(4/22/05) parking structure

(NOTE: At this time, I was really into trying to have mystical experiences. I would try to have out-of-body experiences at night. But I would also try to have lucid dreams. I would try to have lucid dreams for the experience in itself. But I also saw lucid dreaming as a means to achieving out-of-body experiences. Another way I saw to be a gateway to OBEs was spontaneous imaginations -- a kind of induced reverie I learned, partly from the paranormal books I read and partly from the works of Carl Jung. In this practice, I would try my best to let my mind wander and spontaneously create imagery, landscapes, atmospheres, etc., in which I would then wander around. I had greater and less success with this practice. In some cases, these imaginations would fade into dreams. When I had spontaneous imaginations but not dreams, I would record the imaginations in my main notebook. But, as below, when I wouldn't be sure whether I had dreamed or had a vivid spontaneous imagination, I would write the experience in my dream notebook. The dream below is also interesting, because it also seems to meld into a lucid dream.)

(Entered in paper journal at 5:40 AM at home in Harlem.)

I'm not quite certain that this was a "dream."

Dream 1

I suddenly realized I was in a "scene," like a spontaneous scene I'd have in my imagination practices at night. But I felt myself there and was really surprised at that. So I told myself to calm down, focus, and move slowly.

The scene shifted weirdly. At first it looked like a covered walkway before the huge parking lot of a barely visited strip mall I would occasionally walk past in Albuquerque. But as I walked toward the parking lot the concrete walkway and ceiling continued stretching with new columns until the place seemed more like a parking structure on the side of a road. All the time the atmosphere had a sepia-crimson tint. I didn't take much note of this.

I finally got to the road as a van (?) passed. The sky was dark grey. Now something else happened that I don't quite remember. It's like I was walking toward a busy intersection that would allow me to get my bearings in what I thought was New Mexico. But as I approached and "reached" that intersection it became something else, and a new intersection appeared up ahead.

I was a little discouraged. I tried to understand what I was experiencing. Was it my imagination practice? Was it a lucid dream? Was it an out-of-body experience? And what caused these scene shifts? I didn't know what caused them, but I was disappointed in my "lucidity power," not in my inability consistently to change things (which is what I'm usually disappointed in), but in my inability to keep things consistent and "realistic."

I walked up to the intersection. Right before I reached it another vehicle passed me slowly. I think it was an old, wide, 1970s style car. The man inside, white, fleshy, balding (I think), in a yellow t-shirt (?), flatly, blankly stared at me, as if he didn't have a face at all, but also as if his fleshy face portrayed a distinct and yet relaxed loathing toward me. But perhaps this is a wrong impression, because I also remember wanting to ask him a question, to interact with him.

I stopped walking. I was just a couple dozen steps from the intersection. But some kind of tension got me nervous. I woke up.

(5/9/05) astral projection; looking at my astral hands; not going clothes shopping

(Entered in paper journal at 5:45 AM at home in Harlem.)

Dream 1

I was lying on "my" bed on the left side of "my" room, which was narrow and long and very tall and had a tall window at the wall beyond the foot of my bed. The window may have been letting in thunderous light.

My eyes were closed. I felt really heavy vibrations all throughout my body. I told myself to lift out of my body. But I didn't really believe it was possible, and I didn't really know what to expect from my sensations. So I told myself to open my out-of-body eyes, but to keep my body eyes closed. I didn't know how to do this or what it would feel like, but I somehow managed to do it.

My body eyes at first opened a bit. But I closed them and simply continued opening my OBE eyes. I now attempted to do an astral projection. I may have gotten a couple inches out of my body. But I may have just been feeling things and translating them to sight.

Dream 2 (?)

Now the bed was more centered in the room, though still toward the left. I don't know if I "attempted again" or if it was like I "hadn't attempted before." I opened my eyes. I wasn't even sure which eyes I had opened or if I was dreaming or if it even mattered at all.

I lifted up my hands so I could see them. The thundery light, I'm pretty sure, was the normal purple-white of lightning. But my hands were also reflecting a greenish glow from somewhere. I thought, How strange! Just like in don Juan Matus -- I'm looking at my hands.

Then my left hand half-disappeared, like a phantom hand. I thought, This is my OBE body, not my physical body. It's already lifted out partly. I tried to lift the rest of the way out, but the same feelings of "burden of proof," disbelief, and not knowing what to  feel rose up strongly.

