(9/24/04) political drive; fear of heights

(Dreams entered in daytime paper journal only. No time/place info given.)

Dream 1

I was watching some television show or else I was actually driving through a big city which was the subject of the show, and hearing narration, which I seem to have forgotten. It was early evening, the sky a dark, dim blue. Most of the buildings were red brick, like buildings in downtown Denver, except by a lake or coast of some sort.

The narration was about the World Trade Center being rebuilt, or at least about the loss of the World Trade Center and some kind of memorial being made. I saw in the open space between two buildings two towers, black, tall and cylindrical.

My mom's voice said, "I think it's just tacky that they're doing that." I think I may then have come to a realization, retroactive, of what was going on, as if the narration may have been senseless speaking that didn't "pull together" until after I saw the buildings and heard my mother's voice.

We drove on -- the "we," by the way, not including my mother, but including some businesslike people and myself. We drove past a building entirely decked in white Christmas lights. This castle of light was supposed to be another monument to the World Trade Center, or possibly even the new World Trade Center, which, so gaudily lit, would now, I thought, be a prime target for anybody wishing to attack America, as if it was actually the time before we were attacked.

I was now in an SUV, driving down some straight, Midwestern road with some politicians who were going to some kind of meeting, possibly a funeral. I can't remember who was there at first. I myself wasn't exactly sitting in any of the seats. I floated or simply shifted physically around like I was no more than two feet tall. The other people never exactly stayed where they were.

I was excited to be around these people, and greatly because I wanted to see how well I could use the terms of respect meant for them. I saw President Reagan. I asked him a question and made sure to call him President Reagan (?). When I asked him this question it was like I was in the back seat and turning just a bit to my left to ask him this question. But as he answered, we both slowly shifted, until he was in the driver's seat, and I was floating over the cup holder in between the two front seats.

I don't remember the question, but I feel it had to do with why some people weren't coming to this meeting.

(I now remember a part of the dream I had forgotten -- after seeing the light building I heard the narrator mention how for many ages nude sculptures on buildings were outlawed and detested. But now a building was being unveiled in Canada that showed some kind of "three ages" scene, and in the center of this sculpture was a naked woman whose eyes were hidden behind a big cloth. Some lower part of her was also hidden, below the waist, or at least including space above the waist, so that the only real nakedness was the breasts. She came out of a shield-like oval with some ornamentation on the bottom and top. Some small pictures were now shown. These were political figures who came to support this new sculpture. One of the figures there was the Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards. His smile was bright white.)

Reagan tried to "explain" an answer to me. But he really didn't want to broach the subject. He thought it was "below him" to have to answer such small people as I on questions so controversial as this. So he picked at some "sticker fuzz residue" on the face of the cup holder console, telling me something about a separation of things, possibly such as toilet paper rolls, and not really even coming to any conclusions about that. This may have been in response to the question of whether "President George Bush Senior" was going to come to this meeting, since he wasn't in this car. I know I did ask this question, but I don't know when.

I was now sitting right in front of the person in the passenger seat, John Edwards, facing him. He had a plastic block, like a cooler, on his lap -- it might actually have replaced his legs altogether. I called him "Mr. Edwards," as opposed to "Senator Edwards." I then asked if he was coming to the meeting. I said, "Because I  really have felt excited about you being there." I immediately felt like a fool for having said that.

Dream 2

I don't remember the beginning. I was in some restaurant, I believe, having gone through some ordeal, and sat next to an Asian woman. We were with some friends, by whom I felt threatened. We all walked out a door.

Now the scene was on some strange bridge, like a multi-layered bridge over a wide river. I thought it was the Brooklyn Bridge. I don't know what the scenario was. Either we had just arrived after a long travel or else we were immigrant laborers coming home after work.

We stood, just an Asian woman and I (not the same woman) among a bunch of unknown people, along one white-painted steel girder. To our left was a pole with a ladder leading up to a next level. In front of us, beyond about two feet of open space leading a couple hundred (?) feet down to the river, and up about three or four feet, was a plastic or fiberglass beam along which people walked. The beam led to a platform at which the bridge was wide and solid and led across the river and down to solid ground. Behind us and beyond the beam as well were tons of steel beams in triangular shapes, above us and below us as well, like a maze of beige- and white-painted steel beams.

