Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Yesterday I got the "lie down or fall down" warning from my body before I managed to get any work done. :-( I did lie down, but took long enough to get to sleep that I was about to try to get up again, when I finally did crash, about 23:30.

Then I woke up at 4:30 this morning because of a dream. I know other people's dreams aren't the most entertaining reading (hence the <lj-cut> tag) but sometimes ya' just gotta throw one out there to see if anybody else makes more sense of it, y'know? And besides, it's my journal. I'm copying this from my paper journal (with some clarifications inserted).

Soccer game at The Key School [Annapolis, MD] -- I was only really aware of my own end of the field [my own goal -- I played fullback]. Other team kept pressing us. Ball kept going out of bounds -- across the street, into a bamboo-lined, shallow, concrete drainage ditch, rolling several blocks (uphill!) when I had to chase it to bring it back for a goal kick. [slightly different than the real-life soccer field] Seemed like every time it went over the end it was a goal kick, never a corner kick, and every time it went over the sideline it was the other team to throw in. They never scored on us, but they were always attacking. Major chaos. I was aware of the presence of the referee but never saw him. I never even saw our own forwards. Serdar M., David S., and Allen W. were there just like old times at Key, except that Allen didn't play quite as well and I was more bold. I think Allen was playing goalie. but dreams are kind of fuzzy that way.

Somehow the field started feeling smaller, and gradually the scene transformed itself to being indoors in a large room in an old building with fireplaces for goals and some sort of party going on, and lots of attractive women wearing medieval garb, fantasy faux-Renaissance garb, or a combination of medieval and really dressy science-fiction-ish clothing. One had this really high collar that reminded me of something from Star Wars, that somehow made me think of a wimple, and she caught me staring at her. Now I was seeing both ends of the playing field, and at one point I had to chase the ball into the hallway when it went out of bounts. Now Allen W. and David S. were on the other team (Allen was a forward, I think David was a halfback) and they were doing sneaky things like hiding the ball under their shirts.

There was some confusion over folks trying to start a fire in our goal that I didn't understand, but I made my way to the far goal, couldn't find the ball, but did find a roaring fire and a fireplace screen blocking the goal. I found a bright blue ball that I thought was the right one and pushed it behind the screen, where it popped like a soap bubble, then went to confront the other team about blocking their goal with a screen and building a fire in it. They said we were doing the same thing and I suddenly understood why my goalie was building a fire. I made some sort of speech appealing to both teams and the woman who seemed to be in charge of the house -- which by now had transformed itself into a huge, medieval-looking suite in a big, concrete & stone apartment building with HUGE, unadorned, grey hallways outside the apartment and a Gothic look inside.[sort of] The hostess eventually agreed to order the fires extinguished, the referee having ceased to exist, and we prepared to resumethe game in earnest despite having to dodge party guests.

As the architecture transformed itself yet again, this time with a stairway leading to the basement in front of each fireplace/goal -- sort of a (American) Civil War era look, I thought at the time, but more the look for a utilitarian outbuilding, not a living space -- and somehow each end of the great hall that was our arena belonged to a different apartment, which was why each fireplace needed its own stair to the basement storage area. As I was trying to figure out how we were going to play scocer with a stairwell in front of each goal, it all got too confusing and I woke up.

I felt closer to -- more "good buddy" with -- my old high school classmates/teammates in the dream than I usually felt back in school (I liked them and got along with them but they weren't the classmates I was closest to), and it felt really good to see them again. Now I'm thinking it'd be good to see them in real life. At the start of the dream I was aware of having to cope with my fibromyalgia and being out of shape. By the end of the dream I was healthy and athletic. And extremely well coordinated.

About the soccer field, the drainage ditch, and the bamboo: the area looked like it did before my senior year of high school, before we added the ring of bollard-like posts around the field to keep people from driving on it, and with all the cracks I remember in the edges of the pavement on the streets surrounding the field, the driveways of the nearby houses, etc. But in real life there wasn't so much growth around the drainage ditch, it wasn't concrete, it was much smaller and didn't go as far -- maybe to the first house on that side of the street, I think -- and the vegetation surrounding it was probably just grass (and maybe phragmites), most of the bamboo being a couple of blocks away, on campus.

About the medieval architecture: Probably middle- or late-Gothic -- I'm not that good at identifying the period of architecture and decor, so I could be wrong. Pretty sure it was pre-renaissance though.

When I wake up straight from a dream, it seems that it's usually because the dream became too confusing to continue and that feeling so confused is what wakes me up. Does that happen to anyone else? (I know, I know, I've just invoked Ugol's Law. I guess what I'm really asking is: do any of the friends and strangers reading this journal find a similar trend in their own experience?)

Anyhow, I definitely have not slept enough, and am wondering how long it'll take before I get back to sleep.