Last night, I slept fitfully, with alternating periods of sleeping and waking; and in each period of sleep, I had unpleasant and vivid dreams. In The Nature of Personal Reality, Seth explains that dreams have many functions, one of which is to provide us with the emotional (or hormonal) response necessary for emotional healing. A bunch of people have been snapping at me at work lately, for perceived infractions, and I suspect that these dreams may have been for that purpose. Here's one of them (note: long read, with some violent imagery):
I found myself back in Darlington, South Carolina, where I lived during the 1990s. I was in an office building housing a government agency where I used to work. I was standing in a small antechamber next to the front door. I looked out into the parking lot and saw someone driving a farm truck toward the door; it was a "honey wagon", i.e., a tanker truck used for hauling liquid manure from a swine or dairy-farming operation. The truck did not stop, but crashed through the front door, entering about 5 feet into the building, with no damage to the truck. I thought it must have been an accident, but the driver reversed the truck, backed out into the parking lot, got a running start, and crashed into the building again; this time he made it all the way in, and somehow managed to navigate the hallway, drive through the secretary's office, and get the truck into the office of the District Conservationist for that county. He then opened the valve at the rear of the truck, and began spewing liquid manure all over the office. I realized then that he had some grudge over a dispute (either contractual or personal), and that this deliberate act was his way of expressing his anger. Manure began to flood the building, and as it was quitting time anyway, I decided to leave and go home.
I walked through the ruined doorway out into the parking lot, but couldn't find my pickup truck. I looked down and saw an alligator (not a large one, about 6 feet long); it was harnessed to a small, low cart. There was a short stick-shift lever on the alligator's tail, with 2 forward and one reverse speeds, and neutral. I sat in the cart, and by manipulating the gear shift and reigns, managed to get the alligator to pull me out onto the main road, and started heading for home. (Odd or inappropriate vehicles are common in my dreams; I often find myself driving down the interstate highway on a piece of carpet or a sled, or in a cardboard box.)
We were making steady progress, but moving very slowly, just above human walking speed. The harness/reigns were made of a stretchy synthetic material, with multiple strands and a pulley assembly, which allowed me to lengthen or shorten the harness. I noticed ahead of me in traffic, an 18-wheel truck; on the back of the trailer was an electrical coupling with a conduit out a few inches from the doorway. I shortened up the main part of the harness, freeing up a long section with a hook at the end; I cast it up onto the electrical conduit and caught it with the hook, and allowed the truck to pull the alligator-cart at higher speed. We proceeded into the center of town and stopped at a red light.
I had gone as far as I needed to go in that direction, and needed to turn right. So I tugged on my reigns to try to free them from the truck. This caused the electrical coupling and conduit to rip off the back of the truck, and go flying backward and to the right. It landed in some flowers in a planting on the sidewalk. The truck driver was looking into his right-side mirror at the time, and saw what happened; he stormed out of his truck, and said to me, "I'm Angry! I'm Angry!". I realized he was going to try to run over me with his truck, so I picked up the alligator under one arm, and the cart under the other, and sprinted off into a side alley that had been converted into a walking street, where the truck couldn't follow. I could hear the enraged truck driver tearing up and down side streets, trying to find me, so I ran down this alleyway for about a half a mile, trying to find perpendicular alley to take me in the direction I needed to go.
I finally found one and turned left onto it, hooking the alligator back up to the cart. In the adjacent yard there were two very large and aggessive-looking dogs. One of them, a fat mastiff which was nearly as large as a bathtub charged down to us, and in four swallows ..."GULP!GULP!GULP!GULP!"... engulfed up my alligator without even chewing it. The dog's owner was sitting on the back porch and witnessed the whole thing. Appalled, he raced down and pried open the dog's jaws, while I grabbed the end of the alligator's tail, and pulled it out of the dog. It was unharmed, so again I fixed up the cart, and we trundled off as the man restrained his dog.
I got up to a main street and turned west back toward my neighborhood. I soon discovered that there was some construction project that had torn up the street and sidewalk, and recent rains had turned the street into a mass of mud. I picked up the alligator and cart again and attempted to negotiate my way through. I got muddy, so I tried another parallel alley behind houses on the north side of the road. That was a mess too, and I got muddier. My alligator and cart turned into a weedeater with a long extension cord.
