These Dreams

I have several recurring dreams. I will tell you about them!


1. For whatever reason, I am in my church building. In reality, this is a large building that was first built around 1900, and later additions in the early-to-mid 20th century have made it quite enormous and unique. There are numerous oft-used rooms and staircases, but there are some little-known rooms, including a bell tower (the bell is gone), a pipe organ room (the pipe organ stopped being used decades ago; in fact, it's rumored that the pipes are gone. When my grandpa was the church custodian in the early 90's, he took us on a tour, and the pipes were there then), and a few other little-known rooms and passageways. In addition to the "in" I had with my grandpa, my mom was the children's ministry leader for several years, and she had keys to all the rooms, so I got to do a great deal of exploring in my childhood. We spent a lot of time there. This could explain the dreams, though I am not sure why they only began a few years ago.

The dreams' plots vary, but the church is often the setting. I'll usually find myself in a secret tunnel, trying to make my way from one point to another. In one dream, I was running up & down staircases, popping through doors, trying to escape something. Even though the setting was the church, none of the stairs/passages I dreamed about really exist.

Or do they?

No, not really. But the dreams were so convincing, and I kept having them. Once I dreamed that the ventilation system was really a series of secret tunnels. And in reality, the wall vents are large, and one could easily go in them... but who'd want to? Maybe I just have an obsession with old architecture. Oh wait, duh, I do.

Last week, when I was actually at church (not dreaming) I found myself wandering around, studying the place, trying to see if maybe, just maybe, there was something that didn't quite add up about the architecture. Maybe there was a secret tunnel after all. Somewhere. I mean, why would I keep dreaming about this? I'm not exactly Harry Potter tapping into Voldemort's brainwaves, dreaming about the department of mysteries.

Or am I?

It occurs to me I started having these dreams not long after I started playing the Nancy Drew PC games, in which there is often a secret room or tunnel. HMMMM...


2. I am at Disneyland, only it never looks like the real Disneyland. It usually looks like something out of one of my Rollercoaster Tycoon games, but the name is Disneyland and there might be some Disney-esque element to it. Every time I dream this, I'm at the park with a different person or set of people who I know in real life. And there's always some obstacle or challenge, like maybe we show up at the park with only a half hour left before closing, but we really want to go on a particular ride. Or maybe we get separated and can't find each other. Or... I can't really remember, but there's always something odd. Half the dream is spent riding the rides, going down the waterslides, or whatever. The other half is trying to navigate the park. Usually I get lost.

I think just about everybody I know has appeared in one of these dreams. If I know you in real life, congrats, you've cameoed in one of Molly's f-ed up pseudo-Disneyland dreams!! <3


3. The third one is not really a recurring dream, but a recurring theme. I was actually discussing this with my brother when he was visiting a few weeks ago, and then afterwards I happened to stumble upon an old LJ entry where I'd had another dream just like it, and I realized I've been having these for at least a year.

So I'll be doing whatever, and then for some reason I need to get somewhere quickly or escape from someone. Suddenly I'll be able to run fast, leap high, or fly. (Flying dreams are not new to me, it's what comes next.) When this happens, my dream self will have an inner dialogue along the lines of: "Wow! I always thought I couldn't fly! But maybe that's because I'd never tried it before!" Like I've discovered that all of life's limitations are pretend, that anything is possible if you just attempt it.

My brother says that when absurd things like flying happen to him in dreams, he then knows he's dreaming, and he might wake up then.

Me? I just find a way to rationalize it and keep on sleeping.

The funny thing is, I actually rationalize a lot in real life. Like when I'm watching a movie or TV show and I spot a continuity error, if it's a movie I don't like, I'll use that against it (Psshhh, this movie has continuity errors, it sucks). But it's a movie I like, I will spend INSANE amounts of time trying to come up with some plausible explanation for why that vase was there in the last frame but isn't anymore. I can often work out some satisfactory explanation; satisfactory to me, anyway. 

Overthinking will be my downfall.

Goodbye, Aunt Polly

So, in sad news... Jane Wyman died today. 

Last week, I brought my DVD of Pollyanna to watch here in Seattle; I watched it over three evenings last week, and had planned to finish it tonight. During one of the scenes Jane Wyman shares with Karl Malden, I was thinking about how Karl Malden is really old and how I've expected him to kick it for years, but he keeps hanging on. Then I started thinking about how Jane Wyman must be really old now, too, if she was already middle-aged in 1960, when that movie came out. I don't know why I can't watch Pollyanna without thinking about how 90% of the actors in it are now dead. I think the only ones still around, besides Karl, are Hayley Mills, the boy who played Jimmy Bean, and the woman who played Nancy the maid. (Okay, I had to imdb this info. George and Angelica are still alive, too. Good times.) I should just enjoy the movie, but that fact haunts me almost every time.

And then Aunt Polly has to go and die just a few days after I've been morbidly pondering her surprising longevity.

In conclusion, I killed her. With my thoughts.