(2/28/09) bar house; equations and jet flight; the fairy's burden; team change

(Entered in dream journal at 8:40 AM at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was at a bar, which also looked like a living room in a small townhouse or apartment. I actually started up in a bedroom upstairs from "the bar." I could hear my co-worker BK arguing downstairs. I stopped whatever I'd been doing (probably sitting on the floor doing something like a puzzle or board game) and walked a few steps down the stairway.

I saw BK at the end of a line, arguing with some people who were maybe halfway up the line. The people were maybe three black men in black jeans and black, puffy jackets with their hoods pulled up.

The floor was split into two rooms, something like a living room and a dining room. The living room was before me. The dining room was to my right. There might have been a third room to my left, beyond the view of the stairs. The line snaked through the living room and dining room. The living room and dining room were offset from each other, i.e. not having their walls in a straight line with each other. There might have been a stairwell going down to a basement level. The light of the whole place was a pink rosy-white.

I knew BK was getting himself in trouble, so I went downstairs and tried to console him and calm him down. he was a lot smaller than in waking life (I may even have noticed this in the dream). Whereas he's usually a couple inches taller than I and probably fifty pounds heavier, now he maybe came up to my chin and had a roundish, but tiny, frame.

(I also keep on feeling that throughout this whole sequence, from the beginning up to this point, I may have been a pretty girl, skinny, with tan skin and long, slightly ring-curly, black hair.)

I may have told BK that he was drunk and he needed to go upstairs to rest. I may have managed to get BK going up the stairs.

Now I was upstairs. (I was myself now.) BK wasn't a part of things anymore, apparently. (I don't quite get the space of the dream here.) I sat on a couch somewhere, as if I were in a small hallway-type area that may possibly have been overlooking the room below. There were three bedrooms, one on each side of me and one before me and down a short hallway. All the rooms were dark.

I had a light in the room where I sat. I may have seen myself as if from a point outside my body. (I actually can't say whether I was myself or a woman.)

A pretty, Hispanic girl with coppery skin, blondish hair, and a thickish but smooth and sexy body, wearing a short, blue party dress (sprinkled with tiny rhinestones or mirror-like beads?) walked up the stairs. She said she was too drunk to party anymore, and she wondered if she could sleep here tonight. I said of course.

I thought I'd guide the woman to my room, but she said she wanted to sleep in my brother's room. I saw the woman get into my brother's bed and lay close to the wall, the right side of the bed, as if she were snuggling with the wall. The bed had its mattress high up, propped maybe two and a half or three feet high, on red, metallic (?) bedposts.

I walked into my room. I may have turned on the light. I may have heard my brother downstairs. I was a little jealous that the woman had wanted to sleep with my brother instead of me. But I thought it would only be right for me to let my brother know the woman was waiting in bed for him. So I went downstairs (possibly as my brother was coming upstairs) to let my brother know.

Dream #2

I found a box or shelf full of DVDs that looked really interesting. I brought some into a dark room, like a bedroom that had been made into a film viewing room. The DVD I put in projected onto the wall with the same crisp, but used, quality of an old 16mm film.

The beginning image was a table, like a table of contents, with black background and white lettering. The table looked like something out of a 1970s (or earlier) government tet. It was actually manipulable, like the tables of contents on a DVD.

The top of the screen had a strange warning, about how this was an educational film relating either to the air force or to piloting jets. I knew this meant two things: first, that there was a lot of stuff the average viewer would find tedious or useless (this was strongly implied by the wording of the warning); and second, that there would probably be real scenes of people who had been injured or killed in jet accidents, crashes, shootings, etc. (this is something I thought by myself, by deduction, from what "I knew" about "films like this.").

I had second thoughts about the film, and I thought I'd just surf to the spots I wanted to see: the parts having to do with the functioning and flight of high-altitude jets and rockets.

But the "DVD" started automatically. It began with a narration of what was apparently a history of fighter jets. But the imagery was all of people, alone and together, scribbling out equations on paper, at desks in small rooms like laboratories, bigger rooms like classrooms, and even at chalkboards in large rooms like lecture halls.

