Ugh! Dreaming of Duany?!

[Wannaplan?]

Wow, I had a freaky dream last night: I dreamed my company scored a client that wanted to update its zoning ordinance!! Work must be getting to me! Anyway, the client had just finished up work with DPZ and was totally dissatisfied with the Transect work his company did! In my dream, I actually held their newly adopted ordinance and the City Manager told me that it didn't suit his community. I vividly remember flipping through the document and seeing all these graphics and drawings! Whoah! Weird. First time I ever dreamed weird crap like this. What about you?

[nerudite]

I had a dream once where I was driving through a city and all the buildings had hatching on the outside that matched the corresponding land use in the General Plan. Multifamily had one type of dots on the outside, commercial building had diagonals, etc. (or something like that). That week I had spent a lot of time revising the future land use map for Davis, and it got to me I guess.

[Plannerbabs]

I often have dreams where the entire city is flat, as if it were seen in aerials, and the zoning, comp plan, and neighborhood plans are overlaid, but it's all completely wrong, like the historic districts are coded for heavy industrial and the regional commercial centers are coded for low-density residential, and I have to defend the rezonings in front of the board. I always dream about work. Does that ever stop?

[Gedunker]

While I was writing my thesis, I would wake up in the middle of the night dreaming of editing whole pages (pretty accurately, too, if I remember). Now, I'm pretty good at letting work stay at work so I can spend quality time with my kiddoes.

[michaelskis]

You need to stop reading Suburban Nation as bedtime reading… or lay off the crack before bed.

I keep having nightmares about living in Reading PA still. (Had one last night). I am walking though town with the Deputy Director of Neighborhood Services, and the Historic Preservationist (both I would consider friends)
Well, in the dream Reading looks like it had been bombed or something (not too far off from what it looks like now) and I just keep having overwhelming feelings that I have to do something to save it. I think I look back at leaving with guilt… kind of watching a building burn, knowing that there is nothing you can do to save it.

[Maister]

I dunno, but the day I have a dream where I'm doing mental acrobatics like 'Ok, mallard duck surgical facilities are not listed as a principle permitted use in the business districts, but I see doctors offices are listed in office zones and that carries over into business zones - oh but wait, veterinary clinics are considered a conditional use in business zones....' is the day I quit my day job! I wish the Beasty Boys would do some more videos and then I could quit this whole planing gig TODAY.

[Dan]

Nothing about Duany in my sleep so far.

However, at least once a weel I'll have a dream where I'm in grad school, and it's getting towards the end of the second year. I'll either realize that:

1) There's a class I signed up for that I completely forgot about, missed all the work, and the final is in a couple of days, or

2) I didn't take one of the courses that is required for graduation.

When I was in CO, I used to have endless work dreams, where I had site plan after site plan after site plan tossed across my desk, and I couldn't escape. I'd wake up, sometimes go to the bathroom, go back to bed, and the dream would pick up where it left off! It involves a lot of the mental acrobatics Maister described.

I've also had dreams of looking at a map of Buffalo, and the street grid looks oddly different than reality; major streets were mostly intact, but expressways are in different locations, there were new parks, or the bulk of suburban sprawl is to the south instead of the north.

[boiker]

When I worked for an engineering company I would often talk in my sleep and argue with my wife about the correct layer the sewer line should be on.

SO: I love you, g'night.
ME (unconcious): No! It's on the wrong layer. It's a buildnigsnerujar....(snore).

I have had dreams where I've been assigned to ressurect my hometown. I had a dream that i actually got complimented for uphodling and enforcing historic guidelines.

[Wannaplan?]

1) There's a class I signed up for that I completely forgot about, missed all the work, and the final is in a couple of days, or

2) I didn't take one of the courses that is required for graduation.

Oh man! I had these exact same dreams back around Christmas time!

[nerudite]

1) There's a class I signed up for that I completely forgot about, missed all the work, and the final is in a couple of days, or

2) I didn't take one of the courses that is required for graduation.

I still have the occasional dream/nightmare about being in the middle of a final exam and having to go to the washroom. There is a huge line in the washroom and by the time I get back, the test is over and I fail/don't graduate. College wasn't very stressful for me (that I remember), so I don't know what the deal is with this recurring dream...

[mendelman]

My urban planning dreams always include my hometown for some reason. I dream that I am walking around the city and I venture into the older part of the city. The built environment consists of a dense urban framework that looks way too much like a less stylized version of Tim Burton's Gotham from Batman. It's full of beautiful architecture that is grungy and has alot of deferred maintenance, but still very impressive.

The strange part about the dreams is that my hometown was a small city with a pop. of 12,000 and about 1,200 per square mile.

I guess I'm trying, subconsciously, to cross my hometown with circa 1970 Chicago.

[michaelskis]

1) There's a class I signed up for that I completely forgot about, missed all the work, and the final is in a couple of days, or

2) I didn't take one of the courses that is required for graduation.

WOW... I have that those all the time too!!

[Maister]

I did, however, have a dream the other day that I was supposed to be reviewing this plot plan to ensure zoning compliance for a new house and that the maximum 5 day review turnaround time had already passed......but then Michaelskis woke me up, said it was after 5:00 and that I should go home.....

[BKM]

Nothing about Duany in my sleep so far.

