I've blogged before about various dreams.

I almost always dream in a linear format, somewhat like a movie, knowing the whole time that I'm dreaming. I'm not the main character, but I often have the viewpoint of the main character. There is a concise story, though it can often shift a bit, as knowing I'm dreaming usually means I can control the dream, too.

Other times I dream in the first person. Sometimes I'm revisiting on old theme - usually my old job at the hardware store - and I don't have full control of the dream. Occasionally, I dream about daily, mundane situations that have no story-line, no fantastic influence, or no real purpose. I honestly believe that these are things that will happen one day, and I'm simply perceiving them out of the universe. Call me what you will, but I have at least one or two moments during the week where these things come back to me. It's one thing to have a déjà vu after the fact, but I have them during the middle of conversations that haven't finished yet, knowing almost perfectly what was going to happen next.

A different type of dream I have from time to time involves a house. I've mentioned it before, on a couple occasions.

I've had dreams about my old house in New York, though usually that's a revisitation dream. I've had at least one dream, that I know of, concerning the house we moved to in North Carolina, where my parents still live. I've had numerous dreams about a house similar to the North Carolina house, though I'm always in an unknown and inaccessible (unless you climb up from the outside) unfinished fourth floor space. I've had a small number of dreams inside a very large house, possibly a mansion. Last week, I had another dream about the later house, but with a very unusual twist: someone was in my house.

When I dream about my houses I'm the only person in them. I've never had visitors inside, and only occasionally had unseen people outside, unaware of my presence, more of a reference than an interaction. This time was different.

My mansion house has a round turret on the right side of the house, similar to what you see in this photo:

In my house, the turret is on the right corner of the front of the house, though it isn't quite as high as the main roof. The house is maybe four stories high, and the turret matches the house's floors. It's made with stones instead bricks, though the main house has wood siding. It's quite large on the inside, and each floor has a good-sized window facing the front of the property. The room I mainly stay in is on the third or fourth floor, and the turret portion is one part of the room I reside in, making it a rather large room with a 270 degree round bay in the corner.

While I haven't strayed from this room, in the dream I know the rest of the house rather well. Even still, I was surprised to discover a panel in the wall near the turret that opened to reveal a passageway.

The passageway was a steep, thin staircase leading down with the same curve as the turret. Wondering where it led to, I stepped in and descended the stairs a level, finding another door one floor down. I opened the door and stepped in the room below mine, noticing the window facing the front of the property, just as mine does on the story above. I look behind me and notice another secret door, and I pry it open. Suddenly, a male person steps out, scared that I'd found him, his face covered by a hood of some kind. I think he said sorry or something to me.

The presence of a strange by nonthreatening person in a type of dream where I never have interactions was so shocking that I woke up in an instant.

As I lay in bed this morning, contemplating this dream, I couldn't help but wonder who this other person was, and how is it that he ended up in my single-person dream like that. I'm not sure if I need to be worried about something. I doubt the dream is a fluke. I don't have fluke dreams, or at least, I never remember them. My dreams are almost always stories conjured inside my mind - the fodder of writing. This was something else entirely.

I've referenced a site about dreams before, Dreammoods.com. Here's a snippet of what they say on these dreams:

House
To see a house in your dream, represents your own soul and self. Specific rooms in the house indicate a specific aspect of your psyche. In general, the attic represents your intellect, the basement represents the unconscious, etc. If the house is empty, then it indicates feelings of insecurity.If the house is shifting, then it suggests that you are going through some personal changes and changing your belief system. If you live with others in your walking life, but dream that you are living alone, suggests that you need to take new steps toward independence. You need to accept responsibilities and be more self-reliant. If you are locked out of the house, then it represents rejection and insecurity. You feel you are being left behind.

To dream that you are cleaning your house, signifies your need to clear out your thoughts and getting rid of old ways. You are seeking self-improvement.