Dream 3

It was daytime. I was in a house like my mom's friend TH's old house with some attractive kids who were maybe in their early twenties and some adults. The kids all decided, after I had some strange conversation with one girl, to go clothes shopping. But one girl was staying. I, too, decided to stay when I thought that leaving my messy room (full of women's clothes) unattended might lead to snoopy folks causing my embarrassment.

As I walked back into the house I thought, I guess that makes all three of us from my group. And the other three are leaving.

(9/11/07) my dad the murderer; gnear thalk; we really want to talk

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

Dream #1

My dad may have been accused of a murder. He was now coming to take me, my brother, and my sister to dinner. I lived in my own house, so they would pick me up. I sat in a room of my house, which was empty except a little clutter, a box of which I sat on.

I spoke on the cell phone with my mom. I told my mom, "I can't sit in a restaurant with that guy! Everybody'll be staring at us and asking us questions the whole time!" I imagined big, fat faces crowding all around my dad, my brother, my sister, and I at the restaurant. The faces all looked like obese versions of a mid-twentieth-century, cruel stereotype of Chinese faces.

I pulled the phone away from my left ear. The display was so colorful and bright. The main colors were blue.

My mom (or sister?) asked through the phone, "Your phone hasn't worked in all this time. Why is it working now that you need to tell us you don't want to see your dad?"

I thought to myself, Wow. They're right. How did my phone start working again?

Dream #2

A woman had gone missing, and two men had found that she had killed herself. They found her in a vacant lot of pale tan soil on a clear, blue day. She was a black girl, tall, thin, with brown skin and shortish, spiky, dark-blonde hair. she had slit her throat and lay in a big pool of blood. She lay in a fetal position on her right side.

The men now stood before a camera (still in the lot, still on a blue day) talking about how it was to find the body. The men were both oldish, a little dumpy, white, with big, round eyes.

The scene of discovery happened again, like for the first time. This time the woman was completely decapitated, her head lying three or four feet from her body. The view panned back up to the two men, who said, "Imagine our shock. Even if she had survived, what kind of life would that have been? Her arms were chopped to the elbows, her legs were gone..."

I now crouched in a library, in between a shelf and a wall. The space was narrow, about three feet wide at most. I had a big book held directly in front of my face. I crouched, relaxed, with my knees against my chest. My sister sat to my left, leaning against my legs.

My oldest nephew came walking from right to left along the aisle and stomped on my sister's legs. It hurt my sister.

I felt helpless to retaliate on behalf of my sister. But I didn't want it to happen to her again. So I told her to sit a special way. She sat pretty much the same way as before, but now she was naked.

I heard a weird story narrated now, by my sister -- not voiced from her physical body, but from a narration in my head. My sister said, "I wouldn't let anybody kiss my boobs before him. But this was very important to him." I had a feeling that the "him" was me. I thought, How could that be? Why would I do something like that to my sister?

My view floated all around the library, slowly, as if some disembodied I were walking around the library.

I heard myself and a friend, like my old friend R, speaking in my head. We were trying to decipher a phrase: "gnear talk." It was in a series of new phrases young kids were using nowadays. I saw the list of new colloquialisms before my mind's eye for a moment.

I thought, Well, "thalk" is a hot walk -- so hot it thaws you. And "gnear" is what you say when a girl is so close you can feel her loveliness. It's as if you were saying, "Gee, she's near," or "g-near," to make "gnear" (except that the "g" was pronounced hard, not soft).

Dream #3

I had a dinner or a breakfast at a place that was supposed to be the apartment of my old friend R and his fiancee L. We sat at a huge table that was littered with items like vases. Everything seemed very disordered. I was surprised to have been here. I thought, These guys aren't mad at me anymore! I felt relieved.

L said, "Come back soon. We really want to talk with you again."

I couldn't tell whether that were true. I looked at R. He looked unpleasantly surprised to see me here. I could tell he was already trying to find a way to keep me from coming back.

(10/7/07) submarine and amusement park ride

(Entered in paper journal at 12:23 PM at Starbucks at Houston Street and Hudson Street in Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I looked out a window that was tall and narrow. My mom may have been to my left. I saw a submarine emerge from the water. At first I wasn't sure it was a submarine. I just saw the surface of the vessel. But it drove forward and I saw the central portion (?) of the submarine, which tiered upward.

