(Entered in paper journal at 10 AM at home in Brooklyn.)
Dream #1
I was in a (dark?) room with a woman or possibly the ghost of a woman. The woman appeared to be young and blonde, very pretty. But she was actually an old woman, or a woman who had died long ago. I stood as if between two rooms: one, in which this woman lay on a bed, and the other, a dark living room where some other woman (?), like the woman's attendant (?), sat in deep shadow.
The woman told me a story of how she'd known she was going to die. She'd had a disease like cancer and was in the final stages. I heard her story and "understood," at first, that she'd been asked to take a role in a film adaptation of a John D. MacDonald movie. I "understood" that the woman was at death's door and could hardly move when her final scene was shot.
I imagined the scene: a 1950s black and white movie. The woman, with long, dark hair, probably red, lying under a big, fur blanket, saying some final words. At some point the woman may have pulled down the blanket to expose her breasts. I "understood" that the final scene, which may have been a death scene, anyway, had been re-written so that the almost-invalid woman could act it out in her condition.
But then, as if time replayed itself, I "heard" the woman's actual "telling" of the story. The woman had always admired John D. MacDonald's novels and had wanted to act in an adaptation of one. But she had never gotten the chance. So, on her death-bed, she imagined herself acting out her favorite novel. This imagination was so powerful to her that it was almost like a reality to her. In fact, at the time of her death, she died "in her imagination," passing away as the character of the novel, in the final scene of the novel, rather than as herself in her bed.
When I heard this story I laughed. It was so heartwarming, and so quirky, somehow -- a Hollywood starlet passing away in a pulp novel fantasy. But then I began to cry. I thought of how much this work meant to her, and how tragic it was that this starlet never got to express herself fully.
As I cried, the room lit slightly. The light came from a small pool of water. The pool was where the woman's sickbed had been. The woman sat or stood or floated in the pool. She wore an elegant, green and white striped swimsuit. She was simultaneously modern and older styled. She had the poise and beauty of both Grace Kelly and a modern surfer girl.
The woman told me her name -- something like Jean Harlow or Jean Jordan. She told me I could find other movies she'd acted in by looking in an old (box or shelf?) of books she'd kept nearby. She may have embraced me.
I now stood in front of a bookshelf, looking through a stack of books. I knew I should get the titles of these books and then watch the movies with the titles. All the novels were extreme pulp novels: sci-fi, crime, even pornography. I assumed the film adaptations of these novels were all little-heard-of B-movies.
I had a handful of books but can remember only one cover clearly. A painting wherein a woman possibly in a yellow outfit, or maybe a yellow trench coat, was running across a deep green, shadowy background. The woman was looking over her right shoulder, as if panicked that something would attack her. The (very long) title ran across the bottom of the page -- something like: I Can't Use My ESP to Call the Martians Who Are Getting (Rescuing?) Me.
There were other crime books with covers painted in deep, ashy blues and grey-blacks. One may have used the derogatory term for black people in its title.
There may have been another person, probably a man, fumbling around in the books as well, trying to get a hold of all the books I was looking at.
Showing posts with label cancer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cancer. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
(12/21/08) L's sick mother; the land of mutated children
(Entered in paper journal at 12:08 PM at girlfriend H's apartment.)
Dream #1
I was inside an apartment. It was smallish, with grey carpet and pale lighting. It might have been early morning or late afternoon. I might have been all alone in the apartment.
My friend R's wife L walked in. Apparently the apartment belonged to R and L. I might have been in there, trying to get something while neither of them were there. But now L saw me. She went in and sat on her bed, which was (apparently) in the living room. The bed was all messy.
I asked L how she was doing. She seemed very mellow, almost depressed. She said she was fine. I asked her how her mom and dad were doing. She said, "Oh, my mom..."
I saw a picture in my head of a cartoon dad and mom at the very top of a greyish-green screen.
The mom popped out of the picture. I understood that this meant that L's mom was having health problems, or maybe that she had cancer.
I had to leave. L didn't want me to go, but, as bad as I felt for L's mom, I didn't want to have or start anymore contact with L or R.
