In the first dream I am inside a house. I am in a room, and there’s a window looking into another room, apparently a bedroom. As I look through the window I see my dad in the other room, and he’s getting dressed. On the other side of the window there is a shelf that I can see through the window, and on the shelf are tchotchkes, a wicker basket filled with some socks, some flowers, and other things. All the way at the end of this shelf there are three large rats. I tried to get my father‘s attention to tell him about the rats, but I’m unsuccessful. I go into the room, and as I do I look off to my left and the rats scatter. Then proceeded to a dresser, which I open, and there among my shirts and socks I find two or three pairs of sneakers in a drawer. I think to myself “I had completely forgotten I had bought some shoes and put them in a dresser drawer.” Then I woke up
Two nights after that I have a dream that I am helping rid the neighborhood of rats! I am sitting over on Gilbert and Evelyn Post’s lawn, looking across the street at my grandparents old property. We turn on some lights, looking to spot some rats over in their yard. I think we’re going to see lots and lots, but I only see one lone rat, who is on the roof of this wishing-well that my grandparents used to have. I go across the street, and I am one side of the wishing-well. The rat is on the roof of the wishing well, and I am waiting for him to show enough of his body that I can get a clear shot of him with my air gun. I can’t really see a lot of him, but I can see shows that he is wet and greasy, covered in weeds and pieces of yarn or string. Then I woke up
And last night’s dream I’m playing a jazz gig with Wayne Delano at the Jackson Memorial Library in Tenants Harbor. Though I know it’s in the Jackson Memorial Library, it’s not the library we know today. It’s not even the former Jackson Memorial Library. This is some large Victorian house or law office or something that has been converted to a library. There are lots of rooms that are all connected together, and my drum set is in one room, and Wayne is in another room, and I can see him through a window/pass through in the wall. Wayne begins to give a speech in which she says something like “This is our drummer Bill Batty. Bill is having a hard day today.“ And I said to him “In what way am I having a hard day Wayne?“ And he said “Doesn’t your back hurt or something? Didn’t you hurt yourself somehow?“ And I said to him “No, that was last week. I’m just feeling a little gloomy.” And then he said “Bill, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to come out here and discuss the difference between tainted love and grace.“ and I said to him “You want me to talk about tainted love and grace?“ And he said “I do.“ Because Wayne was a good friend, and because Wayne had a way of challenging me for my betterment, I decided I would do what he asked. So I got up from the drum set, and walked to a more centrally located room – – the room that Wayne happened to be in. And then I proceeded to give, essentially, a sermon on the difference between tainted love and grace. It included me using an illustration of the old schtick about the boy who has two dates to the prom, and I use that to demonstrate tainted love. Then I retold a lesson I learned at a youth group about the definition of the word “grace,” and I likened that lesson to the purity of God‘s love and grace, which I then related towards the purity that you might find in gold, or in a beautiful gemstone. About then a preteen boy raised his hand and asked if I might comment on my previous teaching about the three points of communism! I told him to see me later and I would clarify that for him. And then I woke up.