As I watched, the submarine was revealing itself to be much larger than I had imagined. At the top, or in the top, of the submarine, were two or three cockpits in which pilots sat. I was shouting in happiness finally to have seen such a great vessel.

Somehow my view followed the submarine as it traveled along the surface of the water. We passed some square structures like building-top fan-boxes for air conditioning systems.

I wandered off from the submarine at some point near the shore. I flew (?) through an amusement park, first through something like a maze of mirrors, then through some kind of spinning swing ride, the top of the carousel of which was lined with framed, rectangular mirrors. I descended as if diving into one of the seats.

(2/11/08) no passport; astral car wash

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

Dream #1

I was in bed. I was reading a book mentioning two kinds of wood or two kinds of forest, one possibly called Greenwood, the other called Dark Wood. I sat up and looked at myself in a mirror. I had little bumps of red acne all over my face. I got really upset at my appearance and began crying.

I stood up and looked out my bedroom window. My mother and brother and sister (as kids) were pulling up in a van.

I was on some vehicle like a subway train. It pulled up to an airport. It was still early. Not all the airport was open. I went through a window-walled tunnel. A lot of people were waiting in an area near the entrance of the airport. After that area, a lot of the airport was dark. The people were waiting for the rest of the airport of to open up. I thought, Why didn't they just go through the tunnel like me? The tunnel goes straight to the plane.

I was on the plane. There were only a few people on with me. Some people were eating. I sat in my seat, on the right side of the plane, by the window. This was an international flight. We would stop for a while in Italy. I hoped I would have time to go see Michelangelo's sculpture of Moses, which was apparently in some circle on a road.

I realized I didn't have a passport. I thought I should get off the plane. But it was already moving. I thought, What's going to happen to me at my first destination? I started crying. I looked at the back of the seat in front of me. There was a brass circle with an imprinted design on it of a ring atop a crescent atop a semicircle.

Dream #2

I ran counterclockwise on a field at night. The circuit I ran was marked off by orange, plastic netting. It probably described a rough square around the grounds of a school. It was at the top of a large natural structure.

There were men like construction workers trying to block my path. I managed to evade them. The grass through which I ran got taller and thicker. Some of the flowers on the grass shone beautifully in the moonlight.

I got to the end of the circuit, which was at a cliff. I jumped. It was daytime. I flew through a range of all buildings and then over a river. I saw a tall building on the other side of the river.

I knew something unique was happening, perhaps a dream or an out-of-body experience. I told myself to stay calm and remember things, so I could prove where I'd been. At first it didn't seem like I was moving, I was so intent on the building across the river. But I found that if I looked all over without focusing on any one thing for very long, I kept moving. I focused on a large, red and white construction crane. I also saw some silvery silos in the distance.

I now flew before the large building, which was like a storage-space-rental building. I flew around it. On the back end (or front end?) was a gas station. One sign on the front of the gas station was square, white, with blue lettering.

A few stories up on the big building (behind the gas station) were openings like exits for car washes. I flew up to see people washing cars. I landed in one of these openings. I saw my reflection somewhere. At first nobody noticed me. Then someone did.

(3/11/08) fight for your flight; miniskirt women; weird movies and weird sayings

(Entered in paper journal at 5:45 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I was on a space shuttle which had just launched. But my point of view was from outside the shuttle. I could hear myself talking with a woman who was also in the shuttle. We were talking about how the propulsion tanks appear to drop off the shuttle so quickly when you're watching launches on TV, but how they seem a lot slower when you're actually on the shuttle.

I watched the propulsion tanks drop off the shuttle a couple times, from a couple different angles. Each time they seemed to drop off quickly and, in my opinion, too early. The shuttle itself seemed like a huge propulsion tank coated in big squares of beige tiling.

Now it was like I was coming back down, in the shuttle or in my body (?), over a city. As I descended I thought how I would, according to my memory of this event, land on a building-top in the city. I thought, This time I'll fight for the rights (of astronauts? of workers on the moon?).

Now I was back up in the air, headed down into the sea, which had a dirty, brownish color. The people at ground control who had been directing my flight learned that I was going to fight for people rights. So they misdirected me so I couldn't land in the city and begin fighting directly. I think the people even hoped I would drown.

I dove head-first into the water, did a roll at a considerable depth, and surfaced. I was now  person like David Bowie, or like an alien character that David Bowie might play. I would have to head back toward the city. I stood onto a large square of well-manicured lawn.

