(Entered in paper journal at 7:20 AM at home in Harlem.)
Dream 1
I was in a long basement hallway that was full of doors that were widely spaced. I came to a woman who was peering in, either through a door or a wide window like the one outside the room for just-delivered babies. The woman was tall, thin, and Hispanic, with long, curly hair.
The woman asked if she looked good enough to please XXXXX, who wasn't her boyfriend. I got mad that she'd cheat on her boyfriend. I told her I didn't approve. I walked away. She yelled after me, "Okay! Just tell me if I look good in general!"
I headed up some stairs. I kept waiting for XXXXX to come beat me up now that I had insulted the woman. I got up to some flight on the staircase. I white man, kind of thin, balding, walked to the stairs, passed me by, leered worthlessly at me, and passed on. I caught up with him just as he started going down.
Somehow I was now on a different staircase. I had to get to the bottom and the front door before the white man, who was still using the first staircase, to show him I wasn't worthless. The staircase was weird, with wood walls lined with turquoise paint.
I eventually jumped whole twisting flights of stairs, speeding down the staircase. But I was afraid that if the white man found out I was doing this he'd learn to do it, too, and beat me.
I was now at the very bottom, which I thought was one floor too low. But somehow I did get outside. But the person I was now waiting for was my crew mate KB. She had done something almost heroic, maybe also a bit defiant, in a sexy way. I was jealous of her.
I flew up the wall of the building a couple floors, just to below a window, and hid right against the concrete surface. Now it seemed that I was partly KB, or that I had taken her rebel qualities. I crooned out all about not caring about anybody and just wanting booze and pot all the time.
There was a fire truck below me. Someone walked around the corner of the building. Thinking this was someone I didn't want to see, I flew away. I went to a front yard with a strange couple of shapes made of Christmas lights. One shape was all colored lights. The other was all white lights.
Two ladies stood talking in the yard by the light shapes. They were saying things to discourage me, possibly because I could fly and/or I wasn't a lady. I kept flying around and into the lights, doing flips and loops, thinking some secret would be revealed in the lights.
I was trying to show the ladies that I wasn't bad. But I was also trying to hide from the ladies so they couldn't take my power of flight away.
One of the ladies may have been my mom. At some point I thought all of this was very reminiscent of Fellini.
Showing posts with label christmas lights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label christmas lights. Show all posts
Sunday, March 12, 2017
Monday, February 11, 2013
(9/18/07) the expansion of central park
(Entered in paper journal at 6:15 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)
Dream #1
I rode through a suburban street at night with my mom and sister. As we passed one intersection one man walked diagonally through a corner yard to our left. We continued on. My mom drove. I sat in the passenger's seat. My sister sat in the back seat, on the driver's side.
I said, "That's why I like being out at night: nobody ever comes out."
My mom said, "I wish nobody even had to live in these houses. That way no lights would even be on."
I thought, Why would you want no lights to be on? You wouldn't be able to see the different kinds of houses.
The houses were lit brightly, as if there were lights pointed all over the houses and yards. For some reason this reminded me of Christmas.
At the end of the block the road curved left. Facing the curve was a tall, wide house. It had a wide, triangular, solid roof with a longer slope on the left than on the right. The wood of the house seemed to be as polished as in a Greene & Greene interior. The front of the building had some grid design in the wood. One vertical strip of the house-front was rough like the trunk of an enormous tree, but it was colored red and blue.
We drove into a massive tunnel or "garage" on the left side of the house. The tunnel also, like the house-front, had polished wood walls with grid designs. The tunnel turned left. At the turn was an enormous bench, maybe twenty feet tall, built into the wall, with seat and back cushions proportional to the height of the bench. (I think the only thing the bench could fit would be the statue of Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial.)
We continued, as if floating along, though perhaps no longer in a car (my vision was a lot more mobile), through a room full of books. I told my mom that this was a library I knew. The room was intimate. The walls were lined with books, and there were books all over the tables.
We continued floating/driving into a much bigger room which was just as full of books. Both rooms were very nice and comfortable, but they were both simply piled and piled with books.
I lay on a couch. My mom and sister sat in two chairs behind me. They were reading. My mom had a wide but thinnish book which, I thought, was probably an interesting picture book.
I turned forward. In front of me was a big, thick, dark, rectangular, wooden table piled with books. I pulled a large, pale blue-covered book off a pile. I was slightly disappointed to find that I had chosen a picture book on the history of Central Park. I had wanted something with subject matter a little "weightier."
I looked through pictures about how (some time in the 1950s?) the park had been expanded. There was a map of the park "as it is today." The park was long, oval-shaped with uneven edges. The parts of the park that existed before the expansion were in color. The parts of the park that came into being after the expansion were in black and white.
