I had gone to visit the home of my step-grandfather Clarence and my grandmother Mabel. The house was a rather modern one which reminded me somewhat of the House in New Boston (a ranch style house which my father had built in 1968 on a hill in New Boston, Ohio).

Early in the morning, someone had just awakened me. When I got up, I discovered that I was in the Gallia County Farmhouse, and that several of my relatives were still asleep in the next room, but outside, my step-uncle Ivan and his sons were already plowing the fields.

***

I was in the back seat of a large blue car which contained several of my relatives. A girl who seemed like my wife Carolina was in the front seat. We were riding through Gallia County and I explained to the girl (who had never been in Gallia County before) where we were and what we were passing.

My sister was also in the car; when we passed a small white cottage, she said that she had been thinking about buying the cottage, but that she now saw that it was too small. Indeed, from the front, the cottage looked as if it only had one room. As we passed, however, I saw that the cottage was longer than I had thought, but my sister still seemed to think it was too small.

As we rode along, I began singing about how I loved Gallia County and how I would rather live there than anywhere in the world. Since I had been born in Gallia County, I felt as if it should be my home.

Finally, whoever was driving the car got out from behind the steering wheel and put the car on automatic drive. The car continued on over hills and curves without anyone driving it. Some of the road was very rough and almost impassable.

Deciding it would be safer if I drove instead of the car remaining on automatic, I slipped over the seat into the driver's seat and began steering. The car was a bit unwieldy and I had some problems with driving, but I managed. At one point we came to a hill where practically no road remained. I needed some effort, but I made it up the hill.

At last we reached a village which reminded me of Patriot (a small village in Gallia County). I had difficulty stopping at a stop sign because the brakes didn't seem to be working. It seemed to me as if this car belonged to my father and as if he must have strong feet to get these brakes to work. A couple cars almost hit us as we passed through the intersection.

There was a large school building in the village which I pointed out to the girl and identified as Grant Junior High School (where I attended junior high in Portsmouth, Ohio). I knew she had heard about the school before, because I let her read my dreams, and the school had appeared in many of my dreams. I was glad she was finally able to see what the school looked like.

I am attached to many things. Objects of my attachment, like flowers, bring me pleasure. Yet I retain the abiding feeling the attachments are the source of my pain. Ivan, the character in my dreams, seems to be most understandable by viewing him through the prism of the concept of "attachment." I am attached to the concepts of family and land, yet I want to be free of all attachments.

While I was sitting in a dining room at a table with my father and my grandmother Mabel, my grandmother began talking about a dream which she had had about me. She said that in the dream I had gone to Kentucky and had married one of my step-uncle Ivan's children, a girl named Tom Flowers. Completely surprised, I shouted out, "Tom Flowers?"

I recalled that a short time before, my mother had also told me about a dream which she had had. In my mother's dream I had married my mother's granddaughter, a girl named "Tom Flowers." I was astounded that my grandmother Mabel had dreamed I had married someone with the same name as the girl I had married in my mother's dream: this must have profound implications. When I told my grandmother that my mother had had the same kind of dream, my grandmother said "myths" like that often come true.

I jumped up, thinking I would look for my mother. I wanted to verify she had had that dream. When I asked someone where my mother was, I was told she was in the next room. I wanted to talk with her and ascertain that I was correct that she had had the same dream as my grandmother. I was amazed that two people could have had the same dream about me.

I was also thinking if Tom Flowers was Ivan's child, then she would be my cousin. I couldn't marry my cousin. But then I realized that Ivan and I weren't related by blood, and that I therefore might be able to marry her.

This character Ivan has something to tell me about my attachments. I want to be free of my attachments, yet I still want to keep all the things to which I am attached.

My grandmother Mabel (about 60 years old) and I were in the back yard of the Pike County Farmhouse. As we talked, my step-uncle Ivan (about 40 years old) showed up. He was tall, lanky, and slim. I hadn't seen him in quite a while and we began having a friendly talk. He lived about 60 kilometers away, and had driven up just to stay for a few minutes. I thought it a pity he was going to be leaving so quickly. I thought he might want to take a walk back through the hills.

