(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.

(12/11/08) spider in my room

(Entered in paper journal at 6:35 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I was in "my bedroom." I may have had a black or grey blanket on my bed. The room was dim with light coming only from the hallway or a different room. I may have been thinking gladly to myself how my room was free of bugs. I might have been afraid of that changing.

As I lay down for bed, something jumped off the wall, onto my blanket (which was all crumpled up on my bed). The thing was some kind of bug, but it looked like a little piece of trash. It moved around. It appeared to be all legs. At first it may have "had"/"been" only six or four legs. The legs were one-eighth of an inch long and translucent, with spherical tips. They seemed more like fangs than legs to me.

As the spider moved along, it "opened out," its legs now being long, black and white striped, thin, and half an inch long. The previous "legs" had coalesced into a sort of body.

I was trying to get the spider off my bed, but I didn't want to kill it or touch it. I would try to blow it off my bed, but it would constantly hold its place.

At some point I may have succeeded in getting the spider off my bed. I may then have chased it around the room, trying to get it even farther away from me, until it ended up, somehow, back on my bed.

At last I may have smashed the spider with a shoe or a book or something flat, like a board or a stiff piece of paper. But even then all that happened was that the spider was no longer there. It may have been gone, or it may have hidden under a fold, just as easily as it may have been smashed.