(8/5/06) high rents for killers' caves; obvious classic literature and medieval pulp novels

(Entered in paper journal at 1:22 PM at Starbucks at Astor Place in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

I was on a journey down a cave (?) with other people, possibly my friend R and a woman. The cave had some quality like a haunted house in an amusement park, and even had features like in a house. Then there would be deep drops down.

We were possibly pursuing a bad person. He might have been killing people as he ran, while we were far behind. I was afraid of him because he could kill us. But I also wanted to get to him as soon as possible.

When we went down the drops I felt some hesitation from the people I was with. I yelled at them, near the end, "Just let yourself drop down! It's the only way to catch up!"

The people I was with were going down slowly, as if along the walls. I tried to drop down freely. But even I was somehow stumbling along the cave walls.

I got down to the bottom. I stood before a little hallway like in a house. The hallway was blocked off by a little children's barrier-fence, the kind that can be expanded to block the doorways between rooms in a house, and was full of human heads, maybe two or three heads deep. I "knew" the killer was here.

I was in the room next to this hallway. It was nice. A nice window showed a sunny day outside. The room had pale blue carpet and seemed kind of empty except a TV and video games. I went through a couple other rooms, looking for the family that lived here, to warn them about the killer.

I stopped at one point, realizing how quiet this place was. I thought to myself, The only other thing I'd like here is more private drapes, and I could live here pretty easily.

I was "called back" by a woman. I "walked back" to the living room. Apparently it was time to leave for the day, as if we came here regularly or had come here as part of some regular chore.

The house was now enormous, middle-class looking, but huge. I looked at the wall to my left. It gave the rental rate for places like this. I saw this place was rather expensive. A smaller place like this was $1,700 per month. A larger one (still maybe as large as this one?) was $2,400.

The woman who had called me sat at a dining table to my right. We headed toward the front door.

Dream 2

I sat by a woman in a big room. There was a lively group of people somewhere in the distance. The woman and I spoke about something smart. Then I turned my attention to a book. I read a little, the first couple paragraphs, which described a car trip, comparing it to some other harrowing or humbling experience.

Somehow I realized the book I was reading was The Grapes of Wrath. I thought, How obvious for someone to be reading The Grapes of Wrath. I thought the girl I was with must have been thinking that I was just trying, in an obvious and pretty conventional way, to look smart in front of her.

I was reading out of a huge anthology, like one I had in college. It had a pale tan paper cover with a little bit of a plastic feel to it. I flipped out of The Grapes of Wrath and tried to find something a little more unique to read.

I found Faulkner's The Wild Palms. I thought, I never realized that I owned a copy of The Wild Palms just by owning this book! But I didn't want to read The Wild Palms, either.

I realized I was just searching aimlessly. I forced myself to put the book away and just work on talking to the woman instead of trying to impress her with what I was reading. It just felt healthier to speak with the woman. I also felt like I was getting too obsessed with reading -- and with reading things I didn't even want to read.

But as I was putting down the book I flipped through the pages. my attention was caught by color plates of paintings by Maxfield Parrish or Edwin Austin Abbey depicting medieval scenes.

The scenes were like covers for pulp paperback novels. One was for a book called Merlin. In the scene, Merlin, a tall, towering man in a red-orange gown) stood with his arms oopen wide at his sides on a mountaintop before a blue sky with thick, brilliant, white clouds.

Another scene was for a book entitled Sir Gawain and XXXXX (possibly Ywain, but possibly not). This scene was like a spotlight on a dark forest.