(Entered in paper journal at 8:35 AM at Sit & Wonder cafe in Brooklyn.)
Dream #1
A view of a space shuttle lifting up into the sky. The view was grainy film footage. The shuttle was viewed, from perhaps one hundred meters away, lifting up through a blue sky and then into a thin layer of scattered, tan and white clouds. The shuttle left huge, tightly billowing clouds trailing behind it. There may have been only a tiny bit of propulsive flame visible under the shuttle -- it may have had a raspy flare to it, like fireworks. The boosters never came off the shuttle.
My view of all this may have started from below, as if from the ground. From there it may have pulled up to a level with the space shuttle, traveling along with it up into the clouds.
As the shuttle traveled, I heard a news reporter talking about how a crazy man had been stopped from getting onto the shuttle and sabotaging it. I couldn't quite keep in my mind that the man had been stopped. I kept feling like I was watching the shuttle moments before the man sabotaged and destroyed it.
The news report now played a recording of the man who had aimed to sabotage the shuttle. He was a kind of crazy-looking, older, Japanese man. He spoke in a distracted, grating, slighlty high voice.
The man first spoke about having come from Hawaii. Then he spoke about why he chose to sabotage the shuttle. He explained it in an analogy, a joke about a New Jersey dentist, or a joke about a dentist told to him by a friend of his from New Jersey?
As the man told this joke, the shuttle topped over the layer of sunrise pink and tan clouds. The shuttle began flying horizontally. The trail of smoke behind the ship was dark grey. The view stoppped moving along with the shuttle. The shuttle cruised forward into the distance. The view, which may eventually have become me, personally, flying, continued moving slowly forward, eventually descending through the clouds again.
I tried to figure out how the shuttle was going to get to space while traveling horizontally. I figured that somehow the shuttle would go tangentially with the earth, winding out into space that way.
I heard the news report discussing how the crazy man's origins were being tracked. The man was, I believe, going down somewhere in South America, although I think the report said he was going to Portugal. There apparently was some kind of overall conspiracy in the location where the crazy man had come from.
I was now descending toward land. The ground below me was a thin, patchy field of grass and dusty soil. It seemed to be slightly rolling and rounded. There may have been a couple children playing on a kind of barren playground. An apartment complex may have stood in the distance.
When I landed I was in some South American city. I stood in a narrow, European-looking street full of shops. The weather was very warm and sunny. I walked down the narrow street, which was positioned in shade, toward a wider, sunny street running crosswise to this one.
As I walked I could sense that two tough men, possibly wearing beige trenchcoats, were following me from about a block away. I could even hear them discussing me, their voices as close and intimate as if they were right over my shoulder. I may have felt like they were following me to prevent me from finding the origins of the crazy man.
I tried to walk nonchalantly, figuring I'd go about my business, whatever it was, and lose the two men somehow. I approached the sunny street. It was full of shops, and it seemed lively, though there weren't many people around.
I turned right and faced a dead end at the head of which was a wide, stout, cobblestone building with brand new-looking windows. The building looked like it used to be a hotel, though it now seemed to be closed down.
I turned around to head in the other direction. But I came to a side street on my right hand side. I turned down the street. The street was dim. I approached another sunny street, which seemed to have a couple of dead ends. I ended up wandering through a maze of streets in this fashion. The place I was in seemed less and less like a city and more like a courtyard in a castle or passageways within or behind a complex of buildings.
Finally I came upon an apartment complex. It was kind of modern: a lot of "raw" concrete and concrete-and-pebble designs. The levels over each other were sloped and jangly. Walking through the place I barely saw any sun, though the ground level felt open to the air and light somewhere.
I could hear families, mostly children, with some mothers, and not too many men, running around, talking, and playing. I was trying not to be noticed. I felt like some or all of the people here would inform on me or even attack me if they saw me.
I was trying to get out of this place. But, I thought, once I got out, how would I know where I was? I thought I should get a good vantage point, so I could see where I was and where I should head. I started floating upward, in the narrow gaps between the staircases, still avoiding being seen by people.
I ended up in a complex of stairways and balcony-like walkways that were much more exposed to sunlight and sky, and seemed to stand before a downward hill slope and, possibly, over a somewhat large complex of apartments. The sunlight was bright, pale, possibly cold, like winter light in the afternoon.
I walked, across a black-painted, metal walkway?, toward the hill. As I did, I was called to by a boy and his father. The boy asked me why I was here. Somehow I slowly came to understand that I was in Brazil. I spoke with the boy and his father, mainly the boy, about where I was and what I was doing.
We walked through a narrow set of staircases that seemed like staircases in a playground playset. The stairs kept going higher and higher, tracking up the hill, but also towering more and more over the ground of the hill. We were approaching the top of the hill. I thought I would have a good vantage point from the top of the hill.
We continued walking. The boy may have spoken a lot of Spanish and a little English. The father spoke neither. The boy translated for the father, either into Portugese, or into a native Brazilian language. As we spoke, I could see the Brazilian flag in my mind's eye. The flag seemed to lie rumpled on the ground.
I had to speak with the boy mostly in Spanish. I said very basic things. I tried to express myself plainly with the Spanish I could muster. My Spanish was rudimentary, but passable. Upon waking, I could even remember what I'd said, thought I can now no longer remember it.
We approached the top of the hill. We stood on the ground. The ground was red, patched, and clumped with grass and possibly even yucca. I looked out across the field, which spanned out shallowly before me. At the other end of the field was an apartment complex. There may have been a few tiny groups of people dotting the field, people out playing around and lounging around.
This scene may have felt familiar to me. But it seemed very different from the city through which I had been walking and to which I was trying to return. I felt slightly discouraged and burdened, like I would in waking life when I go on a long, random walk and find myself somewhere where I know I'll have to do a lot of walking and back-tracking to get to a subway or some reference point from which I can easily get home.
