(12/22/07) the fleshy tree; put it all on red!

(Entered in paper journal at 8:15 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I was on a sidewalk by a tall wall of black-grey, granite rocks. I was clipping vine-like weeds which had grown from the park, a hill of which crested at the top of the fence. I noticed, though, to my right, where the fence was lower, that as I clipped the weeds there grey fleshy, peach-colored, vine-like tendrils. They grew with speed and direction, something almost like will.

I thought, How can I stop these things from growing? I then thought, If these things have a will, are they angry at me for clipping them? I was afraid that the peach-colored weeds would do something like strangle me. But I kept clipping the green weeds around me because the wall really needed the cleaning.

I looked to my right again. The stone wall was gone. There was only a black-iron fence showing a lawn level with the sidewalk. On the lawn was a smallish (maybe fifteen-foot-tall) tree. I realized the peach tendrils hadn't been weeds, but the roots of this tree.

The tree grew a huge, peach-colored limb out of itself, as willed and flexible as the tendrils had been. I thought again that the limb was angry at me and wanted to do something awful to me by touching me. The limb grew into a shape like a phallus.

I stepped backwards, across the street. But then I thought, Wait. You've seen a tree like this before. It was in a dream. This is a dream, too. I was still afraid. But I thought that if I was having another dream with a tree like this, I might as well risk an encounter with the tree to see what it was all about, even if it did something bad to me.

I walked across the street again, toward the tree. As I did, the scene (and my consciousness of the dream) faded out.

I was now walking into something like a parking lot with a group of friends. I wanted to show my friends the tree, to see what they made of it. But the tree was now just a metallic pole, like the perforated poles for street signs.

A woman thought I was crazy for having called this thing a tree. But I knew the tree would reveal itself, mainly once prey had gotten close enough for it to attack.

I was mad that the girl thought I was crazy. I wanted to show her that I wasn't lying. I told her to go smack the pole. So she did. Something invisible smacked the girl on the arm. The girl was now interested, but not really concerned.

I got even angrier. I really wanted the girl to feel how afraid she should be. So I told her to bite the pole. The girl bit into the pole and growled like a dog. Then she stood up. She said, "See? Nothing happened."

But suddenly the girl's eyes went blank. The girl was trying to move, but it was like something was holding her head. Something pressed in on the girl's head. The girl got slapped around a couple of times by some invisible force.

Now the girl was kneeling before the group and directly in front of me. The girl was dressed like an old, Mexican peasant woman, with a dark shawl over her head. The girl was making a weird, hooting, pained noise.

The girl looked up at me. Her eyes had been poked out. But the tree was still attacking her, and now something even worse would happen. I thought, Why did I put her into that kind of trap?

Dream #2

I stood before a conveyor belt cash register in a grocery store. A skinnyish, baldish, white man with a prim attitude stood behind the register. The man had rung up my food order. But a person (an older man?) behind me pointed at a painting on the wall to my right. He said, "I'm intersted in buying that."

The cashier hadn't wanted to help me much in the first place. But now he took the occasion to ignore me completely. I had handed the cashier my money. He'd now dropped it onto the conveyor belt and walked slightly backward from the register, looking over at the painting. I tried to get the cashier's attention, so I could pay and leave. But the cashier wouldn't pay attention to me.

I looked at the painting. It was maybe twelve feet by twelve feet. The scene was a Seurat-style "park," but the painting style was very much like that of Gauguin, with deep and pale blues and deep and pale purples. I looked down at my money on the conveyor belt.

Now an Hispanic (or light-skinned black) woman, another worker, walked up to the register, possibly with another female worker. The woman took my bills off the conveyor belt. She asked me, "This is what you gave him?"

I said, "Yes."

She said, "You gave him way too much." She handed me back all my money. I probably kept $150 (???!!!) and handed back the rest. I tried to make a joke about having thrown down so much money.

There were a few people (friends?) around me. We were all laughing at something, I don't know what. I tried to make a joke along the lines that I had thrown down all that money because I thought we were at a casino. But my vision was cloudy and my brain was blurry, and I couldn't think of what to say or do. On top of that, nobody was paying attention to me. My friends were all laughing at some random thing. The cashier and her friend were talking to each other and not paying attention to me.

I threw my money back on the conveyor belt again, as if I were throwing chips on a roulette table. I felt stupid, first because I had thrown the money so messily and violently, and second because my mind was so cloudy that I couldn't think of what to say next.

I cried, "Put it all on red!"

(3/13/09) extended leave; flying in an armory

(Entered in paper journal at 8:30 AM at Starbucks on Christopher Street in Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I stood at the top of a small stairway and under an arch, like before a large Victorian home that had been converted into a business building. The porch under the arch was dim and felt like heavy stone. The area before the house was sunny and lawny, maybe with a busy street beyond it. But at the bottom of the steps was a trench of stone, like the stone/concrete walkway around the house had been built down into the ground.

At the bottom of the steps stood the woman who (in waking life) took the appointments at the place where I get my haircuts. The woman told me, "I asked you a couple of days ago if you wouldn't mind because the person who'd cut your hair is out on extended leave."

I said, "Oh, yeah. How is she? Is she alright?" But the woman wouldn't answer. I said, "If it's something really bad, I would be happy to give a donation. Or have you guys already put together some flowers?"

The woman looked at me as if she wanted to answer, but she thought she shouldn't.

Dream #2

I was in a room with KP, a representative from a company I worked with at the job from which I'd recently been laid off. I'd been talking with KP about something, but KP really didn't want to listen to me or accept that I might know what I'm talking about or that I would understand what she was talking about.

The room was gigantic, as big as the inside of one of the big, brick armories in New York City. The floors were thick, grey stone. The walls were dark. The ceilings were like some kind of thick, slatted wood, darkish brown. The ceiling itself bent outward, then back inward, to dome shallowly.

I started jumping around the room, having told myself to forget about KP. I was jumping as high as the ceiling and then almost floating. I would push my feet off the ceiling and float to the other end of the ceiling. At some point I may have floated back down to the floor, where I spoke to another woman, who may have been blonde like KP, but was younger, maybe around my age.