It had been springtime for a couple months, but this was the first day I had been able to get out into the country. It was beautiful outside and I was enjoying myself.

In the back yard was a rather large tree which resembled a mesquite. I climbed up on one of the branches, enjoying the feel of climbing a tree. Ivan climbed up the tree and together we sat on a branch about 12 centimeters in diameter. When the branch began to bend from our weight, I jumped off and said we should be careful lest we break the branch. Ivan said not to worry about it, that it wouldn't break. But no sooner had he spoken than the branch bent under his weight and broke off.

I climbed back up the tree to look at where the branch had broken. The tree was rotten in that area and large black ants were in the rotten area. Ivan stuck his hand into the rotten area, and pulled out some of the ants. I thought they would bite him, but they didn't. Some other branches also looked as if they had rotten spots on them. I told Ivan we should clean out the rotten spots. After Mabel picked up a small red spade and handed it to me, I took the spade and began cleaning out the rotten spots. Someone had trimmed the tree before, and some of the stumps on the upper branches had grown rotten. As I knocked the stumps off, I encountered more large black ants. It looked as if the tree was infested with the ants. Nevertheless, I continued knocking off the rotten pieces and digging out the ants, hoping we might still be able to save the tree.

What I want is control over my attachments instead of my attachments having control over me. Sometimes I seem to have control, sometimes I don't. I can't seem to maintain a constant control.

My wife Carolina had made a startling confession to me: within the last week she had gone on a binge and had spent somewhere between $15,000 and $20,000, using credit cards to run up the bills. But what was most incredible was what she had spent the money on: she had been paying for luxury hotels and meals for my step-uncle Ivan and Ivan's sister, my step-aunt Lou. This seemed incredible to me. I wasn't close to either Lou or Ivan, and I hardly ever saw them. I couldn't imagine why Carolina would be spending money on them.

Carolina didn't look like herself. She was the same height and size as normal, and she had the same black hair, but her face and mannerisms were different (something about her resembled the actress/comedian Janine Garafalo.) After confessing her deed, Carolina said nothing more; she simply stood silent and listened as I pummeled her with questions, trying to get to the bottom of this. It seemed to me as if she must be sick, and I even asked her if she thought she was sick. She just gave me a blank stare, but she still seemed to understand what I was saying. However I didn't think she was sick. I just didn't know what to think.

As I finally began to calm down, I began thinking that since Carolina had run up such debt on the credit cards, we would probably just max them out. I knew we had started out with over a hundred thousand dollars worth of credit on the cards, and I thought I obviously wouldn't be doing anything wrong at this point if I simply went ahead and used up what was left on the cards.

***

I was in a car, headed to the hotels were Lou and Ivan were staying, intending to stop them from running up any more bills. I was in the back seat on the right side, and Carolina was sitting right in front of me in the front seat. Somebody else was driving the car, and a fourth person was sitting on the left side of the back seat.

As we rode along, we passed the Gay Street House (the huge Victorian house in Portsmouth, Ohio where my father had lived since 1964), and I noticed my 1968 Ford pickup was parked on the street beside the House. I was surprised to see my father busy doing some kind of work on the truck. As we passed by, I leaned over to my left so I would be down in the seat where my father would be unable to see me. I felt guilty seeing him, a hard-working man, out there trying to save me a few dollars by doing some work on my truck for me, while I was out running up big credit bills. As we passed, Carolina didn't duck down, but I doubted my father would recognize her anyway.

***

Lou and Ivan were staying at different hotels, and we first headed to the hotel where Lou was staying. By the time I arrived at Lou's hotel, I was extremely angry with Lou and Ivan, thinking how they had been taking advantage of Carolina and me by allowing Carolina to pay for their rooms. I knew they had had the most expensive rooms available, and apparently they had even obtained separate rooms for their children, further running up the bills.

When I reached Lou's room, I burst in without knocking. Lou was sitting at a table, apparently about to eat something. She didn't seem surprised to see me, almost as if she had been expecting me, as if she knew this couldn't go on forever. I immediately told her to get up, that we had to leave. She didn't resist or complain. She picked up two large bunches of red grapes lying next to her (grapes which seemed on stems like red roses), and stood up from the table. She clearly knew she had been behaving badly by running up the bills, and she didn't protest in any way.

