(7/2/05) stove in my room; the magical paper; verifying the eagle

(Entered in paper journal at 7:15 AM at Soap Opera Landromat on 116th Street and 8th Avenue in Harlem.)

Dream 1

I went into "my" "bedroom" and closed the door to avoid the noise of my roommates. The stove was in my bedroom and took up most of the space. All four burners had something on them. I turned on the back left burner, not aware whether any other burner was on.

The burner turned on powerfully. Blue flames spread all up the sides of the "pan," which was like a thick, deep skillet. I panicked. I may have tried to turn down the skillet, but I think the flames reached out for me whenever my hands got too close to the stove. Now I realized all the other burners were in use.

I thought I should open the door for my roommates, who were standing outside my door and talking about how I always lock myself in. I couldn't figure out why I had the stove in my bedroom. Now the front right burner hissed and pressed out a huge plume of smoke. I turned off all the burners, but everything was still going. I noticed how filthy everything was, too.

Dream 2

An Asian woman gave her student or child (who I may have been) a napkin or a strip of brownish, natural- or recycled-looking paper with what looks now like Chinese calligraphy on it. During the course of the day(s) the child kept wanting to get rid of the paper (?). The woman scolded him strongly. "I" couldn't tell why.

Now it was night. (I'm pretty sure I was the child now.) The child stood in a wide, vast courtyard like at a Chinese palace. In the center of this courtyard was a shrine or temple. The woman, now in beautiful, formal, religious attire, including a flowing headdress, sat at an altar.

From somewhere, pale, peach-colored flames glowed and lit the underside of the woman's face brightly. The woman was saying a spell to get rid of a demon or a curse. Somehow this was the moment, it was implied, for which the child's strip of paper would be needed.

Now the child (I?) had this paper in his hand, but it had also been given up during the day. The Asian woman also had it in her hand, even though it had been given up. (At this point I no longer had the child's view but a "low-angle shot" of the woman sitting before the altar.) The woman put the strip of paper before the altar and said some words, maybe reading it.

But wind, I believe convection from the fire, blew the strip of paper out of the woman's hands. It was like the strip of paper dissolved, though once again, the paper could still be seen floating in the air, not really even going higher than two feet above the woman's head.

Dream 3

It was daytime. I was in the woods with a group of folks who were friends and coworkers. I think we were in a pine forest. The feeling was coppery more than green.

We were doing some research. Everybody had been far more observant than I, and I was jealous and downhearted. Now I saw a bird I took to be a red-tailed hawk. I called it out to everybody as it flew over us. Everybody looked and congratulated me, but I thought they were being patronizing. On a closer look, the bird looked too thin to be a red-tailer. It had a lot of grey and black on it, too.

Now it was night. We were across a river from where we had been. We had to come back to verify the presence of the hawk both at day and night. If the hawk did not appear at night, it was an illusion. We might have started calling it an eagle at this point.

Somehow, as if the area were lit by a back-light, we could make out a limb possibly from a downed tree, pretty much parallel with the ground and about eight feet high. We had to sit all night and stare at that branch. The instant we saw the "eagle" we had to wade across the river and look at the eagle up close.

I could feel the approach, though I also thought the "eagle" had to be an illusion and couldn't possibly arrive.

(Continued entry at 8:30 AM on downtown-bound C-train from 116th Street station.)

At the moment when the anticipation got eeriest an owl landed on a branch behind us. Some of us may have turned around to look. I, jealously guarding my chance at "the big moment," didn't turn around.

In a watery, automatic voice, the owl recited a rhyming poem that ended in the line, "Have you ever been an owl?" The poem insinuated I had been an owl. I didn't want to believe that. I wanted to believe I had been an "eagle" and thus had a close connection with the one we were to see. I waited for the owl to say more. But it said nothing.

I now saw, low on the opposite bank of the river, two bears and either a dog or an elk (?!) on a narrow shelf of grass. I felt there was a kinship between all three animals. But I didn't think the animals did enough to show this.

The "elk" now somehow nuzzled a huge clump of grass over to a bear. The bear began gnashing and tearing at the grass. I smiled as if this were cute. But I couldn't figure out why I thought such a violent, almost insane, action was cute.

Now the "eagle" landed on the limb. I don't know if I was first to see it. Two of us, I and someone like my brother or my friend R, were picked up to cross the river.

(Continued at 8:47 AM on the 7-train from Times Square.)

We wore hip waders. We stood on a shelf of land and maybe a couple boulders that jutted out of the water. My friend was ready to go. But I was hesitant. I thought about how squishy the mud would be in the river and how cold the water would be at night. Then I made a big deal about taking everything out of my pockets so nothing would get wet.

My friend may have gone ahead of me. Either way, I knew I was taking too long getting into the water.

(9/8/06) the mutant bear-fish's soda commercials

(Entered in paper journal at 8:20 AM at home.)

Dream 1

I was out in a plaza area that seems somehow like a carnival. I saw my boss EB in a black suit jacket and slacks, black tie, white shirt, black sunglasses, talking with a young man sitting on a stool -- like EB was an FBI agent trying to recruit a new agent. But the things EB said sounded like he was interrogating the young man. I thought, I hope the kid isn't afraid he's guilty of something  and end up running off.

