Re: Dream #2

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My dearest Mackaroon,

Whoa nelleh! This opening dream is such a head-scratcher / bladder-filler / trip down memory lane. It had me running to the bathroom on multiple occasions, and that is a compliment of the highest degree. I feel honored to try and help you debunk this dream funk!!

So, let’s crack into it, Em Schulz style:

The dreamer went down to Georgia.

She was lookin’ for a soul to search…

Festivals, in their simplest forms, like the music festival you were going to attend, are a celebration of happy news, or positive change. But sometimes attending a festival in a dream occurs because you’re looking to bring more positivity into your inner circle or relationships. Maybe this is the case for going down to Georgia for a music festival with your mom and sister?

Kris’ house being a souvenir shop harks on the memories you made during your time here. I’m wondering what it was like when you originally stayed in Georgia with Kris? Are these fond memories? Anything that sticks out? Perhaps this can give you more insight into your dream.

Now, I know Grizzly Bear is one of your fave bands, but I was curious why your mind chose this artist to headline the festival. I broke out my animal totem book to see what the bear represents, besides some top-notch indie rock:

The bear has lunar symbology, giving it ties to the subconscious and even unconscious mind. It relates to all initial stages and primal instincts. When hibernating, the bear teaches how to go within oneself to find the resources needed for survival…The grizzly has long been known for its strength and ferocity. Although it can be quite fierce, it is not naturally aggressive.


(Andrews, Ted. Animal-Speak. Llewellyn Publications, 1993).

You, your mom, and sister taking this trip might just be your subconscious’ way of bringing strength to the three of you, returning you to a time when you were younger, or sending you in the direction of addressing something from your past, instead of continuing to grin and bear it.

The waters are a’risin’.

The flooding aspect of the dream is really captivating and unique. Kris reports that a pipe has burst, but seemingly just for you (evidenced by the other inhabitants of the house dryly enjoying themselves playing video games).

Dreaming of water often has to do with our emotional stability and fluidity, and your more intense experience with the brackish current shows how your emotional response is completely your own– it can ebb, flow, and flood. 

I think it’s important to note, while it was difficult to wade through the water, it never rose so high that you had to hold your breath, though you did get a taste of it and knew it was unpleasant.

Is there a situation that has you feeling emotionally murky, Mack? A mood or feeling you’ve been pushing down, but is trying to break through the floodgates?

Time for a bathroom break. 

Pee dreams. I have a lot of these, and usually there’s some kind of gnarly condition that makes the whole situation a giant shame-wow (no privacy, never-been-cleaned toilet, etc. etc.).

Those building emotions that I asked you about a moment ago can make a person feel overwhelmed, similar to a full bladder. Urinating is one way to relieve yourself, but not a direct translation for what you may be dealing with deep down (wouldn’t that simplify things? *Jenny retires to bathroom for approximately 100 years*).

Your subconscious or more likely your unconscious is looking for some sense of release and you had to go to the basement to break the seal. The foundational underbelly of the house, descending the stairs to the basement represents connecting with the thoughts, emotions, and memories that we keep hidden from the light of day.

The basement being at your father’s home focuses this on memories you made growing up. You relieving yourself onto time-capsuled items from childhood could be very telling. Maybe it’s time to let go of something that’s been bothering you from this time in your life?

Sweet, sweet release.

Internal resolve helps you return to emotional equilibrium and drains the feelings that have been creeping up, just like when the stopper gets pulled in Kris’ house.

Our emotions can be very powerful currents in our daily lives and sorting through them, though can sometimes be unpleasant, allows us to feel our best selves.

This dream parses that in these situations you have everything you need, Queen Mackenzie, to find release.

// The devil bowed his head
Because he knew that he’d been beat
And he laid that golden toilet seat
On the ground at Mackezie’s feet //

You can find me in the bathroom.

All of my love,

Jeppers Pepsicutters

Dream #2: “Why are my sneakers wet?”

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Dear Jennybean,

Well. Your inaugural dream is a hard act to follow. It was full of cocaine-babies! Assassins!! Romance (sort of)!!! How will I up the ante?

With undiluted shame, of course. How fitting. 

Let’s set the scene.

Any good twenty-something shame dream worth its salt starts with Mom, doesn’t it? Fortunately for Mom, her involvement in my sheer embarrassment basically starts and ends with her presence. She is neither cause nor effect. (That’s it, Mom, I swear. This does not warrant a concerned phone call.)

Our story begins with a wholesome family road trip. My mother, sister, and I have driven to Savannah, GA, for a dual-purpose.