***

I was riding along in a bus which had only a few people in it. Lou and Ivan were sitting at the front of the bus, while Carolina and I were sitting at the back. I was still enraged at Lou and Ivan, and I felt like venting my anger. I stood up and began screaming toward the front of the bus. I pointed at the white jacket I was wearing, and I screamed that I had only paid $50 for the jacket. I further shouted that I had never paid more than $50 for any of my jackets. I was trying to contrast my frugality with buying clothes against their outrageous extravagance in spending thousands of dollars for hotel rooms.

***

Carolina and I were in the kitchen of the House in Patriot (the home of my maternal grandparents when I was a child, in the small village of Patriot, in Gallia County, Ohio). I was still questioning her about the bills she had run up. I had realized she had only told me about the charges because she knew I would soon receive the monthly bills in the mail, and I would find out anyway. I had also realized that one day in the previous week Carolina had taken a trip to Las Vegas and had spent the night there. I recalled that Carolina had been gone one night, but I had had no idea that she had gone to Las Vegas. It was startling to think that she could have just disappeared to Las Vegas without my knowing. I now wanted to know more about what had happened on the trip, and what kind of bills Carolina had run up in Las Vegas, but Carolina still wasn't talking. She just seemed perfectly calm, a bit like a zombie in a trance. However, even though she didn't respond, I thought she understood perfectly well what she had done.

I told her that in my entire life I had never heard of someone doing something like this. But then I added that actually I had seen something exactly like this once in a movie in which Melanie Griffith had played. In exasperation, I finally even threatened Carolina with divorce, but I knew that I loved her too much for that, and that I wouldn't actually divorce her. In fact, through it all, I couldn't help but notice how pretty and sexy Carolina looked, and I had the constant feeling that I just wanted to hold her in my arms.

Realizing I wasn't getting anywhere, I decided to go out into the back yard and shoot my gun. I had a nice-looking revolver, probably a .38 caliber, which I hardly ever shot. I thought I didn't usually shoot the gun because bullets were expensive and I didn't want to waste money on them. But now, with all the money which was being wasted, it didn't seem to matter. If we were going to spend our money the way Carolina had done, I might as well get a little fun by shooting my gun.

Once in the back yard, I looked around for something to shoot at. I knew I needed to be careful not to hit the neighbor's house when I shot. Finally I saw a small tree, and I decided to shoot at it. I held my left arm horizontally in front of me and holding the gun in my right hand, I rested it on my left arm. I realized that wasn't my normal way of holding a gun, but I thought I would try something new. I focused in on a knot on the tree and fired. I then looked at the tree and saw that it looked as if I had put a hole right in the middle of the knot.

Just then Carolina followed me out of the House, and I proudly pointed out what I had done. I was glad she had come out to join me, and already the episode with the bills was beginning to seem like a distant memory. It was as if it just didn't really matter. The important thing was that she was with me, and I liked being with her.

We walked over to the tree to examine what I had done. I was surprised to see, however, not a knot on the side of the tree, but a small wooden carving of a Trojan head, about 20 centimeters high, which had been attached to the tree. I had shot a hole right into the head. Both Carolina and I were perplexed as we looked at the carving, wondering where it had come from and what it was doing there on the tree.

We didn't dally by the tree. Instead we walked to the rear of the yard where I wanted to show her something which I had found earlier. When we reached the place, I pointed out a pile of dirt and told her to listen. We both then listened to what sounded like growling and barking dogs. I told her it looked to me as if some dogs had a den there under the ground. This also seemed very strange to me, because I had never heard of dogs having a den under the ground like that.

Suddenly, not eight meters away from us, I saw a deer standing at the side of yard. Carolina saw it too. I quickly decided to shoot the deer. I aimed and fired. The gun went off, but the deer didn't fall. The deer obviously hadn't been hit. Not seeing how I could have possibly missed, I looked at the gun, moving the chamber so I could see if it had bullets in it. Then I saw what the problem was: some of the chambers were empty. I moved the chamber so it was now ready to shoot two bullets in a row.