Dream #2

I was possibly in a big vehicle (like an RV?) at night with a group of black women. The women all spoke about how they had to lose weight so they could fit into some really small miniskirts. I may have been a woman as well. I sat behind a woman, my legs cradled around her legs, my arms around her waist.

Dream #3

I stood before a thin, plywood wall like scaffolding in an open field or a vacant lot. On the wall were old movie posters. I looked at one in particular. It was supposed to be for a Fellini-esque movie. Depicted on the poster were Frank Sinatra, Charlie Chaplin, and a character/characters who looked like Saraghina from the film 8 1/2.

I tried to remember some of the movie's scenes, which I could feel were very surreal. I heard someone in a group of people behind me say, "Oh, no, not that movie again! It's not even very good!" I may now have felt ashamed for having recognized the movie.

I had wandered down to my left, to a wall of scaffolding behind the first wall. I stopped there to look at a more colorful movie poster that I can't remember. Looking to my right I saw a lot of these "scaffolding walls," like a maze or a small city-street, all with movie posters on them.

I wondered why I should be ashamed to remember the movie from first movie poster I saw. I went back to the poster. I was now carrying "my oldest nephew" on my shoulders. We tried to quote some lines from the movie.

Now we were inside a nice grocery store, like a small version of a Wild Oats store I used to visit in Santa Fe, New Mexico. My nephew was saying weird things. A (tall?) thin man with pale skin and red hair stood into my nephew's face and told him not to act in such a weird way.

I told my nephew, "That man didn't say that to be mean. He's really thinking of your own good."

My nephew agreed happily, as if complying with the man's statement, but continued saying weird things.

(8/8/08) nurses, dogs, and an underground bank

(Entered in paper journal at 6:30 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I lay in bed. Natural light dimly lit my room. A couple black women walked before the foot of my bed, from my right to my left, as if they had walked in from one room, into my room, and then out through the hallway.

The women were both nurses. The first one was kind of in shape, but the second was a little heavy. The second nurse wore a green dress. She acted like she wanted to make me feel like she didn't care about me at all. She kind of made a face without looking at me and waved a black Bic pen at me. I didn't care what the woman thought, although I thought the pen looked familiar.

The first woman (both women now out of sight, in the hallway, probably) said to the second woman, "You found it! Give it back to him!" The women walked back into my bedroom. The second woman offered me the pen. I sat up so I could take it. It might have been all chewed and spitty.

The second woman was now flirting with me. She looked different, a little more in shape. She made sexual advances on me. I accepted. She laid me back, with my feet hanging off the bed. I was inside her.

(At this point I may have woken up. I lay in bed thinking about the dream. I had a weird, buzzing feeling all over my body. I got nervous about the feeling -- excited -- thinking it might be the precursor to an astral projection -- and lost it. But I told myself to relax. The feeling came back. I told myself to give in to it as much as I could. I was surrounded by a pool of darkness. I felt a rushing around me.)

I was walking down a city street, more like a plaza or a side-street somehow, with all the stores around me brightly lit. My old friend R walked toward me. He held three dogs on a leash. They may all three have been the dog R actually had in waking life -- except that they were all furry and yet also had either a doberman- or bulldog-like look to them.

I tried to give the dogs as much space as possible, but they would crowd into my way, almost as if directed by R somehow. The dogs growled and scowled at me.

I turned around as R passed me. I made a nasty remark about R and a violent remark regarding the dogs.

I walked into something like a convenience store. Either walking through the convenience store or along the sidewalk I suddenly became hurried, like I had a schedule to meet. I ran to something like a street intersection which was more like a balcony opening into the street. I jumped over the barrier and into the hole.

Down below was a bank, which I called by the name of a bank that is fairly common in the New York City area. There was a huge, closed-shaped service desk in the center of the room. There were a lot of people all around.

As I landed I could feel and hear my breath, almost as if it were a straight flow. The sound and feeling became strange and now it was like it was pulling me back into my body as I lay in my bed.

(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.

(2/17/09) troublemakers at slumber party cafe; astral hallway encounter

(Entered in paper journal at 9:35 AM at Starbucks at Twenty-ninth Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I came into a cafe which may have been on a narrow corner. The place was more like a bar, but it also had grey-white carpet. The walls and bar may have been black wood. My family all lay on the floor, under blankets.

A pretty, blonde girl stood behind the bar. She said, "Looks like your family was going to meet you here, but they decided to sleep here after all."

