A Hidden Room at my Old Elementary School

I had a dream
that I was in my old elementary school.

I went into one of the rooms
and it was totally trashed.
People had just destroyed everything.
The walls were destroyed,
the floors. . .everything in the room
suffered at the hand of vandals.

I went into another room
and it was in a bad state, too.
But this room suffered more
from just being abandoned.
No one had destroyed it.
The thing is,
no one took care of it either.
And time was destroying it slowly.

And then I found another room.
It was almost like an outdoor courtyard.
In the school, but outside.

The room was very well kept.
It had many dressers and lamps.
But they were all antiques.
No chairs at all in this room.

And then I noticed
that in order to sit down
people would open a drawer
from one of the dressers
and just sit in that.
Which drawer you would open
depended on how tall or short you were.

I opened a drawer to sit down in
and noticed
it was filled with old clothes and towels.
They were well folded, well cared for.
But I could tell that the clothes were old.

I noticed that I had a long, old fashioned skirt on.
Like the ones the ladies where
in that TV show, Little House on the Prairie.

There were two elderly people there,
a man and a woman.
I didn’t know the man’s name.
But the woman’s name was Maddie.
She said that she hadn’t had many visitors lately.
We chatted for awhile.

And then,
a child came in.
He was glad to see me.
He asked how long I had been there,
if I had plans on coming back for frequent visits.
The child’s name was Maddie also.

The sky started to turn dark
and clouds started to appear.
They all decided to go inside.
But I wanted to stay for awhile.

And I began to wonder what would happen
to all of that antique furniture
if the rain came.
The others didn’t seem concerned about this at all.
I just sat there for a while,
admiring the sky
and admiring all of the old antique furniture.

I wondered why I never saw this room
when I was a young student in this elementary school.
I wondered who else didn’t know about this hidden room.

Selling the Family Business

This dream was unusual.
My family in this dream
wasn't my family in real life.
In this dream,
all of these people were unknown to me real life.

My father was a tubby Greek gentleman.
And I had three brothers.
(In the awake world I have two brothers.)

We had a family business
that was going under.
I'm not sure what it was,
but I think it had something to do
with pet supplies or pet food.

I worked in the family business,
but I also had a job outside of the business.
So,
I didn't depend on this for my income.

An offer came from a large company
to buy the family business.
Except for one of my brothers,
no one in the family wanted to accept the offer.

I think my brother only saw the dollar signs.
He really wasn't too concerned
with what was best for everyone.
He just knew that he would receive
a significant chunk of change
if the business were sold.

I had another brother
was running for City Council.
He didn't want to sell
because he was using the family name.
He really had no business running for office.
He just wanted the fame of being in local politics.
Selling the business
wouldn't be good for his political name,
or so he thought.

Another brother didn't really want to sell.
But also realized that some sort of comment
needed to be made to the public.
The press had gotten wind of the offer
and started to follow us everywhere,
asking if we were going to sell.
He made some comments to the press like,
"we're examining all options,"
"we're taking all things into consideration."
He didn't really say anything.

A secretary who worked for us
always avoided the subject of children.
We never knew why.
Another of our workers found some candy
stuffed in the cushions in the couch in her office.
Only he realized that it wasn't candy at all.
It was drugs.
He said this is how the drug pushers
sell to children.
He wraps it up as candy
and then the kids get hooked.
The secretary burst into tears.
Amidst her weeping
she told us that that is how she lost her child.
Her son had died after a drug overdose
taking what he thought was candy.

At that point my father realized
that we had to sell the family business.
It would give everyone a new start.
It would bring jobs to the area
(something my brother running for office
could use in his political pitch).
And it would just give us more time
to be family,
not just business partners.

And I don't know what this means,
but my father wore white throughout this dream.
Sort of like that white suite Col Sanders wears. . .

So,
What does this all mean?
What's up with that white suite?
What does a family business symbolize?
Who were these people who in real life aren't my people?
And what of this child that died?

The Shrink in Canada

I dreamt
that I had been going to visit
a shrink.
For whatever reason,
I had stopped my sessions for awhile.

I felt like I needed to check in with him
so I decided to give him a call
and set up an appointment.

I couldn't find his business card anywhere.
I looked in the yellow pages.
I looked online.
No listing.

So,
I decided to just over there
and make an appointment
with the receptionist.

When I got there,
he had a group in session.
They were just taking a break.
He greeted me
but said he couldn't see me at that moment.
I told him that I knew that.
I just wanted to make an appointment
and couldn't find his phone number.

I made the appointment
then I left.