But if this book was right, then before the expansion the park was in two sections which, given the size of the park, were quite separated. I thought, How could people have called these separate sections one park? What's more, how could they have called these sections "Central Park" if the sections were so far apart?
I then saw that the two parks had been connected by a walkway, at the midpoint of which was an oval-shaped rest area. For some reason this made things a little more sensible.
(I imagined that, before the expansion, the area between the two parks was really like vacant dirt lots,, just barren, pale, dry soil, not streets, buildings, or anything implying a city. There may even have been patches of trees out on these vacant lots.)
As I justified the name of Central Park to myself, my psychiatrist A stomped into the room from a doorway to my right and beyond my feet (i.e. beyond the direction of my feet as I lay on the couch). A shouted, "What in the hell are you doing in my place? You don't just come into people's places like this!"
I was caught off guard by A's surprise, shocked by how mean A could be. I stammered to say A's name, but I couldn't. I looked at a page in the book. There was a photo of a Hindu snake woman from Erich Neumann's The Great Mother. Below the photograph were three numbered paragraphs, each of which described a title. The first two were titled "Snake" and "Religion." The third was a word I didn't understand.
I tried again to call out A's name. But all I could think to say, as if it wanted to burst out as a revelatory speech, was, "Snake!"
A looked pale and worn-out. She wore big, smoky-lensed sunglasses which made her face look like that of a classic grey alien. At some point A stood half-straddling me, so her right leg knelt by my left side while her left leg stood, on the floor to my right, before the couch.
I muttered, "B-but w-we, we weren't saying a single word."
A said, "I don't give a damn what you were saying. You don't go into places when you aren't invited."
I said, "But I was invited. I have it in writing." I felt like this was true. But I also felt like A wouldn't care about that. She was too mad.
Dream #1
I rode through a suburban street at night with my mom and sister. As we passed one intersection one man walked diagonally through a corner yard to our left. We continued on. My mom drove. I sat in the passenger's seat. My sister sat in the back seat, on the driver's side.
I said, "That's why I like being out at night: nobody ever comes out."
My mom said, "I wish nobody even had to live in these houses. That way no lights would even be on."
I thought, Why would you want no lights to be on? You wouldn't be able to see the different kinds of houses.
The houses were lit brightly, as if there were lights pointed all over the houses and yards. For some reason this reminded me of Christmas.
At the end of the block the road curved left. Facing the curve was a tall, wide house. It had a wide, triangular, solid roof with a longer slope on the left than on the right. The wood of the house seemed to be as polished as in a Greene & Greene interior. The front of the building had some grid design in the wood. One vertical strip of the house-front was rough like the trunk of an enormous tree, but it was colored red and blue.
We drove into a massive tunnel or "garage" on the left side of the house. The tunnel also, like the house-front, had polished wood walls with grid designs. The tunnel turned left. At the turn was an enormous bench, maybe twenty feet tall, built into the wall, with seat and back cushions proportional to the height of the bench. (I think the only thing the bench could fit would be the statue of Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial.)
We continued, as if floating along, though perhaps no longer in a car (my vision was a lot more mobile), through a room full of books. I told my mom that this was a library I knew. The room was intimate. The walls were lined with books, and there were books all over the tables.
We continued floating/driving into a much bigger room which was just as full of books. Both rooms were very nice and comfortable, but they were both simply piled and piled with books.
I lay on a couch. My mom and sister sat in two chairs behind me. They were reading. My mom had a wide but thinnish book which, I thought, was probably an interesting picture book.
I turned forward. In front of me was a big, thick, dark, rectangular, wooden table piled with books. I pulled a large, pale blue-covered book off a pile. I was slightly disappointed to find that I had chosen a picture book on the history of Central Park. I had wanted something with subject matter a little "weightier."
I looked through pictures about how (some time in the 1950s?) the park had been expanded. There was a map of the park "as it is today." The park was long, oval-shaped with uneven edges. The parts of the park that existed before the expansion were in color. The parts of the park that came into being after the expansion were in black and white.
But if this book was right, then before the expansion the park was in two sections which, given the size of the park, were quite separated. I thought, How could people have called these separate sections one park? What's more, how could they have called these sections "Central Park" if the sections were so far apart?
I then saw that the two parks had been connected by a walkway, at the midpoint of which was an oval-shaped rest area. For some reason this made things a little more sensible.
(I imagined that, before the expansion, the area between the two parks was really like vacant dirt lots,, just barren, pale, dry soil, not streets, buildings, or anything implying a city. There may even have been patches of trees out on these vacant lots.)
As I justified the name of Central Park to myself, my psychiatrist A stomped into the room from a doorway to my right and beyond my feet (i.e. beyond the direction of my feet as I lay on the couch). A shouted, "What in the hell are you doing in my place? You don't just come into people's places like this!"
