42 Dreams of Arizona Bay

We’re packing, purging, getting rid of years worth of junk.
Only take what you need.

My family is leaving our home for good and I don’t know why. There’s a sense of urgency and a firm command: pack lightly.

It feels like a place I have lived for a long time, but in my waking life, I don’t recognize the surroundings. It looks more like a hotel. Sterile, impersonal. And here I am, saying goodbye.

I’m almost done packing and am proud of having whittled my stuff down to so few things. All the clothes of my childhood and younger years are gone. I toss, without regret, an ugly old sweater 20 years out of date. I wonder why I’ve kept it.
Old toys, long forgotten, get tossed too. Broken pieces, gone.

And then I find a small pile of things I can’t live without. They can all fit into a large paper shopping bag with handles, and I start loading it. Mostly irreplaceable, emotionally laced trinkets. And two stuffed bears that have been around far longer than I.

The bears, given to my mother and her sister, are quite old. Eddy and Teddy. Eddy is a larger bear, in better condition. He belonged to my mother, and within my memory, he still made a noise when you squeezed him. Eddy still has his eyes, and all his beautiful, soft golden fur.
Teddy was not so lucky. The story goes that my mom’s sister didn’t like the fact that she got the smaller bear, being younger, and threw it to the dog. Teddy doesn’t have eyes. Teddy is missing most of his hair. And he was given to me when I was a little girl.

I love Teddy, and inherited Eddy eventually. No matter what, those two bears will always have a place with me.

Now I have the impression that I’m being scolded by my dad for this extra bag of things, especially the bears. I intercede with a female figure — I’m not sure if she’s my mother or stepmother — and beg to please be allowed to take the bears. Everything else I could leave, but not the bears. Somehow, even though I’m not sure who the female figure is, a part of me, back far into my mind, knows my mom is dead and these bears are my only connection to her.
I’m also being told to hurry, but I had been going as fast as I could. And now I’m done, as long as I can bring the bears.

In another part of the dream, it’s almost like I’m an outsider, third-person, omnipotent narrator watching from just behind three people. A man, woman and their small, male child.
They are on a several-year bike ride across country, never staying long. All their stuff has to be carried in backpacks or on the bike or on a tiny travel trailer that is dragged behind their bikes.
Some part of my awareness realizes that this was why I had to pack so lightly; though I’m not any one of these people, I somehow am.
I get the feeling that they’re running from something, that they’re always being pushed to move on.

In another part of the dream, I’m me again, first person, and get a notice that I haven’t really graduated from college, and that my diploma is no good. Instead, I’m offered a chance to get my real diploma through a place in South Africa, by mail. All I have to do is attend a ceremony with several other people in my college who also didn’t get their diplomas.
On the way to the ceremony, I end up in a ritzy sort of shopping center. I want to go shopping, but most of the shops are closed. I peer into the windows of one gift shop and wish I could go in. Another place, the only one open, is only a medical office of some sort.

In yet another part of the dream, I’m in a mansion with intercoms. The intercoms are not sleek and rich; they are of a dingy beige plastic that gives the impression of 30 years of age.
The intercoms are important in that there’s a siege on the mansion. I’m the guest of the owner, but things are getting scary outside. There’s a barricade between the front door and the hallway. I can hear occasional banging and noises and am scared. I don’t know what’s outside, but it will kill me if it gets in.
The owner of the mansion helps me find a hiding place for my cats. A medium-sized bathroom with beige marble walls has a large, luxurious bathtub filled with water. He wants me to put them in there. I don’t think it’s a good place for them because of the water, but he says that the water will help keep the monsters away.
I stay in the bathroom for a while with my cats. They’re upsset, between the sounds all around outside, and the water. It hurts me to see them this upset. I’m supposed to take care of them, protect them. Not lock them in this room with a steaming bathtub and nowhere to go. And I realize they don’t have any food. I’m not worried about not having a litter box. I just don’t want them to starve. I use the intercom to talk to the owner, but he’s not answering.
I’m a little afraid to go out; I don’t know why he’s not answering me.
I creep through the halls to find him, but I get the growing suspicion that he might be fighting the monsters, or already be dead.
I can’t find food and I go back to the bathroom to find water seeping from under the door. Now I’m panicked. Have my cats drowned in there?