Dream #2
I was walking down a city street at night. I turned right. I walked down a street that became increasinly dark. The darkness even seemed to plunge into my ears, possibly even against my skin, giving me a feeling of being deep under a blanket in the midst of a sickness. The feeling became even more intense, so that I felt like I was losing my equilibrium
Now I was walking out on a street which was very dark but which had a couple of streetlights, as wells as the slight, deep blue glow of sky to illuminate some things. A brambly tree or shrub crowded over me at first -- a barren tangle of what seemed to be pale, brittle, thorny branches.
I continued along. I saw that I was in a neighborhood full of single-family homes and well-spaced yards. I was surprised to see such a neighborhood in New York, especially Manhattan -- which was apparently where I was.
I even wondered whether the darkness weren't distorting my vision altogether, making me think that I was seeing single-family homes where there were really multi-family buildings. But then, I told myself, this was the East Side, the Far East Side, and there was a lot more space out here. People kind of didn't even want to come out here, I told myself.
I noticed that the houses were small. But, I told myself, the space in these houses would be enough for me. Plus, I would have a yard and a lot of separation from my neighbors.
I had been looking at houses on the right side of the street. I may even have stopped and looked straight at one of the houses. I now turned and looked to the left side of the street. There seemed to be a thick layer of darkness, then a long yard, at the end of which I saw the back end of a tall house.
I wandered through the yard and ended up before windows that looked down into the low-set first floor of what felt like a playhouse or guest house near the larger house which I had previously seen. It might have been early morning.
I looked into the window. The lights were on. My brother was inside, possibly sitting wrapped under a pile of blankets. The room seemed like a very large living room, cluttered all over with blankets and sheets.
My brother looked up and saw me. He may have called out to me, but he also called out to my mother and possibly also my sister. He said to them, "Hey, guys, it looks like Preemie came here after all, after such a long time."
I was now inside the house. It was my whole immediate family -- my mom, my brother, my sister, and myself. We were possibly supposed to go to the large house. But we were waiting for something. At some point in time, my great grandmother may have come into the room.
Everybody was happy to see me. But everybody was kind of holding back emotionally from me, trying to keep me from feeling intruded on and upset. I was acting polite, but I didn't exactly want to be here. I was especially uneasy about having to wait before going to the larger house. I really felt like we wouldn't ever be able to go there after all.
Dream #3
I was with a group of people in the line for the concession stand at a movie theater. The people may have been a group of high schoolers, with some teachers. I may have been there in the role of a volunteer.
I, and some of the students?, decided to head into the theater ahead of the group. We went into the theater, which looked more like a university auditorium than a movie theater. The lights were bright, fluorescent white with a slight tinge of green. The floors were carpeted in a pale pink-tan, very thin carpet. The rows of seats were very wide, with more than enough space for seats and desks, and a lot of leg room. The aisles were also wide, with wide, small steps.
The place hadn't yet filled up. I was walking down the right aisle. At first I thought I was by myself. But as I turned my head left to look for a good row of seats, I noticed that three of the students, some black boys, probably in their late teens, were behind me.
I was about to walk down to the very front of the theater, where I usually like to sit, but the boys turned down a row about halfway up the aisle. I wanted to be accommodating to the boys, so I turned down the row, too. I said, "Got it! Let's get our seats!" like I was pretending to be some kind of cartoon military person. As I said this, I wondered if I sounded confident.
I walked along the edge of the row, which now seemed like a broadly curving ledge, maybe six feet down to the lower row of seats. I may have been afraid I might fall.
I thought that if I had sounded too confident as I had given my pretend command, the adults (a bunch of squeamish white men and women) would think I was challenging their authority. The adults would then all try to pile into this row -- which the boys and I were trying to stake our for our entire group. So I now tried to sound very meek.
The boys took seats. I was going to sit by the boys to talk with them. But I saw that the boys all sat a few seats apart from each other. I realized they were doing this to save seats for the whole group. So I did the same thing, sitting near the aisle.
I watched the screen, which was set high above the "stage" area at the front of the room. The screen must have been enormous. The room itself seemed enormous. The room seemed to be filling up now.
I was watching advertisements on the screen. They all seemed to be for Pop-Tarts. There was a weird trivia series: two slides, the first of which mentioned Pop-Tarts' "classic" SGGB campaign, and the second of which said what the letters in the acronym stood for.
The acronym may have been SBBG, now that I think of it. The first three letters, I'm certain, stood for strawberry, blueberry, and bland. The last letter stood for some special "multi" kind of flavor, the pastry of which was also flavored to match the weird, tropical (?) fruit of the filling and frosting.
The trivia question about this "classic" advertising campaign probably filled me with nostalgia. After the trivia slides came either some slides or actual video commercials about new Pop-Tarts, which were, in some ways, a lot like the "multi" Pop-Tarts. These Pop-Tarts were, I gathered from the commercials, marketed toward young women in the business field.
The commercials showed youngish women dressed in suit-dresses walking through clean, but crowded, city streets in glimmering sunlight. The women were athletically fit, strong, healthy. In one of the ads, a woman sat at a bench like at a bus stop while eating the Pop-Tart. The whole campaign was supposed to provide a sense that these Pop-Tarts provided health for women with an active lifestyle.
The Pop-Tarts, including the pastry, were colored in pastel, "feminine" colors, like purple and pink. The entire Pop-Tart was one solid color, so that it looked like some kind of Easter candy. The women would hold the Pop-Tarts in weird ways -- loosely, by the corner, as if they were cigarettes or newspapers. This product line had a weird name, like Fruity Punches. The flavors were also odd, mixed-tropical-fruit flavors.
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