I may have looked around to see the place full of people sleeping. I thought, It must just be a popular thing for people to sleep here like this.

I may have started walking up a staircase that had a view (to my left) of the "cafe" below. I may have been talking with my mom, possibly about what  nice place this was.

Somehow, possibly by a radio, we heard that some killers on the loose. My mom said, "We need to protect everybody."

I walked back down the steps and to the front door. I said, "Well, the first thing we need to do is lock the front door." I may have locked the door and then walked back up the steps. Other people may have been waking up.

Now three or so people, like the adults in a troublesome, low-income family, walked through the front door. I knew they were no good. I thought they might have been in my brother-in-law's family.

I didn't know how these new people had gotten in. I had locked the door so nobody could get in. The kids were politely saying hi to the new people. I wondered if the kids had let the new people in.

The people had mock-innocent looks on their faces, like they were looking for precisely the right place to cause trouble. They were about to head through a door to the kitchen.

I hurried down the stairs and stopped the people right in front of the door. My mom may have come out of the kitchen.

I asked the people who they were. They looked up and away, walking somewhere else. I stopped them again. This time they may just have been two men, maybe Italian, wearing bright green and purple suits (like the red suit Screamin' Jay Hawkins wore in the movie Mystery Train).

I grabbed one of the men by the lapels and let him go. He stopped. I said, "Tell me who you are! I know you think I'm nobody, that I'm just some kid that you don't need to worry about. But I'm somebody! I am -- or, I was..." My speech drifted off as my mind began to wander a bit. "... a researcher, a stock researcher... on Wall Street."

The man I'd grabbed nodded and said, "Oh, is that so?" like he liked me and didn't want me to feel bad, even though he knew that what I had been didn't matter anymore.

I physically wandered off now, still kind of talking to the people, like they were troublemaker friends of mine, whom I liked and looked up to but really didn't want around me anymore.

Dream #2

I was in a living room. I lay on the floor in golden sunlight. The room was like in a double-wide trailer. I lay on my stomach with my head pointed toward a small TV that stood on an unstable tray, like the trays people would eat their TV dinners from while sitting at a chair in front of a TV.

I lifted out of my body and was floating at a strange angle so that I couldn't really see anything around me. It took me a few seconds to realize I was out of my body. I thought, If I'm out of my body, I shouldn't just hang here in one place like this. I should try to go somewhere.

I tried to move, but as I did, I was pulled more and more back into my physical body. I told myself to relax and try to move.

My vision went dark and I felt a lot of rushing all over my body. I was in a lying position, on my back, so I thought I was back in my body. But I thought, If I were in my body, I would be lying on my stomach (at this point in my life, I generally fell asleep lying on my stomach). I also thought, Even if I'm in my body, I'm still feeling strange sensations. So I might as well relax and pay attention to them.

I was now floating, in a lying position, on my back, feet first, down a dark hallway. I flew just a few inches above the ground. The hallway had dark walls. There were a lot of doorways, and warm shafts of light glowed from each one.

I stopped flying at a doorway. A woman who may have looked like my mom sat on the floor in the doorway. The woman sat cross-legged and may have had a child in her lap. The child may have been nine or ten years old. The woman may have been wearing blue and red robes, like the robes a woman would wear in a Renaissance painting.

(9/8/09) hotel l'iberia

(Entered in paper journal at 8:06 AM at Starbucks on 29th Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream #1

A black and white image of some military officials speaking regarding a certain European territory. The territory was in the center of Europe, was large, and had a shape like India. The territory had been under the rule of two different nations, probably America and some other nation.

But the possession of the nation had "expired," in a sense, so that there was now a questions of how the territory was ruled. This question would probably be solved practically and peacefully, as long as one specific agency did not get involved. This agency was probably a group like the Nazis.

I saw the map under discussion rotate on its vertical axis before me as if the view were on a spinning window or door. The territory in question had a long name, somewhat like the USSR, except that it seemed to be all about freedom.

One specific little portion of this territory, which jutted or nubbed out from the bottom and center of the territory, lit up in a milky, streaky, x-ray white. The name of this territory was L'iberia. The person who led the trouble-making faction was probably located in L'iberia. So I had to go look for him.

I was suddenly in a very nice looking place, like the lobby of a nice hotel. But the ceilings were enormous, and the walls went up forever and ever, probably lined with balconies all the way up. The lobby was filled with gentle light from the windows.