Again I pointed at the deer, but now I began to have second thoughts. Did I really want to kill this deer? I then realized this deer had become tame from being fed corn there in the back yard. It didn't seem right for me to kill it. Carolina said to shoot it, but I couldn't. Instead I just lay down on my back on the ground, and watched as the deer walked over close to me. It looked as if I were even going to be able to pet it.

More specifically, Ivan represents my attachment to family. Familial attachments have strongly chained my mind all my life. Conceiving what life would be like without such attachments is difficult. I can't help but wonder if I would be better off without them.

My father and I were in the living room of the Gallia County Farmhouse, watching a small blond-haired boy (about 3 years old). My father frequently baby-sat for the boy, who was somehow related to me. I liked the little fellow and had always remarked how well-behaved he was when he was around me, even though I knew he wasn't always so well-behaved around my father. I wasn't bothered when my father stepped out onto the back porch and left the boy with me.

I was occupied with a tall floor lamp sitting in the room. The lamp, which had a round bowl-like milk-glass shade, had a problem with the socket where the light bulb screwed in and I was trying to fix it. In the process, I held the lamp up over my head as I bent over and examined the wiring. Suddenly, I felt something on my back, and with shock realized the glass shade had fallen off the lamp onto my back. I gingerly grabbed the shade, safely pulled it from my back and set it down. I could hardly believe I had come so close to breaking the shade. That would have been a disaster; the lamp was such a fine old piece.

While I had been working with the lamp, the boy had been running around the room, and to my surprise, had begun acting very obnoxiously, even mouthing off to me. I was disappointed to realize the boy must be passing through an obstreperous phase. As I turned to him to address his baleful attitude, I was still holding the long stem of the lamp in my hand. Immediately when the boy saw me turning toward him with the lamp, he ran out of the room toward the back porch where my father was. I knew exactly what the boy was going to say even before he said it, and I was unsurprised when I heard him blurt out to my father, "Steve tried to hit me."

My first reaction was to go out to my father and defend myself, to say that I hadn't tried to hit the boy, that I had simply had the lamp stem in my hand and the boy had mistakenly thought I had intended to hit him with the lamp. But I refrained. I decided my father would surely not think I had intended to hit the boy. If my father had any questions, I would simply tell him what had happened when he came back into the house.

Instead of my father and the boy, two men walked into the house from the back porch. I recognized the men as carpenters who had been working on the Farmhouse. One man was about 40 years old, while the other was a young fellow about 20. I couldn't be sure, but I thought the younger fellow looked as if he might be one of my step-uncle Ivan's sons.

As the two men proceeded with their work, they were very friendly. The younger fellow told me a joke which I didn't understand, but at which I laughed anyway. The older fellow then decided to try his hand at a joke, and he asked me if I knew what a "Russian Nigger" was. I liked a joke as well as anyone and I appreciated the men trying to be so friendly, but I wasn't interested in hearing a racist joke. At that point, I only felt disgust for the man.

After Ivan inherited the Pike County Farm and my father inherited the Gallia County Farm in 1993, Ivan basically disappeared from my life. The image of Ivan's uncouth greed, however, still remained mirrored in my own greed.

After I had finished clearing my face, my mother and I went to the Pike County Farmhouse. I had learned that my paternal grandmother Mabel and my paternal step-grandfather Clarence had moved back to the Pike County Farm. When my mother and I pulled up in front of the Farmhouse, an old red car (which still looked good) was sitting in front. We had to pass through the front of the car in order to reach the Farmhouse. Clutter was everywhere. We went through one door of the car and out the other, then walked into the Farmhouse.

Dream of: 15 June 2002 "Leaning Tower"

Dream of: 29 October 2006 "Dick Schleicher"

I was sitting in a classroom with 15-20 other people, while my father (50-55 years old) was seated at a desk at the front of the class. We had assembled for the reading of the will of my step-grandfather Clarence. My father, who had already seen the will, pulled it out and quickly informed everybody that nobody there would receive anything, that my  grandfather had left his entire estate to one person, a man named "Dick Schleicher."