The imagery was all "live" -- i.e. it showed the actual scientists in the moment of creation; it wasn't a dramatization. But it also wasn't a history. I realized this as soon as I started paying attention to what was being written. It was a lesson. All the scenes were linking together various pieces of an equation or set of equations relating to propulsion or trajectory.

I was fascinated; nevertheless, I kept waiting for a sudden intrusion of images of people who had been killed while flying jets. Now there were images (almost as if superimposed on the pages with equations) of rockets like the X-15 ascending steeply into the air. There may even have been footage of an SR-71 doing the same thing.

Now (possibly as a second dream?) I was in a room like a workshop (?) with my old friend R's wife L. L was telling me about an air and space museum that she thought I'd be interested in.

In particular there was a ride or simulation where you stood on something like a yellow mat (hexagon shaped?) and were lifted into the air, possibly by means of something like a sphere-like object, like the EPCOT Center sphere, which may have expanded in order to make the yellow mat rise. This ride or simulation (the whole experience may just have been part of a small virtual reality machine) was made to demonstrate the speed and angle at which the X-15 would accelerate on its missions.

I got giddy and afraid even thinking about something like this ride. I knew I probably couldn't do a ride like that. But I thought I'd have to make myself do it. After all, how could I fantasize all the time about these flights and then chicken out when I finally had the chance to experience something like them? And beyond that, if L and R had done it without my having done it, they'd always gloat about it and hold the fact over my head.

I thought I'd have to go to this museum. L told me the museum was in Dixie, which I assumed (almost envisioned in writing) meant Dixie, Kentucky (or "Dixie, KY").

Dream #3

I was in a field like an orchard or a nice valley in a park. It was a nice, sunny day. There were a few people around, all friends, relaxing.

My old friend R's wife L and I were flying about in the air, about ten feet up, or even higher, under or within the canopy of a wide tree (like an elm?). L carried me on her lap. I realized at some point in the dream that something else was carrying L, something like a fairy (like a human-sized version of the fairy in an episode on disc 7 of the Urusei Yatsura anime series DVDs).

L and I perched on one of the lower limbs of the tree, near the trunk of the tree. The sunlight through the canopy was silvery all around us. L and I may have moved apart from each other. There were a few people below the canopy, relaxedly playing some game like tag, but also slightly paying attention to me and L.

I thought I'd like to go even higher up the tree, maybe even higher than the tree. But I didn't want to fly without L wanting to -- I didn't want her to start claiming that I was a burden to her. But then I thought, Isn't it the (fairy?) that helps us fly? L doesn't even feel my weight on her lap, let alone the effort that would be required in making us fly.

I thought I would ask the fairy either to help me and L or just me fly even higher. But now I saw that the fairy (which was really invisible, or else so crystal clear that seeing her was nearly impossible) was a few levels of limbs below me and L, as if L and I were no longer on the lower limbs of the tree. I thought I would be making too much of a burden out of myself if I called the fairy from all the way down there (about ten feet below me?). So I decided not to ask after all.

Dream #4

I was in a meeting with somebody. We were in an office lit with whitish, fluorescent light. The room was small, and it was just the other person and I, but the room felt very busy.

The meeting ended. I walked out into a small office which ended with a little area like a snack bar. This area also seemed to be busy, but there didn't seem to be anybody around. Very hurried, I asked for something from the person behind the counter.

While the person was getting my order, my co-worker BT came up from behind me. He stood to my left and slapped his arm around my shoulders. He said, "Hey, boss, did I see you coming in here to have a meeting with somebody at 5 AM today?" I said yes. BT said, "We need to have a talk a little bit later on. Alright? Seriously. Stop by."

I laughed a little bit -- I was pleasantly shocked that I'd been recognized for actually coming into work early. But my laugh, instead of sounding pleasantly surprised, sounded almost condesending, as if I were trying to say, "Why would I need to talk to you?"

I understood that both BT and I had either gotten fired from here or else that were were going to get fired. BT wanted me on his team at whatever company he'd be working at next because he realized how hard I worked.

BT had gotten whatever he'd ordered, but either he didn't pay the cost of his meal, one dollar, or else he only paid one dollar for his meal when it actually cost five dollars. He walked away. I now paid for my order. The order cost one dollar. I gave five dollars. The cashier didn't give me my change and moved onto the next person in line.