I couldn't remember what I was looking for, but I knew I probably wasn't looking for a hotel lobby. I remembered I was looking for a section of a country. I told myself to "pull back" until I could get a wide view of the landscape in which this hotel was situated. I suddenly "pulled back" or flew backward and upward into the air.

At a certain height, my vision pixelated and shifted, as if gaining a different level of resolution. But when the vision snapped back into clarity, I saw just another hotel lobby, very similar to the last. I "pulled back" even further. My vision readjusted again. I saw yet another hotel lobby.

I came to the conclusion that this entire country was just an enormous indoor structure, jut one enormous structure built over another enormous structure. I wondered how I could keep seeing the same degree of natural light. If my theory were correct, I thought, the first place I'd been in must have been much lower than this one, probably even underground. But the natural light there shone just as brightly as it did in this higher, even more over-arching place.

(9/27/09) struggle for lucidity; the murakami bug

Dream #1

I opened my eyes in my bedroom. The bedroom was dark, and my vision was a bit staticky. I realized that my lights were off, which wasn't usual for my room. (Due to some problems with paranoia, I'd slept with my lights on from about July of 2009 through about the end of 2010.)

I realized I was dreaming. I became lucid. But I immediately began losing my dream. Everything faded into blackness, as if I had closed my eyes. I told myself to open my eyes again. It took an immense effort. But when my eyes began to open, my dream-vision smeared out before me, as if I were speeding through a tunnel the walls of which were made of my dream-bedroom.

I now had my eyes open in my bedroom, with the lights on. I was awake. (I may actually have been awake at this point.) I lay on my back and looked up to the ceiling, my head half-covered by m blanket. I fell into a numbed state and thought I was probably on the verge of sleeping and dreaming again. At some point the lights may even have gone out in my room.

I told myself, Well, you can't get back to the lucid dream you were having. But perhaps if you're in this state, you can push yourself into another lucid dream, or even an out of body experience, an astral projection. I told myself to concentrate. I "concentrated" intensely, almost viciously.

I felt a rushing (downward or upward?) sensation in my body. I felt like closed-eye purple electrodes had attached to my body to pull me upward. I felt like I was scowling, teeth bared, to pull myself upward, out of my body. I thought, I'm doing it!

Everything went black. (I may have woken up and then gone back to sleep for another dream.) I lay in my bedroom and opened my eyes again. The room was dark, swimming with staticky orgone eyebugs.  I told myself, You're dreaming again. Get up this time.

I was suddenly standing, at the foot of where I had been laying, my blanket crumpled up like a cocoon at my feet. I ma have thought of myself as wearing a grey robe, being all grey myself, and even wearing a head covering, like a woman in a Giotto painting portraying Jesus' life might wear.

I lost my energy or my focus again. My eyes closed. I told myself to open them, not to lose my dream. I succeeded in doing this, but almost immediately afterward, the scene became increasingly staticky, maybe even grey-white, and I lost my dream.

Dream #2

I was in a big room with a couple other people. My mother may possibly have been among the people. The room may have been a mix between something like a hallway in an airport terminal and a nice, wood-walled library in a mansion. Natural light came in from a window to the right, the window possibly almost as tall and wide as the wall itself.

On the left wall was a platform that ran along the entire wall, lifted up maybe three feet from the rest of the floor, with railing -- structured almost like the moving walkway conveyor belts at airports, but, again, with touches of wood, carpeting, etc., that made it look like something in a mansion. I stood on that platform, probably with my mother.

We had found a small bug and were now having to dispose of it. The bug was almost beetle shaped, but with a much more distinct, rounder head, almost half the size of its body. The bug's color was a pale-copper brown, dappled with a pale-brown, almost like a pale version of the color on a sunflower seed's shell. We grabbed up the bug in a napkin and tossed it into (or toward?) a trashcan.

My mother walked away, down the long hallway. In some way, it felt like she was walking from one wing of the NYPL Rose Main Reading Room to the other. The other two women (???) may also have been gone now.

I noticed that the bug hadn't gone into the trashcan after all. I saw it wandering around on the floor. I picked it up (it was maybe three quarters of an inch long) to throw it away. But now, panicked, not wanting to be thrown away, the bug grew thin, green, vegetation-like tendrils out of itself. These tendrils grew long and coiled themselves around. They grew little leafs or thorns, so that the bug almost looked decorated with something out of a work by Takashi Murakami.

