(11/3/07) bedroom; domino bugs; lewd armstrong; funeral truck; the heron pond

(Entered in paper journal at 8:45 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I lay on "my bed" in "my bedroom," which was in a basement. Light came in from some window above me. The walls were grey concrete, with patches of sea-green paint clinging to it. The room was cluttered with boxes and clothes, but it felt pretty big. The ceilings were high. There might have been a wide, cylindrical column.

Dream #2

I lay stomach-down on the floor, facing my oldest nephew. We had some game like dominoes going between us. The light was on in the room.

A little roach crawled across my nephew's left arm. He didn't know "what kind of bug" it was. He didn't seem too worried about it. I told him not to worry, that you don't usually see things like that.

(I got off the train at this point. I resumed writing at 9:30 AM at the Starbucks on 43rd Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream #3

An astronaut floated before a camera. Behind him was the blue earth. I couldn't tell who the astronaut was. His face-plate was white like gauze. I hoped the astronaut was Neil Armstrong, and that he would say something inspiring.

The astronaut said something I couldn't understand. Then he laughed and flipped off the camera. I thought, Well, then, it couldn't be Neil Armstrong. Neil Armstrong would never make a lewd gesture like that. But, actually, I was now even more sure that it was Neil Armstrong.

Dream #4

I stood out at a chain-link fence surrounding the edge of a supermarket parking lot, like the fence around the parking lot in front of the Western Beef grocery store on Empire Boulevard in Brooklyn. The sun was like in the afternoon or morning, low and golden.

A semi-truck pulled around from the road and into the parking lot. Instead of a regular trailer there was something like a "coal carrying" trailer with one side (the right side, facing me) lower.

In the bed of the trailer was a pile of brown-tan soil concealing long stretches of "brick" that were more like walls of Anasazi ruins. Half hanging out of some of the soil was a young Hispanic person. The person looked like a woman but might have been a man. Her hair was blondish. She was definitely dead. This was her funeral procession.

Another vehicle drove behind the semi. It was a big, black pickup truck. It was shiny. The back may have been covered somehow, as if by a tarp "roof." The cab and the bed were full of Mexican people, all smallish, rough looking, definitely workers. The all looked very sad, but quiet and solemn. I turned to watch the pickup truck pull into the parking lot. The parking lot was very full.

Dream #5

I stood out on a lawn. The sky was blue and the sunlight was low and golden. I walked down the lawn and toward a big (?) pond. Along the banks of the pond were birds that were either dead or sleeping. I might have called them herons, though they were as big as golden eagles and somehow had the roughness of vultures. The birds ranged in color from off-white to a whitish tan-gold. They all lay face-down.

There were living herons in the pond. They looked more like black-crowned herons (?).

I stepped into the pond. There were now beds of marsh-grass, which gave the soil some consistency. I thought to myself something like, These are all herons. But no cranes?

I looked to my right. I now saw a slender, white "crane" (egret?). It walked over toward me. I thought, Can it know it's coming my way? Wouldn't it be afraid of me or angry at me for being here?

I walked farther, stepping off the bed of grass and into lower, softer soil. My legs sunk in a little. I looked down and realized the bird was coming in my direction because I was stirring up food (fish, I believed) with my steps.

The pond was now different, and I was in a different part. It was like the pond edged into concrete walls on the back and left sides. I stood in this corner, under the shade of trees and perhaps chest-deep in water.

There were beds of grass to my right, but the water didn't seem to lose any of its depth. The crane was still to my right. It was approaching me, as if it hadn't gotten any closer.

I looked down again and saw that my footsteps were stirring up little bugs, not little fish. I was a little disappointed that the crane would eat these bugs. I thought I could imagine eating little fish, but not bugs. I thought, Well, maybe the crane will have to eat bugs until I stir up some good fish.

I was talking with a woman on my cell phone. She was some famous ecologist or naturalist. I was trying to get an interview with her. I was also excited to tell her I was in this pond (I might have called it a "heron pond" or "crane pond"), that I was finally working in a pond again. I thought, after telling the woman, Well! -- maybe she'll be impressed enough to give me an interview!