A steady crowd of people, mainly dressed in nice clothes (though the people were generally poor, and possibly immigrants), walked along the plastic beam. People on the steel beam waited for a spot and then leaped up onto the beam, or else they went to the right or left, to where a ladder post was and climbed up to higher levels, where there were fewer people on that level's fiberglass beam.

But I was afraid to move. The beam was shaky. The jump to the fiberglass was precarious (though everybody else did it just fine). And the climbs up to the next levels were possibly at intervals of fifty or one hundred feet, at which point the beams were even shakier than they were at this level. To keep my balance, or rather, to keep my morale, I leaned against a ladder-less post.

The Asian woman and I were two of the few people now left on this steel beam. The Asian woman wore a multicolored, tight, modern sweater and blue jeans. I wore my regular clothes. The Asian woman was kind of laughing at me, that I was afraid to move. But she was also impatient with me, because she had wanted to take one of the ladders a long time ago.

She sighed and leaned hopelessly against me. I looked away from her, jumped up onto the fiberglass or plastic beam, which wasn't shaky at all, and was quite easily reached, so easily reached that I was upset at myself for having waited this long to get to it. The beam was depressed in the middle, with a straight line, like a track, i.e.

I walked to the platform, still slightly afraid but now mostly regretful that I hadn't gone up one of the ladders.

I reached the platform. The first area, the only one I saw, was just a six foot by six foot square of concrete, walled with thin, ridged, beige-painted sheet metal. Its right side opened to a wider platform which was open to the air and went down in a slight slope. Nobody was in this room, but I could tell that somebody, some man, was nearby to ridicule me for having been afraid.

In the corner, by the door, was a short, small table with two books on it. One book was a modern book, I don't remember what, although I now feel it was some book about being afraid of heights. I don't know what it was, but I did then. The other book was a Bible. I'm pretty sure it was highlighted in many passages which, I believe, were also supposed to discuss my fear of heights.

I felt like I was already being teased and judged, and I started to form defenses against accusations of cowardice, trying to make myself believe these accusations. (Or did I mean "make myself believe these defenses?")

***

(Another entry regarding this dream was made in my daytime paper journal from 9/27/04)

BEFORE I SAY ANYTHING ELSE --

In the dream I had where I was on a bridge and had to jump onto a fiberglass beam: the book beside the Bible on the table in the corner of the room before the concrete, outdoor platform was How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. It may also have had the Dr. Strangelove prefix, like in the title of the book (actually, the title of the film, not the book) in waking life. But the "Stop Worrying..." part was definitely there. I have remembered this for days, now, intending to write it down, but I always forget.

(9/25/04) fear and indignation

(Dream only entered in daytime paper journal. No time/place info given.)

Dream 1

I was in a kitchen with my brother. It was in "my aunt's house." My aunt had let my mom and "us kids" live with her. My brother was in the kitchen, cooking something in a big pot. The kitchen was a dim blue-grey. It was narrow, clean, but cluttered somehow. Out in the living room the light was brighter, although it wasn't gentle. It was beige, soft, but severe somehow. This place was either the upper floor of a two-unit "apartment" or else the house was strangely built so that the living part of the house was one story over a lower story, which was a garage.

Right behind the pot of oatmeal-like food my brother stirred (or possibly even reached into) was a small tape recorder that played The Clash, some nonexistent (in waking life) song that had a slightly unfamiliar, close to familiar, name. My brother pulled black iron rods out of either the pot of oatmeal-like food or out of a dish rack next to the stove.

My aunt came in and demanded to know why we were cooking in her kitchen and using her pots. My brother said, "Well, you told us we could live here." My aunt stormed into the living room. We, feeling accosted, walked in there, too.

I personally was surprised. My aunt had been so nice to my mom. But she was being really angry and mean with us kids. She may have yelled at us. But I really only remember the sudden transfer of angry, angry emotions and my own sudden feeling of fear and indignation. I didn't deserve to be treated this way.

I walked out of the house (?) and was now on some large, sloped lot of land, tan soil with small, green shrubs dotting the landscape. I was looking for my mother, to tell her what my aunt was saying to us. My mom and sister had gone somewhere.

I think I saw a store in the distance, but I don't know where. It might have been a dark, pine green color, short and squat, with hefty, fake wood siding and a flattish, slightly sloped roof. I felt like I was in a city and in the middle of the desert.

(9/27/04) trilobite roaches; cheap and expensive camera; lingerie and hair dryer

(Dreams only entered in daytime paper journal. No time/place info.)