I tried to throw the bug into the white trash bag, but I couldn't: the tendrils stuck to me like sticky stalks of weeds. I tried to shake the bug off me. The tendrils now coiled all around my hands, and the "leafs" (if they ever had been leafs) were now soft thorns sticking into my skin. (During all this, I noticed that I was wearing white, latex gloves.) I finally somehow managed to shake the Murakami-bug off my hands.

The bug didn't go all the way into the trash. It clung to the side of the bag, near the mouth of the trashcan, its tendrils sprawling out like uncoiled wire, threatening to spring back out of the can by the energy of their own tension. I thought I'd have to be ready for that.

I now walked down the platform, possibly following after the women. I looked at my hands. I noticed that I had cuts on my hands from where the little thorns had dug in. At first the cuts seemed small, just like little scratches. But then I saw that some of the cuts, especially around the knuckles at the base of my fingers, cut all the way to the bone.

I looked into one of these cuts and saw something beneath that looked like firm, porous tofu. It sickened me to see that, but I told myself not to worry about it. It's fat, I think, I told myself. Your friends have told about seeing that before, when they'd broken their bones or cut themselves really deeply. So don't worry about it.

I may now have met up with a few of my friends, possibly from my old improv comedy team from college. My friends all sat in an airport-like seating area that also looked like part of a mansion. My friends might have regarded me like I was a joke, not to be taken seriously, and then gone back to whatever their conversation had been.

(12/29/09) halted flight; wetting my diaper a lot

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

Dream #1

I was walking down a suburban sidewalk to the right of which ran a busy road. There were a good amount of people on the sidewalk. It was late afternoon, and the sky was a dim, pale pink and blue. I had to get somewhere, possibly to see President Obama, and I was thinking of walking, as the place was nearby. I turned left and walked down a much quieter road.

I wondered if I shouldn't just XXXXX (can't remember) after all, to get there much quicker. Walking wouldn't be difficult. But it was getting dark fast, and I didn't want to be out walking through these empty suburban streets in the dark.

I suddenly either realized that I could fly or I started flying. I lifted up into the air. The sky was changing to a pale, dim, silver-blue color. I floated up before trees with canopies that were low and thick and colored pale yellow-orange and tan, possibly with the fringes of the leafs being darker orange and red. I lifted up over the trees and started moving forward. I thought, For sure I can get to the event on time now.

But I suddenly lost control of my flight. I bounded backwards in the air, like I was being pulled upward and backward by a flexible arm or a bungee cord. I tried to control myself and move forward. I would succeed, only to bound upward and backward again.

The landscape below me changed. It looked like a suburban neighborhood which had been fashioned into a putt-putt golf course. I thought to myself, I'll never get anywhere if I just keep bouncing around like this. With real determination I told myself to move forward, and quickly. Suddenly the restraint broke.

I heard a man's voice, maybe the voice of my old friend R, from behind me and to my right, say, "Fine, then, if you want to be such a baby about it."

I was moving forward, but slowly descending back to the "street," which simply looked like an indoor putt-putt golf course. I sat on a ledge near a window, trying on something like sports shoes or ice skates while R sat to my right.

R had said something that really upset me. I walked away from him and headed up something like a zigzag wheelchair ramp of grey-painted concrete, through a little stage-like area, and up a fire-escape-like stairwell. I went up a few floors.

This building was an amusement center. I hoped I could get onto a floor that R wouldn't visit, so he would leave me alone. I got up to a somewhat empty looking, large room with concrete floors, cinder block walls, and coldish, incandescent lighting.

My girlfriend H was here. I thought we two could hang out. But I looked to my right, through a doorway to another room that seemed like a balcony over a high school or college gym. I saw R there, walking behind a moderate crowd of people. I didn't want R to see me and H together. I thought he would try to break us apart.

(At this point I got off the train to go to work. I resumed my paper journal entry at 8:05 PM, back on the B-train, heading back to Brooklyn after work.)

Dream #2

I was in "my bed" at "my house." I lay on my back with my knees up, looking down at myself while I wet my diaper. Suddenly I realized I was wetting too much, and that my diaper was starting to overflow. I stood up, still wetting and wetting.

I ran through the hallway, my diaper leaking all over the place. I got to the bathroom. I was still wetting and wetting. I stood either on the bathroom floor or in the bathtub. I tried to take off my diaper. The urine was like a huge puddle, and fountains of urine poured down all around my legs.