Dream Log: March 2, 2001

I usually don't remember my dreams, but I woke up very suddenly this morning (the alarm clock went off) and I remembered this dream:

I was on campus, trying to go from one building to another, but for some reason, there was a major road between the buildings, so I decided to drive. So, I'm driving my new car (this car doesn't really exist in real life), but I can't drive very well (also in my dream, in real life I'm a very good driver). I'm driving too fast and swerving between lanes. My boyfriend, Fred, was in the car with me, and I asked him if he would mind driving if I pulled over somewhere, and he said "No problem". But just as he agreed, we got to a red light, but I was going to fast and couldn't stop in time, and I plowed into the car that was stopped ahead of me at the light.

So, my car is dented a little, but the car in front of me is totally smashed up. I get out of the car, and go to apologize and offer them my insurance information and everything. So, the people get out of the car, and we start yelling at each other. At one point, I get my insurance form out of the glove compartment and the driver of the other car snatches the form away from me. I say "Hey, give that back and I'll write all the information down for you," but he says, "No, I'll just take this." We argue for a while and eventually he gives the form back to me, I write some numbers down for him, and start to move my car out of the center lane.

As I'm trying to move my car, the two people from the other car are talking to each other, and suddenly they come up to me and say, "Hey, you know what, forget about it." I'm all confused, so I say, "What do you mean?" They explain to me that they really don't like their car, so rather than have insurance pay for repairs, they're going to go total their car and hopefully get a new one. I don't really understand what they are talking about, so I agree and then go back to my car. It's only later in the dream that I realize that they have my insurance information and this whole thing could get ugly.

As I'm dealing with my car, the damage gets worse and worse. Remember at the beginning of the dream how I said it was just a fender bender? Well, now one of the tires is completely shredded, and little bits of metal are everywhere. I'm getting really upset and trying to figure out how I can get the car fixed without my dad finding out about it. Maybe I don't have to report it to my insurance company, maybe I can just pay for the repairs myself. But do you have to report it? I'm getting all stressed out.

Now here is where the dream gets really weird. See, I've never had a dream about people from Everything2 before, and this time, I dreamt about someone I've only spoken to once.

So, all of a sudden, someone suggests to me that I should go ask sensei, and he'll tell me what to do.

Keep in mind that I've never met sensei in real life, I don't know what he looks like, and he certainly doesn't live in Pittsburgh.

So, we half-push, half-drive the car to sensei's house, and I knock on the door. He invites us in, I apologize for bothering him and tell him my problem. He says he'll be happy to help, but he's having a party soon and has to go out to finish making the arrangements. In the meantime, why don't we help ourselves to some sushi. So now, sensei's house has been transformed into a sushi restaurant, he leaves, and we start eating. My friend Amy, who appeared with us, leaves very suddenly and someone explains to me that it's because she doesn't have any money. I realize I don't have any money with me and say that I assumed the sushi was free. Someone tells me, "No, it isn't", and I mumble something about having a credit card and then leave.

Now, I take my car to a mechanic, and my car has somehow been transformed into one of the Battlebots that was on TV last night. I think it's name was "El Diablo". And the mechanic I took it to is the guy who built all the crazy Battlebots like Mechadon (the walking robot) and the huge snake robot. So, we're talking and he asks me what kind of changes I want to make to the design of my bot, and I tell him that I want wheels instead of tank treads, because the kill saws really chewed up the tank treads last night (this is all true, I mean, about El Diablo losing because of broken tank treads, not about me owning a Battlebot), and we go to work fixing the robot.

And then the alarm went off, and here I am, starting my day...

Rain and Regret

• I'm driving my car in a downpour, trying to make it to who knows where. Pot holes, the size of swimming pools, open up along the shoulder of the crowded street. After spending half an hour navigating around them and gaining a hundred feet, I pull over and get out. I spot some wooden barrier placards and put them up around the huge pits. Afterwards I go back to my car. My perspective then becomes a third person aerial view, as from a traffic helicopter. I watch a sports car driving recklessly, suddenly coming up to a pit too late to brake. It squashes itself in the wet hole of torn black asphault. Then I see my own car, driving in the opposite direction than before, likewise speeding towards certain doom. It jack-knifes into a vat of mud and flips upside-down. Suddenly I'm back in my car so I take a deep breath and frantically escape the death trap.

• I meet my mother for lunch at a store I've heard about but never been to. As I walk through the rooms, however, it appears to be a clothing store for middle aged women, not a restaurant. But here's my mom, seated at a restaurant counter with a man waiting to take her order. I peruse the menu but there don't appear to be any vegetarian options. After explaining my predicament, the waiter says he can arrange something. I'm looking away from my mother when she makes two comments in other peoples' voices: I hear my grandmother say she regrets giving away some childhood clothing of my mom's; I hear my friend Allen say that this is the store he smoked pot in with one of the employees.

I've been dreaming a lot lately about my old home in Rhode Island and my parents. Last night I dreamed that Manhattan had turned into one big beach. Each of the streets and avenues was still there but where the actual blocks were was now sand and sparkling dark water - in fact, it looked remarkably like several beaches (the old Matunuck, Scarborough and Sandhill Cove, in particular) I'd frequented as a small child.

It was hot and the sun was bright. Apparently, there was some sort of school kite contest going on, and my friend Farin (who, when I'm awake, is three years younger than me and in yeshiva) and I were being driven around by my dad in his old gold Subaru wagon, looking for our classmates. Finally, we saw them, but we had to park several blocks away under a boardwalk that must have been fifty feet off the ground. I was excited beyond belief.

Then I woke up and realized I hate the beach, it's winter, and there really isn't anywhere to swim just off 42nd Street.