Dream

[bookofmirrors]

I wanna get this one down, just because the symbolism and the colors were so prevalent. I didn't necessarily get the "ping" one does when it's a majorly important dream.



The setting was sort of a cross between a mall and a festival. (Wow... as I'm writing this, I'm remembering a lot more, about the part before that...) So, to try to go in chronological order...

I was in a house. I think we had just moved into the house, perhaps were renting it from someone. I remember spending a lot of time in the basement. The basement was this weird cross of unfinished (concrete floors, cinderblock walls) and finished (there was some semblance of someone having tried to make a room down there, in that there was furniture and it looked like there was a bedroom in the making). The thing that intrigued me the most were the showerheads. The basement was pretty big, and all open. There was a sense of there being rooms, even with no walls, simply because of the placement of the furniture, and the barest sense of a theme with the different sets. It looked like there was the equivalent of 3 half-assed bedrooms, and a lot of open space, a lot of sloppy-ness, etc. But there were showerheads, big ones, at various places along the wall. No symmetry to it, and they weren't all very obvious. There was one that seemed to be the main one, and I was fucking around with it, experimenting with waterflow and whatnot, and it turned out that, if I manuevered the strings and knobs a certain way, it activated the other shower heads in the basement (which was how I found out they were there). However, the other shower heads had apparently been disregarded completely by whoever lived there before, because when they came on, a couple of them sprayed directly into the bedrooms that were set up. No one was there to notice, so I think I was hoping that it would dry before anyone caught it. I also think there was part of me that didn't care, 'cause I knew we were gonna get rid of all that stuff. But there was another part of me that it seemed like I knew the people that lived there, too, and I didn't wanna ruin their stuff. I was pretty unclear as to what stuff was there from before us moving in, and what stuff was ours. I did get the impression there were a lot of people living here, or planning on it.

I explored the basement some more, and came upon a smallish room off the the back, on the right, that was fully decorated. Carpeted, walled, and lined with bookshelves. There was a big table that dominated the whole room, and a bunch of my friends were sitting around gaming. The GM was an amalgam of Leo and blckwngdorcl, and I got the impression that the gamers consisted of my Illinois friends. I talked to them briefly, and was pleased that there seemed to be a room ready-made for gaming in the house, and knew they were all happy about it, too. I perused the basement a while longer, finding nothing of interest, but wondering to myself if I could get a hold of kippiepoo via karlita, and if he could work the same magic to my basement that he did to hers. I remember envisioning the shower area(s) transformed into something with a lot of small white tiles, and had a notion that it would be great for messier BDSM scenes.

I went upstairs to the main level to look around. I know I saw it in some detail in my dream, but right now, I can remember little. I know I wandered around quite a bit, and noted lots of things. I don't recall actually seeing my cats, but later, I thought of them in the sense that they were there somewhere. I went upstairs, and wandered around there, too. Then, I went back downstairs to the main level, with the intent of exploring one section of the house that, for whatever reason, I'd not looked at closely before. I found myself in a room that was somewhat different than the rest of the house, and was looking around, intrigued. There was a woman there, who seemed a little taken aback that I was there, but she was very soft spoken and polite. As I spoke to her, I remembered that whoever had sold us the house had told us that it was attached to someone else's house (apartment?), so I noted to her that this must be the entrance to her place, and I was sorry to have disturbed her. Her place was done in a lot of fabrics. Thick carpet, that sort of thing. The room we were in was a rosy mauve color. I left rather quickly once I realized that I'd intruded on her space, even though she was very gracious about it, and never asked me to leave. I noted that there seemed to be no line of demarcation between her house and ours. Just that, in the middle of this particular room, the furnishings and decor changed from ours (actually, the former owner's) to hers. I continued to wander, somewhat perplexed at this situation. I noticed another room where the walls didn't quite touch each other, and there was a space I could look through, to what I now know was her apartment. It had the same plush feel to it, rich but rarely used, this time in cream colors. I saw a cat there, licking itself, and that's when I thought of my own cats, and wondered if they'd get along, but thinking it was nice that the lady liked cats.

(Note: I find it interesting that I can't seem to recall colors in my half of the house, but that I remember them clearly in her half... my half seemed very cluttered, unfinished, half moved out, half moved in.)

We ended up leaving the house to go elsewhere. Not moving, just going somewhere else for a while. I kinda got the impression that it was a camping trip. Most everyone else ended up in one car, and left early. Me and the people I was with were still packing up. I was with 2 guys, who I remember in appearance as being dark and blonde. The blonde looked (most of the time) like Owen Wilson. One or the other often reminded me of Mark H., C.V., and liljuice, to the point that I think they were that person, for that period of time. Other times, they reminded me of no one in particular, and were more like an amalgam of all of them, and others I knew and didn't know. The dark haired one went away. Not sure if he just got in the car to wait for us while we finished up some stuff, or just what, but he was no longer in the immediate picture. So, the Owen Wilson type and I were packing up the car, and this dog came along. It was dark, so we couldn't see it clearly. I know it jumped up on top of the trunk, and we were scratching its ears. Based on what little light we had, we determined it was a bassett hound. Eventually, an older couple came over. Apparently, it was their dog. Somehow, we ended up going over to their place to chat a while... again, no sense of actually going in a door... more like their front yard blended seamlessly into their living room. This place was fully furnished, as well. The look that somehow older people seem to pull off, both fancy and cozy at the same time. We chatted idly with them, and I noted that, in the light, I could now tell that it wasn't a full bassett hound, but a bassett airedale mix. They confirmed this. (Actually, we both said it at the same time, and they beat me to it. I was a little miffed that I ended up saying it second, 'cause I wanted them to be impressed with my knowledge of dog breeds.)