At length I came to a huge new building that was being constructed, but which was nearly completed. It was so large that I decided that going directly through it would be better than walking around it. I entered and walked through a long series of corridors and rooms. Eventually I realized that it was a new high school and I shouldn't be in it, but as I was muddy and carrying something attached to a long extension cord, I looked like one of the construction workers, so nobody bothered me. Finally I came to the foyer at the front of the building and was able to orient myself geographically; I saw that I was in the part of town that I was attempting to reach all along, and tried to leave. My way was was suddenly blocked by a giant figure who was dressed as a police officer or security guard. He was harassing an ordinary citizen, and I decided to take up for the victim. The policeman was wearing, on his belt, a traditional group of samurai weapons; long, medium sized, and short swords, along with a tai-pan style knife, which had a blade about 8 inches long. The policeman was about 8 or 9 feet tall, and he had to bend way down (presenting his rear to me) to grab his victim. As he did this, I pulled the tai-pan out of his belt, and plunged it into his groin area, in an effort to sever his femoral artery. I stabbed him two more times before he could react. He straightened out and turned back to face me. He bent down again, and I grabbed his hair to hold his head, and began hacking at the back of his neck with the knife, trying to behead him. I couldn't cut through his spine, but managed to inflict many severe lacerations. I left him to die of his wounds, and tried to exit through one of the front doors.
The door wouldn't open properly; it slid up instead of opening outwards, and I had to slither under it like a snake. Standing outside were several teenage boys in high-school hockey team uniforms, talking to a couple of 40-ish women I assumed to be their mothers. One of the boys was a schoolyard bully type, and without provocation jumped on me and pinned me to the ground. I outweighed him by at least 50 pounds, so quickly I reversed the situation. I then began pinching the arteries in his neck, shutting off the blood flow to his brain. Suddenly he realized he was in mortal danger and began crying and pleading for his life. I decided to let him live, so I got off him and began heading for home.
After all I had been through, I was quite anxious to get home, so I tried to flap my arms and fly, thinking it would be quicker. It didn't work; I couldn't fly any faster than I could walk. At that point, the dream ended, as my cat jumped up onto me and woke me up.
I found myself back in Darlington, South Carolina, where I lived during the 1990s. I was in an office building housing a government agency where I used to work. I was standing in a small antechamber next to the front door. I looked out into the parking lot and saw someone driving a farm truck toward the door; it was a "honey wagon", i.e., a tanker truck used for hauling liquid manure from a swine or dairy-farming operation. The truck did not stop, but crashed through the front door, entering about 5 feet into the building, with no damage to the truck. I thought it must have been an accident, but the driver reversed the truck, backed out into the parking lot, got a running start, and crashed into the building again; this time he made it all the way in, and somehow managed to navigate the hallway, drive through the secretary's office, and get the truck into the office of the District Conservationist for that county. He then opened the valve at the rear of the truck, and began spewing liquid manure all over the office. I realized then that he had some grudge over a dispute (either contractual or personal), and that this deliberate act was his way of expressing his anger. Manure began to flood the building, and as it was quitting time anyway, I decided to leave and go home.
I walked through the ruined doorway out into the parking lot, but couldn't find my pickup truck. I looked down and saw an alligator (not a large one, about 6 feet long); it was harnessed to a small, low cart. There was a short stick-shift lever on the alligator's tail, with 2 forward and one reverse speeds, and neutral. I sat in the cart, and by manipulating the gear shift and reigns, managed to get the alligator to pull me out onto the main road, and started heading for home. (Odd or inappropriate vehicles are common in my dreams; I often find myself driving down the interstate highway on a piece of carpet or a sled, or in a cardboard box.)
We were making steady progress, but moving very slowly, just above human walking speed. The harness/reigns were made of a stretchy synthetic material, with multiple strands and a pulley assembly, which allowed me to lengthen or shorten the harness. I noticed ahead of me in traffic, an 18-wheel truck; on the back of the trailer was an electrical coupling with a conduit out a few inches from the doorway. I shortened up the main part of the harness, freeing up a long section with a hook at the end; I cast it up onto the electrical conduit and caught it with the hook, and allowed the truck to pull the alligator-cart at higher speed. We proceeded into the center of town and stopped at a red light.
