Dream stub: running away to the 1980s!
Feb. 12th, 2009 05:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mokie_edomTuesday night's dreaming took place at the old house, though it had a slightly different layout--the front and back doors were reversed, mainly. Where most dreams featuring the old house portray it in a ramshackle, exaggeratedly rundown state, in this dream it was much the same as it was when I was growing up there during the '80s, though the color scheme was firmly mid-90s. (This means nothing to anyone but me, I know.)
The main part of the dream, now forgotten, concerned some sort of large holiday family gathering with all of the cousins. I was in the kitchen, getting a drink, when I heard a noise outside. I looked out the screen door and saw a truck plough through our yard and through the neighbor's privacy fence, pushed by green SUV as its driver leaned out of the window and shouted profanities at the truck's driver. When the two stopped in the neighbor's yard, the SUV's driver leapt from his vehicle and closed on the other driver with a gun in hand. This was clearly not an accident.
The neighbors ran out to assess the damage as he shot, not realizing the danger, and he spun to turn the gun on them. He looked around afterwards, and I hit the floor, hiding behind the metal portion of the door and hoping he hadn't seen me. As he ran up on the porch (the cement porch of the '80s, again, not the deck we had later), I knew he had, and I ran away. Fortunately, the dream layout was much more sensible than the house's actual layout! He and his accomplice(s) stormed in and people scattered; I was hiding behind a piece of furniture, and got a good look at the men. I knew he was after any possible witnesses to his crime--a silly idea, given the public nature of it, but I knew it nonetheless--and I considered briefly how I should help save my family members. I realized with some despair that the best thing I could do was to get out of the house and go for help. I couldn't defend them, and it was me he was after, since I could identify him.
I took off through the front door (at the back of the house, in the dream) and around the corner. I didn't know where to go at first, but set my sights quickly on the local pizza place. It was just a few blocks away, they knew us from the neighborhood, and it was far enough from the house to feel safe. I ran full out through the alley, like I did when I was a kid, and I was a kid at that point in the dream, just 11 or 12 years old. I rounded the outside corner of the squat little pizza shop, but when I ran in, it was suddenly more of an auto repair shop/family restaurant with very, very '70s decor. (Yes, both. Don't ask, I don't know why.) The proprietor wasn't the owner of the pizza place but rather the man who had owned the small neighborhood grocery store when I was a kid, and I ran up to him right away and told him that some man was at my house shooting people. He yelled for an employee to call the police, but the shooter came into the building, and everyone ran for cover.
I know the dream goes on further from here, but I don't remember anymore of the plot. The violence was surprisingly non-violent and bloodless, altogether very PG-13.
Though pairs of threatening men have been a symbol of considerable significance in previous dreams/dream cycles, I don't believe the shooter et al. filled that role here. The dream didn't feel like a nightmare and there was no real sense of danger or menace; it felt instead like a moment from a movie, and I am fairly sure that shooter, victim and accomplice(s) were all actors, though I can't put my finger on where I've seen them, though I think the shooter might have been Harold Perrineau. (Yes, victim, shooter and accomplish were all black. I would analyze this for symbolic intent, except I think it was like that in whatever movie my brain plagiarized.)
What really sparks my curiosity is the time warp in the dream back to the early or mid-80s, right down to the shop keeper than I have not laid eyes on or thought about since I was, at most, 8 years old. Weird!
The main part of the dream, now forgotten, concerned some sort of large holiday family gathering with all of the cousins. I was in the kitchen, getting a drink, when I heard a noise outside. I looked out the screen door and saw a truck plough through our yard and through the neighbor's privacy fence, pushed by green SUV as its driver leaned out of the window and shouted profanities at the truck's driver. When the two stopped in the neighbor's yard, the SUV's driver leapt from his vehicle and closed on the other driver with a gun in hand. This was clearly not an accident.
The neighbors ran out to assess the damage as he shot, not realizing the danger, and he spun to turn the gun on them. He looked around afterwards, and I hit the floor, hiding behind the metal portion of the door and hoping he hadn't seen me. As he ran up on the porch (the cement porch of the '80s, again, not the deck we had later), I knew he had, and I ran away. Fortunately, the dream layout was much more sensible than the house's actual layout! He and his accomplice(s) stormed in and people scattered; I was hiding behind a piece of furniture, and got a good look at the men. I knew he was after any possible witnesses to his crime--a silly idea, given the public nature of it, but I knew it nonetheless--and I considered briefly how I should help save my family members. I realized with some despair that the best thing I could do was to get out of the house and go for help. I couldn't defend them, and it was me he was after, since I could identify him.
I took off through the front door (at the back of the house, in the dream) and around the corner. I didn't know where to go at first, but set my sights quickly on the local pizza place. It was just a few blocks away, they knew us from the neighborhood, and it was far enough from the house to feel safe. I ran full out through the alley, like I did when I was a kid, and I was a kid at that point in the dream, just 11 or 12 years old. I rounded the outside corner of the squat little pizza shop, but when I ran in, it was suddenly more of an auto repair shop/family restaurant with very, very '70s decor. (Yes, both. Don't ask, I don't know why.) The proprietor wasn't the owner of the pizza place but rather the man who had owned the small neighborhood grocery store when I was a kid, and I ran up to him right away and told him that some man was at my house shooting people. He yelled for an employee to call the police, but the shooter came into the building, and everyone ran for cover.
I know the dream goes on further from here, but I don't remember anymore of the plot. The violence was surprisingly non-violent and bloodless, altogether very PG-13.
Though pairs of threatening men have been a symbol of considerable significance in previous dreams/dream cycles, I don't believe the shooter et al. filled that role here. The dream didn't feel like a nightmare and there was no real sense of danger or menace; it felt instead like a moment from a movie, and I am fairly sure that shooter, victim and accomplice(s) were all actors, though I can't put my finger on where I've seen them, though I think the shooter might have been Harold Perrineau. (Yes, victim, shooter and accomplish were all black. I would analyze this for symbolic intent, except I think it was like that in whatever movie my brain plagiarized.)
What really sparks my curiosity is the time warp in the dream back to the early or mid-80s, right down to the shop keeper than I have not laid eyes on or thought about since I was, at most, 8 years old. Weird!
