(5/26/08) washing a painting; no idea who i am

(Entered in paper journal at 9:06 AM at Flying Saucer cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was possibly on a dark shore with my mom, my aunt M, and another woman, possibly my cousin AH. The sky was dark, almost brownish. The ground was like mud, or like muddy pools.

My mom and the other woman stood in two different puddles full of muddy water. They were wading their arms into the water as if cleaning something off. They were also searching for something, possibly a painting.

I ended up standing in the water in my mother's place. I may have held the painting. I may have been washing it off with the muddy water. As I was doing so, my aunt was talking about how incompetent my mom was, how she hadn't been able to find the painting.

Dream #2

I stood in a very cramped room with a few people, among whom were my mother, my oldest nephew, and a few other family members. The room was probably a kitchen and was bright with light from a window. My nephew sat by a stainless steel refrigerator. His dull reflection showed on one of the sides of the fridge -- possibly not the side he sat next to, which may, however, have been bright with window-light reflection.

I said to my nephew, "You know that this you" (I pointed to my nephew's reflection) "isn't real, right?" My nephew said yes. I then asked him, "But, now, are you quite sure that this you" (I pointed to him, but toward his lap) "is real?" I could tell that other people in the room were listening to me and thinking that I was trying to teach my nephew a good lesson.

There was now a scene before me -- a McDonald's menu all in red, as if written in some kind of fancy menu card and hung up on a wall. I was working to figure out how McDonald's sales would perform given their new menu.

I now sat in an audience, looking out at a very dim stage, which may have been lit with red-orange light, and which was pretty much level with the front row of seats. There were two men, possibly Asian, who were making some deep statements about something like business or finance.

As the men started speaking, some recording started, music or voice, which was supposed to appear like it came from a device, like a phone or a HAM radio, or a person at a table on the right side of the stage. I thought the double-sound was making a statement on the reality and unreality of everything we say -- as if everything we say is and is not based in reality. The speech of the Asian man became more philosophical than businesslike.

Suddenly one of my senior co-workers, KU, who was sitting behind me and just to my right, got angry at the person sitting behind him. He said, "You'd better apologize and clean that up right now!" I could tell that the person sitting behind KU had spilled something like a chocolate shake on the floor and that it had spilled into KU's row. The person behind KU, I felt, was a young man, pale white, with shaggyish, blonde hair and possibly some scraggly facial hair and wearing jeans and a t-shirt for some heavy metal band.

KU said, "You have no idea who I am, and how much I can mess with your life if you don't apologize!"

The man behind KU now said something like, "I have just as many connections as you have!" He then made some reference to a group of very powerful people in the Private Equity industry.

I had been hoping KU could get this guy to apologize. It had becoming clearer to me that this guy had spilled his drink into KU's space on purpose. I thought KU had been right to stand up for himself. But now I felt despair at the fact that this guy fought against KU in the same way and simply wouldn't apologize.

(3/16/09) killer double; cave museum; stalked, framed, and institutionalized

(Entered in paper journal at 7:50 AM at home in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

An image of a large man in a black and white leather biker's outfit. The man may have been white, tan, with long, blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. He may have worn tan and white makeup in haphazard fashion, and he may have had all kinds of random things attached to his outfit. He looked like a cartoon, like something out of the anime of Akira. I thought (possibly after waking) that this was a double that could attack the people who were after me.

Dream #2

I stood out with my family on a road somewhere. It was a hot, sunny day. We stood before a car at the top of a hill, looking down to a flat city in a desert (?). I may have seen from a very low view with most of my vision on the front, driver's side tire.

I now stood before a view that was real and "in action," but was frozen like a photograph. A group of at least five "buffalo" emerged from a cave. The "buffalo" were enormous and white, with long, shaggy coats, like the coats of mountain goats. The "buffalo" may even have had the faces of mountain goats. They were all frozen in their emergence (though the event was "still happening") in a close grouping, some running along the ground, some jumping through the air.

I now saw a view from far back and high up of the cave's surroundings. The land was almost entirely covered with snow. But the cave mouth was set into a face of black, snowless cliff. There might have been a marshy lake somewhere as well, with green waters and a surface glinting gold in the sunlight.

