(7/21/08) pompeii new york; vuitton or saint laurent?; bicycle arms

(Entered in paper journal at 6:15 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn into Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I was with a group of people, possibly scientists, looking over a river which ran through a range of hills. I don't know how we were there -- it was like we were disembodied, somehow.

Suddenly the view of everything went negative. In this negative view we saw lava flooding over the hills and through the river.

The view was normal again. The lava had quickly cooled, and the whole landscape was now a cinnamon-brown color, as if everything the lava had touched was itself now cooled lava. The Brooklyn Bridge was nearby. It, too, was cinnamon-brown. We flew over the bridge, as if we were in a helicopter.

Somebody mentioned that we were here to protect this area. Some people were trying to tear it all down. But we thought we needed to preserve it to show people what would happen if lava flowed through an area like this ever again.

Dream #2

I was out on a path in a foresty area. I knelt on the side of the path with a woman. The light was golden, dim, like it was late afternoon.

The woman (who may have looked like a young, thin version of my mother) was talking about how she didn't like herself or think she was beautiful since the man she loved had left her. Either I or another man may have told the woman how beautiful she was.

The woman and the other man were now walking back to a nearby wood building. The building was a school building. The woman was a teacher there. The man walking with the woman was the woman's new love interest. His name was XXXXX Saint Laurent. I followed the woman and man, but more like a camera, or a disembodied eye.

The woman said something like, "Thank you for giving me such confidence and making me feel beautiful."

The man was dressed very nicely. He looked like a businessman.

The woman opened the door. The two walked into the building. Right inside, in a small, dim hallway, stood the woman's old lover, whose name was Louis Vuitton. The man was taller than the other man, slightly better dressed, and altogether more elegant.

Louis Vuitton told the woman how he wanted her back and how he wanted to take the woman away from the "awful" life of a schoolteacher.

Vuitton saw Saint Laurent. My view was on Saint Laurent. I tried to convince myself that Saint Laurent was better for the woman than Vuitton. But I knew the woman would go with Vuitton, not Saint Laurent.

Dream #3

A young boy like my oldest cousin (who was, in waking life, my best friend through childhood) wanted to sneak into some special compartment on the subway. He and I -- I was also a young boy -- got onto the train.

The boy spoke to the conductor about his desire. The conductor told the boy he would give the boy an operation. The conductor would cut both the boy's arms off and give him detachable arms. That way the boy could just barely fit into the small, pipe-like space he desired to fit into. I could see that the boy's detachable arms would look like bike parts with bone sockets.

I couldn't see how the boy would get back out of the space without any help. I was pretty certain that once the conductor had helped the boy into the space he would never let him out. The conductor would just leave the boy there, out of either cruelty or forgetfulness.