Dream: The Closet Full of Crap *LUCID*

Dream 20040809, 10:00 AM:
This dream had more going on at the front end, but I don’t remember entirely. I’m wandering around a huge house, which I know is my house, but also belongs to other people, like we all share it. It’s open up the center, like an atrium, and I walk along a hallway that has bedrooms off of the outer side and has a railing on the inner side that is open to the atrium where I can see across to another similar floor across. The floors on the opposite side are at a different level, though – they’re offset from the floors on this side by half. I get to the end of the hall, and go down a stair to a landing that lets off at the opposite side. I’m picking up laundry as I go, and I have on a Tshirt and a pair of underpants at this point. I hear someone coming in, and I realize that it’s one of my roommate’s kids and her friends. I see them across the atrium, and apologize for not being dressed. I don’t feel exposed or indecent, just not properly dressed for company.

There is more in the house that I don’t remember. I go outside, locking the front door, and walk across a walkway to where similar huge houses are on the opposite side of the street. There are men dressed in black with T-shirts on, they look like security detail for a concert or something. They tell me that I can’t cross the walkway to the other houses; I explain that I live here, and can do as I please. A man blocks my way. It’s as if the President is in town or something – lots of security around. I look around me, and there are hundreds of people thronging this area. Some rock singer or actor walks through on a walkway below the one I’m standing on, and the people all yammer at once, trying to press gifts and things on him. He waves, kind of ducks, and walks to his waiting car. I see a woman ahead who looks like Cher, but I go over where she is (around beside a different building, and away from the crowd a little) and realize that it’s just that – a woman who looks like Cher.

I sit down on a little retaining wall next to a bunch of other people; it seems like we’re waiting for some kind of show or event. Next to me is a woman with her head draped like a devout Muslim, and beside her a man in an outfit that seems like some kind of Middle Eastern country – a tunic-like top and a fez type hat. He doesn’t seem to be from the same place that she’s from, though. He starts talking about how he likes the way she looks, except for her teeth – he turns her face to me, and she smiles, revealing very white but crooked teeth. He has a strong accent, which sounds more Hispanic than Middle Eastern. Some guys walk up; they are dressed in colors and patterns like what the woman is wearing, and I realize that they must be related to her, or at least from the same area. They start to pick a fight with the guy, who apparently is breaking some kind of social taboo by talking to the woman. As they get rowdy and start to get into serious fisticuffs, I get up and slip away.

At this point, I realize that it’s a dream. I don’t know what clued me in, I just know that it’s no longer real. I walk around the side of the building; now, it doesn’t look like huge houses, so much as like a big and classy apartment complex. The walls are faced in a cream-colored limestone, and curve away to my left. I decide that there will be some interesting door, which I’m going to enter. As I walk along, I see a set of doors, but they are very modern and institutional looking, not at all like the antique wood and iron door I was visualizing. Without any sense of meeting her, I realize that J., my HP, is walking along beside me. We go through the brown metal and glass doors, and we’re in a huge wide hallway. It seems like a hallway at a business office or a hospital; doors open to either side, and there are people walking around. We keep walking, and I’m scanning constantly for the interesting door that I keep visualizing, hoping that it will appear. J. talks to me as we walk along; I don’t remember what we talk about. Then, I look at her, and it’s no longer her, but a very tall Arabic looking man with a beard. He says, “Of course I’m not J., it’s just an image you’ve chosen for your own convenience.” Then I look away and look back, and it’s J. again. We keep walking.

J. sees a door that she’s looking for, and points it out to me. It leads into an office anteroom, and it’s excessively decorated for Christmas. The main theme seems to be Christmas trees – there are Christmas trees in each corner of the room, and two or three large ones on a coffee table in the middle of a small conference room that we pass on the side. I look at the trees, and one of them has lights that flash off and on all at once. They’re like 20 watt bulbs, and the overall impression is of a brilliant cone of white light, which turns back off and leaves an image seared in my retinas. We walk on, and into a larger conference space, which is also heavily Christmas-treed. We keep walking quickly, though – we’re going along toward a destination, not just wandering through. J. opens a small door on the opposite side of the room, and gestures me through it. It’s not a doorway into another room, though, it’s a small office closet that’s completely full of stuff. It’s all office supplies, on shelves and stacked in the closet. The whole thing looks like it’s only the size of a small bathroom closet, like where we keep the towels. I balk, and J. points in, saying that I need to step in there. I won’t fit – it’s literally full of stuff. I decide that since this is dreamland, that there will be a false back that opens when the door closes, or maybe I’ll just step through the stuff and go somewhere else. I visualize this as I step in, and J. presses the door closed, squishing me gently amongst the shelves of stuff. I don’t seem to be going anywhere. I wake up [for real] and instantly this phrase pops into my head, as if I had read the moral to a story: “Sometimes, a closet full of crap is just a closet full of crap.”