This was a strange dream I had back in 2018. It’s been with me for quite awhile, and while I’ve come to realize what I was going through, it was one of the first dreams I shared publicly at the time elsewhere. It’s high time I added it to my repertoire now that I am sharing my dream journal here, and with some thoughts from what I had learned in that time.

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Original Dream Date: December 19, 2018

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The dream starts that my parental family (mom, dad, siblings) took possession and ownership of my uncle’s house, who I’ll refer to as N. He was married to my dad’s sister, and they had an only child who is a cousin. We’re not close anymore and some stuff has happened that’s made me go my own way. It’s not great feelings, so this general sense of those feelings loom over me this portion of the dream.

For context, the house is just a double-wide trailer home with the regular interior that was present in the 90’s. Nothing special. While I haven’t been there in years, I do recall the last time I was, which would’ve probably been about 5 years ago. The house was starting to fall apart inside. Lots of water damage on the kitchen cabinets, old windows, the living room even still had the silly wallpaper that it had on the walls. Point is, it wasn’t fancy.

In the dream it was pretty much the same thing, except two major things; all their furniture was gone, and all the floors in the house was brand new, polished hardwood floors. That was noteworthy.

I’m going around in the house as the rest of the family is going around. Someone finds this music box; it can fit in one hand, has a dark blue casing and brass trim. We all decide to put it into the room that was my cousin’s room, under the bed.

I got into the living room and I hear the music box going off on its own. I try to get everyone’s attention as I go into the room, trying to show them what’s going on.

This starts to get weird. I’m my 32 year old self, but my parents look like they were straight out of 2000-2001. Dad steps into the room, looking at the music box. He starts to declare that this is because of the “fourth child”, and starts to repeat this.

Then in the middle of the room, an orange shoe shiner brush moves by itself towards the door. it’s joined by an orange markerboard eraser, both of them moving together and skidding across the floor, bumping up against the door. It’s by themselves, as if a poltergeist was moving them. I ran out of the room, heading into the living room. The music box comes out of the room, doing the same thing while playing music.

I’m extremely terrified here. I actually almost wake up at this point.

The family gathers in the kitchen when out of nowhere, these tall African masks appear, lining the walls. My Dad comes to the conclusion that this is what’s haunting the house, and starts to reach to go pull them off of the walls and take them outside. Mom stops him, mentioning that this is what killed the uncle.

We’re left there kind of muddled and trying to figure out what to do, when this Indian girl appears. She’s not really attractive, 5 years younger than me, has a bun and dressed in bright blue traditional Indian clothing of pants, tunic and the scarf thing. She’s coming up behind me, holding me from behind in a hug. I don’t mind, but I don’t care for the gesture for some reason; I’m indifferent.

I pull away from her and start to go back into the living room, and find that a giant white mat appeared near the corner and fireplace. Three Indian couples are standing on the mat, in dark red wedding clothes with flowers. A red ring is in the middle of the mat, and it’s pointed out from both my parents and the couples that I’m supposed to stand there to “get married”. The girl that appeared earlier is supposedly someone who’s interested in me, and who I’d get married to. I realize I don’t like this at all, I don’t like the girl and this is not something I want to go through with.

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The house fades, and my surroundings change. I’m just outside a large hangar in some arid/desert area with mountains in the distance, and a bunch of F-14s are out on the flight line; some are running and have marker lights on. My clothes are different, and I have a green flight jacket on, with a black t-shirt, green fatigue pants and boots.

While Raptors instead of Tomcats, this is an atypical Nellis flight line, and a good representation of what I saw too.

 

There’s some girl that’s talking to me; the best way to describe her is Dizzy from Starship Troopers (curly hair, somewhat spunky, knows her stuff). She’s dressed the same way I am; she’s telling me how I just got accepted to work at a corporation that makes aircraft instruments, and I’ve been slotted to test flight F-14’s with the pieces they make.

She motions me to start walking the flight line, showing off the planes they have parked. She had a real friendly attitude towards her. I admire her doing all of this, when she looks at me with this smile that makes we want to cry.

“It’s okay if you want to hold my hand, you know.”

I couldn’t believe what I just heard, grabbing her hand and holding onto it. It wasn’t at all like what I had experienced with the Indian girl earlier. While I didn’t love this woman, I wanted to be around her. I felt like I belonged. I was peaceful and happy, around with someone who worked with things I dreamed about as a kid and understood as I felt. I didn’t want that memory to go away.

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Another jump occurs, and me and the Dizzy girl are in an abandoned town in the forest, as if a war had happened and nature took it over. There are a bunch of guys running around in WW2 Soviet uniforms, except that they’re burgundy and the hats are bigger. Gold stars float above each of them as veteran markers from Halo Wars, which did make me think it was the Halo universe at first. It feels that I’m near Highway 340 in Parrottsville, just translated to 2010’s 3D graphics.

What appears to be the lead commander stops us; I feel that we’re enemies and they should either be shooting or capturing us, but he instead is very confused, asking us for directions and stating how he’s lost. Dizzy girl has her arms folded, looking fairly confident as the both of us point out landmarks, tell him which road to go to. He’s very polite, thanks us as him and his men march off, leaving the two of us alone.