I walked out the door. I wore both my shoes, but my right foot was also wrapped in a brown, plastic bag. I walked down a long, grey-painted, wooden stairway to a small parking lot/road that was bordered by a slightly wooded area. I knew R would be coming around soon. I wanted to be gone before he got here so I wouldn't have to see him. I may have walked another road.
Dream #2
I got onto a small airplane. The seats of the plane were arranged like a bus. The pilots got in. They sat in a seating area like bus drivers might sit in.
The plane began speeding up. The light outside was greyish like on a cloudy day. We coated past a landscape of full, green trees.
As the plane began taking off, I looked to my right, i.e. toward the front of the plane. The light outside was deep blue, like late afternoon, almost night. I saw through the pilots' windows. I thought, I've never been in a plane where you could actually see through the pilots' windows like this!
We passed through two sets of trees, which were arranged on either side of us like gates. We would scrape against the trees as we passed them. The trees may have been half-barren, not full. The horizon was a band of pale purple.
It was now daytime. The pilot was talking to some passengers in the front row as if he were a bus driver. I looked around. We were flying barely above street level, above a highway, following the highway's source. Then the plane was actually driving along on the highway. Finally, the plane had transformed into a regular bus, driving along the highway.
I thought, Well, maybe this is just for the first leg of our trip. I remembered having taken a bus once from Newark Airport to Allentown, Pennsylvania. I thought, Well, once we get to our next place we can take an actual airplane.
I was now skateboarding down the highway. The highway had a weird appearance, like it was smaller or cleaner than usual. The day was warm and bright. There was also a feeling along the highway like it was passing under bridges or just within range of barriers or enclosures, though there were grass slopes on either side of the road all the time. There were no cars. Instead there were kids, maybe teenagers, playing all through the street.
I tried to keep off to the left shoulder of the road. The shoulder was lined with tan bricks. My skateboard kept moving without any effort from me: I was going down a slope the whole way.
I was trying to avoid the kids because I didn't want to interrupt their fun, but also because I didn't want them to think I was a kid, too, and have them start bothering me. But eventually some kids did start to notice me. I skated over to the right shoulder of the road in hopes of avoiding them. But they followed me.
I got off my skateboard. I walked up onto the grass slope. Here, too, were kids in small groups, like picnic groups, playing here and there under the wide shade of the sparse trees.
I reached the top of the slope. The space was empty of trees, completely open to the clear, blue sky. All around me I saw rolling hills of grass, with small groups of kids playing everywhere.
I was being followed again by a group of kids who walked with a zombie-like slowness and will-lessness. I tried to avoid the kids. I walked to my right, toward a rocky cliff. Three zombie children cornered me at the cliff. They all looked like average, slightly troublemaking, white teenage boys. One wore a brown t-shirt.
I knew if I jumped off the cliff I'd die. I hadn't been afraid of the kids before: I just didn't want to be bothered by them. So I figured there was no use being afraid now. I might as well just see what they were planning to do.
But the kids didn't reach me. They may have stopped. The head of one of the zombie kids suddenly re-shaped. It puffed out into a grotesque circle, like out of a Garbage Pail Kids card. The kid seemed to be doing this in order to make me afraid. But I still wasn't afraid. Another kid expanded his head so that it grew a leg and an arm, both of which had a gross, rubbery appearance. I was trying to figure out what kind of disease these children had that was making their bodies do this.
I was now in a house or an apartment. This place may have been underground. The place was only half-lit, as if a few random lights in unseen rooms were throwing into the main room the only light the room had. The place was sparsely furnished but seemed cluttered nonetheless. There was a lot of activity, maybe from a lot of children running around. The place seemed more like a mental hospital than an apartment or house or even a school building.
At first I was floating, as if I were coming down a stairway and into the main room. I tried not to attract anybody's attention. I thought if anybody saw me and tried to connect with me, they'd give me whatever disease they had.