I was caught off guard by A's surprise, shocked by how mean A could be. I stammered to say A's name, but I couldn't. I looked at a page in the book. There was a photo of a Hindu snake woman from Erich Neumann's The Great Mother. Below the photograph were three numbered paragraphs, each of which described a title. The first two were titled "Snake" and "Religion." The third was a word I didn't understand.
I tried again to call out A's name. But all I could think to say, as if it wanted to burst out as a revelatory speech, was, "Snake!"
A looked pale and worn-out. She wore big, smoky-lensed sunglasses which made her face look like that of a classic grey alien. At some point A stood half-straddling me, so her right leg knelt by my left side while her left leg stood, on the floor to my right, before the couch.
I muttered, "B-but w-we, we weren't saying a single word."
A said, "I don't give a damn what you were saying. You don't go into places when you aren't invited."
I said, "But I was invited. I have it in writing." I felt like this was true. But I also felt like A wouldn't care about that. She was too mad.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
(5/21/08) fear of the well-known; future of the french press
(Entered in paper journal at 6:15 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)
Dream #1
I was in a bedroom in a house like the house my family lived in from the time I was in sixth grade through the time I was in ninth grade. I may have been surrounded by a bunch of clutter or junk. I may have been lying on a bed.
I heard a noise coming from the front door. I became afraid. It sounded like someone was breaking into the house. There was a shattering and jangling, like breaking glass and metal.
I stood up and ran to the front door. The front door had something like a black-painted metal, folding bed frame (with clear white Christmas lights on it?) leaning against it, keeping it from opening. Someone was pushing and pushing at the door to get it. I thought, or imagined, that the person was a big, overweight, Italian (?) man.
I was angry that anybody would try to get into this place. (It might have been my place.) But when I looked behind the door -- the person had managed to open it slightly -- I saw that the person on the other side was one of the heads of my department, DM.
I was relieved. DM walked in, as if the door were now wide open. I realized my mother had put this huge bed frame in front of the door simply to get me into a scared condition whenever anybody came to the house. DM and I may now have been speaking about something.
Dream #2
I stood before a coffee counter in an office space. The counter wasn't separated off into a pantry room. Instead, it was right in front of a bunch of cubicles. I stood to the left of one of my senior co-workers, DS, who was making some coffee. Before me and off to the left (my left) of the counter was a doorway to a dark room
DS was complaining about the coffee in this place. I joked about how we should get an office-sized french press coffee maker. I imagined a large, stainless steel vessel shaped like a futuristic version of an old-style coffee pot, and how awkward it would be to hold such a thing.
DS said something about how that wouldn't work. I laughed and was about to joke again (although I didn't believe what I was saying (???!!!) ) that a french press would be too classy for my company. But as I was in mid-sentence, looking to my right to regard DS, I saw the department head, DM, sitting on the floor in a dark, smallish closet space. I stopped saying anything. I didn't want DM to think I was seriously insulting the company.
Dream #1
I was in a bedroom in a house like the house my family lived in from the time I was in sixth grade through the time I was in ninth grade. I may have been surrounded by a bunch of clutter or junk. I may have been lying on a bed.
I heard a noise coming from the front door. I became afraid. It sounded like someone was breaking into the house. There was a shattering and jangling, like breaking glass and metal.
I stood up and ran to the front door. The front door had something like a black-painted metal, folding bed frame (with clear white Christmas lights on it?) leaning against it, keeping it from opening. Someone was pushing and pushing at the door to get it. I thought, or imagined, that the person was a big, overweight, Italian (?) man.
I was angry that anybody would try to get into this place. (It might have been my place.) But when I looked behind the door -- the person had managed to open it slightly -- I saw that the person on the other side was one of the heads of my department, DM.
I was relieved. DM walked in, as if the door were now wide open. I realized my mother had put this huge bed frame in front of the door simply to get me into a scared condition whenever anybody came to the house. DM and I may now have been speaking about something.
Dream #2
I stood before a coffee counter in an office space. The counter wasn't separated off into a pantry room. Instead, it was right in front of a bunch of cubicles. I stood to the left of one of my senior co-workers, DS, who was making some coffee. Before me and off to the left (my left) of the counter was a doorway to a dark room
DS was complaining about the coffee in this place. I joked about how we should get an office-sized french press coffee maker. I imagined a large, stainless steel vessel shaped like a futuristic version of an old-style coffee pot, and how awkward it would be to hold such a thing.
DS said something about how that wouldn't work. I laughed and was about to joke again (although I didn't believe what I was saying (???!!!) ) that a french press would be too classy for my company. But as I was in mid-sentence, looking to my right to regard DS, I saw the department head, DM, sitting on the floor in a dark, smallish closet space. I stopped saying anything. I didn't want DM to think I was seriously insulting the company.
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