Friday July 8, 2011

Last night, July 7th, I dreamed that I took my grandfather to my alma mater, the University of Virginia for a visit. We stayed in an old room that I couldn't identify that felt very historic. It could have been one of the lawn rooms.

It seemed like we arrived the night before because in the dream, I'm preparing the room for my grandfather to go to sleep and I even ask if he wanted to take a bath to which he never answered. It was rainy and extremely overcast.

The next morning to took him to the rotunda and it looked completely different inside. It had been remodeled to operate as office space for the president's office. It was full of desks, partitions, cubicles, printers, and filing cabinets and a bubbly male secretary greeted us. Clearly I was extremely disappointed- all of the historic furniture and preservation efforts had been abandoned and I didn't care to my grandfather some makeshift office space.

The dream ends with me discussing my disappointment with the renovation with a current student (a black girl with short curly brown hair).

Not sure what this one was about but the symbols are interesting. I recently found out that my grandmother passed away, leaving my grandfather a widower, they'd been married for 61 years and have 10 children together.

Also, my grandfather is NOTHING like Robert Freeman from Boondocks, I just thought this picture was hilarious.

Death Becomes Her

Friday, July 8, 2011

So I decided to revive the dream journal today because the past couple of dreams have been really fascinating.

Let's start with the night before last, which was the night of July 6th. I dreamed that I was at my mother's funeral. The funeral was being held at a grocery store. There a lot of people I didn't know including a TON of children- mostly black boys between the ages of 8 and 11. My mother's body was on view in the produce section among the potatoes in a wooden bin with a sliding glass top.

During the funeral, all of the children and a couple adults were talking and being extremely disrespectful. I flip out. I begin cursing and tell them to have some respect. I don't recognize any of them and I seem to be the only person present from my family.

We start the procession to view the body and once I get to my mother's body, she is wearing my old Virginia (UVa) hooded sweatshirt and there is a flannel red blanket draped across her from the waist down. Her hair was in a style that I hadn't seen in a loooong time. Of course I'm immediately concerned and wonder who decided on this look. Two of the boys start pulling at the blanket draped over my mother and I lose my temper on them as well and tell them to get away from my mother's body.

The dream ends with me crying over my mother's body and telling her how she's "one of my favorite people" and how I've never told her that and how much I'd miss her.

I woke up realizing it was a dream and breathing a huge sigh of relief.

When I searched the details of this dream on dreammoods.com, I found that dreaming about the death of your parents is evidence that the relationship with your parents is evolving into a new realm.

September 22

I dreamed that I was visiting an elementary school. I can't figure out whether I was a visiting teaching artist or if I actually had a kid going to the school. I just remember one of the teachers being Nia Long and instead of having desks in each classroom, they had huge king size beds on which the students sat to learn. The school was in a dark foggy area of the world, almost Tim Burtonesque and the students were primarily minorities.

The creepiest most disturbing thing about the dream was recess. Myself and a few other visitors were invited to watch recess from the 5-story patio-like seating area in a nearby apartment high-rise. At first, we were sort of excited to watch recess because it was set up on a blacktop, and much like a carnival- there was a ferris wheel, a couple roller coasters, and even some fast food stands.

However, when recess actually began, we were horrified with what we saw. We sat and squirmed in horror as we watched young students get on rides that were in terrible condition. There were two types of rides that I distinctly remember- there was some type of drop ride, much like the "tower of terror," that pulled its riders up to the highest elevation in a car attached to the side of a high-rise via a cable pulley system and then dropped them to the ground. There was a ride that spinned riders around attached to a cable coming from a 10-story pole. The horrifying part was that some of these rides didn't have seat belts so we watched as students flew like rag dolls out of their seats on the rides and into the air hitting nearby buildings and even electrical wires. We sat stunned as we watched young kids get injured and even killed as a result of these defunct recess rides. The scene culminated with electrical wires dropping to the blacktop and shocking all of the students walking around on the ground. What was even stranger was that the students on the ground were shrieking with a terrifying laughter as they ran for the yellow school buses. These crazy thrill-seeking kids couldn't wait to get on the dangerous rides and seemed to get a kick out of the disastrous things that were happening to their classmates all around them.