I was stunned. Who was Dick Schleicher? And what was my father thinking? I looked at him and incredulously asked if my grandfather had left anything to him. He repeated what he had already said -- everything went to Dick Schleicher.

People began getting up and leaving. I stood up and walked over to my father. I wanted to see the will for myself. He handed it to me -- it was several pages. I quickly noticed two things: the will had been written in 1978 and it had been prepared by Smith (an attorney from Portsmouth). I blurted out that Smith had known all these years about my grandfather's intention but had never said anything. Of course, I reflected that Smith, being an attorney, had a duty to keep silent. Nevertheless, it seemed odd that Smith had written my grandfather's will.

More puzzling, however, was the identity of Dick Schleicher. My father had no idea who Dick Schleicher was. My mind began racing. Perhaps Dick Schleicher was dead. Perhaps he couldn't be found. In that case, the estate would be divided according to intestate distribution. Such a distribution wouldn't help me, however. My grandmother Mabel was still alive and she would inherit almost everything. I would still get nothing.

Still, everything going to an unknown man seemed unfair. Nothing had been left to my grandmother nor to my step-uncle Ivan nor to the children of my step-aunt Lou. Everything had gone to an unknown Dick Schleicher in a will made almost 30 years ago -- it just didn't seem right.

Ivan was the kind of man I never wanted to be. Yet even he had redeeming qualities which I learned better to appreciate over time.

Dream of: 30 October 2010 "Close To The Edge"

I was driving toward Portsmouth from the direction of Cincinnati. The black and white car which I was driving wasn't performing well, so I was a bit worried. The car was the only one I had and I was running out of money, so I didn't know what I would do if the car broke down. I thought of my step-uncle Ivan and recalled how he used to drive old junkers and how they would break down on him. Finally, however, he had managed to drive a decent car. I realized I needed to pay more attention to my car and take care of it.

I pulled into a store along the side of the road. When I stepped out of the car, my nephew David (my sister's son) was standing there. When I spoke with him, he expressed concern about my car. As I listened to him, I looked around and realized if I hadn't pulled into the store, I would have passed over a high bridge with a deep valley far below. I had pulled my car right up to the edge of a cliff which fell down into the valley. I walked over to the side of the cliff and looked down. I was amazed how far down the valley was. It frightened me that I was standing so close to the edge. I stepped back and grabbed the open car door. I told David what I had seen when I had looked down and he walked over to the edge (he now only looked about 10 years old). I told him to be careful. If he fell off the edge, that would be the end of him. He looked over the edge.

I realized I had parked my care precariously close to the edge. Pulling out of there would be difficult. I thought I needed to pull out before I continued my conversation with David.

I succeeded in not being like Ivan. I succeeded in lessening my attachment to family, and ultimately I may succeed in not being attached to the land.

Dream of: 08 November 2010 "Childless"

I was in the Gallia County Farmhouse with my father, my mother, my sister, and my paternal grandmother Mabel. We were all sitting at a table in the kitchen and talking among ourselves. My father (only about 50 years old, still with black hair) seemed very sad. He was sitting straight across from me. When the subject arose of what my father was going to do with his property when he died, he looked at me and said he wasn't going to give me anything. I became angry and I asked him to whom he planned to give his property. When he said he was going to give it to "the baptists," I could hardly believe he intended to give his property to some kind of baptist group.

We all stood up and walked around. I started talking to my sister about what my father had said, but I referred to the baptists as "the catholics." When I asked my sister if she knew my father was going to give all his money to the catholics, she said she did. She was also very upset about it.

I thought half of my father's property actually belonged to my mother. I thought perhaps she could step in and at least give her half to my sister and me. My mother, however, seemed distracted, as if she didn't know anything about it.

I was thinking that my grandmother still owned the the Gallia County Farm and that she didn't have to give the Farm to my father. Finally, my grandmother said she had lost faith in me. I didn't know what she was talking about, but I thought she might be referring to my never having had children. I asked her if she still had faith in my step-uncle Ivan. I knew she and my step-grandfather Clarence intended to give something to Ivan. She looked extremely angry and I realized I wasn't going to be able to count on her for anything.

