Last Few Vacation (Fever) Dreams

Bolted Down 20060730

      I dreamed an uncomfortable dream, reflections of the cold I picked up on my vacation. I was stuck flat on my back by two long bolts through my shoulderblades. Each bolt stuck up through my chest by a couple of inches and was held in place by two large silver/chrome nuts. Each nut was about two inches across. There didn't seem to be any sign of blood around the bolts, but I was worried that there could be because there weren't any washers between the nuts and my flesh.

Venus Flytrap 20060831

      I dreamed I was home from vacation, which was indeed the case, and someone had sent me a potted Venus flytrap which had two stems with three hungry little flowers on each stem. I couldn't seem to find any care instructions but seemed to remember that it would eat flies. I tried, unsuccessfully, for some time to find some flies to feed the plant. Finally N suggested that it might like some lunchmeat. We didn't have any meat in the refrigerator though. I wondered aloud if it would eat mosquitos. I didn't get an answer. It got me to thinking, as I awoke, are there any vegetarian plants?

Lumpy Pillows 20060801

      Another example of the dream theme that will not go away. I spent another night dosed on NyQuill, and I kept waking up in a sweat from the same dream. My bed suddenly seemed to be made from lumpy little pillows about 4 inches by 3 inches. Each pillow contained some packet of my life, or at least information about my life. I was trying hard to keep all of the packets going in the same direction and corralled beneath me. I didn't want any strays. I realized some of the pillows were thinner than others, and some had drifted to the bottom of the bed and were in danger of falling off.
      Even though I would wake up, one time enough to go and get more medicine, I would fall back to sleep and begin the process of gathering in the lumpy little packets. There was some frustration in that I knew some of the packets were really important but I couldn't seem to recall what was in them. I either knew or didn't know the contents of each pillow as I rolled over them and smoothed them out, there was no halfway. I found myself wondering if there were packets from other sleepers mixed in with my packets. I wasn't sure how to tell.

Naptime Packets

      I have still got the cold, it has worked its way down into my chest. I napped again this morning. I had the Lumpy Pillow dream again, only this time, perhaps because it is daylight, I could see that the pillows are all made of the same sort of smooth linen, but in different pastel shades, most plain, but some with intricate patterns on their surface. Still, each is an individual packet with some small connected communication or thought. Some are missing, but I find myself wondering if there is a way, if I can just get them in order, to recover some of the missing packets, or at least have a sense of what is missing.
      I spend my entire nap, it seems, sorting packets, first by color, then by size and finally by detail. As the process nears completion I realize I have just put them horribly out of order, but now have no way of disorganizing them back into their original but apparently not chaotic pattern. It was somewhat like finding a really long scrabble word, then discovering that it doesn't get as many points as the shorter word you tried earlier, but now can't remember. The letters are the same, but you have to start shuffling them around again until you find your original word.