I thought that a change machine in front of me (which looked like either a black, metal change-making machine -- like in laundromats -- or a clear, glass tip jar half-full of bills and change) was supposed to scroll out my four dollars in change. I waited, but the machine didn't give me my change. I was about to ask the cashier to give me my change.

But now BT came back up. He gave the cashier the money he hadn't given before. He then turned to me and looked me in the face. He said, "Hey, about what I said, I'm serious, okay?"

I knew BT had taken my laugh as if he'd thought I was laughing him off. I tried to be as serious as I could. I told BT, "Yes. I will definitely come talk to you."

For some reason, however, I may have felt like it was now already late in the afternoon. BT must have thought I'd blown him off by not coming to see him for the whole day. (Also, BT may have been shorter than he is in waking life. In waking life he towers over me by a head. But in the dream he was looking at me eye to eye.)

(4/6/09) room 430; lost luggage; asking for a book

(Entered in paper journal at 8:10 AM at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was outside a large apartment complex. I had been sent out to get something for my mother. I was now trying to get back to the apartment as soon as possible. I ran to a glass door (like a hall-end entrance door at a hotel) and hit a buzzer button, probably buzzing my mom's apartment. My mom buzzed the door open.

I knew the room I was looking for was number 430. But I was in a hallway with rooms numbered in the 200s. The rooms all had their numbers engraved on large, oval, gold or brass plaques on the doors. I ran down this hallway to get to the hallway numbered in the 400s. I ran through the 300s hallway.

I thought I'd wasted time by coming in through the 200s hallway. I also wondered why my mother had let me into the 200s hallway instead of telling me to go to the correct hallway.

I now ran into a large atrium or lobby-like area. A few different hallways converged here. There were some little garden- or fountain-triangles set into raised brick-structures. The ceiling was glass, and gentle daylight flowed through. Some apartments stood within this area. I could see room 430 just beyond and between two garden triangles.

I saw my co-worker BT walk away from the apartment, as if he'd possibly just left the room. I didn't say anything to him -- I was too hurried. I approached the door.

Dream #2

I stood on a two-sided subway platform. I may have had a lot of baggage with me. A train pulled in on the other side of the platform. I suddenly realized this was the train I was supposed to catch. I ran across to catch the train. But I realized I had left all my baggage on the other side.

I was trapped in the train door, half turned out of it. The train doors opened. I ran to where my baggage had been. It wasn't there. I thought of it. It was now like another train had come on this side, and like my baggage had somehow gotten on that train.

I thought, Now I have nothing. There's no way I'll get all that stuff back. People have probably stolen it by now. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I now had nothing. I looked at my BlackBerry to try and figure something out.

A group of subway workers, black men and women, were joking about me, how stupid and lost I looked now that I had nothing, and how stupid I was for thinking that I'd get anything back. But they might also have been saying that if I looked serious or honest or skillful enough, they might help me. They may even have had my baggage, so that they would give me a piece back as I successively (not successfully) proved my identity.

I looked in my book bag to see if there was some way I could either get started back up in life without all my missing baggage or else prove my identity to the subway workers.

But now I thought, Wait -- I have my BlackBerry. I have my book bag. I have access to my money. I hae my identification. Everything else is just extra stuff I don't need. Why was I thinking I had nothing?

Dream #3

I was in an office space. I walked into an office, behind which my old co-worker IA stood. His desk was cluttered. Before the desk stood a woman who looked like my old boss JT, except that she looked thinner and had blonde streaks in her hair. IA was trying to impress JT professionally (he would have had no need to do so in waking life, JT being a supervisor over people other than IA) by showing her how organized he was.

I had come in to get a set of books like a mix between the FINRA Series 86 course material and some kind of large numbers-book like a book full of market data. I had done this, partly, to help IA n a project in a very important way. When IA handed me the book he was quick and curt, but also polite.

I walked out of the office, back into the larger office space, which was like a bunch of tall filing cabinets and short, wide work spaces that could be used for things like stapling documents together.

As soon as I left the office, I could hear IA talking bad about me to JT. IA said something like, "See the silly kinds of demands he makes? What kind of a person needs a book?"