I thought I was simply going to leave. Remembering that I had brought some comic books with me, I thought I would leave the comic books and return for them later. I thought I would simply hitchhike back to Portsmouth. I didn't want to have anything to do with anybody, although I realized that at least my sister felt the same way I did. After I asked my sister what she knew about everything, she and I walked out onto the front porch, which was high up in the air so I could look far down over the side. I looked down toward Symmes Creek, saw men working down there, and realized they had torn down the bridge in front of the Farmhouse. Apparently the men were replacing the old bridge with a new one.

My sister pulled out a newspaper and began trying to explain where my father's money was going to go. She said it was going to the U.S. Treasury. I was very upset. I said that the Treasury was the same place where all the taxes went and that the money was used for all kinds of things, such as wars. I pointed to the workers on the bridge and said they would probably get some of the money. She then pointed out a picture in the newspaper of statue for the Treasury. She wrote some figures on the picture which indicated how much my father had already given to the Treasury. It looked as if he had already given $61,000. I thought to myself that he had already handed over tens of thousands of dollars to the Treasury.

Then my sister simply threw the newspaper off the porch and it landed on the ground far below. I knew she had been doing my father's accounting work for years, so she knew a lot about what was going on. When she started to throw some unused postage stamps off the porch, I stopped her. I picked up the stamps and put them in a bag which was full of all kinds of unused stamps which I thought belonged to my father. I thought the stamps should be saved, even though I was unsure I would ever receive any of them.

As my sister and I continued talking, I realized we were on the same side. I knew my father had previously told her what he intended to do with everything, but I had only found out just now.

I didn't see much more I could do. I figured I would simply take off walking and hitchhike back to Portsmouth. I was unsure, however, how I was going to be able to cross the bridge. It looked as if there might be enough left of the bridge for me to cross, but I was uncertain.

Somehow I ended up with a peaceful feeling about Ivan.

Dream of: 29 November 2010 "Fixing The Roof"

I was in the Gallia County Farmhouse where my grandmother Mabel was living. My step-uncle Ivan was also there, as well as a man (probably in his late 60s, who reminded me of the pastor of the church in Portsmouth) who apparently was living with my grandmother. When the man told Ivan he would give him $2,000 to repair the roof on the Farmhouse, Ivan immediately went outside and began working on the roof. Several other men were helping him. When I finally walked outside, they were all getting ready to leave for the day. Even though it was only about 2:30 p.m., they were packing their tools into a truck.

I walked down toward the bottom of the hill to where the old chicken house used to be. Some old dilapidated buildings in the area looked as if they needed to be torn down. One was a log building. I wondered if the logs could possibly be salvaged, but I didn't think saving them would be worth the effort.

When I walked back up to the Farmhouse, I noticed a piece of heavy machinery sitting in the side yard. It was a yellow hydraulic shovel, with a cab where the operator sat and a boom extending out in front with a big bucket on the end. Although the cab was empty, the four wheels suddenly moved and the machine began rolling. The machine rolled around in front of the house right in front of the front porch. The bucket came down on the ground right at the top of the retaining wall in the front yard and the cab lifted up into the air.

Then I noticed my grandmother and another older woman had walked out into the front yard. The cab of the machine was up in the air and swung around and hit my grandmother, knocking her down the steps which led from the front yard to the bottom of the hill. The other woman just stood there as I ran over to the top of the stairs. The woman wasn't trying to help. Apparently she was working as a nurse for my grandmother, and she said that helping my grandmother wasn't part of her job.

I started running down the stairs, but before I could reach my grandmother, she fell down more stairs all the way to the bottom. When I reached her I thought she was dead, but then I realized she was still barely alive. Her neck was twisted and appeared to be broken. She looked horrible. She didn't look like herself. As I knelt down beside her, I noticed a little black electronic device by her side. I heard a voice on the machine talking about "spirits going up." The voice was rather eerie. It wasn't my grandmother's voice, but it seemed to have something to do with her.

I thought she was going to die. I thought my father was in the Farmhouse. I hollered up for someone to call an ambulance, but I knew my grandmother would be dead before an ambulance could arrive.

I just want to die peacefully. Whether I have land or family is unimportant to me. I just want to be at peace with myself.