Sprucing up the tree of life

I'm in a tree, medium high off the ground. It's some kind of pine tree, I think, and I'm busily removing small dead branches where they join the trunk. The tree needles are a light green yellow and everywhere around me there is bright white light. I can only see the tree. I'm aware that this is a spiritual tree, perhaps the tree of life.

In the rubble, but...

I'm in a large house that is half destroyed. There is debris everywhere on the floors, little furniture, and the walls seem distant and in shadow. I have fragmented conversations with my brother and sister. Then I am standing with my father looking down at the trash, unhappy at the state of affairs here. I'm saying something to my father, but instead of replying to my words he reaches to my forehead and gently wipes at its center. It is a gesture of love and comfort that moves me to tears.

Shuttles and cannons and leaping grandmothers

Dream one:
I'm in a car speeding along an busy interstate highway. Bright daylight. I'm not sure if I'm driving or riding. I hear something on the roof and look out the window to my left. I see a thin naked elderly woman with short gray hair, a spry grandmother type, leaping from the top of my car to the top of the car in the next lane. It is apparent that she's surfing her way down the road by jumping from one car to another. There is a manic grin on her face.

I arrive at what seems to be an open market area. I'm standing in the middle of it and now I'm without clothes. There are many people all around, but the area is so large that no one is very close by. I have considerable anxiety about being naked and I try to puzzle out how this has happened and what I could do about it. I think that I must have left my clothes in the hotel room which is at one side of the plaza. I struggle with recalling what happened and how I can get back into the room which I believe to be locked.

Overhead, in the very blue sky, a small white plane flies erratically by. It is almost fluttering, more like a moth than a bird, and it is unusually delicate in structure. Someone says that it is the precursor (the trailing flight?) to the shuttle launch, and it's appearance means that the shuttle is about to go up. I look down at the far horizon where I see an enormous gridwork platform, which I understand to be the shuttle launching platform. From this distance I can't see the shuttle, but something there explodes and a large dark smoke cloud rises from the platform. The shuttle has exploded on takeoff.


Dream Two:
I'm in a castle that is a historical artifact of some kind, the sort of thing that tourists would visit. I'm on the top. There is a street that cuts through the castle, and on the other side I see large open doorways and other people. For some reason they want me to shoot a cannon ball in that direction. I aim the small cannon that is nearby and they frantically indicate that I should aim at the doorway, so that the shot will fall on the cobblestones below it and not hurt anyone. I shoot the cannon but the cannonball falls a few feet short. However, there are other cannons and other doorways, and I proceed to aim those other guns in their direction and fire off rounds.

Vicksburg hills

Sandy and I are driving through the hills around Vicksburg, where we lived for five years. In reality these gently rolling hills are covered with nondescript pines and scrappy hardwoods where they're not plowed for fields. In the dream, though, they are exquisitely beautiful--irregular, peaked, plentiful, covered with thick vegetation that is shaded every variety of green. They have the grace of a Chinese landscape painting. We drive through them, getting a panaromic view as we crest the highest. The light is warm and ennobling.

The scene shifts to the city itself, where I walk through a middle-class neighborhood. I see a lion in the near distance outside someone's house. It is tawny and large, imposing as it paces below a window. The door to the house opens and someone comes out on to the porch. They see the lion and go back in.

I'm in a second story apartment, where Sandy and I apparently live. I look down into the back yard and see the lion that I saw earlier, which is female, as well as another one, male with a hugh mane, both pacing around the small backyard. I'm a little uneasy but not too nervous.

Now I'm in a coffee shop in downtown Vicksburg. I sit down at a table where DB is sitting. I haven't, in reality, spoken to him in several years. His normally long red hair has been cut to a near crewcut length. He has his chin on his hand and seems distraught. I ask about his wife. He works in her art and framing shop. He says that they're not doing well, that she has been giving him bad work evaluations. He weeps.

We are in his apartment. His wife is there, as well as a little girl who I learn is his adopted daughter. She is playing with some kind of unusual toy--a tablet of some sort. His wife is filming her with a videocamera. She and DB don't speak directly to each other.

The giant mouse and France.

First dream.
A mouse is making noise beneath our bed. I finally get up and poke around under there, finding a very large mouse hole in the wall. I can see the mouse inside, much larger than a nomral mouse, looking calmly back at me. Tiny black eyes. I want to find something to smush him with, so I leave the house. Somewhere I pick up a large plank, something like a 2"x10"x12' made of pine, and hurry back to the house. There I see various people running about in a state of emergency. Sharon is there, grinning. The house has become a different structure--a factory, maybe, or a ruin of one. The roof is missing in some rooms, and the windows are broken out. A sense of urgency prevails. I run through the building carrying the plank like a lance (I know, I know...). I get to the bedroom, which is now very large. In fact, the mouse hole has gotten larger and the mouse as well. I see it still stitting calmly inside the hole, but it is now a foot and a half tall. I gallop towards it, planning to impale it with the plank. As I do I hear the mouse say, or think, this sentence: "That Mr. Faust is a very bad man." I plunge the plank through the hole and smash the mouse on his left arm. He stares at it. I hold the plank in place for a moment, then approach the hole. The mouse lies dead or stunned on the floor. He is enormous. Enormouse.

Second dream.
Sandy, Jan, Zack, and I are touring Europe. We are in England, crossing a bridge on a tourist bus. We slowly enter an extremely dense cityscape. The buildings are elaborately, magnificently, decorated. Every window--and there are thousands--has its own frame, each a different color than the contrasting background. Everything is bright and sunny. The buildings are without number, every street and alleyway revealing another crowded cluster. We are delighted with the view.

Now we're in France. We go inside something--a museum?--and find ourselves in a mall-like area. We walk into a long hallway where Sandy and I are having a heated discussion--an argument?--and Sandy runs away down the hall. She says something about cancer. I go after her and we return. As we do we pass a dark-haired young woman drinking at a water fountain. She is crying. Apparently she speaks English, we realise, and has heard the conversation about cancer. Either she has cancer herself, or is distraught at hearing us discuss it. Sandy goes to her and comforts her.