I now realized either that I was finished with this book already or else that this wasn't the correct book. I knew I'd have to take the book back to IA right away so I could start getting the work done as soon as possible. But I was also afraid to go back into the office. I didn't want to give IA another reason to talk bad about me behind my back.

(5/25/09) damaged gift; man-eating bug; mexican gunmen; grandpa's dazed spirit

Dream #1

I stood before a large house, like the house my family lived in with my mom's boyfriend when I was nine years old (we called this house the "mansion" because it was bigger than any place we'd lived in before -- or after!). It was either early morning or early evening, and the sky was dark.

I walked into the house. I stood in a dark room just inside the doorway. The room was shallow, but wide, almost like a "covered porch" might be. The room opened to what looked like a small, run-down kitchen or dining room or pantry area. A light was on in the kitchen. The entry room had no light. It was very dark, as if the kitchen's light couldn't even penetrate the room.

I stood on or just behind the threshold between rooms. To my left was a wall, behind which I may have half-hidden. My old co-worker JR stood in the kitchen. I held up a bench, which I was giving to someone from the job I'd just gotten let go from as a gift. When I showed it to JR, he just chuckled to himself, as if I was silly to think I could give something like that as a gift. The sentiment, JR implied, was so half-hearted.

I took a look at the bench. It was about six feet long. It looked like it was made out of material that would usually go into making a cheap office desk: veneered plyboard, chromed metal, and some thin, black metal or plastic for legs.

But now I noticed (I held the bench upside-down and diagonally, so that an end was near my head) that the right leg of the bench (the end near my face) was missing. I realized I was about to give someone a broken bench as a gift. I also felt like I was in trouble: JR would definitely spread a bad word about me because of what I'd done.

I walked away from the kitchen (and possibly out of the house altogether). I thought of giving another co-worker, BT, a call on my cellphone, to put in a few kind words and show myself as being a good person, in hopes that my own good words could buffer opinion against the words of bad opinion that JR, I feared, would soon be sending out.

Dream #2

I was in an office with a man and a woman. The man was in a managerial position. The woman and I were about on the same level professionally. We all stood in a thin hallway. All around us were walls the bottom half of which were wall and the top half of which were window-walls, opening to views of "offices."

The views may sometimes have been of areas like manufacturing areas or loading areas. The areas looked empty, porbably shut down, as if the working shifts were through for the day.

The man then pointed out a couple "offices" which were more like strange areas full of canisters with no lids. The tops of the canisters were covered with a white, thin, softish, plastic material, under which things, which were apparently alive, were moving, like piles of worms. Either the man said or I understood that the things in these canisters would probably devour a human being if one fell into their environment.

The three of us stepped outside the office building, almost unintentionally, as if the momentum of our movement down the small hallway couldn't be stopped. We stood outside, by a fire escape door, on  wooden landing at the top of a wooden staircase. It was night.

As if realizing that we had come outside, we walked back into the building through the door, which was still open. The man walked far ahead of the woman and me. The woman walked a few steps ahead of me.

I looked into another "office." This was also a storage area of canisters. The canisters in this room had no lids or tops at all. There were organisms in these canisters like snake-sized meal worms. They had a brownish-red color, very dry and rough looking.

I was slightly disappointed. I thought that being eaten by these organisms would be far less "smooth" (and, thus, far less enjoyable) than being eaten by the organisms under the white covers.

But then it occurred to me that the organisms under the white covers might be the same as these organisms, or even, that it was possible  that the canisters with the white tops no longer existed. I thought, Then if one is going to be devoured, it would have to be by these organisms. This seemed awfully disappointing to me.

But, I thought to myself, I probably won't be devoured. The man, I now recalled, had mentioned his disappointment with the woman's job performance. Whoever performed poorly would likely be the one to get eaten. So I assumed the woman would be eaten. I was relieved.

But I also felt bad. How petty of me! I didn't just feel relieved: I felt smugly satisfied to think of the woman being eaten. I even thought, with pleasure, of her falling down into the room of open canisters.

Dream #3

I stood out in an open area. It was a slightly hazy, blue day, with the sun glowing white in the sky. The land was mostly barren, like a dirt parking lot, except with thin patches of small grass and weeds. I walked to the foot of a hill which was all of barren, tan soil. I looked up the hill. Near the crest were a few smallish, sandstone-like rock formations, one of which was like a natural arch.