  1. We are visiting a childhood friend of my mother’s, Kris; a woman who, incidentally, welcomed me into her home during my senior year of college while I was working an internship.
  2. We are attending a music festival, because… I mentioned this was a shame dream, right?

This all sounds pretty normal. Just a couple of lively broads about town, rocking and rolling. V. v. cool. V. v. fresh.

It gets weird.

We arrive at Kris’ house to find that… well, it’s not really a house. To be clear, it’s a souvenir shop hawking “I <3 Savannah” t-shirts, unlicensed band merch, keychains, and a host of other useless items to be shoved in drawers and promptly forgotten about. However, unlike, you know, 95%~ of other tourist-trap souvenir shops, this place is hoppin’. It’s uncomfortably busy. Merch is flying off the shelves.

Almost as soon as we’ve arrived at Kris’, we’re heading out the door for day one of the festival, which appears to be taking place in some sort of abandoned warehouse. The crowds have only gotten worse here. It’s hot. It’s sweaty. Someone spills beer on me.

So, kind of an average festival.

Grizzly Bear is playing a set. Though they’re one of my favorite bands and I’ve been dying to see them for years, I feel disappointed. I’m exhausted from the thirteen-hour drive, stressed out, and deeply uncomfortable. The music doesn’t sound right. I’m nervous about losing my mom and sister in the crush.

Day changes to night, night changes to day.

Everything looks a bit better in the morning (even in dreams). I wake refreshed. Kris’ souvenir shop home has emptied, all the merch having been sold. What remains is candy, bags of junk food, and a few cheap mugs likely made in sweatshops. I sit at the kitchen table (conveniently located in the middle of the souvenir shop) with my mom and sister beside me. Across from me sits one of my high school acting teachers and her daughter. How or why they’ve joined us, I have no clue. They serve seemingly no purpose but to make me feel somehow out of place in my own dream.

Kris joins us in the kitchen, sunshiney as always, ready for another day working the register. “I think some pipes burst,” she cheerfully informs us. “The whole house is flooding.”

Oh, okay. That’s cool.

The water rises quickly, all muddy and brackish. This is a river in the midst of the flood: bacteria-ridden waters that dirty me as I wade, with some effort, from room to room. A bit gets in my mouth and I almost immediately feel sick.

This is where the problems really start. See, I have to pee, and in a bad way. An urgent way. I make it to the end of the hall, swimming to the bathroom, only to find the house’s other inhabitants all sitting in a corner bedroom, playing video games on a small television. They’re laughing, enjoying themselves.

What strikes me is the plush, white carpet in the bedroom where the others are laughing. It’s completely unsullied. How has the water not spilled through the open doorway? It’s as if an invisible barrier is in place to keep everything bad out.

“Kris, I really have to use the bathroom.”

“Toilet’s not working,” she replies with glee. “You’ll have to go in the basement.”

Oh.

The Basement: a completely normal place to urinate.

Okay, remember that shame component I heavily alluded to in the beginning?

Something happens as I walk down the stairs. The basement is not Kris’, but the basement of my father’s home, the house that I grew up in. The light is yellow and overly shiny. I get the distinct feeling that I’m shrinking, that I’m no longer even fully clothed.

Worst of all, I just can’t hold it in any longer. I squat right there on the stairs, my shorts around my ankles, and start pissing.

Underneath the stairs, I can see piles of old sneakers, too-small winter clothing, and sun-faded beach gear. And I’m pissing on it all.

Of course, because this is a shame dream, this is also a full-on Tom-Hanks-in-A-League-of-Their-Own piss. It just. Won’t. Stop.

It is, as you might have guessed, the perfect time for Eternally-Joyful-Dream-Kris to appear at the top of the stairs with a very important question:

“Have you seen my sneakers?”

Preternaturally polite, Kris is kind enough not to comment on the half-naked girl squatting at her feet. Instead, she stops, peeks under the stairs, and exclaims, “Oh, there they are!” She plucks her white, urine-soaked sneakers from the basement refuse and promptly steps into them.

It is only after she’s left that my traitorous bladder squeezes itself dry.

At this point, I really, really, really don’t want to walk upstairs, but I do. The others are still in the bedroom playing games. The water begins to drain from the home, as if the stopper has been pulled on a massive bathtub.

I look down at my feet and begin wiggling my bare toes. They’re covered in dirt. And I imagine, more than a little urine.

Jenny, there’s a lot going on here.

I didn’t wake from this feeling bad, necessarily, but I was rushing to the bathroom as soon as my alarm went off. Oh, and I had this great Grizzly Bear song stuck in my head…

Please let me know if it’s my brain that’s upset or just my bladder.