To dream that your house is broken into, suggests that you are feeling violated. It may refer to a particular relationship or current situation in your life. Alternatively, it indicates that some unconscious material is attempting to make itself known. There are some aspects of yourself that you have denied. To dream that a house has disappeared, indicates that you are not feeling grounded. You feel uprooted by a particular circumstance or relationship in your life.

To see an old, run-down house in your dream, represents your old beliefs, attitudes and how you used to think or feel. A situation in your current life may be bringing about those same old attitudes and feelings. Alternatively, the old house may symbolize your need to update you mode of thinking. To dream that your house is damaged, indicates your waking concerns about the condition of your house.

And...

Room
To dream that you are in a room, represents a particular aspect of yourself or a particular relationship. Dreams about various rooms often relate to hidden areas of the conscious mind and different aspects of your personality.

To dream that you find or discover new rooms, suggests that you are developing new strengths and taking on new roles. You may be growing emotionally. Consider what you find in the discovered room.

To see an appealing or comfortable room in your dream, signifies opulence and satisfaction in life.

To see a dark, eerie or confining room, denotes that that you feel trapped or repressed in a situation.

And then there's...

Stranger
To see a stranger in your dream, symbolizes the part of yourself that is repressed and hidden.

So the questions I have for myself are these:
Who is the man in the secret room inside my house?
If the scared unknown man inside that room is me, what part of me does he represent.
Does he represent the self doubt of my past, or the fears of my present?
Why is there a room inside my house that I don't know about?
Are there other rooms and passageways to find? (Incidentally, I've always wanted secret passages inside my real house.)

Seeing as how I can't control when I return to my houses, I wonder how long it will be before I learn these answers.

"We were neighbors, once."

My ex wife signed up our daughter for a city softball league about a month ago. As it happens, the coach is an old neighbor of mine.

At least, that's how he appears to see me. He's being kind, I guess, seeing as how he WAS the LDS bishop in my ward when me ex wife and I left the LDS church. He had nothing to do with it - he was always a nice guy who didn't put off any of the old "I'm the BISHOP" vibes. But he was the one who had to take the hit from his roster. He was the one who likely had to answer the Stake presidency when they asked who we were and why we left.

Neighbor, indeed. You were the church leader who either wondered what had happened to cause us to question the church, or you were the guy who was truly surprised that day when we met with you - months before we actually left the church - to tell you we weren't going to go to church anymore because we'd read into some opposing information.

And here you are, coaching my daughter's softball league. The awkwardness doesn't seem present, for which I am grateful. But... I can't help but wonder what you're really remembering when you see me. Am I the person you think I am? Or do you even really give a crap?

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I haven't blogged in so long.

It's been so long that I had to log into my admin page. Last year, the only time I had to log in was when the blog had to be moved from the old server to the new server, or whenever I upgraded my blog software.

It's been so long that my last post has over 600 views.

It's been so long that my weekly hits are down under 100 a week. My hits in a year's time are now the same as just about any single month from last year.

It's been so long that those who once read so regularly would now be surprised to learn I was promoted at work - in late April.

It's been so long that it often feels like I've given up on this blog altogether.

It's been so long that I question my own ability to write. To create. To think.

It's been so long that the mere thought of writing feels like the biggest undertaking of my life.

I haven't been busy or anything. Yes, work's crazier, but not entirely. Home life is good, though waiting for the house to sell can be frustrating. Family beyond Utah are well, even with recent deaths. No, life hasn't gotten crazy on me. But my mind... well, I'm not sure what's going on there.

I'm about a year behind on finding my clarity. I used to always find clarity when I stepped back and changed my own perspective. Now I find it hard to even find the desire. Somewhere in the last year I pushed past my mind's own basic need to reset and forgot to get back to it entirely.

In a way, it's like I've left my own head.

Where am I?

On Friday my Uncle Bob passed away.

That's the second death in the family in about four months.

