(1/27/10) guggenheim wilderness; aunt's dead head; friends on a ledge

(Entered in paper journal at 6:30 AM on B-train into work from Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was in a tall building like a museum. I floated (or walked?) upward alongside a ramp-like walkway (like the spiral walkway at the Guggenheim). The building was dim, with the only light coming from windows somewhere. The place felt unfinished somehow, as if there were a lot of bare concrete all over the place. The handrail-barriers of the ramps were painted traffic-sign yellow.

As I floated upward, floor by floor, with the ramp to my left, I may have noticed doorways into the fluorescent-lit library rooms. I was looking all the way up the flights of ramp.

At the top, my old friend R stood behind the handrail, looking down. He was talking to me (I could hear him like I was right beside him) about things he'd eaten. He was making it sound like he was leading up to saying he'd eaten human flesh, but like he was afraid to admit it.

I tried to listen passively, without any reaction, so he'd say whatever he felt like saying, so I'd know for sure what he was talking about. But he paused and instead something like, "I'm a lesbian vampire, and I've drunk blood."

I was now standing before one of the doorways to the fluorescent-lit library rooms. I walked in. I walked along a waist-high shelf of books (to my right) the top of which was possibly cluttered with papers. The light was brightish white fluorescent.

I thought of myself (saying to R?) that I didn't think vampirism was so bad. I was now trying to get "back" to somewhere from this place. The place was now something like an empty warehouse or workshop. It was very dim inside, almost black, with the only light coming from a large doorway (for tractors, etc.?) at the front.

I walked through that doorway and into a field. The sky was grey, and the wind was breezy and warm, as before a big storm. I had to cross the field to get "back" to wherever I was going. But the field (somehow) seemed harder and harder to cross.

Finally I was plowing through waist-high, dense vegetation like dormant, tan grass, which smelled like sage. Something had made me decide I needed to get down low and plow though it, like I was swimming through it. I was afraid of getting messy from it -- it was so dense and fragrant.

My left side brushed along the underside of a thick evergreen's broad, minutely-branched canopy. I thought it might be a good idea to hide under the tree. But I decided against it, thinking the tree would get me as dirty as the "grass" was getting me, and that, under the tree, I'd probably also get bugs on me.

It was now dark and raining outside. I was in the middle of a camp. Large, multi-person tents stood around me. But now the area was being flooded. The water rose to about six feet. Some of the tents were swept away. Some of the tents had had their doors open, and were collecting water all the way to their tops.

I heard R talk about how he had come here to work on his (Masters degree?) research project on water, but how things had gotten out of hand and turned out this way.

(Stopped writing here and headed into work. Back on B-train, heading home, at 8:20 PM, I started writing again.)

I thought that possibly things would still be alright. I wondered if people could perhaps get into the tents and zip them up, to keep the water out. But it occurred to me that the water would just lift the tents up and carry them away. I thought of all of this (and saw it in my mind's eye?) as I saw water rise around me, as if I were standing in the water, though I actually wasn't quite there. I saw everything as if stage lights were being shone on it all.

Dream #2

I walked along a balcony-like area on a high-up floor in a building that may have been something like a museum. I ended up in a small room that may have resembled a bedroom or living room in a cheapish apartment. I looked through the doorway, out to the balcony (hallway?). I may have seen my aunt, possibly in a wedding dress.

I was now fully in the room, the door closed, with a few relatives, possibly including my cousin P. We all lounged around in the space, on a few couches, etc. At some point my aunt came into the room. She was being a real bully. She may have been wearing a wedding dress.

Later, I held my aunt's face in my hands. It may just have been the skin of her face. The eyes were closed, and trails of blood came from the eyes and other orifices. The head/face had been wrapped in something like a wedding veil, which I had unwrapped around the face. I thought I had killed my aunt. I may have thought that I needed to do a more complete job -- possibly by smashing the face, even crushing it somehow.

Dream #3

I stood out with a group of friends on the ledge of the roof of a building. I looked down to the street far below. The day was grey and rainy. The ledge was a grey stone, veined like marble. I was a little afraid of the height and of the possible slickness of the wet stone. My friends and I spoke about a number of things. We were all relaxed and having a good time. Our conversation was calm and serious.

At some point I got overwhelmed with being at the ledge. I had to step back. I did so calmly, as if I were simply through with seeing things from the ledge. I stood against a white-painted concrete (?) barrier. It went up to just above my waist. I went around some kind of glass-walled part of the building.

Looking down into the space between the barrier and the glass wall, I could see metal, slotted sheets, like sheets for fans. I knew that these sheets went down into the building, which was something like a museum, so that if I fell, I'd fall a long way through the museum and probably die when I landed.

The ledge was now something like a two-foot-tall, concrete step. I knelt against it. I back away from it and looked to my left. My friends were sitting by the step, all talking with each other. The grey of the day was now a little brighter and paler.

I joined my friends. We were all talking about a dinner we'd had just downstairs, maybe two floors below. It was good, very classy. But it was a little less than perfect. I said, "Yeah. If only they hadn't started out with that beef custard." (In my mind's eye I saw a small ice cream dish with yellow custard topped with a brown powder, which was probably something like powdered beef.) My remark had somehow shocked everybody. They stopped talking and had a slow, unsure attitude.

I looked off to my right. It was now a clear, blue, warm day. My friends and I sat in a concrete and pebble path in a small garden, still on the roof of the building. There were a moderate amount of people all around. In the distance to my right was a shallow pool of crystal blue water. The pool was a long rectangle with a white stone lip around it that stepped maybe six inches above the ground.

A beautiful woman stood in the pool, wearing only a loose, pure white overshirt which sagged off her right (?) shoulder and, possibly, a white swimsuit. She was tanned and blonde. Her hair was dark, pulled back in a ponytail. The water came up to just above her ankles.

The woman had her legs held together and she bend down at the waist by about twenty degrees to look down at something in the pool. When she did so, the shirt-bottom came up just enough for the curve of the woman's bottom to be seen. I and a couple of my friends looked on in solemn amazement.

But now an old, Japanese man, thin, but broad-faced, with scraggly, white hair pulled back in a fraying ponytail, with black glasses and a big, loose tank-top, came up to the group of friends, towered over us, and yelled that looking at little children was wrong, that it was pedophilia, and that we should be ashamed of ourselves.

I looked around and saw a shopping center to my right. It was kind of set up like Lincoln Center, with porous, which stone and a lot of diagonal ramps and walkways, low ceilinged tiers, etc. I told my friends that I thought I would go shopping here before we had to leave. My friends may have said they thought they'd come with me.

(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?