Dream Interpretation

This became a hobby for me in quite the unfortunate way. After leaving my abusive ex husband, I had vivid, frightening dreams for years, on a scale that outstripped the worst nightmare I had ever had, multiplied by ten. I decided I had to figure out what they meant. After years of writing them down and picking them apart piece by piece, I can now figure out what a dream of mine means in a matter of minutes.

I decided to take a nap this morning after I woke up because I didn't really need to leave the house until noon anyway, and while I was asleep, I had a dream that most definitely needed interpretation. I woke up about 5 minutes ago, and I know what it means already. Just for giggles (although it wasn't a giggly dream by a long shot), I'll share it with you today.

I was taking a shower in a bathroom that is rarely used in our house (in reality, this bathroom does not exist...in my dream, we had recently "rediscovered" a suite of rooms and I had decided to move in...for those who don't know, my husband and I are separated but living together as roommates in real life).

Anyway, as I was taking my shower, I was really enjoying this bathroom that we had rediscovered. It was a beautiful, sunny shade of yellow, the same color we painted the walls in the kitchen and hall way. I looked up at the ceiling and noticed that some of the paint had been pulled off...there were chunks and strips missing in uneven patterns, so I knew it wasn't painted over...it had been purposely peeled off. I assumed Jason had done this, and I planned to tell him off about it when I got out of the shower.

But when I did get out of the shower, I noticed quite a bit more damage to the walls. Someone had carved menacing words into the walls (I don't remember what they said...it wasn't threatening, just scary to read...like maybe someone had carved a curse into the wall, though that wasn't how I interpreted the words). I dressed quickly and planned to go tell Jason...I thought maybe someone had broken into the house, and we'd need to call the police.

The room outside the bathroom was my new bedroom. When I walked out of the bathroom, I noticed more carving and damage to this room. As I was walking out, I noticed that along one wall was a display case filled with frightening things, the like of which you'd see at Ripley's Believe It Or Not, or a horror movie museum. By this time, I was terrified.

I went to get Jason to tell him what was happening. He was busy talking to someone and was annoyed that I had bothered him. I insisted that it was important, and he exasperatedly agreed to go with me. As he was walking into my room, I noticed a door in an alcove outside my room. The door had been left slightly ajar. When I looked in, I could tell this was a display that was set up to be seen through the cracked door...it was a scene from a horror movie involving dolls (I don't remember which one, but in my dream I recognized it).

I nearly ran into my room to tell Jason about it. He glanced around my room, obviously annoyed, asking, "what did you call me in here for?" I showed him the walls, the display case, and told him about the paint in the bathroom. At this point, though, my memory was coming back to me. I remembered having seen the display case and the horror-scene in the alcove long ago when we first bought the house. Jason remembered them too, and just walked away. I don't remember if he said anything, but his attitude was, "We know about these things already, don't bug me while I'm busy."

That's all I can remember of the dream.

So now what it means...

I haven't seen this in any book, but what I make of bathrooms is that this is where I go when I feel dirty and need to be made clean. This is where I "keep" all my "unmentionables". In other words, all my dirty little secrets, all the dark things about myself that I don't like anyone to know. So, in my dream, I'm trying to scrub myself clean from whatever dark parts of myself I've brought out lately. This probably has to do with my separation with my husband and my feelings about that...at times, I feel that I'm being selfish and asking too much, even though I don't know anyone (Jason included) who agrees with that.

When I started noticing all this damage to the room, that was a signal that I had moved into this suite of rooms thinking that things would be very positive, but now I'm starting to notice the flaws in my plan. I have moved into another room in real life, so this correlates to me that this separation isn't all fun and games, and I'm noticing now that it's not the solution. There are just as many frightening things here as there were before we separated...I just didn't "see" them when I decided to move into this new room.

When I saw the display case and the scene from the movie in the alcove (remember, I later recalled knowing about these things when we moved in), that tells me that I knew all about these problems from the beginning (probably from the beginning of our marriage), and I chose to ignore them. In my dream, I vaguely remembered choosing to not use this suite of rooms just so that we could avoid the frightening stuff that was in there. In real life, that translates to making a conscious choice to ignore the problems we had. Now that I've "moved into that room", I can't ignore them anymore. They are right in front of me to look at every day.