I was now underground in a cave which was a museum. There might have been windows on the upper parts of some of the walls, letting in some natural light to add to the soft, incandescent light. I walked into one exhibit room. There were colorful murals on the wall and spaces for old exhibit cases and insets that were now gone. The murals were about using geological strata to calculate time periods and the age of the earth.

A small man stood at the other end of the room. He was skinny with a slight belly, bald with a round head, a round nose, a thick mustache, and round, plastic-rimmed glasses. He wore a brownish cardigan, a yellowish shirt, and khaki slacks.

The man was telling me how the museum was getting rid of this room. It was beautifully designed, but it was entirely based on an approach to calculating geological periods that was now obsolete. The approach may have been too linear. I thought it was really silly to get rid of such beautiful, colorful murals just because some new theory (which probably wasn't that great, anyway) had come along.

But now the room was filling up with water, as if the museum people were going to flood the room to empty it out. The water was about halfway up to my knees. I walked out. The other man still stood in the room. I walked into another room that adjoined to the hallway. It was empty, with black cave-rock walls and dirt floors. High on the wall to my left was a window letting in light from a pale blue sky.

Dream #3

I was wandering through a town like a desert town. It was a sunny, winter morning, possibly with frost still glazing surfaces. I wandered through different buildings and areas, through the front areas of small "auto-shop" stores, under canopies of gas stations, through tunnel-like walkways for places like motels.

I noticed an Hispanic man was following me. I turned slightly and reached around me, almost over my own head, to grab his head. I tried to smash his head, or to hurt the man in some way. I told the man, "I know you're following me! Why are you following me?!"

The man didn't answer. There was now another Hispanic man. I thought, Well, I can't get rid of both of them. If they want to follow me, let them.

We all stood in a foyer area that was also like a telephone booth. I had some Greek books from the Loeb Classical Edition. But I knew I had left some Latin books behind somewhere, as well as having left behind my bicycle.

I told the men, "Wait here for me. I forgot all my stuff. I'll be right back." The men liked me and took me at my word. I ran back for everything. I ran through something like the grounds for a flat, multi-winged high school (like the high school I had attended).

I was trying to remember the path I had first take through the school grounds. I thought, If I go exactly backwards I should be able to find everything. I wondered now why the Hispanic men weren't following me. I thought it had been too easy to get rid of them.

I ran through a long hallway and into a main area joining three or four hallways. A couple of white men, one older, one in his late twenties, both probably teachers, sat at a desk off to the side of the large room, as if they were waiting to sign in a group of folks who would be arriving for some fun event.

I had a pretty good idea of where I needed to go to get my bike back, but I told the men, "Tell me a room number. I'm looking for my bike. If you tell me a room number, I know my bike will just show up there."

The younger man said, "Okay. 158."

I knew that room 158 was in a certain wing, but I ran into a different wing. I opened a big, heavy door to a clunky-looking room like a maintenance or repairs room or garage. On the other side of the room from me was a large opening (like a garage door opening) to the outside. There were a lot of workers in here, mostly Hispanic or Native American, all joking around and acting a little rowdy.

There was a row of lockers along the wall to my left. The lockers were dull orange and yellow. They were all in bad shape. Some weren't even standing upright against the wall. They had numbers scrawled onto them, probably in pencil.

One of the locker doors had the number 158 written on it. I opened that locker up but didn't find anything. The workers might have thought I was acting suspiciously. I said, "I thought I'd find my bike here."

I was now somewhere else, possibly in a long corridor of college dorms. I knew someone was planning to get me blamed for something I didn't do. I saw in a girl's room. The girl lay in a relaxed fetal position on her right side. She slept half under the covers, on white sheets. Near the girl's feet the left corner of the bed had the sheets pulled up. Someone had written on the bed in lipstick "LIVE AIDS."

This bed-vandalism was now being blamed on me. I was being called into the room with two cops. The lights were still off. Nobody had woken the woman. The cops showed me the words. I said, "I didn't know anything about them."

Someone turned the lights on. I tried to prove my innocence by showing the cops my legs. I had shaved my legs, I told the cops, because I'd gotten a few weird scars that wouldn't heal, or would always get infected, while I had hair on my legs. The hair was just now growing back. I pointed out the old, healed scars to the cops. I told them, "It even causes me to walk a little strange."

