(12/7/08) astral projection over college campus

(Entered in paper journal at 8 AM at Connecticut Muffin in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I stood by "my car" in the parking lot of a college campus. I stood before an open field, possibly under the shade of a tree. It was a sunny day. I was looking for one building in particular. It may have been the theater building. I may have seen some yellow trees in the distance.

I began walking across the field, but stopped. I had forgotten something in the car. I may have gone back to the car. At some point I lifted myself into the air. I flew higher and higher, eventually just above the tops of the trees within my sight (there were few trees -- the campus was mostly lawn and complexes of red-brick, new-looking buildings).

I moved toward a complex of buildings near the top, left quadrant of the lawn. Some students were walking along the concrete walkways by the buildings and along the lawn. I moved myself through the air by pointing my (right?) index finger to a coordinate and "pulling down" as if I were scrolling on a computer screen. I was seeing a lot more yellow trees.

As I approached the complex of buildings (which had a concrete courtyard inside its loosely joined area), I became aware that I was doing something extraordinary by flying. I assumed that I was either dreaming or having and out-of-body experience. I thought, Well, then, this experience isn't real. But it felt real, and I thought, Then it must be real in some sense. I thought, Maybe I'm not even flying. Maybe I'm just dreaming of looking at a computer screen. After all, that's what this flying is like. But I felt the atmosphere around me, so I was convinced something about this experience was real.

I got to the other side of the complex. I flew past a modern-looking, slope-roofed building with greenhouse-style windows near the top of the building. I wondered if people would see me. I also wondered if the people walking below had seen me, and how any of them would react. Would they think I was a ghost? Would they be afraid? Would they think I was doing something I wasn't supposed to do? Would they try to pull me down? I now tried not to be seen.

For a moment I lost my ability to fly. I began flying again, approaching the building at the end of the complex. I told myself I had lost the ability to fly because I had started thinking of the complex as an interior, and of whatever was beyond it as an exterior. In my lucid dreams I would often, I told myself, be afraid of approaching exteriors, because I thought of the dreams as products of my imagination, and I'd never believed I had strong enough imagination to produce an entire exterior environment.

But I told myself, This environment all has something real to it. Don't think of it as your imagination. Just relax and go beyond.

I started flying again, high enough to see over the building at the end of the complex. I could see blue sky and green trees. I told myself, There. See? You're seeing things just fine.

But as I approached the last building, I again lost my ability to fly. I dropped quickly, so that I had to grab onto the edge of a roof. I didn't know if I could fly anymore. But I knew I had to get past the complex. I thought I would climb onto the roof, then find some way off the roof, after which I would simply walk beyond the buildings and see what was there. But as I started pulling myself up onto the roof, there was a movement, as if the building were falling over, so that it would crash to the ground and smash me.

But suddenly the building was just a big bookshelf in a bedroom. The bookshelf was empty, pale, unfinished, and had a weird structure on top of it, like the roof of an old, tall house. I wasn't hurt when the bookshelf and I fell to the ground.

I may now have been like a little kid. I thought I should try to stand the building back up. I may have tried, to see if I had the strength. I didn't. But some figure, like a girl-angel, lifted the bookshelf back up for me.

I looked around and thought about something like bugs. I thought I should clean this place up to prevent getting bugs. I then had some weird, distorted visions of simply-drawn cartoon faces.