Yet Another Dream, 'Cause I'm on a Roll Like That

[bookofmirrors]

blckwngdorcl and I were visiting my parents. We had ended up at this shop that doesn't exist, to the best of my knowledge or recollection, but comes up fairly frequently in my dreams (although not for a while until recently, that I recall). Often, in my dreams, there's some story about how I ended up on the unlikely road that will take me there. In this dream there wasn't, but I wanna add it as backstory, 'cause it's not often I have such a clear map in my head.

This store is between Morris and Dwight, Illinois. Both places exist, and the directions and such in my dream are consistent with real life. In the times I've been to this store, it has always been that I've been going from Morris, on the way back home to Dwight (remember, I used to live in Dwight), and ended up at this store. (This is a north-to-south direction, by the way.) The road to this store is west of the road I normally take. Now, given the way that roads are laid out in the Midwest rural areas, the road probably does exist, but I've just never been on it, that I know of. In my dreams, there's always some sort of reason, or chance, that I end up on this road (which is actually out of the way for the trip) rather than just taking 47 South, which is a straight shot. If I recall correctly, there's almost always I reference to horses, but whether that's because, taking that road, I inevitably pass some, or because I sometimes ride them in this dream, I don't remember.

The store itself is run by a couple of women that I don't personally know, either in real life or in the dream, but they always seem to know me, in that way that good store owners will remember their frequent customers. It's a ways off the road, almost hidden, but not in the sense that you can't see it... moreso in the sense that it seems to draw your eye away from it, and it's easy to look straight at it and not really see it, and immediately forget it if it does happen to register. It's separated into two sections. Well, three, now that I think of it, 'cause in my other dreams, I've never been in the section that I was in this one. The section that I've most often been in in the past is an all-natural store, mostly specializing in herbs, homemade country foods (typical for the area), and other such quaint things. But it's got a hippie feel to it rather than a Midwest farmer feel. The stuff is organic, all-natural, and such, and you just get the idea that the chicks that run it are no strangers to magic and rituals and whatnot.

The other section of the store, which I end up in in about half of my dreams about this place, is haunted. Whatever haunts it seems to be perhaps just slightly to the malevolent side of neutral. Not enough to make you afraid, per se, unless you stay there a long time, but being in its presence makes you really uncomfortable. The women know he's there, of course, but they pretend to be ignorant of it, in a don't-scare-the-customers sort of way. I think they figure that if you can feel it, you can also deal with that feeling, and don't worry so much about it. I get the impression they're a little weirded by it, too, but I've never been really sure if they're bothered by IT, or by the potential impact on the customers.

The section it's in, has an oriental feel to it. Lots of water, little bridges, bamboo, mists. I don't recall, off the top of my head, if there's anything in this section to actually buy. If it weren't haunted, it would be a place of delightful serenity. I think the times I've gone into that section have been because I was compelled to experience that haunted sensation.

I'm telling all this because I have a fairly intimate dream-knowledge of this non-existent place, which has become more and more obvious as I've typed about it. But in this particular dream, there was not the usual sense of getting there from Morris - we were just there. Also, we were in a different section of the store than I'd ever been in before, and, while I was aware, in my dream, of the other two, more familiar sections, I didn't have plans to go there. Partially 'cause we were meeting my parents, and I knew they wouldn't be interested in the other sections. I was kinda bummed about this, and I think I was trying to plot a way to slip out and spend a few minutes in the other sections, but I got distracted in the section we were in, plus my parents got there sooner than I expected.

The section we were in was rustic, and full of food specialty items and some quirky things. Think Bed Bath and Beyond meets Cracker Barrel. For some reason, I had just baked (don't ask me where) a loaf of white bread. I had it with me, and was going to eat it. One of the owners of the store came in with a loaf of bread herself. Hers was a more exotic type of bread, of course. She was slicing it, and putting it in a basket for samples, along with a little display of butters/jams/jellies for customers to try. She encouraged me to do a little mixing and matching with my bread and hers; to eat what I wanted of the loaf I'd made, but to put the rest in the basket with her bread, for the other customers, and to help myself to her display, as well. I did this. I wandered around the store, munching bread. blckwngdorcl was also wandering, off somewhere else. My parents had come in by this point, and I think we were all wandering around, perusing the items in the store. I think it was my parents first time, and I'm sure it was blckwngdorcl's first time. I remember perusing the food sections with all the interesting foods, knowing instinctively, without giving it much thought, that buying the tasty but expensive items wasn't particularly high on my financial priority list, and that seeing if my parents would get them for me would result in an underlying disapproval of my weight, and the silent implication that I shouldn't be buying such fattening things. I did have a recollection that I enjoyed this part of the store the most, implying to me that, even if I didn't specifically remember it, I had been in this part of the store before.

I ended up in a section with paint by numbers. I'd been told I should do more creative things, and was thinking about that as a start (although paint-by-numbers isn't the most creative endeavor in the world, but I thought it might be a good place to start - plus, I could paint outside the lines, like in Mona Lisa smile). I remember the aisles weren't very well laid out there, and it was a tight fit to get through without knocking something over. There wasn't really anything that struck my eye, though, so I left.

I wandered around and found my father, who was talking about going out to dinner somewhere close. In the dream, it was as if he was waiting to be served dinner THERE, and it did seem there was an Amish Acres type restaurant there, but my mind in my dream rebelled a little. This place did NOT have a restaurant. I think I just assumed he must really mean we were going somewhere else.

Next thing I know, blckwngdorcl and I are on the road home. We're walking, and it certainly doesn't seem like the approximately 25 miles that it actually is. My parents are nowhere to be found, and I don't recall leaving them, or having had dinner with them. I remember passing by a little town on the way... it seemed vaguely familiar, like it might be part of the normal landscape associated with that store, but with no real-life component. It was an old-time farm community, a la Little House on the Prairie, and I remember walking by a big haystack, that was in some sort of permanent enclosure-thing that I knew was made just to hodl the haystack. There was a curved piece of wood that ran from top to bottom, making a hill, and I remember wondering if the children of the town used it to sled on in the winter, even as I simultaneously realized that the wood was too narrow to support a sled.

The dream seems to fast-forward again, and we're at my parents' house. I'm assuming it's the house in Dwight, 'cause that's where we had been headed, but the houses (in real life) look just alike, so who can tell? The house looked just about exactly as it did in real life, except that the family room furniture had been moved around slightly. blckwngdorcl was sitting in the family room with my mother and I. For some reason, my mother had my Trybalaka songbook (in the dream, I had left it there for her during a previous visit, thinking she might like it... in real life, that would never cross my mind). However, this being a dream, she was sitting down, interested in it. She was trying to sing I Am (which, strangely enough isn't on Trybalaka's playlist, 'cause Kiki wanted that to be exlusively hers, but I think I really do have a copy of it in my songbook, in real life), but, seeing as how there was no sheet music, just the words, she wasn't getting it right at all. I started to try to sing it for her, and found that I couldn't recall it correctly, either. I suddenly wondered if I had left my Spiral Rhythm CD at her place last time I was there; apparently, I had, 'cause it was sitting there with the stereo. I went over to put it in, and fussed with it, looking for the actual song.

In the meantime, my mother had left the room, and suddenly Kiki and isarma were there. I don't know if blckwngdorcl was. There was something in my head that was tugging at my memory... weren't these two supposed to not be getting along? But I couldn't for the life of me think why that would be the case, and they clearly WERE getting along, so I dismissed it. They were trading old Tribalaka stories, and singing occassionally.

Then I woke up.