Dream 1

Enormous insects like roaches ran through my house. They weren't roaches, though I called them roaches. They were shaped like trilobites, though they were smooth like futuristic cars, and a greyish green-beige color. Their eyes were like smooth, blackish windows. They also didn't quite have feet.

Their centers below the "window-eye" ridged up like the cabin of a car. All I could feel was dismay and weariness, as if I lamented having to deal with roaches all over again after not having had to deal with them for so long.

Dream 2

I was on a two-story train. I don't know where we were, but it was like we were in a terminal. The light on the train was dim, just some skylight coming in from the edges of the platform, tinging the floors and surfaces a white-grey blue. Other people must have been on the train, but I couldn't really see them. I stood in between the rows of seats, near a door that was open (on the second story of a train, no less). The aisle was wide, maybe five feet wide.

I had been somewhere before this, possibly an actual place in the dream and now forgotten, but possibly just a "memory." I was getting on the train to go back to this place, even though I had gotten on this train, apparently, from this place. It is possible that at this place my friend R had caused me all kinds of annoyance.

I asked myself, Why are you going back there? Why repeat what's already happened? I was now knelt close to the left row of seats, facing so the seats faced me. I told myself, Well, perhaps I'm going back because that's my "ka-tet." I now stood.

I faced "forward" again. I was close to the open door. I held a book which I dropped when the train lurched forward. The book, I now saw, was of William Blake's poetry. It was like the Viking Portable Blake, with the blue strip at the top in which were classical-modern, beige letters spelling "BLAKE" widely and thinly. But instead of Blake's "Ancient of Days" picture of God kneeling in a circle like the Sun on the cover, there was a black and white photograph "of Blake."

Seeing the book slip away toward the door, I lunged for it. I slapped my hand down on the book before it toppled out. But even though I did this I wasn't quite sure I had done it. I felt like I was doomed to lose the book.

Now I was somewhere "in New York." It was strange feeling. Behind me were tall, tall buildings, in the streets between which were lights and activity and people, like at Times Square. But the buildings were all red brick, all very clean, almost quiet buildings. And they all seemed about eight hundred meters behind me, so that when I looked back they all appeared small. Yet it felt like I was standing right on 8th Avenue, looking west.

In front of me, though, was a huge vacant lot, slightly mounded, full of grass, and behind a six- or seven-foot-tall chain link fence. R stood in front of me and someone else. Behind R, over the field, was a thick, greasy, black-grey cloud of smoke smothering the landscape of the vacant lot and almost blotting out the moon above it.

R, like a parent, said something like, "It looks like we aren't going to be able to go to XXXXX" (New York?) "now, since we have all this trouble going on here in XXXXX." (New York?) "So that means XXXXX." (We'll have to postpone that ice cream?)

R was now gone. It seems now that the plan suddenly became that I and this unknown woman next to me were to meet R for ice cream somewhere. We may also possibly have been told not to move from where we were, as going into XXXXX (the Times Square-like area behind me) would cause us to spend money or not be interested in ice cream anymore.

But I really wanted to go there, to see what was there. so we went down. We were at a glass display case in the middle of the street. There were no cars, just tons of people, and tons and tons of warm lights, making the night like day. The lights were incandescent yellow, with maybe a few reds and oranges. But overall it felt like we were in a dazzling casino with glass display cases instead of gaming tables.

The case this unknown woman and I were at held on its top video cameras. I noticed two cameras in particular. One was quite regular, compact, silvery. Another one, a couple cameras away, was weird. It was grey, silvery, and compact, but with a large lens on the front.

The lens seemed to be coated in some iridescent pink color. It was flat and maybe five inches in diameter. On the top of the camera, behind the stethoscope-shaped lens, was a panel of buttons, a whole lot of buttons, which may even have spilled over onto the sides of the camera.

I saw the prices on the cameras. They were pasted onto the lenses with 1 by 1 3/4 inch (?), pale blue, Post-it notes. The smaller camera was $139. The larger one was $1,329.

The salesman behind the case got very interested when I started looking at the larger camera. But the woman beside me told me something like, "No. Don't lose your grip. This guy wants you to get the expensive one. But you know you don't want it. It won't be as good for you as the cheaper one. But if you keep listening to this guy he'll confuse you into slipping up the prices so you think that $1,329 = $139."

I suddenly felt as if I had very poor control of my perceptions.

