Moving

I am in a new apartment, one that's quite roomier than my current home, but one that's still strewn with moving materials and my usual packrattery. I walk around and look at the place with some confusion; I vaguely remember my ex helping me move into the place, and I feel guilty about having asked him to do so. But mostly I can't remember how I picked this place, or why. It's sufficient enough, and I'm digging the roomier bedroom, but as I walk outside onto the stoop, I see some things lining the stairs that I know are not mine, and that would seem to have belonged to a previous tenant.

There's an owl figurine, and some kind of dusty flowerpot. I get the distinct feeling — the fear — that the woman who lived here before me (I can feel that it's a woman) must have died in the apartment. I wonder how she died. And why I got to move in so quickly.

I am suddenly struck with another fear — how easy is this place to break into? I peer into the bedroom window and see my bed, and wonder who else could have been watching. I don't feel unsafe, necessarily, but I also feel like I might be at risk. Especially since I have no idea where these apartments are located and their reputation for safety. They seem nice enough, but looks can always deceive...

Then I remember my old apartment and can't recall ever giving my building manager any notice that I was going to be moving out. I imagine him and his wife walking into my empty, echoing living room and wondering where I've rudely run off to.

My old house.

(*In reality, I have recently moved and there is someone already living in my previous residence.)

I going inside my old duplex to get some of my stuff, apparently before anyone moves in. It's really dark and cold. The light switch in the front foyer doesn't work. I stumble around, my eyes gradually getting used to the dark, and I realize that the duplex has grown new rooms, and that my stuff isn't the only stuff that's there. There are children's toys and books, men's clothing, nasty hairbrushes, etc. Things that absolutely do not belong to me, and that I don't recognize. As I walk through the house, I'm more and more overcome by fear and sadness. The hallway is completely different; it's exposed brick and has dirty stained glass along the top, which of course lets in no light because it's solid wall behind the glass. There's only one bathroom instead of two, and I have a feeling that I need to avoid it. Every time I pass by it, I get scared. My mom shows up to help me gather my stuff, but as we look around, we decide not to take anything because it all seems so nasty and we think my things have been tainted. We look around for anything that hasn't been "tainted" and can't find anything. Along the way, we find a lot of clothes for a young (?) woman who must be a serious barfly. Short skirts, sequined belly-shirts, t-shirts with trashy sexual innuendo, etc. There are used condoms and empty alcohol bottles everywhere, strewn amid the Dr. Suess books and E-Z Bake oven and the tricycle. We keep going past the bathroom, which feels worse every time we pass it. The last time, I stop and look inside. There's an energy-feeling coming from it that's actually audible, like a buzzing. Directly through the doorway is the sink, the toilet is on the left, and the shower is on the right. I don't know this bathroom. I've never been in this bathroom, that I can recall. I start to step inside and my mom slaps my arm and tells me there's an absence of pressure and she doesn't like it. Apparently, this terrifies us and we run through the living room and out the front door. As I'm closing the door and pulling out my keys to lock it, a dark grey cat darts out and disappears into the bushes. That's all.

*This is the second time I've heard that buzzing-energy sound in a dream. Wonder what a recurring buzzing means.

Apartment-sitting

I am in an upscale walk-up apartment, completely alone. I've seen this apartment before, either in another dream or on TV or somewhere. Never in real life, that I recall. It feels like I'm babysitting, because I have an obligation to be there, but there's no kid around. In fact, most of the rooms are completely empty.

I start out at the front door and give myself a little tour of the place. The apartment is classy, with nice hardwood floors, white-paneled walls, molding, the whole deal. As I walk through the rooms, I notice that it's dark outside, and every light in the place is on. First off the foyer is the office, I presume, which leads to another foyer-type room that I suspect would be a kid's playroom (that contains nothing but a set of dumbells), and then finally what I suspect would be the kid's room. It's trimmed out with mirrors on the two far walls, making it look like an incredibly huge room. It is also completely creepy. I stand there, looking at myself and around the room through the mirror. The pressure and weirdness becomes intense.

So I scurry out, and back through all the rooms. I notice that I'm hearing some kind of low drone coming from the walls. It also freaks me out. I feel completely alone and yet so not alone. I make my way back through the foyer and into the other wing of the house, where the living room is. It's well-lit and furnished, unlike the other wing of the apartment. I look around and realize that there's no TV (I instantly think of Amber's TV-less babysitting duties), so I grab something to read (a newspaper?) and sit on the plush leather couch. I settle in and lean back, only to see a little spider web with several huge egg sacks hanging between two cushions. I jump up and do a little ew-gross-spider! jig, and continue walking around the place.

Keep moving, keep moving.

The living room is trimmed out with the craziest details. Chandeliers and mirrors — even mirror illusions. There is a white baby grand piano behind a wall, but the wall is bent and mirrored so that it's like you're looking at the piano right there in front of you. Beside it is a little room, sort of shaped like a squared bubble, that's trimmed in tiny mirrors that look like diamonds sparkling. Inside is a tiny stool you can sit on to watch someone play that piano. Only it looks like no one should sit on the stool because it's a valuable heirloom from the Renaissance.

I sit down in a chair and realize that there is a TV after all — it's one of those old floor units that looks like furniture. I turn it on and watch a bit, trying to turn it down to not disturb the downstairs neighbors, but realizing that after to turn the volume down all the way, if you keep trying to inch the volume down, it just gets louder. Even the mute button doesn't eradicate the noise. So I turn the TV off and pass by the couch again, to give those egg sacks a closer look.

How can a spider have enough time to spit out this many egg sacks on a couch that's regularly used? I wonder. And then I see it — crawling up the back of the center cushion. It's big — not bird-eating tarantula big, but at least half-dollar big — and a deep red color that I don't see to many real-life spiders in.

It skittered up the back of the couch cushion and — get this — took a flying leap onto the floor like it owned the fucking place. (Which, I suppose, maybe it did; no one else seemed to be taking care of the place.) It skittered around on the floor, toward me, away from me, with business to do, and I instantly launched into KILL IT mode. I looked for things to use to squish it and came up short. I chased it around with a folded newspaper and realized that its super-spider speed would present my scared ass a challenge. Every time I'd lunge for it, it would scuttle toward my feet or — horrifyingly — leap over my head. I finally gave up when I realized it was hopeless. And when I realized I was drooling everywhere and woke up.