Man, did I pack a lot into tonight… and not on purpose.

First I went to Mosaic… that took a couple of hours — eating, talking to people, then listening to John talk and Lindsay sing.

Then shortly after I got home Nina called. We talked for nearly two hours (a "short" conversation for us). While talking to Nina, my oldest sister Paula called. I called her back after talking with Nina and talked her ear off for about an hour and a half. During all this talking and listening, I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, cleaned up the kitchen and straightened up my room (can I get a hearty "WooHoo! We love headsets!!")…. I would have cleaned the bathroom too, but that would’ve been too noisy to really hear either of my sisters.

The last half hour or so I’ve been contemplating a variety of issues ranging from should Scott Peterson get the death penalty — while I’m pro death-penalty, I’m also pro-life… how do I balance these two convictions??… and, in the end, which will ultimately be the harshest punishment to fit Peterson’s crime? I gotta tell ya, I’m very, very glad I’m not on that jury! — to states rights, which I recently found out is a real hot-button phrase here in the South….

I wanted to, and planned to, go to bed early tonight, because I need to be into work early tomorrow. But I can’t get my mind to quiet down. It’s very excited about all these things that got churned up over the last few hours and it wants to chew on them. I wish I could convince it they could be chewed on while I sleep. Of course, that might make for interesting dreams….

Speaking of dreams, I had quite a crazy one this morning just before waking. I had fuzzy memories of it just after waking, but later in the day something triggered a memory of the dream, and I ended up spending all afternoon writing it down, picking it apart and sorting out it’s meaning. Afterward, I checked out a couple of "dream dictionaries" online, just to see if I could get more clarification on it through a few "universal" meanings of elements in my dream. Pretty much everything I read confirmed or backed up what I sensed was the meaning. On occasion it clarified some things… but mostly I look at those dictionaries a more fun than fact… dreams, like people, are highly individualistic. While I believe there are some things we universally identify with subconsciously, I don’t believe in that sort of thing happening across the board.

I won’t go into the details of the dream, but I will tell you that by the time I was done "analyzing" it I felt pretty confident that yesterday’s post wasn’t just pie-in-the-sky I’m-ignoring-reality-and-living-in-my-own-fantasyland stuff. My dream, to me, confirmed that my subconscious even believes I have turned a corner, that I’m getting rid of negative feelings, old patterns and moving into new, more positive ones, that I am conquering obstacles in my life, that I’m going through an inner transformation and have an internal passion that is being fanned into flame.

It was a wild dream, and took me on quite a series of adventures. Even just after awakening, as just the fuzziness of it remained, I felt… refreshed, is the best way to put it… like inhaling deeply of fresh mountain air early in the morning. Refreshing and invigorating. Later, when the whole dream came back and I was typing furiously to get as much detail out before it faded again, I felt even more invigorated. A good chunk of the dream had to do with something that would sound gross if I were to describe it, yet it’s something so very common to all our lives. So it was quite odd to have such a positive feeling and affect from dreaming about it.

Okay, just so you don’t go wading into the deep end and drown wondering what in the world I was dreaming… the portion I’m referring to had to do with pooping. Here’s what the dream dictionary had to say about this:

To dream that you have  a bowel movement, signifies that you are successfully getting rid of your  old habits/ways and thinking patterns.

I also dreamed of fire,

"Depending on the  context of your dream, to see fire in your dream can symbolizes  destruction, passion, desire, illumination, transformation, enlightenment,  or anger. It may suggest that something old is passing and something new  is entering your life. Your thoughts and views are changing…. it is a  metaphor of your own internal fire and inner transformation. It also  represents your drive and motivation."

flying over and being in the mountains (specifically a mountain village),

If you are flying with ease and enjoying the scene and landscape below, then it suggests that you are on top of a situation. You have risen above something. It may also mean that you have gained a different perspective on things.
"To see mountains in your dream,  signifies many major obstacles and challenges that you have to overcome.  If you are on top of the mountain, then it signifies that you have  achieved and realized your goals. Alternatively, mountains denotes a higher realm of consciousness, knowledge, and spiritual truth."

…and George Clooney… don’t ask.