I just remembered another part of the dream, at the very end. I asked Shannon (my best friend of 21 years) to come look at these things, too. She looked at them with curiousity, but just didn't see the issue. So, that's the last part of the dream to be interpreted. Neither my best friend nor my husband were able to see what the issue was here. It was as though I'm making a big deal out of nothing...but to me, these things were frightening, huge, dark, horrifying. I couldn't imagine spending another night in that HOUSE, let alone that room with all its carvings and horror film like memorabilia.

So, the significance that this dream has on my life is that I have to decide how long I can willingly stay in that frightening room. I've known about this challenge for some time now (years), but it's becoming more and more obvious to me, and more frightening as time goes on.

By the way, I want to be very clear here...Jason himself is not frightening. He is a wonderful human being, and I've been proud to share my life with him these past 8 years. It's the one problem that we have had that is frightening. Unfortunately, this one thorn in our sides has grown to monster proportions, and I don't know that either of us can tame it after having ignored it and let it grow so large for so many years.

So...how about it? Anyone have a dream they want me to interpret? If so, let me know in the comment section. Post your email address, and when we're done, I'll post my interpretation of your dream in my blog - and you can post it in yours, too. This could be a fun take-off from the interviews I did awhile back...I'd love to do more.

My Interview With Domestic Witch

This is a copy of my interview over at the Domestic Witch blog.

Five minutes with Joy

Domestic Witch is happy to present an interview with Joy, who woke up with this wacky hair-do on the morning of her interview and knew the day was going to be.....different.

What is your most established crock pot recipe?

Oh, I wish I had pictures. This one's yummy. It's from the book Fix It And Forget It Lightly on page 25

Slow-Cooked Chicken & Mushroom Stew (5 weight watcher points per serving)

Makes 4 servings (Ideal slow cooker size: 4-5 qt.)

1 can of 98% fat free cream of mushroom soup

half a can of water

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

1/2 lb. fresh medium-sized white mushrooms, or a variety of mushrooms, cut up

1 cup baby carrots

2 ribs celery, cut into small pieces

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

Combine soup and water in slow cooker. Cut chicken into 2" chunks. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place in slow cooker. Add mushrooms, carrots, celery, and garlic powder. Stir gently to mix. Cover and cook on low 6-8 hours or until chicken is done and internal temperature reaches 170. Serve with rice.If you like mushrooms, this recipe is TO DIE FOR!

I loved the red and black dramatic afghan you crocheted, who taught you how to crochet?

When I was little, my mom taught me. But she was pretty mean about it, and had zero patience. As a result, my crocheting sucked, to say the least, and it was nothing but frustrating for me. I did it for maybe a few months. Then, about 5 years ago, I decided I wanted to pick it up again. I bought a book, some hooks and yarn, and went for it.

I worked in a residential treatment facility with teenage girls for awhile, and I thought it would be so cool to give them something like that to do. I made mass copies of the book, and handed them out (along with some cheap plastic hooks) to any girl who wanted them. I worked night shift, so I'd sit in the girls' doorways after bedtime helping them learn how to crochet.

Crocheting has absolutely been the most fulfilling activity I've picked up as an adult. :-)

I had not heard of Adoptee Rights before reading your blog, how do you hope to educate others like me in your cause?

I participate in other forums where it's a topic of conversation a lot. I get a lot of information from reading blogs and message boards where adoptees and their first parents (i.e. the preferred term for "birth" parents) talk about adoption from their point of view. Until now, I've stuck to learning, but I think it will be a fairly regular topic of my blog.

One of the forums I belong to, where I'm usually very vocal, there are a lot of new people who come and go, and I have spoken to probably thousands of people that way. Not all people listen...it can be really tough to hear that adoption is not all rainbows and sunshine, and that there are negative aspects, too. It was certainly a shock to me at first, beings that my husband and I were planning to adopt. But it was extremely important to me that I open my mind and make sure that I was doing all I possibly could to be a good parent. Now, my focus is on doing what I can to help my friends.

So, I guess I just plan to talk about it a lot. I talk to people about it in real life, too, as often as I can. I wrote a letter to the editor of my local newspaper yesterday. I write letters to state legislators and others. I just do whatever I can. I'm lucky to live in one of the few states that does have open records, but the rest of the states need to follow suit, so I'm going to keep working until all states are open.

