(9/24/04) political drive; fear of heights

(Dreams entered in daytime paper journal only. No time/place info given.)

Dream 1

I was watching some television show or else I was actually driving through a big city which was the subject of the show, and hearing narration, which I seem to have forgotten. It was early evening, the sky a dark, dim blue. Most of the buildings were red brick, like buildings in downtown Denver, except by a lake or coast of some sort.

The narration was about the World Trade Center being rebuilt, or at least about the loss of the World Trade Center and some kind of memorial being made. I saw in the open space between two buildings two towers, black, tall and cylindrical.

My mom's voice said, "I think it's just tacky that they're doing that." I think I may then have come to a realization, retroactive, of what was going on, as if the narration may have been senseless speaking that didn't "pull together" until after I saw the buildings and heard my mother's voice.

We drove on -- the "we," by the way, not including my mother, but including some businesslike people and myself. We drove past a building entirely decked in white Christmas lights. This castle of light was supposed to be another monument to the World Trade Center, or possibly even the new World Trade Center, which, so gaudily lit, would now, I thought, be a prime target for anybody wishing to attack America, as if it was actually the time before we were attacked.

I was now in an SUV, driving down some straight, Midwestern road with some politicians who were going to some kind of meeting, possibly a funeral. I can't remember who was there at first. I myself wasn't exactly sitting in any of the seats. I floated or simply shifted physically around like I was no more than two feet tall. The other people never exactly stayed where they were.

I was excited to be around these people, and greatly because I wanted to see how well I could use the terms of respect meant for them. I saw President Reagan. I asked him a question and made sure to call him President Reagan (?). When I asked him this question it was like I was in the back seat and turning just a bit to my left to ask him this question. But as he answered, we both slowly shifted, until he was in the driver's seat, and I was floating over the cup holder in between the two front seats.

I don't remember the question, but I feel it had to do with why some people weren't coming to this meeting.

(I now remember a part of the dream I had forgotten -- after seeing the light building I heard the narrator mention how for many ages nude sculptures on buildings were outlawed and detested. But now a building was being unveiled in Canada that showed some kind of "three ages" scene, and in the center of this sculpture was a naked woman whose eyes were hidden behind a big cloth. Some lower part of her was also hidden, below the waist, or at least including space above the waist, so that the only real nakedness was the breasts. She came out of a shield-like oval with some ornamentation on the bottom and top. Some small pictures were now shown. These were political figures who came to support this new sculpture. One of the figures there was the Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards. His smile was bright white.)

Reagan tried to "explain" an answer to me. But he really didn't want to broach the subject. He thought it was "below him" to have to answer such small people as I on questions so controversial as this. So he picked at some "sticker fuzz residue" on the face of the cup holder console, telling me something about a separation of things, possibly such as toilet paper rolls, and not really even coming to any conclusions about that. This may have been in response to the question of whether "President George Bush Senior" was going to come to this meeting, since he wasn't in this car. I know I did ask this question, but I don't know when.

I was now sitting right in front of the person in the passenger seat, John Edwards, facing him. He had a plastic block, like a cooler, on his lap -- it might actually have replaced his legs altogether. I called him "Mr. Edwards," as opposed to "Senator Edwards." I then asked if he was coming to the meeting. I said, "Because I  really have felt excited about you being there." I immediately felt like a fool for having said that.

Dream 2

I don't remember the beginning. I was in some restaurant, I believe, having gone through some ordeal, and sat next to an Asian woman. We were with some friends, by whom I felt threatened. We all walked out a door.

Now the scene was on some strange bridge, like a multi-layered bridge over a wide river. I thought it was the Brooklyn Bridge. I don't know what the scenario was. Either we had just arrived after a long travel or else we were immigrant laborers coming home after work.

