Those of you who've read my past blog post are most likely aware that I often post my weird dreams. Here are two that I had last week. The first is fairly common, I think: a dream about flying. I've had them several times, myself, but this one is a bit different than usual. The second is completely unlike any other I've had, as it involves me playing piano. While I do, in fact, attempt to play, I can't recall ever having dreamed of it before.

Dream #1

The dream began at work, or school-- I couldn't tell which. Because I wasn't feeling well, I left early. As I was walking to my Jeep, I saw my friend Javi (who I haven't seen in a few years!) and we exchanged hellos. Javi pointed out I had no shoes on, only socks. Until then, I had not noticed. I acknowledged that I was in my sockfeet, and then continued walking to the Jeep. I began driving though a rural area, with narrow streets with vine-covered forest on either side. I recognized one street as being one I saw many times as a kid, near my grandparent's house in York, SC. The street originally had train tracks down it and was barely wider than the tracks, so that cars had to wait for the train to pass before driving down the street. At the end of that street I saw a lady I recognized, also from my youth. She is the sister of my grand-uncle's wife (I think...). In a shopping cart, she pushed four or five puppies. They were quite large puppies, actually, maybe yellow labs about 4 months or so. She tried very hard to get me take one, as I slowly drove down the narrow street, but I said no, and was avoiding talking to her, continuing to drive. Eventually I lost my way and had to stop driving. I was lost. I never get lost!

When I finally decided to stop, I stepped out of the Jeep and began floating, higher and higher. I wasn't floating Super Man style, horizontally, but standing upright. Levitating. I started moving forward, going higher and higher, until finally I was a hundred feet or so above the tree tops. The trees were covered in the oranges, yellows and reds of fall foliage, so apparently it was autumn...

I didn't seem very disconcerting in the dream, to be floating around this way. It was my attempt to try to locate exactly where I was, or find some street or landmark I recognized, but I was not able to. Eventually I descended down to another narrow street, near a dead end. There was a small sign that read, "To WinSalem," which I assumed meant Winston-Salem. I lived there for several years, and my dad still lives there. I began walking that direction, and then woke up.

Dream #2

A little background on this dream: While I was visiting my family last month, for the holidays, I attended my grandmother's church, where I grew up. Only now they've sold the original building and are in a temporary building until their new church is constructed.

As for the dream itself, it began in the new church, fully constructed. I only recognized it because the congregation was the same. The pastor was new, too. He asked me to play the piano, and so I started to go up to the rostrum to play. Then he stopped me and said, "Oh no, no. You can play at that one." He pointed to the back of the sanctuary. I turned and looked. There was a tiny piano, like the ones you find in a toy store, with maybe 1 1/2 octaves. I was shocked, but I attempted to sit down at it. It was so tiny, two feet high maybe, I couldn't even sit at it. I hit one note, and then turned back towards the pastor and said, "This is impossible! I can't play this toy!" He laughed and said, "Go ahead, play."

I stood still for moment, shocked. Then I walked out of the sanctuary as the pastor was laughing. Everyone else sat quietly, confused. Instead of leaving the building, I walked down a hallway towards the church offices and Sunday school rooms. It seemed like a prison, plain concrete halls with solid steel, windowless doors painted blue. The doors were open on all of them, and as I passed by I could see that each of them was disorganized and unkempt, with snack food packages and garbage on the floors.

The strangest thing, though, was that there was ice on everything. Not a solid sheet of it, but it looked as if snow had covered everything and then melted, leaving scattered bunches of icey snow.

Then I woke.

Although I do not believe that dreams have any meaning-- simply a product of an overactive imagination-- it is fun to have people try to interpret them.

So if you have any ideas about what those dreams mean, let me know.