Just as I watched the students run for the buses, my friend Jenna called and woke me up! I'm not sure what this sort of dream could mean, but it was strangely interesting.

September 19

Last night I dreamed that I was traveling home from an audition. It was the middle of the night, and I was with a couple friends. Some of these friends were hybrids of friends that I have in real life. One was Che'La McIntyre from high school, another was a hybrid of Amanda Greco (someone I work with on the Spirit of Philadelphia) and another young lady that I was in the PRISEM program with at Hampton University. Her name escapes me right now. At any rate, we were using several IPhones to navigate our way back home because we were in the middle of B.F.E. We decided to make a stop at a Greek-inspired restaurant to eat. Somehow this restaurant turns into an impeccably decorated frat boy toga party with elaborate costuming, corinthian and composite columns, gold leafed crowns and stunning staircases. We make our way through the passageways and by the end of the party tour, my Amanda-hybrid friend is bragging about how she has somehow collected the numbers of several drunken frat boys. We leave the party and decide to keep traveling. We switch cars and drivers and now I'm driving. For some reason, our IPhone is giving us incorrect directions and we end up on some military fort in the middle of night, lost and unable to figure out a way home. There may be more deep down in my subconscious, but that's all I can remember right now.

September 5

Last night I dreamed I was working for a summer camp held on UVa's campus. I worked in food services at Newcomb Dining Hall.

What was interesting about this campus was that it housed famous child actors, like Halley Joel Osment, Dakota Fanning, and that guy from 500 Days of Summer and Angels In The Outfield. At any rate, the only memory I have is of me serving them food in Newcomb.

The second part of my dream took place at a huge banquet hall at a church event. There were several cameos from old friends from home including Bethany Wherry, Keisha Johnson and other childhood friends. There were also a lot of old dignitaries like the mayor and contemporary scholars. I can't recall who specifically but I know they were there.

The last portion of my dream took place in an apartment complex in an area that felt like Bardstown, Kentucky. I was waiting around in an apartment for Joilet Harris to finish catering a kid's birthday party. In one part of the dream, I walk over to the party to taste the cake and I wake up...

That's pretty much all I can remember unfortunately, but it was interesting.

September 4

I dreamed I was back in school, it felt like a college atmosphere, and I was taking a history exam and most of the questions were about wars and slavery. My professor was Caroline Leipf (Outreach Coordinator for the Walnut Street Theatre's Education Department). I had 3 hours and the amount of difficulty I had taking this exam was unbelievable. I spent the first 3 hours circling my multiple choice answers on the exam booklet only to find out at the end of the exam that I wasn't supposed to write on the exam at all. I asked Caroline if I could just write my answers on a sheet of notebook paper- she said "no" and told me that I was supposed to write out the questions and answers in a blue book (y'all remember those) and that she would give me an hour after class to do so. When I start writing the exam on my paper- I realize that every answer I've given is wrong so I end up having to re-take the exam and re-think each question so I don't fail.

The second part of my dream, I'm at a summer camp with some familiar faces- Ashley Spearman (friend from Philly) and Amanda Gray (from UVa, in my dream, her name was Amanda Ani). I don't know why these 2 young ladies were in my dream, but every year this camp has a pageant (much like the Miss Western Branch Pageant my high school has every year). They choose girls to be in the show and guys to escort the girls. The only thing I remember from the actual event is just a sequence of scenes consisting of clips of my memories of being an escort like five and a half years ago.

The next part of my dream is almost like a photo album with snapshots of my high school days.

That's about all I remember before waking up.

September 3

Last night I dreamed that I re-enrolled at UVa. For some reason, I decided to do a fifth year, which consisted of a French 331 class (taught by my high school french teacher, Mrs. McKnight) and a singing class taught by someone else I went to high school with, Patrice Covington. All my classes were held in a high school building and my schedule had pictures on it from the last semester of classes. What was so interesting about this dream was that EVERYONE was trying to get into the French class and there were a lot of issues with the waiting list for the course. At any rate, I kept bragging about how I'd already gotten my degree from UVa and telling everyone that I didn't know why I was back.

Thats pretty much all I can remember