I floated through the main room (over an air-hockey table?) and into a very small, lit hallway. A couple kids ran out of a doorway to my left. As they ran past me they mutated themselves. One added limbs to his head the way the other had done. Another added bubbling lumps, two or three times the size of his actual head, to the back of his skull. A little girl came out and mutated her head so that it looked like a short body attached to a tall body at the neck, with the tall body in a pink dress and the short body in a blue dress.
Finally a woman came out of the room. She looked like Daryl Hannah's Pris character in the movie Blade Runner. She was very sexy and sleek. She wore a black and white striped tights costume and had spiky, pale blonde, almost white, hair. She herself was a mutation. But she was known as the "mother" of all these children. She had hypnotized them to be mischievous. But she was like a role model to them, so even if they weren't hypnotized, they probably would still be mischievous, if that was how she told them to be.
The woman touched me. I knew that since she touched me, I, too, would probably also start acting mischievously.
Dream #1
I was inside an apartment. It was smallish, with grey carpet and pale lighting. It might have been early morning or late afternoon. I might have been all alone in the apartment.
My friend R's wife L walked in. Apparently the apartment belonged to R and L. I might have been in there, trying to get something while neither of them were there. But now L saw me. She went in and sat on her bed, which was (apparently) in the living room. The bed was all messy.
I asked L how she was doing. She seemed very mellow, almost depressed. She said she was fine. I asked her how her mom and dad were doing. She said, "Oh, my mom..."
I saw a picture in my head of a cartoon dad and mom at the very top of a greyish-green screen.
The mom popped out of the picture. I understood that this meant that L's mom was having health problems, or maybe that she had cancer.
I had to leave. L didn't want me to go, but, as bad as I felt for L's mom, I didn't want to have or start anymore contact with L or R.
I walked out the door. I wore both my shoes, but my right foot was also wrapped in a brown, plastic bag. I walked down a long, grey-painted, wooden stairway to a small parking lot/road that was bordered by a slightly wooded area. I knew R would be coming around soon. I wanted to be gone before he got here so I wouldn't have to see him. I may have walked another road.
Dream #2
I got onto a small airplane. The seats of the plane were arranged like a bus. The pilots got in. They sat in a seating area like bus drivers might sit in.
The plane began speeding up. The light outside was greyish like on a cloudy day. We coated past a landscape of full, green trees.
As the plane began taking off, I looked to my right, i.e. toward the front of the plane. The light outside was deep blue, like late afternoon, almost night. I saw through the pilots' windows. I thought, I've never been in a plane where you could actually see through the pilots' windows like this!
We passed through two sets of trees, which were arranged on either side of us like gates. We would scrape against the trees as we passed them. The trees may have been half-barren, not full. The horizon was a band of pale purple.
It was now daytime. The pilot was talking to some passengers in the front row as if he were a bus driver. I looked around. We were flying barely above street level, above a highway, following the highway's source. Then the plane was actually driving along on the highway. Finally, the plane had transformed into a regular bus, driving along the highway.
I thought, Well, maybe this is just for the first leg of our trip. I remembered having taken a bus once from Newark Airport to Allentown, Pennsylvania. I thought, Well, once we get to our next place we can take an actual airplane.
I was now skateboarding down the highway. The highway had a weird appearance, like it was smaller or cleaner than usual. The day was warm and bright. There was also a feeling along the highway like it was passing under bridges or just within range of barriers or enclosures, though there were grass slopes on either side of the road all the time. There were no cars. Instead there were kids, maybe teenagers, playing all through the street.
I tried to keep off to the left shoulder of the road. The shoulder was lined with tan bricks. My skateboard kept moving without any effort from me: I was going down a slope the whole way.
I was trying to avoid the kids because I didn't want to interrupt their fun, but also because I didn't want them to think I was a kid, too, and have them start bothering me. But eventually some kids did start to notice me. I skated over to the right shoulder of the road in hopes of avoiding them. But they followed me.
I got off my skateboard. I walked up onto the grass slope. Here, too, were kids in small groups, like picnic groups, playing here and there under the wide shade of the sparse trees.
I reached the top of the slope. The space was empty of trees, completely open to the clear, blue sky. All around me I saw rolling hills of grass, with small groups of kids playing everywhere.
