recurring dreams

While it’s fresh in my mind, I had one of my tornado dreams last night. It’s never the same tornado so I guess it qualifies more as a recurring theme than dream.

This time, I am at the largest Walmart ever. It sits in the middle of absolutely nowhere but there are so many people that we have to park in a field outside the already mile size parking lot (with 8ft chainlink fence around it). I mean literally nowhere as there is nothing but gently rolling hills, prairie and farming fields as far as the eye can see.

My friend M. from Austin makes an appearance as well as the new cat, Oliver. There is another person I never see but I know is hayseed. We go in to shop and I am my usual ‘uninterested in shopping’ self. Eventually, I say to M. that I am taking Oliver back to the car. I stop at a metal table and sit with strangers to finish a Dr Pepper. When I decide to get up a man offers to get me another to which I decline. I try to get Oliver back to carry him but he runs off each time in the field which is full of many other dogs and cats. I decide that I am never getting him. I am wonder if a cat has the skill to find his way to the car, then get pissed and decide I am going to have to hunt him down later.

I am heading for the car when I get the feeling the air has changed. I look up and see the makings of a funnel cloud behind me and the clouds above are moving in this pattern that spreads out over my head across the sky so fast that I start to panic. I walk faster. Then I run as fast as I can run. I feel it getting closer and I run faster until I see a large concrete and tin garage in front of me. It’s new but shaped in the old style dome.

Eventually, I feel like I am running in slow motion which gets worse the closer I am to the building. I see the look on a woman’s face as I approach. She is looking behind me and looks terrified. She starts to close the big garage doors and I yell wait but she was waiting already leaving one open just enough for me to scoot through before closing it behind me. I start opening small room doors until I find one with the concrete walls. I slip into it, breathless, but feeling safe.

And, like all the others, I am safe. In all the dreams, I escape harm and watch the funnel pass by and fizzle out later. I have been having these dreams for years. I am deathly afraid of tornados anyway. I wish I knew what they meant.