The crane now swam close to me. It was swirling under the water with the agility of a snake. It might have curled to my breast for a moment.

The woman said she couldn't do the interview XXXXX (soon), but asked if we could do it XXXXX (later). I thought and said that that would actually be really convenient.

I hung up. I swam (the water all over was now so deep that I had to swim) back to the back concrete edge, which now was like steps instead of a concrete wall. I lay my cell phone on the steps. One or a few woman stood at the edge. They were like partners in whatever task I was currently completing. It was also like they were calling for me but I couldn't hear them or understand them.

I swam back out into the water. The yellow and green leafs glittered on the surface of the water.

I heard myself having a conversation with my co-worker MD. There was some management meeting I wanted to go to. But MD told me I couldn't go because I wouldn't understand it anyway.

I saw a black and white comic strip, drawn in the style of Beetle Bailey. It had five frames. In the first frame a young "soldier" was being nagged by his wife (who looked like an old, grey-haired woman, a "mother"). The soldier imagined his boss (Sergeant?) nagging him. In the second frame the soldier was in his boss' office and his boss was nagging him. He imagined his wife nagging him. In the third frame the solder was at the dinner table with his wife, who was nagging him as he imagined his boss nagging him again.

In the fourth frame the wife and soldier were in bed. The soldier was almost out of the frame. The two may have shared the same imagination, of the Sergeant standing calmly. In the fifth frame the soldier lay sleeping, the covers pulled up halfway over his face. He imagined himself as a boy, sleeping the same way.

(2/27/10) family at guggenheim; moon rock water

(Entered in paper journal at 8:15 AM, at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was at a museum, possibly "The Guggenheim." It was dim and greyish inside. The entrance lobby was tall. To the lef of the entrance area was a proscenium-like entrance to the ticket counter, which also seemed to be tall and to hold something like a gift shop.

I may have been at the museum with my girlfriend H, or I may have been waiting for H. I may then have seen my old best friend R. I may have spoken with R for a while, trying not to let him know I had anything to do with H.

R may have walked up a long ramp that went steeply up about thirty feet. The ramp had a grey-painted cement floor and a white-painted, stucco-like, cement barrier handrail. Now H and I may have been walking up the ramp. H may have walked ahead of me.

I got a call from my mother. She said she was going to the Guggenheim in New York. I told her I hoped she had fun. I hung up the phone. I then realized that I was at the Guggenheim.

I may have looked up the ramp (which now may have square-spiraled, like a staircase) to see H about to enter a doorway along the wall. I may have called H down, to come back to the entrance with me so we could meet my family.

We approached the bottom of the ramp and were back in the lobby. My mom and other family members (a bunch of kids, probably "my nephews and niece") stood right at the base of the ramp. I may have tried to make introductions, but I may have found it difficult somehow.

Dream #2

A view of a pool of water on the moon. There were a group of astronauts gathered at the edge of the pool. Only the feet (or boots) of the astronauts could be seen. The scene seemed to be lit -- by movie lighting. The pool itself may have seemed to reflect moonlight as well, oddly enough. The pool now seemed to run under the ledge over which the astronauts crouched.

One astronaut held a rock in his hands. (I could only see the gloved hands.) The astronaut explained that he was going to squeeze the rock to extract water from it. There was then a view of the ledge of the rock over the pool of water.

The ledge, previously being just a few inches tall, now appeared to be feet tall. Shiny, smoothly-polished layers of rock were visible, like a sliced cross-section. The layers were beige, bone-colored, with brownish, rusty-colored cracks separating them.

The astronauts now explained that the crew was going to squeeze the rocks of the ledge over the water, to get water out of them. They seemed to speak as if there were an abundance of water in the rocks. I wondered why they didn't just use the water from the pool. I wondered why the astronauts had to wreck the rock ledge (and, apparently, the rock cave) over the pool of water to extract water, especially when there was such plainly available water under the rocks. It made me a little upset -- it seemed so destructive.

But I reasoned with myself that, although there seemed to be such a great source of water here, it was really small. The source would be easily exhausted, so that the astronauts would then have to start crushing the rocks to get water, anyway. So why not just start crushing rocks right now?