(10/10/06) museum & backpack; dropping my dream journal

(Entered in paper journal at 12:20 AM at home in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I was waiting for some kind of solar planetarium show to begin. I stood in a big lobby -- glass walls, grey day -- chocolate/maroon bricks. I saw there was a lot of time before the show. I would eat at a McDonald's and then walk through the museum.

I walked into a room that somehow resembled a huge sauna. In one corner, very far left (i.e. 10 PM on the direction clock) I saw a bearded fellow who was "Stephen King." I looked again at my cell phone watch. I had less time than I had thought. I would only eat/walk through the museum and would save walking/eating for after the show.

The lobby had been crowded before. Now it was somewhat empty. I walked up the staircase and into other parts of the building, then across a bridge to the other building. I barely saw most of it. It was darker inside -- something like a space exploration section of the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.

Before I headed in I realized I had left my backpack with security in the first building. A security woman by the door told me not to worry -- that bags were transferred to this building once visitors switched over to it.

Dream 2

I came to a wide complex of staircases before a building. It turned into something like the seating area in an auditorium.

A lot of black people milled around, looking mischievous. I waited until some of them sat down. One guy in particular sat in a couch-like structure and sucked on a 32-ounce cola. By him was a downward staircase.

I tried to stay unseen or unnoticed. I got to the staircase and fumbled my dream journal. It fell down the steps -- where I was going anyway. So I didn't do anything odd to pick it up. but on the lower floor I kicked it along, and it accidentally fell down the next staircase as a group of mean black kids was watching. (It was much darker in this level -- a lot of cold steel.) I was going down, anyway. So I didn't worry.

Down on the lowest level, which was very dark, there were interesting undulations in the floor. At the bottom of the staircase a woman was crowding the way. I gently brushed past her but felt guilty for doing so. I saw my dream journal and tried to kick it to a point where the woman would not see me lifting it up.