The cops told me, "Go out into the hallway and let us see how you walk." I went out into the hallway and walked for the cops. As I did, the cops spoke with one another (I heard them as if I were standing right beside them). They said I probably was innocent of this crime, but that I was obviously mentally unstable, and that they should probably take me to a mental hospital.

(9/30/09) dancing at mcdonald's; sexual derivatives; washer full of lingerie

(Entered in paper journal at 7:55 AM at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

It was a blue, sunny day. I walked onto a parking lot, heading onto it from either the sidewalk or the street (i.e. after having crossed the street). The parking lot feels like the parking lot of a King Sooper's grocery store my family used to drive by, but never shop at, when I was in junior high school in Denver. The parking lot and the street behind it were empty.

In the distance I could see the side of a large, square, brown-painted block building, like a King Sooper's. But nearer to me was a McDonald's. The McDonald's had a 1950s look, with one golden arch coming out of the roof on each side of the building. But it also had a strange, futuristic look, as if the whole building were also made to look like the chassis of a vehicle, or like the torso (?) of a battle robot. The building looked plastic and was painted a wet-looking white or silver. I could see a drive-thru menu beside the building, as well as an outdoor eating patio in front of the building.

Raucous, cheerful 1950s music began playing on the speakers outside the McDonald's, like the music one might expect to hear playing in the car area of a Sonic restaurant. I think the song sounded like a specific John Lee Hooker song that I can no longer remember. I almost felt possessed. I began bopping up and down and dancing to the music as I walked.

I looked down at my shadow on the asphalt and then caught a glimpse of myself somehow. I was wearing a low quality dress shirt and pants, the shirt a blandish tan-brown, and the pants a shade lighter, almost khaki, but a shade greener. I was fatter. I definitely had a bit of a stomach. I could see from my shadow (?) that my hair was cut, but that it had a tall, wavy, but messy look, like a Ricky Ricardo hairstyle, but on a complete geek. I may also have been wearing a thin, black tie.

I may have tried to stop dancing, thinking that any of the Mexicans (?!) at the McDonald's would see me dancing and think I was just a wannabe Mexican. I may finally have stopped myself from dancing as the McDonald's passed behind me and out of my sight.

I may then have met up with a few people, possibly near a car in this lot, which was still empty. My mother may have been among the people. I may have had a conversation with the people, some kind of critical discussion regarding my actions over the past couple minutes.

Dream #2

I lay in bed with my brother. We were in a dark basement. A sliver of dim light came from above, as from some place around the corner from the top of the stairwell of which we were at the bottom. I was trying to explain stock options, derivatives, to my brother. The two of us may have been children, although we both had our adult minds.

But as I continued explaining derivatives to my brother, he took on the appearance of TT, a female co-worker I had a crush on. I myself may have taken on my adult form. I got into some quasi-detail explaining derivatives, which I only half-understood.

The bed was huge, and the two of us lay under thick blankets. The blanket was like a patchwork quilt, the squares in many places of white and blue patterning, like patterns on China. My brother/TT pulled the blanket off him/herself, apparently bored and/or confused by everything I had been talking about. He/she said that he/she had to get somewhere to take care of something.

I now saw my brother's body. He wore nothing except a black pair of panties. His body was slim, warm brown, with big breasts. I was suddenly very aroused. I asked him, "Would you mind if -- if I --."

I hesitated, partly because I didn't want to embarrass the woman and partly because I didn't feel alright making love to a man. But I continued, too aroused to stop myself. I asked, "Would you mind if I -- had sex with you?"

The woman, now sitting against the headboard of the bed, ready to get up, looked at me as I sat before her, my shoulders still covered by the blankets. She gave me a surprised, politely disinterested look, then said, "Well, sure. That would be fine."

I may have laid down on the woman. But now she was floating away, standing upright, from the foot of the bed, her back to the bed. I floated just behind her. We floated with our feet maybe a foot above the ground. The woman still wore only her panties. We were floating toward the back of the basement, possibly toward the laundry room, nowhere near the stairwell up to the main floor. At this point, the basement reminded me of the basement from a townhouse my family lived in when I was ten years old.

