I don't know why, but summer has brought almost-nightly dreams. The last three that I've had (on the past three days respectively) have been quite interesting, enough so that I decided to come on here and report them.
The first dream, which I had three nights ago while sleeping over at Elisabeth's house, largely involved Boo Radley. This is not the first time that I have had To Kill a Mockingbird-related dreams. I generally have at least one or two of these within weeks of finishing the book, and typically, the characters of Jem, Scout, and Dill are replaced by myself and my three cousins on my mom's side, and we are trying to persuade Boo Radley to leave his house, using the tactics that the three children employ in the book. The one difference with the dream that I had last night was that instead of representing myself, I was Scout in the dream, accompanied by the Dill and Jem from the film version of the book. The scene that we were re-enacting was the nighttime scene before Dill's departure for Meridian, when the two boys decide to attempt to peek in the windows of the Radley house. Scout, though reluctant at first, follows along, and the three children enter the lot from the rear fence, which is adjacent to the schoolyard. The events then unfolded as they do in the book (and which I won't reveal in their entirety for those of you who haven't had the good fortune to read the book yet).
The following night, back at my mom's house, I had very disturbing dreams. At the beginning of the dream, I was dawdling in the front yard of my mom's house, bored, when Wesley wheeled the bikes around to the front of the house (we had stored them in the basement through the winter, for lack of other place to put them in the house, and I was afraid to go and retrieve one to ride because there is a mob of crickets in the basement). He let me take my mom's bike for a quick ride around the neighborhood. I hopped on, cruised up to Country Club Road, turned right, and traveled all the way down to Five Points, where I took another right onto Stratford, eventually pulling into the parking lot of the Thruway shopping center. For the latter part of the journey, I had had to ride the bike on the road, which was extremely stressful for someone who is accustomed to riding exclusively on the sidewalks. Really, the only reason that I had pulled into the shopping center in the first place was to escape the traffic of Stratford Road. However, as I parked the bike near Borders, I saw my mom emerge from a nearby shop with her arms full of bags. I asked her where she was going.
"I'm just heading home," she said, "but your dad and I are going to meet you back here at Borders in about 20 minutes; then, we'll all go out for lunch."
I told her that her plan sounded good, and she continued on to her car and drove back the way I had come. I entered the cafe of the bookstore and took a seat at one of the tables in the center of the room. It wasn't busy at all that day; in fact, there was only one group of around five people in the room besides myself, and they were all congregated near the squashy armchairs near the window. Even the employees weren't stationed at their usual spots behind the counter. I sat uneasily, wondering what was going on. Eventually, the group over by the armchairs approached my table, and the surly man who looked to be in charge started questioning me about where I lived and other things; I told him that it was none of his business, and he responded by drawing out a knife. I was presently tied up by the man and his company, gagged with a piece of cloth, carried out to the parking lot, and thrown in the back of a truck. The truck drove around for a very long time, until, when I was finally pulled from the truck, I could tell that we were in the mountains or somewhere else far out in the wilderness. I was tied to a chair in this decadent shack, and then my kidnappers left the room. I was terrified, because I knew that there was probably no chance that my parents would find me - and my purse had been left at the bookstore, so there was no way of calling the police (there was no telephone in the shack either). However, after what may have been several hours or several days, I heard a commotion outside, and suddenly, my dad stormed into the shack, untied me, ungagged me, and pulled me to my feet, on which I was unsteady, having been tied to a chair for a long period of time. I was just about to ask my dad how he had found me when he shushed me, saying, "We have to hurry; the people outside scattered when I showed up, and I don't know where they are." As we ran back outside to his car, my dad called the police from his cell phone and informed them of our situation, describing each of the kidnappers in detail. It was night, and we quickly hopped in the car and began to drive away through rolling hills and on dirt roads which winded through forests. Though we were escaping, the anxiety of the dream had not been lifted - for the criminals could, at any time, emerge from the trees on either side of the road and sabotage our vehicle, and they had more people in their group than we did, and more weapons. It was about at this point that I woke up.
The last dream, which I had the night after the dream described above, was very short. I dreamt that my dad and I were driving to church one morning, and as we pulled up outside of the Sanctuary, we saw advertised on the plaque by the door that an intern pastor would be preaching that morning. My dad, upon seeing this, veered immediately from the parking lot and drove off. He said that he didn't want to go unless our senior pastor was preaching. Owing to the fact that I also prefer the senior pastor's sermons and to the fact that I was in the passenger seat, I didn't argue. As we pulled into the parking lot of Mr. Waffle, our weekly after-church lunch venue, we were approached by a middle-aged man from our congregation, who inquired about why we left the church without going to the sermon - at which point I took it upon myself to inform him that two conditions largely dictated our church-going: our ability to go to the Sanctuary service (we like the traditional music better than the contemporary music) and whoever is preaching at that time. As I was explaining this, I woke up.
I told her that her plan sounded good, and she continued on to her car and drove back the way I had come. I entered the cafe of the bookstore and took a seat at one of the tables in the center of the room. It wasn't busy at all that day; in fact, there was only one group of around five people in the room besides myself, and they were all congregated near the squashy armchairs near the window. Even the employees weren't stationed at their usual spots behind the counter. I sat uneasily, wondering what was going on. Eventually, the group over by the armchairs approached my table, and the surly man who looked to be in charge started questioning me about where I lived and other things; I told him that it was none of his business, and he responded by drawing out a knife. I was presently tied up by the man and his company, gagged with a piece of cloth, carried out to the parking lot, and thrown in the back of a truck. The truck drove around for a very long time, until, when I was finally pulled from the truck, I could tell that we were in the mountains or somewhere else far out in the wilderness. I was tied to a chair in this decadent shack, and then my kidnappers left the room. I was terrified, because I knew that there was probably no chance that my parents would find me - and my purse had been left at the bookstore, so there was no way of calling the police (there was no telephone in the shack either). However, after what may have been several hours or several days, I heard a commotion outside, and suddenly, my dad stormed into the shack, untied me, ungagged me, and pulled me to my feet, on which I was unsteady, having been tied to a chair for a long period of time. I was just about to ask my dad how he had found me when he shushed me, saying, "We have to hurry; the people outside scattered when I showed up, and I don't know where they are." As we ran back outside to his car, my dad called the police from his cell phone and informed them of our situation, describing each of the kidnappers in detail. It was night, and we quickly hopped in the car and began to drive away through rolling hills and on dirt roads which winded through forests. Though we were escaping, the anxiety of the dream had not been lifted - for the criminals could, at any time, emerge from the trees on either side of the road and sabotage our vehicle, and they had more people in their group than we did, and more weapons. It was about at this point that I woke up.
The last dream, which I had the night after the dream described above, was very short. I dreamt that my dad and I were driving to church one morning, and as we pulled up outside of the Sanctuary, we saw advertised on the plaque by the door that an intern pastor would be preaching that morning. My dad, upon seeing this, veered immediately from the parking lot and drove off. He said that he didn't want to go unless our senior pastor was preaching. Owing to the fact that I also prefer the senior pastor's sermons and to the fact that I was in the passenger seat, I didn't argue. As we pulled into the parking lot of Mr. Waffle, our weekly after-church lunch venue, we were approached by a middle-aged man from our congregation, who inquired about why we left the church without going to the sermon - at which point I took it upon myself to inform him that two conditions largely dictated our church-going: our ability to go to the Sanctuary service (we like the traditional music better than the contemporary music) and whoever is preaching at that time. As I was explaining this, I woke up.
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