Dream 3

I was in a department store at a mall. I may have been in a Mervyn's. I don't remember most of the dream. I was at the register now, though. I either was buying or had bought an article of pink lingerie for $9.99. I now either was buying or had bought a hair dryer that was boxed like some kind of power tool, for $13.99 or $13.29. But, either while purchasing or after having purchased the hair dryer, I calculated the cost. I suddenly realized that I had spent way too much money.

I walked away from the register with the lingerie in a white bag, all crumpled and flattish, airless inside, and the hair dryer box in my right hand (where the bag also was, as if I had two hands there?).

I walked to the doorway where the department store opened to the mall, and I swung the hair dryer box in front of the theft-protection gates. Doing this, I thought, would show exactly how much the hair dryer would cost, in some way that seemed to show me if it would fit into my budget. If it wouldn't fit into my budget, I would have to put it away somewhere near the shoplifting security gates. But if it did fit into my budget, I would go back to the cash register and pay for it.

But when I waved it past the gates, it set off a quiet alarm. A nice store security guard walked up to me. He looked like the Maytag repairman in the TV commercials. He had a small, computer-like device in his hand, in which he was typing things. He asked me if I was trying to steal. I said no, that I was just checking the price. He said, "Well, I'll just walk you back to the register."

But I got a glimpse of the LCD display of  his device to see that the hair dryer cost $XXXXX (either $13.99 or $13.29). That really was too much for me to spend, especially after I had bought the lingerie. So now I wanted to put it away. But I didn't want the security guard to think that I was putting it away only because I got caught trying to steal it. So I just decided to let things be. I'd just get the hair dryer, even though I didn't really want it now.

I now started worrying that the security guard would see the pink babydoll slip and panties I'd bought.

(9/28/04) bringing someone on a drive; science show joke; dressing up for christmas party; painted bridge

(Dreams only entered in daytime paper journal. No time/place info given.)

Dream 1

Very vague. I was getting ready to take a trip somewhere; possibly back to New York City. I was with my mom and my grandma P. At some point we were in a wilderness which made me (or which now makes me?) sick to my stomach. It was like a forest in which everything was rotting and had the smell of stinking meat. I can't really see the place now, although I know the ground was dark, possibly rocky with silvery-grey, dull granite, and that the trees were mainly deciduous, not thick or lush, with shallow green and yellowy-orange leafs. There were a lot of hills, too.

But now I was at my mom's house (?), which was something like a mix between her house now and a cabin in the woods. Somebody who was supposed to be my sister stood on a wooden chair or bench and was pressing something into the dark, wooden walls. The place was clean, but it felt crowded full of people.

My sister now spoke either to me or of me, hoping I wouldn't mind that my mom was bringing CS (a granddaughter of one of my mom's friends, with whom my mom had come to form a mother-like relationship) along on the drive to XXXXX, as CS's indignation sometimes seemed to bother me.

I thought, I don't mind CS coming along, but where exactly are we going that we have to bring her along? Aren't they just taking me to the airport? Or were they planning on driving me all the way back home? We'll just get lost in the woods. They can't take me. And if we're taking CS, certainly we're going to take a detour to drop her off in the woods. That'll get us even more lost.

Dream 2

I don't know where I was. I'd guess I was in something like an interactive "science experiments" section of a museum, or a place like the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos. The room was built strangely, and I can't quite see it. But at the end it seemed to fade into a black-walled hallway that led to some other sections of the building. There seems to have been a wide, tall window somewhere, because from my left there was a ton of natural light.

I was facing, almost standing right in front of, a display on the wall. Behind me were my friend R and some unknown children. To my right was some actor like a "science professor."

The display was attached to a silvery, mesh-like aluminum board that was fastened to the black wall. The display was a purple, tall rectangle of a laminated material. The majority of the display was unseen. What I did see was a wide, lavender border around a thin, tall rectangle of darker purple in which stood the lavender silhouette of a man, at the bottom of whose feet was a rectangle with four white text boxes in it, looking something like a multiple choice question.

But this whole section, all that I could see of the display, was maybe only one-fourth of the laminated display. I was that close to it.

I was apparently trying to think up a television show, a kind of "science professor" show. But I mainly clowned around. The four white text boxes on the display were like objectives, themes to be covered in the show.

