(Thursday, January 8, 2026)
My recent dream that included Rick as a ghost reminded me of his loss of his mother at a young age. In Minneapolis yesterday, a six-year-old boy lost his mother. She was murdered by ICE. Minneapolis schools are closed today because ICE attacked Roosevelt High School a few hours after the murder on 34th and Portland.
Yesterday I had shortness of breath and when I heard about another Minneapolis murder, I knew why. Grief and anxiety. Horror.
(Tuesday, January 6, 2025)
The dream begins on the second floor of my Sheehan family farmhouse. I am lying on the double bed on the left side of the room, near the staircase and a window. I am sleeping (lucid dreaming) and trying to coax a ghost to visit me. My old friend Rick, who passed away in 2023, appears on the right side of the bed. His ghost-body is not as physically strong as his living body was. He has trouble focusing and moving closer to me. Ambling oddly. I roll over to the right side of the bed and give him a little nudge. We gently push each other, back-and-forth. Rick’s ghost reminds me of what his stepmother said at his memorial, describing his difficulty with mental function from childhood to adulthood, perhaps because his mother died when he was a toddler.
The dream transitions to a third story, which did not exist in real life. I am “awake.” The floor is old wood and the space is expansive, with a high ceiling. I move to a large child bedroom that has recent construction elements, including red-painted window and ceiling borders. My grandmother Lenora has created rooms for her ancestral great-great grandchildren. More work is needed, but it has begun. A young girl who reminds me of Oona is sleeping in the bedroom. I move around the third level and inspect the design features. Many pieces are historic, very old. Some are surprisingly new. Change is underway for our future. I look out a large window at the green forest. Happy.
Suddenly I am outdoors. It is hilly and full of trees. The farmhouse is in the center of nature, on a gentle slope. Like one of my recent dreams, I think I see the distant Colorado Rocky Mountains. A large group of young boys are playing together, laughing and throwing a ball. I worry a bit that they will throw it too hard and hit Wyn, and I put my arm around one of the young athletes to give him a quiet warning: “Be careful.” A father thinks I am too anxious about the game. So I relax. I tell the father about Bonnie’s wonderful lentil soup and give him the spicy ingredients: “Ginger, lime, cilantro, garlic, onion …”
Day notes:
I listened to Katherine Bell’s podcast last night. She had a good interview with a woman named Katrina Dreamer, who has taught at the IASD and attended grad school with Linda Mastrangelo. Katherine brought up Jeremy Taylor’s idea that a large group of people in a dream are our ancestors. I miss Jeremy Taylor. I should reread his books.
The dream-within-a-dream section about Rick’s ghost seems to transition to me being awake and reacting to his ghost entity with my physical body.
My guess is I am Lenora (since my middle name is Lenore). At this stage in our lives we certainly feel that we are affecting future genetics. I am a grandmother, as was she.
My mother (Lenora’s daughter) lost her father when she was a toddler, the same timeframe as Rick losing his parent.
The Rocky Mountains can symbolize significant challenges and obstacles in waking life. They are distant, therefore the threat might be over or arriving in the future. Not the present moment, either way. My take on the mountains is protection (my emotional sense in the dream), which disagrees with the usual interpretation.
This feels like a pretty big dream, especially since there is a lucid dream aspect. It reminds me of my dream “A New Workspace” because of the view of the future.
(Thursday, New Year’s Day, 2026)
Bonnie and Paul are in my dream. Bonnie has been working on helping people create greeting cards, a new business for her. It seems related to her skills at photography. She is happy with her job.
I am also starting a card business, because I need income. It does not give me any joy. I take photos of natural elements and add them to the artwork. Adobe Photoshop.
My second chore is working on the grass in my yard. I go outside, walking along the narrow front sidewalk. My corner house and property are at a lower level than the adjacent streets, which is unusual. Most of the houses in my waking world (Tangletown) are on a steep hill.
The tract surprises me. I seed and fertilize my grass often, but there are dead spots in about a third of the acreage. Long, horizontal brown trails. Again I am sad, although I see that everyone’s yard has a similar issue, a symbolic reminder of COVID or the grubs that destroyed grasses in Minneapolis a few years ago. I grab a rake to remove the brown glades, ready to reseed.
Day notes:
Bonnie is successful and communicative with many dreamers. Her small “business.”
Paying for acupuncture, increased healthcare premiums, and not being connected yet to our 401ks makes my financial life achingly frugal. A part-time job would be both a benefit and a heartache. I have been considering that option.
The lower level seems to be about depression. Losing UCare has made me lose my Exercise Coach friends and my Jungian therapist.
The job with photos reminds me of the one I considered two years ago, helping people make books from their collections of photos. I did not want to do it, but a part-time, remote job would be helpful now.