But then,
I suddenly became aware
that I couldn't remember where I parked.
The sidewalk became narrow.
Actually,
there were two rows of sidewalks.

And then I realized that I was on a bridge.
There were no handrails,
nothing to keep me from falling over
into the water.

The sidewalk I was walking on
suddenly became slanted.
I slipped and was just barely hanging on.
I did manage to get up
and started walking on the other sidewalk
as that was closer to the building.

And then I realized that I was in Canada.
I finally remembered where I parked.
But I couldn't remember how
to back to the U.S.

I wasn't really feeling scared at all.
More like challenged,
a sense of trying something new.

Trapped in the Choir Room

I fell asleep this afternoon.
And, as things would have it,
I had another dream!

I dreamt that I was on my way
to choir rehearsal.
(I do sing in the choir
in my awake life.)

Ruben was leading the rehearsal.
Ruben was a very talented guitarist.
In actuality,
he died awhile ago.

Anyway,
Ruben was leading the rehearsal.
Really, it wasn't so much a rehearsal
as a run through of things
before worship.
I was running late.
As I arrived
things were just finishing up.

Everyone was leaving,
but I sat down
to get my music in order
after having received the song list from Ruben.

It was a larger rehearsal room.
I think it was underneath the church,
Like a basement social hall or something.
It definitely was on a lower level.
Except it wasn't a hall
it was clearly a music room. . .
. . music stands, choral seating,
piano, etc.

Everyone had left
and then I heard someone calling.
She was on the floor above,
but not in the church.
She tried to come down through the elevator
but something happened.
A myriad of plastic toys
had gotten in the way
in the elevator shaft.
The elevator couldn't come all the way down.
I told her to try to go back up
and come down the elevator
on the others side of the building.

And then I walked around
to where the other elevator was.
The doors suddenly burst open
and tons and tons and tons
of plastic toys came spilling out.

She eventually made it to the music room
via a stairwell.
It really was more like a fire escape,
except that it was in the building.
It was very narrow
and you had to pull the stairs down
in order to use them.
We didn't know where all the toys came from.

So,
what does this mean?
This is the second time today
that I dreamt of someone
who has already passed on.
What does that mean?
What does the elevator mean?
And an elevator going down???
Plastic toys?

Dad, The VA, and Court TV

I had another unusual dream last night.
To me,
a dream is unusual when something
just isn't quite right.
O, I know.
Dreams are always
full of imagery and symbols.
I guess this particular dream was unusual
because it's another dream with my father
who is deceased.

I dreamt I was volunteering
in some sort of nursing home.
Acutally,
it was more like a veteran's hospital.
Everyone there was a vet.
Everyone.
They all had a story to tell.

I was volunteering
with lunch duty.
I would help serve the food,
poor the juice and what not.

It was getting so the place
expected me to be there
almost every day.
It started interfering with my job.
So,
I let them know that I would not be coming
as often as I had.
They would need to make other arrangements
for others to volunteer and help out.

I told them that I would only come in
on certain days.
And on those days
I would be coming in to visit with my father.
I had been working there so much
that even though my father was a resident there
I never got an opportunity to visit with him.

On the first of my visits to my father,
I had to miss work.
But I didn't mind.
I just told my pastor (I work for a church)
that this was something I had to.
He didn't like the idea of my missing work,
but he understood.

When I went to see my father,
he was sitting in a chair watching TV
in some sort of community room.
In my dream,
my dad had had a stroke
and so could no longer speak.
But I could tell that he was sad.
And then I saw that it was the program on TV.
I switched it over to court TV.
Dad always liked stuff
about court, detectives, politics, etc.
And with that channel switch
he became very happy.

The other residents
who were in the room
weren't too happy.
But then I told them to calm down,
that it was only for a little while
as I visited with my dad,
then I would switch the channel back.

In real life,
my dad was a veteran,
though he never had a stroke.
Nor was he ever confined
to any place like that as a resident.
Also,
my dad died several years ago.

So,
what does it mean
that he wanted me to visit him?
What does it mean
that even though I spent time with him
he could not speak?
Why was I working all around him,
but not with him?

Moving Pictures

This dream was a bit unusual.

I had a dream that I had some friends
who inherited a house
that had been in their family
for many generations.

As they began to move in
they found a box
with several old photos in it.
It was of past generations
of their family
in front of their house.

One was of children
playing on the front porch.

One was of a bridal couple
entering their car
right in front of this house.

The photos were all black and white.
But there were like movies.
Each time my friends handed me a photo
it was like watching a short movie of the event.
I found this odd.

What was even more odd
is that the people in these little movies
were very much aware
that we were watching them.
The bridal couple even waived at us.