I was being followed again by a group of kids who walked with a zombie-like slowness and will-lessness. I tried to avoid the kids. I walked to my right, toward a rocky cliff. Three zombie children cornered me at the cliff. They all looked like average, slightly troublemaking, white teenage boys. One wore a brown t-shirt.
I knew if I jumped off the cliff I'd die. I hadn't been afraid of the kids before: I just didn't want to be bothered by them. So I figured there was no use being afraid now. I might as well just see what they were planning to do.
But the kids didn't reach me. They may have stopped. The head of one of the zombie kids suddenly re-shaped. It puffed out into a grotesque circle, like out of a Garbage Pail Kids card. The kid seemed to be doing this in order to make me afraid. But I still wasn't afraid. Another kid expanded his head so that it grew a leg and an arm, both of which had a gross, rubbery appearance. I was trying to figure out what kind of disease these children had that was making their bodies do this.
I was now in a house or an apartment. This place may have been underground. The place was only half-lit, as if a few random lights in unseen rooms were throwing into the main room the only light the room had. The place was sparsely furnished but seemed cluttered nonetheless. There was a lot of activity, maybe from a lot of children running around. The place seemed more like a mental hospital than an apartment or house or even a school building.
At first I was floating, as if I were coming down a stairway and into the main room. I tried not to attract anybody's attention. I thought if anybody saw me and tried to connect with me, they'd give me whatever disease they had.
I floated through the main room (over an air-hockey table?) and into a very small, lit hallway. A couple kids ran out of a doorway to my left. As they ran past me they mutated themselves. One added limbs to his head the way the other had done. Another added bubbling lumps, two or three times the size of his actual head, to the back of his skull. A little girl came out and mutated her head so that it looked like a short body attached to a tall body at the neck, with the tall body in a pink dress and the short body in a blue dress.
Finally a woman came out of the room. She looked like Daryl Hannah's Pris character in the movie Blade Runner. She was very sexy and sleek. She wore a black and white striped tights costume and had spiky, pale blonde, almost white, hair. She herself was a mutation. But she was known as the "mother" of all these children. She had hypnotized them to be mischievous. But she was like a role model to them, so even if they weren't hypnotized, they probably would still be mischievous, if that was how she told them to be.
The woman touched me. I knew that since she touched me, I, too, would probably also start acting mischievously.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
(11/11/09) dinner crashers
(Entered in paper journal at 7:58 AM at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)
Dream #1
I walked through a place like the road in Prospect Park heading up from Center Drive to Prospect Park West. I may have been walking with someone like my old friend V, or talking with him in my head.
I told V how I had been invited to dinner by my old friend R, and how R had made the dinner sound a lot like it would just be he and I, as if in apology for the way he'd acted toward me. Then, as the days passed, I found out that R's wife L's older sister had cancer.
I may now have been walking through a city area, like an old business area in a small city, still speaking with V. I told V how I found out that L's sister had been cured or that she was going to be cured. But she now needed money. So, I learned, R was having a dinner thrown for L's sister at R's house, a kind of split between a congratulations party and a fundraiser. The fundraiser dinner was going to be on the night R had invited me to dinner.
As I thought about this I may have seen, in my mind's eye, L's sister dressed in a purple shirt with a line-drawing in white of a diaper, and some slogan, written in white cursive, about being an adult baby mommy. (In waking life, I had seen a woman wearing this on an internet photo.)
V and I now sat in some big cafe that was full of people. We sat next to a window through which poured a lot of bright sunlight. I tried to explain that R had planned to spring this whole thing on me as a surprise, and he would have, had I not found out about the whole thing on my own.
I knew the conflict R would try to create. He'd try to make it so I was mad as soon as I saw so many people. Then, when I was out of earshot, and with nobody having explained anything to me, he'd make some speech to everybody to make himself look like a really conciliatory person, but also making me look bad, selfish, like I knew what this thing was all about, but that I'd just decided to be nasty about all the people here anyway.
