Think-Back Tuesday: A Lobster Trainer and a Caravan Traveler

I’ve been busy with the move and wedding things, so I have had little time to write, and few dreams to actually write about. So, this Think-Back will feature the only dream I had in the past week. It was short, but a little odd.

The dream starts off in a house by the sea. The large, two story house was on the sandy beaches just inches away from the tides. There were other houses along the shore, and the property was just on the edge of a campsite.  My mother lived in this house by herself (I have no idea where my dad was.)

In the dream, I came to visit my mother and her sea-side home. However, when I arrived, I discovered that this girl I knew since elementary school (M) was staying with my mother because she had been shunned from her family for dropping out of her prestigious, high-paying job to pursuing a career as a lobster trainer for a carnival. We had never been close friends, but my mother was the leader of our Girl Scout troop, and I knew my mother was the kind of person that would help one of her former scouts even though she hadn’t seen her in years. M wanted to teach lobsters how to walk on tight ropes and balance and roll around on balls. Everyone around her was angered over the fact that she was “ruining” her life by pursuing this bizarre career. Even my mother disagreed with her dream, and hopped that by offering her a home to relax and reflect, that she would snap out of her delusions of training performing lobsters. While I thought her dream was strange, I also thought that it was better for her to be poor and happy, rather than rich and miserable.

I stayed the night at my mother’s house and fell asleep in one of the upstairs bedrooms that overlooked the ocean. I woke up in the dark of the night to a scraping sound that was coming from outside the house. I when over to the window to check it out. I looked out the small window to see M climbing out the other upper floor window, using bedsheets as a rope. I watched as she landed on the sandy yard and hustle away. Like the beast that I am, dream me leapt out the second story window and onto the ground to follow her.

“What are you doing?” I called out to her.

“Training,” she said with a smile. She turned to the rolling tide and whistled. The waves rolled in several times, revealing small groups of lobsters with each recession. The lobsters scurried to her like little dogs. They made weird clicking sounds with their pincers and claws. She whistled again, this time in a succession of short bursts. The lobsters crawled up each other to form a pyramid. She whistled again and tossed a ball to the top lobster, which caught it and balanced it on its “nose” like a seal. I applauded in amazement.

“This makes me happy and I am good at it,” she said with a smile. “Have you ever had a strange dream?”

I thought about it for a moment.

“Yeah…” I said after pondering over the question. “Yeah! I have always wanted to live a life traveling in a caravan and wander the world.”

“Well, why not?” she asked. I tried to come up with an excuse. Work. Family. Expectations. But as I stared at the performing lobsters, I realized that no one’s expectations or needs should outrank my own. Why not follow my dream?

Just as the sun rose, I saw the the campground nearby full of traveling RVs. Many of the occupants appeared to be New Age hippy-esque individuals. I smiled at the group, wishing to join them.

“Well, see ya later alligator!” M waved before continuing on down the beach, her posse of lobsters following behind her.  I watched them leave before turning back to the campground. With a final decision, I ran towards the group. I was ready to start a new life.

Score: 5/10. I have friends that live a more nomadic life, and I am a bit jealous of the fulfillment of their dreams, but I get pretty uptight about traveling, so this would not be a happy reality for me. Maybe it means I should at least attempt to travel more? Also… performing lobsters!

Lesson Learned: Don’t Sneak into RVs

Okay, so this dream started off with me as a child. I wasn’t really myself though… I actually think I was a young boy. I was playing games in the street with a group of kids my age — it was a parody of Little Rascals or Sandlot — which seemed to be a common thing for us to do.

We were just about to play dodgeball, when we noticed a large RV roll up the street. It parked in front of a house that we didn’t really know, and a man got out and went inside. The leader of the group suggested that we peek into the RV to see what was inside. We were all curious; it was like a traveling tree fort, and we wanted to see how cool it was.

When we reached it, we noticed that the back window of the RV was open. It was just wide enough to crawl through. Being the smallest of the group, I was hoisted up on someone’s shoulders to look inside.

“We should crawl in!” The leader said. “Then we can see some really cool stuff!”

“I don’t think that — ahhhh!” I cried as the guy holding me pushed me in through the opening. The leader and two other boys scrambled through the window as picked myself back up. As I stood up, I heard a tearing sound. I looked down to see that I had landed on a pile of paperback books, and that I had ripped one of them between my feet as I had stood up.

“Hey! What are you sneaks doing back there!” an angry voice sounded from the front of the RV. Mysteriously, the man was back in the car and was glaring at us through his rearview mirror. We all screamed in terror and scrambled to get back out the window.

Luckily we made it out. Unluckily, this lead to one of those epic chase scenes that I often dream about. Normally, dream where I am being chased are fun. I love running from monsters and I treat it like a game. This time, I was not excited; these weren’t monsters, they were men, and it terrified me. Apparently, the RV guy was not the only one, there were at least three of them chasing us.

Now I don’t remember the entire chase scene, but I do remember two very distinct moments of hiding/running from these guys.

The first, was us hiding behind a large, elongated row of pillars. It was difficult to hide behind these thin barriers as they slowly drove by, trying to spot us. You had to shift quickly to one side as they drove by so that they didn’t catch a glimpse of us. Despite not being able to see us, they kept driving back and forth on the street, staring at the pillars like they expected us to be there.

The second, was me running into a hotel and hiding in an elevator. I was trying to avoid one of the goons by getting in the single elevator, waiting until the goon saw which floor (the highest floor) I was going to and wait for them to run up the stairs, then hit the button to remain on the first floor. I managed to do this a few time before finally getting caught.

Distraught, I cried in defeat, trying to escape their grasp. The guy had picked me up like a football and carried me over to a nearly empty parking lot. The only cars there were the RV and a small limo.  I panicked as I saw the other goons, including the RV driver, thinking that they were going to kill me.

“Wait,”  a heavily-accented voice called from the side of the limo. A blonde, middle aged woman in elegant clothing had opened the door of the limo and stepped out. She looked me up and down.

“Dis? Dis is ze spy?”

“Yes. Ma’am,” one of the guys responded.

“You idiots, dis is one of ze neighborhood kids. Definitely not a spy,” she scoffed. “Put ‘im down.” the man dropped me on the pavement. She spat at him and picked me up by the armpits and set me on the trunk of the limo.

“I see you went exploring in my van,” she laughed, pointing to the open RV window. “And you destroyed one of my books,” she held up the ripped copy of George Orwell’s 1984. “It vas my favorite,” she pouted “Now apologize.”

“I’m sorry!” I cried. “I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t want to go in, and I didn’t mean to ruin your book.”

“So you learned your lesson?” she quizzed, nodding her head at the goons around her. I nodded violently.

“Vell, you said sorry, and you meant it,” she huffed. “Now go home and never speak of this.” Again, I nodded and ran off.
Dream Score: 5/10. Typical, kinda boring overall…but I gave it bonus points for the possibility of falling into the RV of either a secret agency or drug cartel. Nice.