Dream Out Loud 20260518

[genderjumper]

I'm at my mom's house, though of course the layout is different. My bedroom now has a door that opens into the driveway, and walls painted brick red. Where my brother's room used to be, there is a much larger room for a home workplace, with wooden countertop and shelves and a public entrance and sea blue walls. I am going back and forth through the doorway between these rooms, trying to keep matters separate. In my bedroom, my longtime friend and lover The is resting on my bed, kind of out of it and needing support as if they've just had a fall or a meltdown or something. In the other room are a couple of women who vaguely represent family, my mom and my sister perhaps? But not recognizably either of them. We are trying to decide how to handle a business matter -- the business is a family business, but I keep having to duck out to tend to The's needs. I make a point of changing my pronouns for The while talking, because The is currently feeling more "she" than "they" (this is true to life). At one point, I return to the bedroom to find a middle-aged blonde woman coming in the door there; The is confused and unable to intercede, and I try to answer her question. Before we've resolved the matter, a wiry guy in gray with a short, dirty blond beard, slips in behind her and with a wicked grin shows me a military grade machine gun he's come to sell my brother. We go to the other room (without the woman) and I lead him to the customer side of the counter. We're alarmed by the machine gun, which he sometimes carries like it's armed and sometimes carries like he's afraid to touch it. He speaks loud and off-kilter, saying he has business with my brother and he will not be denied, but my brother is not there (and we cannot tell whether he is angry with my brother or there on his behalf). Abruptly, he pulls out a handgun and shoots it into the air. He shouts at everyone/no one, but we don't understand because he's facing out the entrance. He's not overtly threatening us but we are alarmed, and soon enough he is moving for the counter. As he jumps over, I duck down in a corner, close my eyes, and concentrate on calm. This is all I know to do in a crisis, and it has saved my life before. I hear him take steps toward me instead of the family members, and I measure the distance. I envision him raising the machine gun over my head and pointing it straight down, but the shot doesn't come and I wonder how long I can maintain my peace in this moment.

I had a later dream set in roughly the same place, except AH and I were traveling and she kept forgetting that she had a livestream recording, so we weren't sure how much of our deep conversations have been captured.