How do you and your husband balance homekeeping?

This is a constant work in progress. We are both notorious procrastinators. I have a confession to make...we still have all our winter holiday decorations out. (I never know what to call Christmas/Yule because it's Christmas to him and Yule to me...maybe Yulemas? HAHA!) Yep, the little fiber-optic tree has fallen down, a lot of the ornaments have fallen on the floor, where the dogs have taken to chewing them up. The base that the tree sits on has fallen on the floor, which I realized yesterday. It's a sad sight. This has never happened before (normally, we just pile stuff up on the couches until you can't tell what all is under there, but we've never left the Yulemas decorations up until March before!).

We were doing pretty good for awhile there, using flylady. But man, this year, we have just dropped the ball. The few things we do have down pat are the "home blessing hour" (which Jason does), laundry (which I do), and paying bills (which we do together, or sometimes I do it if I have more time). Oh, and one person cooks while the other cleans up after. Otherwise...*blush*...we're working on it.

What Spring foods to you traditionally eat?

I LOOOOVE Easter candy (again, Easter? Ostara? Well, there's a compromise for that one, I've seen Eostra a few times). The malted milk eggs (which weren't as good this year, for some reason) are always a favorite. Cadbury eggs. Yuum! I love corned beef and cabbage, but I've never really associated it with Spring until recently (I don't pay much attention). I'm so looking forward to that recipe!

Interview With Jason

I don't know why, but my husband decided he wanted me to interview him, too. Heehee. He doesn't have a blog for me to link you to, but that's all right. (Jason, a quick apology...they don't have your font. I'm sorry.) Without further ado:

1. Where do you want to be five years from now?
In 5 years, I want to be with my wife, possibly some potential slaves...umm, I mean kids running around, content with all aspects of my life.

2. What is your favorite piece of clothing, and why?
My past favorite piece of clothing is this bright yellow shirt that I would wear to my Duck football games...a kid at my work, right after bouncing a battery off of my head, decided to grab the neck of it and rip it so bad that I had to have it stapled so that I could go home that night without the threat of being arrested for indecent exposure. My current favorite is the shirt I am wearing now...a green, long-sleeved Big Dogs shirt. It is my favorite because, well, it's green, and it is very comfy.

3. What is your favorite childhood memory, and why?
Playing football with my brothers in the front yard, the Christmas where every single member of my family had the flu at the same time (trust me, it was a cool memory), and swimming in our swimming hole every summer! Those were fun times...trust me, really!

4. Tell me about your favorite book.
My favorite book right now is probably "Napalm and Silly Putty" by George Carlin. Hilarious!

5. What is your favorite web site and why?
Oh, wow....where to begin...espn.com, the Oregon Ducks Scout message boards, bungie.net (Halo 3 website), myspace, beastlove.com....ummm...did I type that out loud? Oh, and Joy's blog is pretty damn cool, too!

Interview with Leslie at Cheap By Choice

I'd like to thank Leslie at Cheap By Choice for letting me interview her. If you haven't checked out her blog, chock full of money-saving and money-making tips, you're missing out!

1. What's important to you?
My family is important to me. They will always come first.

2. What are your top five favorite "things" (or people, or places, etc.)?
Top favorite things:
1. the beach
2. sleeping in on a Saturday morning
3. diet coke
4. finding a bargain
5. great thrift shop finds

3. What has been the biggest moment of your life (that you're willing to share publicly), and what has it meant for you?
There are too many great moments to mention.

4. What is your favorite blog post (of yours)?
My favorite blog post was recently complaining about my husband spending too much money at Walmart.

5. I see that you're a social worker. Do you mind if I ask what kind of social work you do, and what it means for you?
I have been a social worker for 25 years. I have spent most of the last 15 years working with mentally ill adults. They are funny, challenging, intelligent and often misunderstood by those around them. If I could change one thing, it would be that the public be more educated about mental illness and become less afraid of it.

Interview Me!

I saw this over at Domestic Witch's blog and thought it sounded like fun.

If you would like to be interviewed by me, leave me a comment saying, "Interview me" along with your e-mail address. I will e-mail you with five questions. Respond with your answers and I will post your interview in my blog!

Update your blog with your interview. You can also offer to interview others in your blog.