We stood, just an Asian woman and I (not the same woman) among a bunch of unknown people, along one white-painted steel girder. To our left was a pole with a ladder leading up to a next level. In front of us, beyond about two feet of open space leading a couple hundred (?) feet down to the river, and up about three or four feet, was a plastic or fiberglass beam along which people walked. The beam led to a platform at which the bridge was wide and solid and led across the river and down to solid ground. Behind us and beyond the beam as well were tons of steel beams in triangular shapes, above us and below us as well, like a maze of beige- and white-painted steel beams.

A steady crowd of people, mainly dressed in nice clothes (though the people were generally poor, and possibly immigrants), walked along the plastic beam. People on the steel beam waited for a spot and then leaped up onto the beam, or else they went to the right or left, to where a ladder post was and climbed up to higher levels, where there were fewer people on that level's fiberglass beam.

But I was afraid to move. The beam was shaky. The jump to the fiberglass was precarious (though everybody else did it just fine). And the climbs up to the next levels were possibly at intervals of fifty or one hundred feet, at which point the beams were even shakier than they were at this level. To keep my balance, or rather, to keep my morale, I leaned against a ladder-less post.

The Asian woman and I were two of the few people now left on this steel beam. The Asian woman wore a multicolored, tight, modern sweater and blue jeans. I wore my regular clothes. The Asian woman was kind of laughing at me, that I was afraid to move. But she was also impatient with me, because she had wanted to take one of the ladders a long time ago.

She sighed and leaned hopelessly against me. I looked away from her, jumped up onto the fiberglass or plastic beam, which wasn't shaky at all, and was quite easily reached, so easily reached that I was upset at myself for having waited this long to get to it. The beam was depressed in the middle, with a straight line, like a track, i.e.

I walked to the platform, still slightly afraid but now mostly regretful that I hadn't gone up one of the ladders.

I reached the platform. The first area, the only one I saw, was just a six foot by six foot square of concrete, walled with thin, ridged, beige-painted sheet metal. Its right side opened to a wider platform which was open to the air and went down in a slight slope. Nobody was in this room, but I could tell that somebody, some man, was nearby to ridicule me for having been afraid.

In the corner, by the door, was a short, small table with two books on it. One book was a modern book, I don't remember what, although I now feel it was some book about being afraid of heights. I don't know what it was, but I did then. The other book was a Bible. I'm pretty sure it was highlighted in many passages which, I believe, were also supposed to discuss my fear of heights.

I felt like I was already being teased and judged, and I started to form defenses against accusations of cowardice, trying to make myself believe these accusations. (Or did I mean "make myself believe these defenses?")

***

(Another entry regarding this dream was made in my daytime paper journal from 9/27/04)

BEFORE I SAY ANYTHING ELSE --

In the dream I had where I was on a bridge and had to jump onto a fiberglass beam: the book beside the Bible on the table in the corner of the room before the concrete, outdoor platform was How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. It may also have had the Dr. Strangelove prefix, like in the title of the book (actually, the title of the film, not the book) in waking life. But the "Stop Worrying..." part was definitely there. I have remembered this for days, now, intending to write it down, but I always forget.

(8/20/06) i can't throw dog toys well; humble thyself; the student project

(Entered in paper journal at 9:20 AM at Ozzie's coffee shop at Garfield and 5th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I was in a dim living room with a lot of people. I had been throwing a ball to a dog, maybe my friend R's dog. Now my friend R threw the ball to show how well the dog caught when he threw, to prove how much she liked him, and how well he through.

Everybody else in the room felt bad for me, and eventually R painted over his strategy by saying something like, "Well, maybe she wasn't warmed up enough."

I threw a hamburger squeak toy (one of the dog's favorite toys in waking life). The dog fumbled it. I threw the toy some more. After a couple throws and fumbles, the toy became a cassette tape, which was also playing somewhere -- the song "Wild Horses," by the Rolling Stones.

The dog was now somehow my brother. "He" said, "I can't catch when this music is playing. Something about this band blocks my attention."

Dream 2

I walked into a church/classroom. My boss BS was there. The atmosphere was deep yellow from light through the windows.

