Dreaming in Five Acts

My dream last night took place in five different acts. All of which were random and odd (but amazingly enough not terrifying for a change). One thing to note which is relevant to the dream, I was supposed to have a date last night with a woman who I will call H. She has three daughters 10 and under and had to cancel because her sitter was sick.

Act 1. I am at my grandmother's house with my family. I don't have a clue why we are there but my cousins are there and my mom is there and I think maybe aunts and uncles too. There is an incredibly LONG dirt driveway and down the driveway are a couple picnic tables. And by down the driveway I mean like a quarter of a mile or more down the driveway. A couple of my cousins are sitting with my mother at one of the tables and I'm not sure what happens but I can tell that my cousin Wendy is really disappointed in me. I believe she's disappointed in me because I'm dating. This doesn't make sense in real life or in the dream.

Act 2. I am now in my own house, which is soooooo not my house and isn't any place I've ever been before and is rather cluttered. There's stuff everywhere. Not garbage either, just stuff. Someone is at the door so I answer it and there's H with one of her daughters (I'm guessing the oldest because of her height). Now, I've never actually MET H before in real life or in the dream but there she is with one of her kids. They come in and I tell H that I have to go check my OK Cupid e-mail. Um, you tell your DATE that? In front of her daughter? As you can imagine I got quite a look from H in the dream and I put my arm around the kid and made up some random thing about my e-mail and why I had to go check it. I don't know what I said though.

Act 3. Now for some reason someone else is in my house searching it. H is no where to be seen and neither is her daughter. I do not know exactly why my house is being searched but it has to do with dating. Someone is unhappy or worried about me dating so naturally searching my house is the way to address that. I'm following the searcher (who I think is a guy) around the house and we go in the bedroom (which is a total mess and looks nothing like my bedroom has ever looked and the bed is in the middle of the room, not against any wall). He's searching the room, which is also cluttered and has stuff EVERYWHERE and I notice hair sticking out from under the covers of my bed. It's H. Apparently she's hiding under the covers of my bed. No, I don't know why and no I have no idea where her kid has disappeared to. I also can't remember if the guy searching my house sees her.

Act 4. The searcher is gone and now H and I are going away for an over-night trip. On our first date. With my parents. I know, WTF?! right? So, we're in the car and suddenly we're driving into this sporting goods store. Because that happens all the time. We parked inside at the front and got out and started shopping. The clothing racks were literally just outside the car doors. My mother picked out some jacket/shirt thing for me that was perfect for something in my dream but now that I'm remembering it I'm all "WTF?! I'd NEVER wear that and what would you wear it FOR exactly?" I go over to the dressing rooms to try it on and the dressing room monitor guy yells at me. Tells me I have to go over to that big open space over there to get changed. In the middle of the store. With no privacy. I yell back at him and tell him I want to talk to his manager. I yell at the manager. Somehow I am not kicked out of the store but I also never try the ugly shirt/jacket thing on either (which was like a halter that was lined with black fleece but had a windproof baby blue shell, sooooo odd). I walk back over to the car (which is dark chocolaty brown in color and no model of car that I've ever seen before) and H is there with a half smoked, but unlit, cigarette in her right hand and an unlit full cigarette in her left hand.

Act 5. The cigarettes disappear and we're all back in the car again (mom, dad, me and H). Mom is driving and we're again driving in the store trying to find the exit (apparently it moved while we were shopping, hate it when that happens). Instead of turning right to go down the stairs and to the exit, mom turns left and we start driving up the stairs. It's a spiral stair case. And the stairs get really really steep and yet we keep driving up them, like we're in some huge bell tower or something. We're literally sitting in our seats at an 80 degree angle driving up these stairs. I kind of recall thinking that a) we were soooooo going in the wrong direction and b) what happens when we get to the top and can't turn around and c) what if we lost our forward momentum and started to slip backward. We eventually get to a place where the stairs stop (but they continue again after some sort of road block [stair block?]) so we stop and our car has turned into a wooden canoe. Because I often drive a canoe up steep flights of stairs. Happens ALL the time right? Well, when we get out of the canoe to stare stupidly at the end of the stairs no one holds on to the canoe (or set the parking brake? I suppose it's possible that in a dream, my dream especially, a wooden canoe could have a parking brake) and it, of course, starts rocketing back down the stairs we'd just driven the damn thing up. We all watch the canoe go and I can recall thinking that we were going to get in big trouble and also hoping no one got hurt. That's when I woke up.

My subconscious scares me.

I'm not sure how today's lyrics relate to my dream, but I've always loved them so I thought I'd share. They're from a song called I Am Done by Melissa Ferrick.

What I need is completeness
What I need is neatness
I need a messy kind of make it up
As you go along
I need a silence full of nothing
I need to love
Without trying
Without trying to be loving