Two Mexican men stood near the rock formations. Both looked like Indians: they had coppery-tan skin, were shortish and stoutish, and they wore blue jeans and t-shirts. The man on the left stood near the natural arch. He had a squarish face and hair waving down to just below his shoulders. He wore a tight, nicely colored, but faded, purple t-shirt.

I had probably planned to climb the hill. But when the two men noticed me, they sent out a definite signal that they didn't want me around, or even looking at them. They were calm and composed, but something in their body language indicated that they were already harboring violent intentions toward me. I turned and walked away from the hill.

I stood now in an area with a field-office trailer on my left side and a freight trailer or shed-trailer on my right side. A few other people stood around me. They were dumpy-looking, official-looking workers.

The Mexican men on the hill could still see me easily. I knew they were planning on opening fire on me soon. I was trying to get out of their sight, hoping that they would forget about me if I stayed out of sight and out of attention long enough.  I decided to hide behind the shed-trailer, which was now more like a simple wall of thick, corrugated metal, probably painted grey-white.

But as I hid, one of the workers started talking to me. He stood before/beside the shed-trailer, so that he was in plain view of the Mexican men. I thought, His talking like that is only going to keep the Mexican men aware of my presence. Then soon they'll open fire.

But, I thought, relieved, they'd probably open fire on the worker instead of me, just hoping that they'd be able to attack somebody. I felt ashamed about this, but I almost felt a grimy pleasure to think of the worker being shot full of holes instead of me. Finally, I thought, I'd see a sucker get what was due to him.

Dream #4

I stood in a busy room. The room was full of activity, people rushing around, taking care of business.  I was and was not in the room. It was like I was watching a past that someone, or some television show, was telling me about.

The room was tall, with pumpkin-colored walls. There were windows high up on the walls, letting in plenty of grey-white daylight, although incandescent lights also lit the room. The room was a tall, but narrow square. It was probably a room in some kind of TV studio. I stood near one wall. I saw a doorway on the opposite wall and a doorway on the wall to my right. The doorway to my right was possibly ten or twelve feet tall.

 I suddenly saw my maternal grandfather (who, in waking life, had died a little more than six months before this dream). He sat on the shoulders of a very thin, tall man. My grandpa looked like he did before he got cancer. But he was wearing a cowboy hat, which I don't remember him doing very often in waking life.

I "remembered," or heard a narrator say, that my grandfather had been a cast member of some local children's show in Colorado. He did this in addition to being some kind of executive businessman. His work on the TV show was something like a charitable activity. He did it for free. The TV show itself was somehow a means of gathering funds for a charity. Nevertheless, my grandfather was something of a star among the local children who watched the show.

This whole scene had been "shown" to me to not only to prove that my grandfather had been a lot more professionally active than I had known or would acknowledge, but also to illustrate that he was more active in the community, did more things with his free time, cared about people more, and had more artistic ability, than I had ever acknowledged.

My grandfather had a really vacant, smiling look on his face, as if he were blissfully close to being brain dead. I realized my grandpa's role in the show had been that of a gentle, good-natured, stupid clown-villain character. But my grandpa's vacant expression was too genuine. It didn't look like he was acting. It looked like this stupor was his real condition.

As part of the comic act, though none of this was being filmed -- or even on stage! -- the tall man walked through the doorway, and my grandpa, just tall enough, knocked his head softly (although it was supposed to be perceived as a rough bump) against the top of the doorway. The tall man then backed up and gave my grandfather a few seconds to utter his catch phrase, which, I knew, was, "I'll get you yet!"

But my grandpa said the catch phrase very softly and vacantly, half like he was playing a gentle character, but half like he no longer had enough brain power to say anything with any sort of emotion or character. The tall man then walked my grandfather through the door without my grandfather knocking his head against the doorway-top.

I saw my grandfather a few moments later. He was walking back into the room I stood in. He walked with a group of businessmen who were all about his age, i.e. around seventy years old. My grandpa was obviously a part of the group, and he walked within the group. But he wasn't attending to the group at all: his eyes drifted off vacantly into space. He still wore a gentle, brainless smile, partly like he was playing his clown role and partly like he was genuinely brainless. I felt very uneasy watching him.