My focus faded away toward something like a structure for a merry-go-round. I heard EB say something like "Don't worry. I'll be back. I just have to convince this guy. But he'll come around pretty easy."

I was in "my" bedroom. The room had thin wood walls and thin carpet, but an overall familiar and nice feel. I was happy to be back. But I saw a toy of mine (?), something like a motorized car-toy with big, nubby wheels and a thin, shoe-like, grey white, and yellow body laying on the floor instead of on the coffee table where I'd left it.

I was nervous, worrying about who had been in my room.

I walked into another room, which was "the same room," and saw papers I had left scattered on my bed. The papers were like my thoughts on some creative work I was trying to piece together. I was happy to see it all. I sat down on the bed and tore into the papers.

I was on a lake shore or rather a little bar of land that went into a vast lake. It was trashy, barren land. The lake was kind of dirty. I was with a group like a church group. I felt alone and a little dirty, unkempt.

I saw something weird in the water (I believe we had been looking for weird fish in the water). I walked by myself to the water's edge, to the weird animal. It was like a huge fish with weird "bear lips" sticking out of the water. I backed up and shouted to a suited group-leader (also a "friend"). I was more and more confused and afraid, as if the "bear lips" on the fish body became a shaven "bear head."

The fish was now a bear. It emerged from the lake decomposed and gnarled -- its hair green, its eyes skull-like, its body emaciated. It called (telepathically?) to me, Why are you afraid? Aren't you supposed to be the one close to me? Aren't you supposed to understand me?

It walked toward me and past me. I caught up and followed it like a friend, talking in a puppy-like way, like a twerp would talk to a cool kid.

We were in a small, very private apartment living room. The bear was "filling out" two "advertisements," which kind of looked like SEC reports with a ton of blanks, and empty space between the paragraphs. As you filled in, by deduction, the blanks of these forms/"advertisements," you were informed -- almost downloaded with -- the advertising message of the company. The companies were Pepsi and Coke. The bear liked one, and I agreed -- the messaging hidden in the blanks was much wittier and yet much more easily obtainable.

I and a couple people "continued" our tour through this "beverage museum." We were now in a mock-up of a fast-food restaurant. The person behind the counter (orange counter, garish orange, pink, and purple everywhere, with some flooring and surfaces of a wood-like-textured tile or plastic material) was monotonously blabbing about advertisements on TVs over her head.

I saw one of the advertisements, and yet it was like it was happening right beside me and deep within my mind. People were rushing to a self-serve fountain to get abundances of soda in a quick time. One person filled a flimsy, plastic, 32-ounce cup to overflowing (so the plastic lid kept bubbling and brimming off) with flattish, orange soda.

This weird soda race wasn't a contest or a promotion -- rather, the beverage company was just trying to get people "into the spirit" of drinking more soda more quickly than everybody else they knew, basically to drive sales. The mock-up restaurant was a Dunkin' Donuts, which had been purchased by a big company like Coke or Pepsi.

The next commercial was playing on the "homestyle" attitude of the company (?). The tour guide behind the coutner said, "This is the ad that made the phrase 'Take an hour off' famous."

The ad showed two guys, a manager and an employee, in the back area of a Dunkin' Donuts (which was more like a machine sled or a barn or a garage). The manager knew the employee had his girlfriend outside, waiting. He told the kid, "Go to lunch. And you know what? You can take an hour off."

I knew the really famous part of the commercial was coming up -- though I couldn't remember how it came up. In the famous part, the manager said, "Take two hours off." This was supposed to show, I "remembered," how Dunkin' Donuts's products and practices embodied the sentiment of taking things easy and enjoying the good things in life. I knew what a cheap lie that was. It kind of creeped me out.

I watched the commercial. The manager stood by the door a second after the employee exited. Then he walked out. He saw the employee kissing his girlfriend. He shouted, "Hey!" like he was mad.

The employee turned, shocked and afraid.

The manager said, "Matter of fact, take two hours off. It's on me."

The view cut to a wide shot of the girl, boy, and manager standing in front of a wall of a "red barn," an the manager standing in an open doorway.

(2/27/08) animal cruelty

(Entered in paper journal at 5:45 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

It was daytime. I stood before a front yard. Strange animals ran around in the yard. There were a pack of three animals like brown bears that were somehow distorted or elongated and slimy looking.

An animal like an enormous sheep ran unwittingly up to the lead bear. It almost nestled right against the bear's shoulder. The bear became very violent.

Some animal like a dog, the same color as the bear, began chasing after me. I jumped up in the air and flew backwards across the street, never quite getting high enough in the air to stop being nervous about the dog-like animal biting my feet. I flew over and around a vehicle like a van.

I was now watching a video of the street scene. The video was of a young man, possibly one of my friends, who had treated animals cruelly. The video showed the man in the backseat of a rundown, large car from the 1980s.

Two small, thin monkeys with black fur and gorilla-like faces ran around in the backseat of the car with the young man. Now in the video one of the monkeys was dead. The man had killed the monkey and was now sucking at its head, eating its brains. I saw this again, but now from outside the car.