But I now had an idea, as I stroked my finger up and down, though about two inches about from the man's body, of a way to be silly. Right before one of the themes would be given its section, I would have the "science professor" stand beside an actual astronomer, to introduce the section. After the section had been introduced the "science professor," his voice fading out as the image faded to black, would turn to ask something really interesting of the actual astronomer. The question was either, "So you're saying there's actual proof of a parallel universe that exists on the same level as ours?" or, "So you're saying that there's proof of our universe expanding into an infinitely wondrous place?" Then, of course, the kids would actually just learn some crappy, third-rate bullshit they've known for years.

It wasn't something I'd actually do. It was just a joke. So I turned to R, thinking he'd get a kick out of this joke. But when I looked at R, something in his stare made me afraid to tell him anything at all. Suddenly there was a strange, fighting, barely remembered moment where I was sitting somewhere in this room, trying to get into Hotmail, but not being able to remember my password.

Dream 3

I was in bed. I either was my brother-in-law or I was right beside him. If I was beside him, I was also myself reflecting on what he'd said. The room was pretty much like my apartment. My sister stood to my right, by the nightstand and lamp. It was later morning, maybe 9 AM.

My sister was trying to tell my brother-in-law something about how when my brother went to the Christmas party he wasn't going to dress up. He was just going to wear a white shirt, not his nice shirt (which, I think, was a softish, faded looking, classy, maroon polo (?) shirt). My sister said, "So you don't have to worry about taking time to dress. You can just go in the clothes you usually wear."

But my brother-in-law, laying with his hands behind his head, continued obstinately, "I don't want to go. I don't care about dressing up. I don't want to go."

"I" now sat up a bit and looked to the foot of "my" bed. There was a cart, a food cart, like the ones food service companies used to bring to unload food for business meetings at my old job in New York, except made out of metal instead of grey-brown plastic. It was a greenish-grey tan color.

I don't remember anything that was on it except for what caught my eye on the bottom "shelf," just about three inches above the ground. There was a bundle of roses, dead and dried, maybe twelve of them. Their stems were dark green, hard, brittle. the blossoms were blackish purple-red, dried out almost completely. On the shelf, below and around the blossoms, were a few other blossoms that lay like hard, juice-dyed, parched cherry seeds on a sidewalk.

I thought to myself, How beautiful. But why on earth were they here? How is this supposed to help?

(I don't know about this next part. It seems that now I heard my friend R's voice asking me, "Where the hell do you think you were? What the hell do you think you're doing going wherever you want and not telling me anything?" I was afraid. I rolled around in bed onto my stomach. My pillow half-leand against the headboard. I had no shirt on. I lifted up my right arm and pulled on the top of the headboard like I was trying to pull myself up. IF this is a "true" memory, then the fourth dream is just a continuation of the third dream.)

Dream 4

I floated over a tall, chain link fence. It was a cool, grey day, dark, maybe even slightly rainy. On the right side was a large, sloped lawn at the far end of which were two apartment buildings, maybe three-storied, dark tan, stucco-textured, with scalloped, red brick-colored roofs. The lawn was dotted with some small, thin, wide-branched, darkly, plain-green-needled Ponderosas. On the left side was a sidewalk beside a wide, clean, tan-grey asphalt road. the sidewalk and road went down a long, gradual hill.

Down about two hundred meters or so a red-painted steel bridge went over the road. Its floor was slightly arched, steady. It was "walled" with crisscrossing beams and an arch of thinly-meshed chain link fencing, all painted that clotted red.

As I looked around (this may have been the point at which I heard R ask me his strange, brutal question), I tried to justify myself to R, like a scared slave, even though R wasn't anywhere. It was like I was just walking around having a head-conversation. Except this one felt a bit more real. At some point my justification just became a joke that faded into the Crosby, Stills, Nash (?) song "We Are Stardust" (?).

(9/29/04) lingerie ad posters; mountain flood; grandpa at his own funeral; mother electrocutes nephew; no emergency hires needed

(Entered in paper journal at 12:17 AM at home in Albuquerque.)

Dream 1

Had dream where Grandpa died, came and contacted me.

Mother on mantel.

Newspaper ad murals.

Me in lingerie, wish mom would go so I could change. Mom thinks I'm ungrateful. Grandma P somewhere.

Dream 2

Run outside some place. Mountain path back to home washed to straight cliff by rain. Walk around cliff. Friend falls down path. I shout, No. Friend okay, think, I'm an idiot.

Get up path. Empty river full of bugs. Run down logs. Hear flood coming. Now full of water.