I had gone as far as I needed to go in that direction, and needed to turn right. So I tugged on my reigns to try to free them from the truck. This caused the electrical coupling and conduit to rip off the back of the truck, and go flying backward and to the right. It landed in some flowers in a planting on the sidewalk. The truck driver was looking into his right-side mirror at the time, and saw what happened; he stormed out of his truck, and said to me, "I'm Angry! I'm Angry!". I realized he was going to try to run over me with his truck, so I picked up the alligator under one arm, and the cart under the other, and sprinted off into a side alley that had been converted into a walking street, where the truck couldn't follow. I could hear the enraged truck driver tearing up and down side streets, trying to find me, so I ran down this alleyway for about a half a mile, trying to find perpendicular alley to take me in the direction I needed to go.
I finally found one and turned left onto it, hooking the alligator back up to the cart. In the adjacent yard there were two very large and aggessive-looking dogs. One of them, a fat mastiff which was nearly as large as a bathtub charged down to us, and in four swallows ..."GULP!GULP!GULP!GULP!"... engulfed up my alligator without even chewing it. The dog's owner was sitting on the back porch and witnessed the whole thing. Appalled, he raced down and pried open the dog's jaws, while I grabbed the end of the alligator's tail, and pulled it out of the dog. It was unharmed, so again I fixed up the cart, and we trundled off as the man restrained his dog.
I got up to a main street and turned west back toward my neighborhood. I soon discovered that there was some construction project that had torn up the street and sidewalk, and recent rains had turned the street into a mass of mud. I picked up the alligator and cart again and attempted to negotiate my way through. I got muddy, so I tried another parallel alley behind houses on the north side of the road. That was a mess too, and I got muddier. My alligator and cart turned into a weedeater with a long extension cord.
At length I came to a huge new building that was being constructed, but which was nearly completed. It was so large that I decided that going directly through it would be better than walking around it. I entered and walked through a long series of corridors and rooms. Eventually I realized that it was a new high school and I shouldn't be in it, but as I was muddy and carrying something attached to a long extension cord, I looked like one of the construction workers, so nobody bothered me. Finally I came to the foyer at the front of the building and was able to orient myself geographically; I saw that I was in the part of town that I was attempting to reach all along, and tried to leave. My way was was suddenly blocked by a giant figure who was dressed as a police officer or security guard. He was harassing an ordinary citizen, and I decided to take up for the victim. The policeman was wearing, on his belt, a traditional group of samurai weapons; long, medium sized, and short swords, along with a tai-pan style knife, which had a blade about 8 inches long. The policeman was about 8 or 9 feet tall, and he had to bend way down (presenting his rear to me) to grab his victim. As he did this, I pulled the tai-pan out of his belt, and plunged it into his groin area, in an effort to sever his femoral artery. I stabbed him two more times before he could react. He straightened out and turned back to face me. He bent down again, and I grabbed his hair to hold his head, and began hacking at the back of his neck with the knife, trying to behead him. I couldn't cut through his spine, but managed to inflict many severe lacerations. I left him to die of his wounds, and tried to exit through one of the front doors.
The door wouldn't open properly; it slid up instead of opening outwards, and I had to slither under it like a snake. Standing outside were several teenage boys in high-school hockey team uniforms, talking to a couple of 40-ish women I assumed to be their mothers. One of the boys was a schoolyard bully type, and without provocation jumped on me and pinned me to the ground. I outweighed him by at least 50 pounds, so quickly I reversed the situation. I then began pinching the arteries in his neck, shutting off the blood flow to his brain. Suddenly he realized he was in mortal danger and began crying and pleading for his life. I decided to let him live, so I got off him and began heading for home.
After all I had been through, I was quite anxious to get home, so I tried to flap my arms and fly, thinking it would be quicker. It didn't work; I couldn't fly any faster than I could walk. At that point, the dream ended, as my cat jumped up onto me and woke me up.