I told V, "Now that I know what's going on, I'll be cheerful, happy to see everybody. But it really upsets me that R would try to play this game on me in the first place. He always tries these underhanded things for starting conflict."
V said he had to go to the bathroom. He got up and walked away. I looked out the window, possibly to a scene like a wide parking lot or road and a small building like a fast food restaurant or auto repair shop in the distance, under the white-yellow haze of sunlight.
Suddenly a man and woman sat down beside me in my and V's booth. The woman was maybe around my age, worn-out looking, but attractive. The man was perhaps in his forties, smallish but muscly, with dark-copper skin that almost looked like he wore makeup, tightly curled, short hair that was light red-brown, and a square, muscly, sour-looking face. He wore a white polo shirt that looked square and ill-fitting on him. The woman sat next to me. The man sat across from the woman.
The man and woman both had menus in front of them, and they'd probably brought stuff to the booth with them, like backpacks or duffel bags. The man had said, to annoy me, "Let's sit here. Man, I'm hungry. Aren't you, honey? Let's sit right here and eat our breakfast."
I looked around the cafe, which was very busy and full, trying to see if there wasn't some empty place for this couple to sit. I couldn't see anything.
I told the man, "We're sitting here. You have to find your own space."
The man said, "No we don't. I can do this if I want. It's allowed."
Dream #1
I walked through a place like the road in Prospect Park heading up from Center Drive to Prospect Park West. I may have been walking with someone like my old friend V, or talking with him in my head.
I told V how I had been invited to dinner by my old friend R, and how R had made the dinner sound a lot like it would just be he and I, as if in apology for the way he'd acted toward me. Then, as the days passed, I found out that R's wife L's older sister had cancer.
I may now have been walking through a city area, like an old business area in a small city, still speaking with V. I told V how I found out that L's sister had been cured or that she was going to be cured. But she now needed money. So, I learned, R was having a dinner thrown for L's sister at R's house, a kind of split between a congratulations party and a fundraiser. The fundraiser dinner was going to be on the night R had invited me to dinner.
As I thought about this I may have seen, in my mind's eye, L's sister dressed in a purple shirt with a line-drawing in white of a diaper, and some slogan, written in white cursive, about being an adult baby mommy. (In waking life, I had seen a woman wearing this on an internet photo.)
V and I now sat in some big cafe that was full of people. We sat next to a window through which poured a lot of bright sunlight. I tried to explain that R had planned to spring this whole thing on me as a surprise, and he would have, had I not found out about the whole thing on my own.
I knew the conflict R would try to create. He'd try to make it so I was mad as soon as I saw so many people. Then, when I was out of earshot, and with nobody having explained anything to me, he'd make some speech to everybody to make himself look like a really conciliatory person, but also making me look bad, selfish, like I knew what this thing was all about, but that I'd just decided to be nasty about all the people here anyway.
I told V, "Now that I know what's going on, I'll be cheerful, happy to see everybody. But it really upsets me that R would try to play this game on me in the first place. He always tries these underhanded things for starting conflict."
V said he had to go to the bathroom. He got up and walked away. I looked out the window, possibly to a scene like a wide parking lot or road and a small building like a fast food restaurant or auto repair shop in the distance, under the white-yellow haze of sunlight.
Suddenly a man and woman sat down beside me in my and V's booth. The woman was maybe around my age, worn-out looking, but attractive. The man was perhaps in his forties, smallish but muscly, with dark-copper skin that almost looked like he wore makeup, tightly curled, short hair that was light red-brown, and a square, muscly, sour-looking face. He wore a white polo shirt that looked square and ill-fitting on him. The woman sat next to me. The man sat across from the woman.
The man and woman both had menus in front of them, and they'd probably brought stuff to the booth with them, like backpacks or duffel bags. The man had said, to annoy me, "Let's sit here. Man, I'm hungry. Aren't you, honey? Let's sit right here and eat our breakfast."
I looked around the cafe, which was very busy and full, trying to see if there wasn't some empty place for this couple to sit. I couldn't see anything.
I told the man, "We're sitting here. You have to find your own space."
The man said, "No we don't. I can do this if I want. It's allowed."
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