However, at least once a weel I'll have a dream where I'm in grad school, and it's getting towards the end of the second year. I'll either realize that:

1) There's a class I signed up for that I completely forgot about, missed all the work, and the final is in a couple of days,

My God, I've had the exact same dream. Mine is even more specific: I dream that I forgot to attend a math course and completely failed!

[biscuit]

My God, I've had the exact same dream. Mine is even more specific: I dream that I forgot to attend a math course and completely failed!

I've had this one a good bit in the past. I'm always mixed up about a class or forgeting about a final and I end up failing. Usually it's been in college but on more than a couple of occasions it's taken place with me back in high school, only I'm still the age I am now and I'm missing class because I'm making out with some random girl from back in the day.

Weird

[Zoning Goddess]

I have lots of dreams that include people I work with, but only a very occasional work dream. The last one involved being berated by the chair of the Planning Commission, and in another recent one I was at a Planning conference.

I have the exam/school dream, too, but in mine I can't find the classroom.

[Chet]

UGG I just read an RFP for Grand Rapids that was all about transects and blah blah and I just thought, "this job would suck" and walked away.

[Chet]

I did, however, have a dream the other day that I was supposed to be reviewing this plot plan to ensure zoning compliance for a new house and that the maximum 5 day review turnaround time had already passed......but then Michaelskis woke me up, said it was after 5:00 and that I should go home.....

UMMM TMI guys

[Rumpy Tunanator]

I do have those dreams from time to time, where I thought I was the opposing mayoral canidate, telling the incumbant how much he sucked.

I think I'l be getting into the political scene shortly, with initial runs and information at the end of march.

OT: Has anybody ever had dreams of killing other people? Man I have, it was pretty insane B-)

[Michele Zone]

Why do you guys do this? (Tempt me to play amateur psychologist, that is.) Dreams are a symbolic language. It is sort of your brain in DOS mode. Most of the time, a dream about "missing a class" is about not having learned a "life lesson" that you feel you need to learn.

[Doitnow!!]

Planning Issues generally dont haunt my dreams generally because I tend to tackle them and bootle them them up in my mind before I go to sleep.
I also try to read some light entertaining stuff before sleeping( never planning stuff).

The dreams I have had are after long sessions of digitisation( doing or monitoring).
I can't make those dangling ends/nodes to join how much ever I try to( Typical Arc/Info, AutoCad dream)

The last issue which troubled me a little in sleep was;
While making the Comprehensive Plan for a large New City last year, we had proposed a huge No development and Afforestation zone all along a major drinking water source of my city.
I used to get images of large developments right upto the water front.
Of course they also mean that theer are large powerful groups wanting it to happen in reality to.
Its a fight really.

[Seabishop]

I almost never have work dreams, but geography dreams are a constant.

Recently dreams about spiders have been common. Last night I was watching someone cook pancakes with a big spider underneath.

[mendelman]

Why do you guys do this? (Tempt me to play amateur psychologist, that is.) Dreams are a symbolic language. It is sort of your brain in DOS mode.

Go ahead, analyze away!

Seriously, I would like to know what you think of my dream.

[Maister]

[QUOTE=mendelman]Go ahead, analyze away!

It's probably something along the lines of what MZ suggested. I know that for me boot camp was one of the yuckier experiences I went through, yet for years after I had dreams about 'going back' and 'doing it right'. Logically, I would think I would want to get it behind me, but evidently there was probably some sort of unresolved issue (likely the case with any recurrent dream theme) with proving myself as a young man.
The trouble with all dream analysis is that while one might have wonderful theories about what a dream symbol or theme 'means', there is no way to prove or affirm it.

[Michele Zone]

My urban planning dreams always include my hometown for some reason. I dream that I am walking around the city and I venture into the older part of the city. The built environment consists of a dense urban framework that looks way too much like a less stylized version of Tim Burton's Gotham from Batman. It's full of beautiful architecture that is grungy and has alot of deferred maintenance, but still very impressive.

The strange part about the dreams is that my hometown was a small city with a pop. of 12,000 and about 1,200 per square mile.

I guess I'm trying, subconsciously, to cross my hometown with circa 1970 Chicago.

You asked:
Dreaming of your "hometown" is probably dreaming of your "self". I sometimes dream that I live someplace that is a town in, say, Germany but it is located in Georgia (or whatever -- Kansas can be part of the mix too). I have lived in Germany and my mom is German but I was born and raised in Georgia. Kansas is the place we owned a home and it felt like "home". It is kind of like that saying "You can take the girl out of the country but you cannot take the country out of the girl." It doesn't matter where I live, my GRITS upbringing will always be a part of me.

Venturing into the older part of the city could be about growing older, or about visiting an "old" issue (from the past), or about some part of your life that is "older" in some way. Time and dates have personal meaning in dreams. So, "1970's Chicago" probably has some kind of personal meaning for you.

If you kept a notepad and pen next to your bed and jotted some things down before you are fully awake, that can be like a "direct line" into the subconscious. If you write enough your dreams down, you can begin to piece together some of the meanings of symbols that recur regularly in your dreams -- dreams are a symbolic language and are often "puns". I know that when I dream about bugs, it often means something is "bugging me". I believe that art appeals to people because it taps into the typically visual language of meaningful imagery -- wordless meaning -- of the subconsious mind of most people. Not everyone thinks quite like that. And I wonder if dreams are, perhaps, the left brain speaking to the right brain or something like that, and not merely the meanderings of the subconscious mind.

I kept a dream diary for many years and I still sometimes do dream interpretations for friends.