Yours dreamily,

Mackenzie

Re:Re: Dream #1

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Henlo Baby got Mack,

Um. I feel like you just put a mirror in front of me that shows the inner workings of my soil. Your analysis helped me parse this dream in a way I absolutely could not have myself!

Thank you for your masterful interpretations and remarks *tips hat, lifts cane, drops cane, falls and cannot get up*

Trust the Brocess

I think you have a great point about these mini dreams, they may not feel connected to the main plot, but there’s a reason why your brain burger decides they’re worth rememberin’. Also YOU KNOW I would go all-in as an investor of your super-powered psychic protein shake business™.

Is any adult ever not feeling the strain of adulting? Woof. I haven’t been focusing on childhood memories, per say, but I will say that I’ve recently been connecting more with my brother.

We’re both single and trying to figure out life, which has made me feel closer to him. The weekend I had this drimmer we had been discussing friends who have kids and how far off that feels from our respective lives, which is how I felt in the dream when confronted with a situation like trying to care for unruly children.

I think this little stint does connect—and the fact that my brother and I have been chatting frequently about friends and new experiences is a good lead-in.

Reading between the through-lines

Amanda and Monica, why did I morph these two into one person/bride/dream bean?

Amanda was my OG BFF but we def fell out of touch, had different friends groups in middle and high school, and didn’t keep up with one another, I really don’t know the version of the person that she is today. But we were very close for a time when we were younger.

Monica is somebody who I was always friendly with and I think our friendship post-growing-up is just as or even stronger than when we were back in school together.

There was something that happened the last time I visited Monica that I didn’t think twice about until thinking back on this dream: I had just been down for a weekend visit and was in a little bit of a hurry to leave that Sunday morning – there was a chance of snow predicted to start in the late morning and I had a long drive back.

Because my brother lives about 20 minutes from Monica, I was grabbing breakfast with him on my way back up to PA. I thought I’d had everything, but once I left I realized I left my ring on the bedside table at Mon’s apartment.

Ring ring ring ring, ring ring ring: banana phone!

This ring was a flea market find from when I was going to college in New Hampshire. It had a vintage vibe – gold with individual ruby stones that collected in a broad diamond shape.

A few weeks before going to see Monica, I’d shut my sliding closet door quickly but didn’t remove my hand soon enough and the ring stopped it from shutting on my finger. So when I left the ring down in DC, Monica let me know that she’d mail it back, no worries. Then I had this dream.

Later that week, I got an envelope from Monica with a hole in the corner, my ring had likely gotten stuck in the mail machine and didn’t make the journey back. Somehow when I remembered that and this dream I thought it was sort of uncanny.

There was never a ring in this wedding dream and the different levels of friendships and relationships that were present — a close friend from another time in life (Amanda), a friendship that’s endured many years (Monica), the renewed friendship with my brother, even running into that college acquaintance (hot Kent) — all seem very telling of where I am right now as a sangle person at a crossroads with commitment.

I’ve been reconnecting with some old friends lately and venturing out to meet new people. I think the assassination mission is there to say I truly can’t give my attention to everyone (interesting, too, because I never did know who my target was). Not being able to make the cut means I need to be more cognizant of how I’m spending my time. Quality over quantity and all that.

Shun out the bad, let in the good

Okay, now onto the beach chase with Slendy’s groupies. I’m glad you asked what I was feeling sauntering side-by-side with the enemy. I DID feel powerful marking those guys’ cheeks up to remind ‘em that I was still there. NGL, it was pretty badass.

Being at the beach specifically seems to relate to shifting sands, the ebbing shoreline, and a time of transition.

What I take away from all of this, with the help of your insightful direction, is that I need to stay strong even if it’s just me up against the “bad” guys, or really just any force, thought, etc. that’s not serving me in a positive way. I have the tools (representative of my Shun knife) to protect myself and take care of me, no other person needs to do that.

Till we Zs again,

Jenny Bourne

Re: Dream #1

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My darling Jennybean,

I feel b l e s s e d that we get to start the blog off with a dream so utterly interesting. I laughed, I gasped, I hid the children and the wives. This one really had it all.

Where to begin?

I just cracked my knuckles so hard you could probably hear it from your house. Let’s dive in, shall we?

The idea of these telescoping mini-dreams is one quite familiar to me. It’s like your brain has so much to tell you it can’t settle on just one motif. Instead, it just throws all these fractured images into a blender and sees what kind of super-powered psychic protein shake it can come up with. Here’s the thing though:

There’s no way these scenes–these mini-dreams–aren’t somehow related. It may not seem so, but there’s an emotional undercurrent that runs beneath them all. We’ve just got to figure out what that is.

