Dreamscapes: The Whole Foods Mall of Japaris

Feel free to make what you will out of THIS crazy dream!

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I was in a huge, cavernous shopping mall of some type with some of my friends (I couldn’t tell which ones). I didn’t know exactly where the mall is, but somehow it was a cross between Japan and Paris.

The mall was an odd shape, with a narrow stairwell (it reminded me of being in Notre Dame, with the steep concrete stairs and little windows looking out on the world) that would wind its way up to the next floor. Along each stairwell there were open buckets of all kinds of goodies—candy, toys, small fun items (like the bulk section of Whole Foods), and I understood that you were supposed to take what you wanted and bring it to the nearest register. But it was so tempting to just take a few small things and stick them in your coat pocket. I didn’t . . . at least not yet.

Even though it was indoors, everyone was wearing coats. It was so tight in that stairwell, people were jammed together in two lines, like going up the escalator from the train to the main floor in Penn Station. When you reached each floor, the space was wide open and there were vendors everywhere. No actual stores, just people at kiosks or just standing there selling their wares. It reminded me of the artists lined up along the streets and bridges in Paris.

Each main floor of the mall was so huge, it echoed. At each floor there was some kind of performance, and the point of each performance seemed to be to scare people into thinking they were going to run into you. One group of performers was dressed up like huge robots or transformers, all in black and on stilts. They were terrifying.

At the next stairwell, I couldn’t help myself and I took a handful of Swedish Fish, but for some reason each one was on a stick. Swedish Fish Skewers. I kept trying to get them in my pocket, but the stick was in the way and the crowd kept shoving me. I dropped two, and held onto one, hoping there were no hidden cameras.

At the next open level, one of my friends wanted to go look at something and I tried to follow her but instead I went looking for a trash can to throw away the Swedish Fish so I wouldn’t get in trouble. A group of performers on bicycles appeared, careening all around me, and one came to a skidding halt right in front of me.

I ran, but realized that I dropped the Swedish Fish. I looked back and saw it on the floor, and for some reason I was so sad, but I kept running.

And that was it.

Dreamscapes: Applying for a Job

I’ve been feeling a little stagnant on my blog. For some reason I’m not feeling that creative lately. But my brain has been very creative, delivering vivid, complex and bizarre stories every night that I remember in detail the next day.

I figure my brain is trying to tell me something. I have tons of great stories in me, they are just having trouble coming together cohesively. So my brain is giving me bits and pieces, little puzzles that, when I figure them out, will be the start of some really interesting stories.

This is one of many from last night. I can only guess what the imagery and recurring themes are telling me about myself. I don’t want to put too much thought into it right now, though. I’ll just blurt out everything I remember and later, maybe the stories will start knitting themselves together.

Applying for a Job

There was an open job at the school, and I went for an interview. I brought a little pamphlet with me that described the job. I was met by a guy (no one who works at the school in real life) who took me to a kind of dusty attic atmosphere place in the school with an old, beat up wooden desk. Nothing else around. I was wearing an old-fashioned dress.

He asked if my test was scantron. I looked down and it was now a tri-folded test with the little dots. Apparently I was supposed to fill it out for him to know whether I was a good fit for the job. I felt so unprepared and embarrassed.

He asked why I thought I would be good at the job, and I forgot what the job was, except that it had something to do with surveying, and I was good at doing surveys. Plus, I have an advanced degree so I could probably adapt quickly. I tried to cheat and look at the title of the job on the other side of the paper, but I could only see part of it, and it didn’t make any sense.

Suddenly I had a couple of those round thin chocolates (the kind that would normally be covered in foil, but these weren’t), and they were melting in my hand. I tried to get rid of them but one fell out of my hand and rolled under his desk. I tried to look and see if it had touched his shoe. I couldn’t tell, but he didn’t seem to notice.

I shoved the other chocolate in my mouth and tried to swallow it but it was all over my face, and it got worse when I wiped my face with the hand with the melted chocolate. I was trying to keep my composure while he talked, but I couldn’t hear anything he was saying.

Finally we sat there in silence for awhile.

He walked me out, and it was the exit to a different school I had seen in other dreams, similar to my own elementary school but I had only been able to see the exit in previous dreams.

Then I was in my house, but it wasn’t my house. It was a huge, grand room, all wooden from top to bottom, like an attic, with slanted ceilings and nice furniture, leather chairs. No other furniture around that I could see, it was like there was a spotlight on the center of the room.

For some reason I was thinking “If only the interviewer could see this beautiful room, and my beautiful house, he would have a much better impression of me!”

Then I thought “I should have talked to him about the job, admitted that I knew nothing but was confident that I could handle it, show him that I have previous business experience, get him talking and show him that I’m not just a mute dummy covered in chocolate.”

The room narrowed and turned into more of a crawlspace, and I had to wriggle my way through. That’s all I remember.