Eventually, we left, and ended up at the mall-like place I mentioned earlier. It was kind of a cross between a mall and a gather. I remember my parents and the rest of my family were there... sisters, aunts, cousins, the whole nine yards. They pretty much stuck to the mall area, of course, and I would run into them periodically as I wandered. In the gathering area, which blended seamlessly into the mall, there were lots of vendors and whatnot. It seemed to be inside, but there were places that the line between inside and outside was blurred, and sometimes it seemed to be outside altogether. I found this interesting and somewhat strange, but otherwise unremarkable. I wandered mostly the gathering area, but went back and forth between it and the mall, I think mostly just to check up on my parents. I think I bought a few things in each place.

There was a lady in the gathering area, who seemed to follow one of the Yoruban traditions. She was dressed African-style, although I don't recall if she was white, black, or other. She kept pressing me to buy something from her, or get a reading. Now, my initial reaction was that she was a tad pushy, and a tad smarmy. But, for some reason, I eventually did. I don't recall a lot of theatrics, nor do I recall it being anything like when Osun Femie read my head and did a divination, but she said a few things I don't recall, and put 3 bracelets on me. All of them were made with fine wire, upon which beads were strung. All the beads were irregular, like freshwater pearls. One was mostly red, with white at the top. The other was all honey-gold. Sango and Osun colors. No surprise there, although I hadn't told her anything about my head reading, or anything else, for that matter. More on the third bracelet, if it even existed, later. She also gave me 4 elekes. I didn't really notice the colors at the time, although I knew they weren't the same colors as the bracelets. She also gave me a sort of gift bag, mostly full of the usual handmade pagan-type bath and body and sensory-pleasing goodies. I kinda got the impression she gave that to all her customers, as a free-gift-with-every-reading.

I wandered around a bit more, mostly in the gather area. I was interested in the bracelets and elekes and such, although mostly, others I encountered weren't. There was one lady, running her own booth, that seemed to be giving motherly advice to me, which mostly consisted, as far as I remember, of a vague warning to not get taken in by all the readers here. The whole place did have a bit more of a commercial feel to it than your typical gather, and I'd already gotten the pushy-smarmy vibe from the lady to begin with, so I think I was a little annoyed by her advice, in a yes-mom-I-know sorta way. Anyway, one of my bracelets broke, so I went back to the lady, hoping she could fix it.

I know for sure it wasn't the red and white one, or the honey-colored one, so I must have had a third bracelet. I ended up talking to her assistant, 'cause she (whose name, I discovered, was Sharon, 'cause that's what the assistant called her) was in the middle of a reading for another person. I talked to the assistant for a while, but got confused with the bracelets (which I often mistakenly called elekes, even knowing that it wasn't the correct term). While I was talking to her, I noticed that I was only wearing the Sango/Osun bracelets, and no longer wearing the other one. She was sitting in front of a display of bracelets, most of which were still straight and neat, and tucked neatly into the compartments, except for one. Now, I couldn't remember, if I ever knew, what the colors of the third bracelet were. But I did notice that there was one bracelet that was out of place, and bent, as if it had been placed around someone's wrist. This one was mostly white, with purple, and I think one other color, that I can't recall... possibly a jade-like green, possibly a coral. But, since I didn't remember what color my third bracelet was, I wasn't sure. Eventually, Sharon came over to straighten things out. We talked briefly about the bracelets I was wearing. She called them dokkens, and I remember practicing that word a few times to make sure I remembered it so I could call them by their proper name in the future. (Note: There IS a word for the beaded bracelets in the Yoruban traditions. David/Wolf told me once. But I don't remember what the proper term is, or if it's anything like dokken.) I somehow had trouble getting it across to her that I thought I had lost/broken one of the dokken. In the shuffling around, the one I saw became hidden. While we were talking about it, and trying to get it all straightened out, I noticed the elekes I was wearing. Red-and-black, blue-and-white, black-and-white, and all-black. The first two, I knew - Esu and Yemanja, respectively. But I didn't know what the black-and-white and the all-black represented. The all-black one confused me a bit, 'cause I thought all the Orisha had two colors. But with all the confusion going on, I either never asked her, or she never answered, or I didn't understand, or I've merely forgotten in my waking hours. After finally making her understand about the dokken, we shuffled through the paperwork and such to try to find the one I'd seen and assumed was mine, but it was no longer there. She offered me another one, but I don't remember what it looked like. I think it was mostly purple. I don't remember for sure if I ended up taking it or not. I think I did. I got the impression that this bracelet didn't really stand for anything, but she wanted to get me out of there quickly. She also gave me another free-gift-with-purchase type bag, with different stuff in it. Lots of votive candles in it, as I recall, all a pale color (I think green). I wandered back into the gathering area again, feeling somewhat confused, and somewhat put off.

I think I woke up about then...