In boat. Crash into other boat. Knock something off. Move nose of other boat crash into boat. Signs to my apartment. In long, dry flume like boat floor. Move nose of another boat. More water. Crash, break boat in half.

Upset. SDM says, Don't worry. But I wish I could've been a good transvestite.

Dream 3

Reading newspaper. Somehow Grandma J asks me about author. Article about South NM, some reservation. From somewhere Grandpa heard. Asks if this is book about Anthrax in XXXXX pueblo. If so, he really feels for those guys. I look, can't make out words, just say yes. See pictures of pottery and crack pipes.

Now TV commercial. Some guy in amber satin dress shirt pulls elbow to bald head, says, This deal from just about now to just about end of Christmas. Another commercial. Woman talking slow, naive, and quiet, voice like Grandma J, but looks like cartoon stuffed person. I think about how voice overs created.

Now in line in empty, church-like room. Don't know other people, but Grandpa behind me. I say, "They've been looking all over for Grandpa."

Grandpa says, "Well, yes, your mom has said he's going somewhere soon. If you know what I mean."

I know now we were in line to see casket. I say, "Oh, I couldn't stand it, to see him dead."

Now feel the pressing of fingers on right side of face. At first afraid, but know it's Grandpa's spirit. Lean into it, hoping to stop being afraid.

Suddenly pull myself "out of" sleep, "sit up" in bed, cry, Grandpa! Now eyes really open (?), try to find clock, takes a second to actually roll head and eyes over to clock without strange blackouts. But at last roll head over and see time is about 12:17.

***

(Daytime paper journal entries.)

Five dreams remembered from last night. I'll write down the last two first, as they aren't written in the Ghost Book.

Dream 5

It was night. I was in a building or outside (?) with a whole lot of people. But in particular I was with some friends, just one or two, all unknown now. My old Los Alamos Americorps roommate B came up to us. He said something like, "Hey, Preemie."

I was happy to see him. It was a relief, because I hoped he could get me "off the hook" for not having been out on a firefighting crew for one of this season's fires.

B came right up to me and said, "Hey, man, too bad we didn't get to see you this year, but we barely needed any emergency hires."

I now looked at my friends as if to say, Now see? That's the truth.

Dream 4

It was a cloudy day. I was in some kind of playground or large yard in which there was a sandbox. I was there with my mom and my oldest nephew and possibly with my sister. My nephew sat under a brown-painted steel structure with a staple-shape, i.e.

It was like the monkey bars, except it seemed to have been made out of rebar and it was less than three feet tall. My nephew, sitting cross-legged on the ground, could easily reach up and grab the rebar.

Now I stood on one side of the bars and my mom stood across from me. We were about ten feet apart. My mom told me she was heading in for a while. I told her, "Don't go." I don't know if I also was going somewhere. But, regardless, I thought that once my mom left, nobody would be there to watch my nephew. I told my mom, "If you leave, nobody'll be able to stop him from grabbing those bars and electrocuting himself to death."

My mom said, "Oh, nothing like that's going to happen." She started walking away.

My nephew, hearing what I had said, reached up and grabbed a bar just to test it out. Nothing happened.

My mom got mad. She went over to the bars while my nephew held them. She yelled, "You don't believe this can hurt you? Well it isn't on right now. That's why you aren't feeling anything. You're lucky. Here. I'll give you a taste of what it's like."

She bent down and pressed a ping-pong ball-sized button in a brown box about the size of two outdoor power outlet boxes. My nephew jolted and then fell over on his right side. My mom acted surprised, as if she couldn't have seen that coming. My nephew just lay on the ground, unresponsive.

Dream 1

I was in an empty room, a really beautiful room, actually. It was maybe thirty feet by thirty feet by ten feet. The walls were white, stucco-like material with arches built into them, just arches for show, like fake hearths or places where portraits might be fastened. Over the "hearths" were mantels. The "hearths" were set up in the walls on something like steps about one and a half feet tall.

There were exits from the room, into fluorescent-lit hallways, I think, but I wasn't really concentrating on them. The tiles were brick red porcelain with black cement between. The light was reddish pink, dim, with undertones of dim incandescent.

I walked around in thong panties and a bra and something like a pink, sheer, babydoll outfit or some kind of sheer, pink robe type thing. My mom now stood up in one of the mantels in a corner of the room, like a sculpted sentry. My grandma P stood somewhere like this as well.

