(8/26/07) spoiling the candy tray

(Entered in paper journal at 6:15 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I was flying over an enormous courtyard of grey flagstone. It was early morning. The sky was grey-blue. I flew to the front end of the courtyard and down some steps. The courtyard might have been for the campus of a university. It was empty except for two or three people in a group.

As I flew over I heard a woman in the group tell a man in the group, "That's him! That's the one XXXXX was talking about. He can do drawings for our show. Go talk to him."

I had now landed on the stairs and was walking down the steps, to a small corridor and another courtyard. Some time had passed, but nobody had approached me. I thought, I could have volunteered my help. After all, I'd heard them talking about me. I walked back up the stairs.

(Now that I think about it (i.e. upon entering this dream into the paper journal), there might have been three open areas and two staircases, and while hearing the people speak I had flown through the first and second areas.)

I now flew up to a tunnel after (instead of before) the first area. On the wall to my left was a bulletin board. There was a weird character drawn on the board. He may have been depicting an Italian man with a big mustache and a tall top-hat. The drawing was done almost haphazardly. It was for either a play or a restaurant called Rice.

I thought, If this drawing is what the people were talking about, then I've missed my chance. If not, then I need to find those folks and talk to them.

I walked back down the steps and to the steps to the lowest level. As I descended the steps to the lowest level, a woman like KG, a head person at a New York City park I'd worked at during my Americorps program, called for me.

I turned to look up at KG. She was carrying a big tray of desserts. She walked down to meet me. We walked, in the golden morning sunlight, down the steps to a walkway like a red-cinder running track with lawn on either side.

KG told me, "I made" (or got?) "these new desserts. Try one. I figured I'd give you one to try that's the same kind as the one I try."

KG handed me a little white circle with a brownish, jellybean-like object at its center. KG then handed me the entire tray of candies and rushed ahead.

I wanted to try what KG had given me. But, looking at the tray -- a lightweight, ornate, silver tray, almost circular, with all the candies slid and piled awkwardly to one side, I can't remember which -- I saw a chocolate candy like the one KG had given me. I ate that candy instead of the one KG had given me.

The candy was weird. It had a thin skin that burst open, letting out chocolaty goo. I looked at all the other candies. I wanted to try more, but I couldn't remember whether the candies were each specifically needed for some special event. I now worried that, by eating the candy off the tray instead of eating the candy KG had handed me, I had messed up KG's event.

I thought about making up an excuse. I thought, I'll eat the candy KG gave me, as well. That way KG will at least know I ate the proper candy, even if I also ate an improper piece of candy.

I was now down on the red-cinder track. The track had somehow filled up with people who were jostling me this way and that.

I now thought I could excuse myself for missing one of the pieces of candy by saying that I had gotten knocked about so much on the track that I may have accidentally lost one or two pieces of candy. I thought I would throw away a couple more pieces of candy, just so the situation would seem "more realistic." The first things I thought I should throw away were a couple of pretzel sticks.

(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.