Pt. 1: Daycareless

You know what stuck out to me the most about this daycare?

You’re going to say the cocaine, I just know it.

Spoiler alert: it’s not the cocaine. It’s actually the seemingly innocuous fact that you were running it with your brother.

Siblings are kind of like the custodians of our childhood memories, aren’t they? Your parents are there from the beginning, but your siblings are typically the only ones down there in the trenches with you.

So, here you are, with your brother–a figure tied to thoughts of childhood and innocence–and you’re trying to care for unruly children together. You’re struggling to control them to such a degree that you’re pumping the little grubworms full of cocaine to get them to settle down.

And they say giving a kid benadryl is bad…

Sidebar: didn’t our grandparents literally give their kids bourbon and beat them with wiffle-ball bats to get them to go night-night? They’re called the “Silent Generation” for a reason…

“You tell anyone about this and I will literally put you in the oven.”

Jenny, have you been ruminating over childhood memories recently? Maybe you’re feeling the strain of adulting?

Pt. 2: Goin’ to the chapel and we’re gonna get murdered

Okay, before we delve into your very juicy stint as Jason Bourne, I think we need to discuss the idea of “split characters” in dreambinos.

You and I have definitely discussed this at length: two people merging to become one single character in your dreams. I like to think of this as another instance of blender brain. It’s taking two people, typically from two different eras in your life, and putting them together. The emotional through-line that binds them across these different eras is the emotional fulcrum of the split-character.

That being said, what do you think is the through-line between Amanda and Monica?

The idea of you being an assassin is something I think we can take literally. You’re here to kill some aspect of the dream. As you’ve been hired to take out the bride, maybe there are some affections you’re trying to eradicate, something that’s either distracting or overall unpleasant–maybe even something from your past (hint hint: your mini-dream).

Hey, know what else? Peach–like those peach flowers you mentioned–can symbolize lust and pleasure.

Now, to cap off this subconscious buzzkill: the time. I’ve been looking up the number 630 and there are a lot of ways we could interpret this. But the number as a whole seems to be a herald of positive change and good things to come. So… kind of a major bummerooskie that you missed it, huh?

You know that you deserve all the actual good in this entire world, right? Jennybean, don’t deny yourself anything.

Pt. 3: A slender manhunt

I am seriously chewing on this Slender Man component and I keep coming up empty because I just find it hilarious.

Let’s tackle the seemingly more obvious symbols, the beach being at the forefront. As a place where water meets land, it’s also a place where your rational and irrational mind meet. And here you are, dodging sandcastles and holes as if dodging the traps of your own irrationality.

Fortunately, you’ve got your Shun knife in hand, which is a way to cut out the negativity. The revolver may not have worked, but you still have something to defend yourself with.

You’re running in lockstep with your enemies, so at least the playing field is even. And while these toxic figures may be close to you, you can mark them with a nice, clear X, like a pirate marking a treasure map.

Did you feel powerful marking them? Did you feel like even though irrationality and fear had been chasing you down, the end goal, and the reward attached to it, was in sight?

Repression is fun.

I know that from experience. Feelings you may have thought were buried, like a lost flip-flop on a beach, have a way of coming back to you though. Your subconscious might be struggling to cut out certain feelings, but it also understands that you’re the girl with the Shun knife, and you know how to use it.

After all, you’re Jenny Bourne.

Sincerely,

Macklutzie

Dream #1: Maid of Dishonor

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Dearest Mackadoodledoo,

I saved a real keeper for my inaugural dream- it is a doozy. I was watching a lot of true crime leading up to this drimmer and spent the night prior playing live-action horror board games with the sibs.

Let’s just say, things got a bit violent. I can’t wait to hear what you think.

But First~

Ever have one of those really quick dream “mini-sodes” that squeeze their way into your night’s sleep even though they seem unrelated to the overall story that gets all the glory? This dream saga started with one of those- and, though it was brief and feels like it all happened in the span of five seconds- I did feel it warranted mentioning.

In this telescoping mini dream, my brother and I own a daycare center and it’s a bustling day after lunch. We’re picking toddlers up and wiping their PB&J-covered faces, tossing giant foam blocks out of the way that are strewn on the floor, and laying out plush pillows for afternoon nap time.

Several of the kids are acting up, and don’t want to be put down, wailing for more playtime.

That’s where the dream appears to take over and my brother and I make a decision without speaking, sort of robotically, there’s just no other way to tend to this problem: The tantrum makers need to be “medicated.”

I station myself at the kitchen sink to pour test tubes of cocaine (casual) into buckets of water. I’m trying to get the ratio right and the mixture’s getting goopy and grainy (evidence that it’s just about ready).