The two of us poke around the abandoned houses, finding black and white photos of people who used to live there. The photos are clearly from the 1920-1950 era, all portraits and of husband/wife/children. I remember the Dizzy girl just tailing me afterwards as I looked at a few more photos.

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The scene changes again. I’m back at my uncle’s house, and there’s a bunch of Indian and Guyanese people in the living room. They’re supposedly my relatives, though I don’t recognize a single face. Most of them are older, like 55-75. A lot of them are men and being very loudmouthed. Dizzy has vanished, and my appearance has changed to something I would’ve worn in 2011 during college (like khakis and a sweater).

When I enter the living room they all turn their attention to me, mocking and jeering me because I’m not married or not doing a high-grade job like their other children. It starts from there and is basically belittling me for things like the way I walk and act.

I snap and shout “You are aware I fly military aircraft, right?” I thought I was screamed that out loud, and while the dream is still going on, am aware that I am already partially awake. I certainly said that with a lot of conviction.

All the relatives shut up before one of them start mocking me again (some chubby man with glasses). He mocks that flying a plane is like driving a car, it isn’t special. My dad finally starts to talk, telling everyone that yes, I do fly planes for a living and what I do is important.

My mind goes back into dream mode at this point, and I don’t feel awake any longer.

I go back to my parent’s house (which is just a mile down the street from where this house is), and I find that the water isn’t working in the house. The well pump keeps shutting off, no matter how many times its restarted. I get fed up and try to eat something, but none of the food in the house has salt. I remember trying to grab a salt shaker to dump salt on something, but it didn’t have an effect at all.

I finally get the feeling that the “fourth child” was some sibling I never had, supposedly by miscarriage. My mom comes to the Christmas tree with a present, which is the clothes she was wearing when that took place.

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So a couple of points before I actually go into the meaning.

My parents never had a fourth child. As a matter of fact, it might’ve killed my mom if they did. So my mind used that fact and fabricated bits for drama I think. That never was a real thing it was referencing.

I also was on the tail end of an IRL event that mimicked most of what happened in this dream; my mom’s relative attempting to matchmaker me with someone in Guyana. This crashed in a spectacular fashion due to clashing interests after First Contact. This dream was about two weeks after this event.

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I do have a half doozy of a write-up to go along with this dream, but I’ll give you a one sentence blurb of its supposed meaning. My culture’s and family’s expectations with how I handle things. That’s the general consensus that I got when I shared it the first time, and I think that sums it up pretty well.

I briefly touched on it before at the top of the entry, but it was strange that this took place at this uncle’s house. I believe it was for two reasons:

• In the past, major family gatherings of my dad’s side always took place here
• Because of my relationship with this cousin, the feelings from that relationship overshadowed me.

The whole bit with the poltergeist objects, masks and taking ownership of the house I think were two things. One was my mind exploring an alternate timeline; this would line up with how they looked younger and the “fourth child”. I was probably trying to figure out if my circumstances would’ve changed if my earl life had been different. Two was I had a partial paranormal experience at the house (back in the early 90s), and I believe my mind was playing out me encountering this.

The Indian girl in the dream was a moniker of a few things. The girl I had recently met a few weeks before was one. I also believed it was the traditional values and expectations of what my parents saw in a Guyanese/Indian girl. Lastly she resembled the woman said cousin was seeing at the time, who had come over from Guyana too. This again comes back to it being tied in the same house. She basically came across as someone who’d probably care for you, but had nothing in common with you, and was not someone I was attracted to engage with.

I’m not 100% sure who the married couples were by the circle. I didn’t recognize any of them. I’m pretty sure they are representations of cousins I’ve known who’ve gotten married, as they were all Indian. If they were anybody different, probably other Indian guys or girls Mom would’ve talked about that have gotten married.

The Dizzy girl and Nellis was basically “where I’d love to be” more or less. Flying a plane I love, being out of Tennessee and working elsewhere, doing a job related to aviation. Dizzy was the representation of someone that I admire for a sidekick; looking back at this two years later, it’s an approximation and not a solid copy. Likes planes, looks decent, has the heart to care. Smart. Someone I wanted to be around, and had no apprehension sharing company with.

The Russian soldiers bit was a goof I think, but I’ve been told otherwise. It would match up with post Cold War for a dramatic action or such. But logically I think it was showing how me and “Dizzy” held ground and be confident with people. Then I was exploring the past and aftermath of events, with her accompanying me. For me not dating for so many years, having a girl sidekick with me has been one of the biggest empty spots since I was a teenager, and never done with a girlfriend or such. Getting to experience that in a dream meant a lot.

Also the return to the house and the Guyanese family was just that. I want to swear and say there was one uncle I recognized, but so long later I’m not sure. My dad’s family has always been critical of what I do, even since I was in college. They always laughed and jeered at me. I was their ‘black sheep’ if you want to even get literal. It’s not past them to make fun of where I am in life. All their children are big doctors, bankers and engineers. Me and my siblings are the only people who didn’t follow that trend. I’m pretty sure they’re looking at me even now and saying things behind my back. So, that bit was me ‘facing the music’, for doing something different that my heart desired.

The last bit seemed to be more nonsense and just my mind wandering again. Though the food with no salt seems to have come out of Log Horizon, where the food had no flavor if you auto-made it. Otherwise you’re nearing the end of the rope there.