The Leaf Blower Man

Art by Ada Zdanowicz at CollagePodge

       
            In a recent post I discussed how my dreams usually do not seem to take place at an identifiable time of day.  Here is a dream that I had a few days after that post appeared on A Faraway View.

          Keep in mind that I had recently attended BlogWorld at the Los Angeles Convention Center.  I had also recently taken a trip to Tennessee, where the autumn leaves were falling and I had been thinking about using a leaf blower to round up some of the leaves in my mother's yard.  During that trip I had helped my sister move from Phoenix, driving a rental truck with her household goods and staying in motels along the way.

         This is what I recall of a dream on Sunday morning November 6, 2011:

         Many things happen early on in the dream-- some related to BlogWorld and people I know.  At one point I am staying in a motel or apartment complex.  I have a room there, but I go to visit an old friend from Tennessee who also has a room at the same place.  


         Apparently it is getting late and I don't want to return to my room.  My friend invites me to stay in his room.  I accept the offer but then am concerned when I see there is only one bed.  I begin to find a reason to leave.  


         At this point the man in the room is no longer my old friend, but a guy that I met at BlogWorld.  My wife is now with me and there are two rooms with one bed in each.  My wife and I go to bed at which point I start to make amorous advances toward her.  She says that I should have told her earlier that I wanted to engage in this activity.


          I suddenly realize that I've left a briefcase containing a great deal of money in my van that is in the parking lot.  I jump out of bed and go outside to find my van.   


          It is dark outside--a strange gray black charcoal darkness that does not necessarily look like night, but I assume it is since I had previously started to go to bed.  As I reach the sidewalk from a walkway which leads to the door of the room, I see to my right in the dim light a man with a leaf blower.  He is about fifty feet from where I am and operating the leaf blower.


         I go to my left where there are bushes and vegetation along walk.  The walkway looks dark and foreboding.  As I am walking I fall down to my right onto the grass.  As I lay there some unseen thing seems to fall upon me and make me feel trapped so that I cannot extricate myself.  I call out "help help", hoping that someone, perhaps the leaf blower man, will hear me and rescue me.  No one comes to help.  I panic and I begin screaming loudly. 

        My audible screams wake me up.   My wife is startled by my screams and in her concern asks me what is wrong.  I am troubled for a while as I reflect upon this dream.   In my vexed state I cannot sleep anymore. Since it is nearly time to get up anyway, I go into my writing office and record the dream for this blog post.

         I rarely have dreams that upset me to the extent that I wake up screaming or in some state of intense fright.  In most cases I calmly awaken from a dream in a reflective state of mind.   Nearly every time I have awoken feeling as I did with this dream it is due to a feeling of being trapped or confined to a tight space.

         Could the dream be affected by a physical event going on within me?   Is there something that I am extremely worried about that is symbolized by the feeling in these dreams?   Have you had a dream such as this?    Do characters in your dreams sometimes start out as one person and then transform into another?


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