BS was indignant because he had to teach a certain group of children. I was trying to tell him that there was really something good about these children. I told him, "Remember, the Bible says, 'Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord.'"

BS started yelling at  me, "I don't want some nobody like you telling me to humble myself. I'll humble you if you give me that shit!"

Somehow BS calmed down. The kids came in to learn. I was down steps as if walking toward a lower-level side-exit. I could hear myself somewhere, singing the "Humble Thyself" song. I could feel that BS had accepted his role.

Dream 3

A group of Latino kids and I were outside in a gnarled garden that was their house. Something about it couldn't be helped. We all had to pack up and go to a place in the mountains to fix up the forest there.

We got to the spot. An area of the ground was plowed over. The rest was thick with vegetation.

Some of the kids said something like, "We don't regret having to do this at all, regardless of what you might have thought. We've been looking for a project we felt like we'd actually have a chance to succeed at."

I was now a woman (the teacher or leader of the kids, as I had been as myself). I was also some non-present observer. "I"/"the woman" was driving in a car with a man. The car was full of stuff, like the man and woman were moving across the country.

The woman was so happy (about the kids) she was singing. She was singing a song in Spanish that turned out to be an advertisement for Coca-Cola. When she realized the absurdity, she began laughing. But now she sang a song about a product called SoyPro.

(11/30/07) a dirty movie; there for a friend; satanic pariah

(Entered in paper journal at 5:20 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I was in a bedroom with a friend. The friend (R?) was making a movie. There were two or three pool tables with white sheets over them. They were "beds." My friend wanted me to lay down on one of them and wrap myself in the sheets. But I looked at the "beds." They were all covered in dead insects and residue.

I yelled at my friend, "You just want me to lay down in all this filth!" My friend said that wasn't what he wanted. I said, "Well, why don't you lay down on the beds."

He said, "Oh, no. I'm not doing that." (I think the story of the film was to be of a guy who lifts himself from this bed as if it were his death bed, although he is still going to die.)

I was now out in a living room. There were a few people milling around, as if getting ready to shoot a scene in a movie. One guy sat in a corner by the window. He was kind of big, wearing winter clothes. He held a flyer for some rock band or big party -- an 8 1/2" by 11" black and white page. I knew that in the scene this man would give another man this flyer. This would set off a weird chain of events.

Suddenly I remembered another movie I had seen or been a part of. It was very similar. I was disappointed that there was so little originality nowadays that almost the exact same plot could be used twice. I muttered, "It's the exact same thing!" A few people were offended. I walked out of the house. I was on a big city street.

Dream #2

I walked through a series of alleyways or quiet streets in a big city. The roads and sidewalks were cobblestone. The buildings were redbrick. I was on the phone (right ear) with my friend R's fiancee L.

L was telling me how she was working to help kids take tests. She had had to take the SAT as a qualification. She passed and had done very well. I was happy for her. I was happy she had called to tell me how she had done. I thought, How could I have gone so long without being there to care for L when good things happen?

Dream #3

I sat with a bunch of people from the volunteer organization New York Cares in a yellow-walled room that was filled with natural light. We sat at a long, wood table. We were at our volunteer event, but were talking about the event or an event as if it had occurred a couple days ago.

I mentioned a girl who was a little too goody-two-shoes for my tastes. I sneeringly mentioned how she had pulled a Bible out of her backpack on a number of occasions. The other people had been laughing as we spoke, having a good time. But when I sneered about the woman's Bible, everybody stopped laughing. They said, "Here at New York Cares, we aren't supposed to care about how other people express their religious beliefs."

I said, "You're right. After all, I've brought the Satanic Bible to work occasionally." Now people were really upset. I knew I would be asked not to come back to New York Cares.

I looked at a card in an envelope. It was like mock-parchment, maybe 3" by 5". It had fancy writing on it. It was from my mom or one of my grandmothers. It was a message about how well I had been doing in my life.