I don’t have children, nor might anyone I know let me near theirs after reading this, but what should I make of this?

The fun does NOT stop there...

End scene on that mini-sode. Now I arrive at a swanky outdoor venue by a shimmering lake to attend a friend’s wedding (who was the bride? It seems I had two people in mind: This was a split character of Amanda, one of my first close friends in elementary school and Monica, a good friend I have from middle school who I just visited in DC a few weekends ago.)

But, I’m not there just as a guest, I’m actually on a special mission to assassinate someone in the wedding party. Gasp!

Once I greet the bride, I go through the motions of how I’ll carry out the deed, mentally practicing for my moment. I feel the revolver in my right leather jacket pocket, just concealed when I put my hand around it.

I check my watch: 6:00 pm. That’s when I remember I’ll need to eliminate my target at precisely 6:30 pm, no sooner, no later, or else I won’t be admitted into Slender Man’s kingdom.

Yep, Slender Man’s kingdom.

Between my assassination rehearsal and the real shindig, I have some time to mix and mingle with the crowd. 30 minutes to be exact. So I walk over to one of the gazebos decorated in peach flowers.

I get a tap on my shoulder. It’s Kent, a charming acquaintance from college who I haven’t seen or talked to in at least five years. I go in for a hug and Kent kisses me on the lips, as if this is as casual as a handshake. After chatting with a few other friendly faces, I look down at my watch.

6:28 pm.

It’s time for the wedding procession, and guess what? I’m the maid of honor in the wedding (or in this case, the maid of dishonor considering my duties, though I was never fully certain who my target was).

As maids of honor do, I begin stepping down the church aisle to the classic pipe organ processional. My walking partner is moving at an erratic pace, and I wonder if they’re doing it on purpose as I try to speed down the aisle, cognizant of what time it is.

That’s when I realize, everything around me- the pews that flank the aisle filled with friends and family, the stained glass windows on the sides of the church and tall cathedral- everything’s fading away and all I can see is the floor, which quickly starts disappearing under my feet.

The best way I can describe the end of the aisle scene is like being on Rainbow Road in Mario Kart, hitting one of those sneakily placed speed bars around a tight corner, launching off the course, and slo-mo falling into the black part of the screen.

While falling away into blackness, I glimpse my watch. It’s 6:39 pm.

I failed the mission.

Now I’m on the run from someone powerful and their groupies whom I’ve seriously pissed off (could it be Slender?). I get a premonition-type vision that they’ve been in my residence, and stolen important files I was keeping on a TV, but now with the alacrity that they’re pursuing me with, I get the feeling that they still haven’t gotten all that they want.

So, before they ransack my place, I grab my Shun kitchen knife (v. nice, v. v. sharp, quality cooking-grade kitchen knife) for protection. They’re chasing me and we’re all suddenly on a beach, dodging deep holes made from sandcastles, old men asleep in the sun, and down umbrellas.

Though I’m running from them, we’re running in a line, four abreast (which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense), but every once in a while, I get the opportunity to take the very tip of my Shun and carve a little X into each crony’s cheek to remind them I’m armed.

We keep running, then I wake up, frightened and reeling.

What does it all mean?

Mack, this dream was action packed and a half and it resonated with me in an eerie way. There’s symbols on symbols here, but I’m having trouble finding meaning.

Perhaps it was just a collision of too many crime stories buzzing around in my pretty little Jenny head? I look forward to hearing your take.

Jernearth Bearington III

Mr. Sandman, Bring Me a Blog

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Looking back on our lives, sometimes the strangest, most wonderful memories of all are the ones that we weren’t even awake for.

Mackenzie: I’ve dreamed that the Incredible Hulk tried to cut off my ears with a pair of safety scissors. I’ve dreamed that I woke after the apocalypse, beneath the bluest sky imaginable. I’ve dreamed that I could speak to the dead (and that the dead were speaking back).

Jenny: I’ve dreamed that Adolf Hitler taught me the backstroke in swimming class. I’ve dreamed that my second grade teacher cloned herself and an army of Mrs. S’s were infiltrating my neighborhood. I’ve dreamed that my palm was a portal for tools, weapons, and objects to surface whenever I squeezed it.

We’ve each dreamed so many puzzles that we’ve given up on figuring them out all on our own. Sometimes it takes the wisdom and wit of a good friend to unscramble your own brain.

We don’t have it all figured out. But we’re going to have a lot of fun trying.

Strap in, friends. This is going to get interesting.

Yours dreamily,

Mackenzie & Jenny