The woman said something like, "We can make love soon. But for now I have to take care of some things."

I thought this made sense. The woman needed to go to work, or something like that. But I still really wanted to make love right now. I felt like if I didn't make love to the woman while I felt this way, I might never be able to make love to the woman.

Dream #3

I was in a department store, like a Kmart, except that the place was maybe the size of six Kmarts put together. I sat in some seating area, possibly like an area of table-booths in a food-court-like area, with my mother. The booth seats/benches were orange. The light around us was a glaring white fluorescent.

Even though my mom sat next to me, I couldn't see her. It was like I was looking down at a newspaper or some knitting, or even just a white, plastic bag I was fondling, while my mother sat to my left, her head just above and out of my line of sight -- like I was as small as a child!

We were possibly about to finish up here and go somewhere else. But then I realized that I hadn't done my laundry, and that my mother hand done my laundry for me. It was now like I sat in an orange plastic seat, like in a row of single seats all fastened atop a single square iron beam, like might be seen in waiting areas for bus stops, government offices, etc.

A little impatient with my mom, both for not having done my laundry -- she had done her own and, possibly, "everybody else's" -- and for thinking it was fine for us to go even though my laundry wasn't done, I stoop up quickly and hurried away.

I knew I had very little time, now, to take care of my laundry, even though I could still possibly get it done. I just had to find the washing machines. I walked counter-clockwise through the store, and then, passing the end of a tall partition at the back of the store, I saw a seemingly unending row of washing machines, the backs of which all rested against this other side of the partition.

Each washing machine was partitioned off from its neighbors by a thin, plastic-sided plyboard that was maybe as tall as the washing machine. I had to find the specific washing machine in which I had left my clothes. I would then take the clothes and put them in the dryer. I hoped the clothes wouldn't have that musty smell of wet clothes left too long in the washing machine.

I found my clothes in a "washing machine." The washing machine was actually more like wall-inset dryer, like at laundromats. I opened the "washing machine" door. The barrel of the "washing machine" went far back, maybe six feet.

I pulled a lot of my clothes out from the front end of the barrel. Everything was lingerie. I suddenly worried. If I had to dry all this stuff, wouldn't everybody see me handling all this lingerie and know it was mine? It was very inconvenient for me to have to worry about all this, especially right now, while I was in such a rush.

I continued pulling all my clothes out of the barrel. Then I noticed I couldn't reach the stuff in the back of the barrel. It was too far back for me to reach by standing here and reaching in, my body in the barrel from the waist up. I saw that some of the clothes were stuck to the sides and top of the barrel, like wet clothes would be, although I'm pretty sure all the clothes were dry.

I thought perhaps I could crawl into the barrel to get the clothes that were stuck in the back. But I had a feeling the barrel wasn't set solidly enough to carry a human body, and that if I got in, I'd snap the barrel off its fixture, crashing to the ground, or maybe down through a deep pit.

I then thought I could manually turn and shake the barrel, working the clothes off the sides, then tumbling them along, until they finally worked their way toward me, like clothes naturally do in a dryer. I started doing this, but some kind of cluttering, clattering feeling stopped me. I may also have stopped wondering what people would think of me if they saw me standing in front of a "washing machine" with a bunch of lingerie tumbling toward its front.

I now sat that at the top of the barrel there hung a couple hangers on which hung hangers with bras on them. I was somehow annoyed with my mother, as if I thought she could at least have had the consideration to take my bras off their racks once they had finished washing. Now I had to take each one off its rack in order to put it into the dryer. This would take me even more time.

But I went to work on the task. I pulled a couple bras off their individual hangers, gently sliding the straps off the of each square-edged plastic bar. Then, moving to another top-hung hanger I unthinkingly pulled each bra straight down from its individual plastic hanger, hearing some kind of snap each time. I caught myself doing this and, surprised, became aware of what I'd been doing.

I saw that the straps of these bras were a clear, thin, flexible plastic and were removable from the bras themselves. I knew that snapping the bras straight down, clipping these straps off, would do no harm, since the straps were removable. I thought this would save me a lot of time, though I couldn't quite see how the few seconds I'd saved by not having to be so careful with the bra straps could get me back on schedule. Again, I felt rushed and frustrated.