(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.
Showing posts with label death bed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death bed. Show all posts
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
(12/20/08) she died in her imagination
(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.
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.
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