Admittedly, I didn't know Uncle Bob as much as I should have. But then, that was essentially how he had designed his life these last 20 years or so.

I don't know his motivations for being a bit of a loner with the family. I'll let others who knew him better contemplate his decisions and weigh them based on their own standards. I, however, feel I understand some of the results of being separated from your family.

It wasn't too long ago that I had my own motives for being the loner in the family. I had a wife who wanted some distance from them, primarily to remove most of the distance with her own family 2000 miles away. I had some of my own reasons for moving from North Carolina to Utah - so far apart from my parents, brother, aunts and uncles, cousins, friends, and people I care about. Some of the reasons I had for moving away never panned out, some fell to pieces, and in many ways I was just kidding myself.

Sometimes we make decisions in our lives that we know will drastically effect our relationships with others. Other times, we don't realize the effects we're causing others by even the smallest of decisions. I once made a choice to distance myself from my family, and I've paid for it in some way almost every day since. Some days, the only way I get through it is to live outside of that decision - ignore it, bury it, cover it, or simply just imagine it away. It's still there, hurting me, but at the same time, I bottle it up and don't let anyone see that it hurts inside.

I made my choice, and I have to stick with it for my own sake. I wonder, how different was it for Uncle Bob, having to make those kinds of choices and live with them. Did he put on a face to mask the pain? Did he (for lack of better word) pretend his life was something different just to deal with the choices he made? How similar were he and I - two men separated by many years and thousands of miles, similar in how we dealt with the world around us?

I honestly believed that Uncle Bob cared more about his family than he wanted to let on. For whatever reason - reasons I will never know or understand very well - he was distanced from the family. For how little I knew him, really, I still loved him. I share a kinship, even perhaps some similarities, with the man. He was one of my closest cousin's father. He was my mother's brother. He was my uncle.

The last time I spoke with him, he told me about how he reads my blog. Both he and my Aunt Caryl read my blog. In some way, that feels almost like learning that a celebrity read my blog. It amazes me that two people so far apart can share in something so simply, and so easily take it for granted when that bond is gone.

So long, Uncle Bob. Thank you for your encouragement.

Yesterday there was a chance of snow. Not too unusual for Utah in April, but it's been below average each April since I moved here. Tuesday it rained, and eventually flurried a bit. Wednesday it snowed a couple inches, and made things sloshy for most of the day. It was snowing when Jill and I went to bed last night, and when we woke up, we had this...

That's about 6 inches worth, at least in my back yard. Happy tax day!

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This morning I went to the doctor for my annual physical. OK, so it's been two years since my last one. Call it my biannual physical then.

Lately, I've worried a little about my health as I get older. I know, I know, I'm only 33. But it's better that I worry about it than ignore it.

In the last couple years, I had some vague form of gastroenteritis, and caught a viral infection that took out my larynx and caused me to cough like I had TB. My illnesses were getting more and more like something from House on TV. But after removing the swamp cooler last year when we re-roofed the house, all of us - myself, especially, have been in better health. Now, with the occasional weirdness, I'm in relatively good health.

But still, I worry. I've had a couple warts pop up, which I've never had before. I get heartburn about once a month, for two or three days, almost like I'm on a schedule. My ankle's been hurting on and off for a while. Then there's the usual worried that my blood pressure is too high, or that I'm going to get diabetes. So I made an appointment for this morning.

My blood pressure is good. I don't seem to have much wrong. I'm about 20 pounds overweight, but knew that already. My ankle isn't severe. The warts are treatable. I'm doing pretty well, it seems.

Even still, I have some concerns. They're going to do some lab work on my bodily fluids and let me know if they find anything.

The doctor froze the warts on my hand and a cluster of them on my right foot. One on my pinkie is angry with me and tweaking a nerve every now and again. I keep tell it to F-off.

I'm don't want to feel sick any more. But most of all, I don't want to worry about it. I have enough stress in my life - I don't need warts and indigestion giving me more to worry about.

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