In between my mother and I, pasted on the wall, were huge newsprint ads for Target and Mervyn's. I wanted to look at these ads because I wanted to buy some girl clothes and panties. But I didn't dare look at the ads while my mom and grandma were up there. In fact I wanted them to get out of here so I could change into boy clothes and they wouldn't see me like this.

My mom and maybe my grandma were talking on and on, always implying that I should pay attention. But all I wanted was for them to leave so I could get changed.

Finally my grandma said, "Well, just forget him. He's so ungrateful, after all we've given him."

(I don't know why I said in the Ghost Book that my mother said this. I very well remember my grandma saying it.)

Dream 2

Don't remember beginning. (I have to hurry, too. I have spent most of this time in a daze.) I walked out of some cabin (?) in the woods, which was "some place far away" from my house. I was supposedly of great repute because I had walked this long distance to this place out of the kindness of my heart (?).

I was actually familiar with this mountain. I'd just walk up a tall, steep hill, get over, and the rest of the journey would be easy.

-- Ugh. --

Actually, I can't do this today. I have the dreams down pretty well in the Ghost Book.

Dream 3

As to the third dream, basically it was a dream that ended in my grandpa being dead and "visiting" me. He pressed on the right side of my face. I felt this vividly. I was afraid at first. But I was curious more than anything. I stopped being afraid. I pressed my face in toward the strange pressure of fingers.

The weird buzzing feeling of things got very strong. At some point things were so intense that I told myself I had to call out to my grandpa now if I were to contact him, or else he would disappear. I yelled, "Grandpa!"

I then "woke up" and rolled my eyes all over, "blacking out" before they finally landed on my bedside clock. It was like I kept "waking up" then "blacking out" as if that waking had been a false waking, just a dream-waking. But eventually the waking was true, at which point I got up and wrote down the experience.

(9/30/14) continuously pissing

(Entered in paper journal at 9 PM on 9/29/04 at home in Albuquerque.)

(9pm 9/29 -- I will say again that I open my heart.)

***

(Entry in daytime paper journal for 10/2/04. No place/time info.)

9/30

Dream 1

I was around my old Los Alamos Americorps coworker and friend AL. We were doing something involving my penis. It was like she was fixing up my penis. But then she had a white "frosting tube" full of semen. I tasted it. It was sweet. I took it away and occasionally tasted it as I walked along by myself, thinking how wonderful it must be to practice fellatio on a good boy.

I was now standing over a toilet by a dirty, sliding glass door through which sunlight brightly poured. I was urinating. My penis was huge and it curved over to the right. I didn't stand in front of but on the left side of the toilet. I pissed and pissed in a huge, misty, powerful, acidic spray.

(The rest is how I remember it now, i.e. on 10/2/04.)

I now crouched in front of the sliding-glass door, holding an old rent contract. I saw that the name of this house's previous renter was also Preemie. The writing on the contract was tall, thin, and spiky. The last name was a sharp last name as well.

I thought to myself how the old woman who rented out this house had put men named Preemie into some kind of trap, a bondage that kept them in this house until she had drained them dry. I thought to myself, Well, I've discovered the truth! I won't let it happen to me!

I was now standing back over the toilet, realizing I was still pissing, just as powerfully as I had been before. At some point, I "remembered," the pissing had lessened a bit. But now it was just as big a spray as before. I was scared out of my wits that I could be so incontinent that I would embarrass myself with such continuous piss. I was now certain that I would never stop embarrassing myself with this pissing.

In despair I shouted out, "What the hell is going on here?"

Then I knew I was dreaming. I told myself, Get out of the dream! Wake up! Wake up!

(10/1/04) don't get used to it

(Entered in 10/2/04 daytime paper journal only. No time/place info.)

10/1

Dream 1

I was in a house, in the living room, watching TV. I sat on the floor. A beige puppy came up behind me and rubbed himself against my back. I was disgusted by the feel of the puppy's small, nub-like penis. Yet I also felt a twinge of family-love-gratefulness toward the puppy. But I didn't want the puppy around me.

I was now in bed, maybe sleeping on a couch, with the covers pulled up over my head. It was still light in the house, like I had forgotten to shut off the lights. A puppy that also seemed like a cat walked slowly onto the top of the blanket, "trapping me in" by laying down beside my face.

I thought it was nice how animals lay down next to you once they think you're asleep, but that I shouldn't enjoy it too much, because if the animal sensed my happiness (awareness), it would get up and walk away.