(9/24/04) political drive; fear of heights

(Dreams entered in daytime paper journal only. No time/place info given.)

Dream 1

I was watching some television show or else I was actually driving through a big city which was the subject of the show, and hearing narration, which I seem to have forgotten. It was early evening, the sky a dark, dim blue. Most of the buildings were red brick, like buildings in downtown Denver, except by a lake or coast of some sort.

The narration was about the World Trade Center being rebuilt, or at least about the loss of the World Trade Center and some kind of memorial being made. I saw in the open space between two buildings two towers, black, tall and cylindrical.

My mom's voice said, "I think it's just tacky that they're doing that." I think I may then have come to a realization, retroactive, of what was going on, as if the narration may have been senseless speaking that didn't "pull together" until after I saw the buildings and heard my mother's voice.

We drove on -- the "we," by the way, not including my mother, but including some businesslike people and myself. We drove past a building entirely decked in white Christmas lights. This castle of light was supposed to be another monument to the World Trade Center, or possibly even the new World Trade Center, which, so gaudily lit, would now, I thought, be a prime target for anybody wishing to attack America, as if it was actually the time before we were attacked.

I was now in an SUV, driving down some straight, Midwestern road with some politicians who were going to some kind of meeting, possibly a funeral. I can't remember who was there at first. I myself wasn't exactly sitting in any of the seats. I floated or simply shifted physically around like I was no more than two feet tall. The other people never exactly stayed where they were.

I was excited to be around these people, and greatly because I wanted to see how well I could use the terms of respect meant for them. I saw President Reagan. I asked him a question and made sure to call him President Reagan (?). When I asked him this question it was like I was in the back seat and turning just a bit to my left to ask him this question. But as he answered, we both slowly shifted, until he was in the driver's seat, and I was floating over the cup holder in between the two front seats.

I don't remember the question, but I feel it had to do with why some people weren't coming to this meeting.

(I now remember a part of the dream I had forgotten -- after seeing the light building I heard the narrator mention how for many ages nude sculptures on buildings were outlawed and detested. But now a building was being unveiled in Canada that showed some kind of "three ages" scene, and in the center of this sculpture was a naked woman whose eyes were hidden behind a big cloth. Some lower part of her was also hidden, below the waist, or at least including space above the waist, so that the only real nakedness was the breasts. She came out of a shield-like oval with some ornamentation on the bottom and top. Some small pictures were now shown. These were political figures who came to support this new sculpture. One of the figures there was the Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards. His smile was bright white.)

Reagan tried to "explain" an answer to me. But he really didn't want to broach the subject. He thought it was "below him" to have to answer such small people as I on questions so controversial as this. So he picked at some "sticker fuzz residue" on the face of the cup holder console, telling me something about a separation of things, possibly such as toilet paper rolls, and not really even coming to any conclusions about that. This may have been in response to the question of whether "President George Bush Senior" was going to come to this meeting, since he wasn't in this car. I know I did ask this question, but I don't know when.

I was now sitting right in front of the person in the passenger seat, John Edwards, facing him. He had a plastic block, like a cooler, on his lap -- it might actually have replaced his legs altogether. I called him "Mr. Edwards," as opposed to "Senator Edwards." I then asked if he was coming to the meeting. I said, "Because I  really have felt excited about you being there." I immediately felt like a fool for having said that.

Dream 2

I don't remember the beginning. I was in some restaurant, I believe, having gone through some ordeal, and sat next to an Asian woman. We were with some friends, by whom I felt threatened. We all walked out a door.

Now the scene was on some strange bridge, like a multi-layered bridge over a wide river. I thought it was the Brooklyn Bridge. I don't know what the scenario was. Either we had just arrived after a long travel or else we were immigrant laborers coming home after work.

We stood, just an Asian woman and I (not the same woman) among a bunch of unknown people, along one white-painted steel girder. To our left was a pole with a ladder leading up to a next level. In front of us, beyond about two feet of open space leading a couple hundred (?) feet down to the river, and up about three or four feet, was a plastic or fiberglass beam along which people walked. The beam led to a platform at which the bridge was wide and solid and led across the river and down to solid ground. Behind us and beyond the beam as well were tons of steel beams in triangular shapes, above us and below us as well, like a maze of beige- and white-painted steel beams.

A steady crowd of people, mainly dressed in nice clothes (though the people were generally poor, and possibly immigrants), walked along the plastic beam. People on the steel beam waited for a spot and then leaped up onto the beam, or else they went to the right or left, to where a ladder post was and climbed up to higher levels, where there were fewer people on that level's fiberglass beam.

But I was afraid to move. The beam was shaky. The jump to the fiberglass was precarious (though everybody else did it just fine). And the climbs up to the next levels were possibly at intervals of fifty or one hundred feet, at which point the beams were even shakier than they were at this level. To keep my balance, or rather, to keep my morale, I leaned against a ladder-less post.

The Asian woman and I were two of the few people now left on this steel beam. The Asian woman wore a multicolored, tight, modern sweater and blue jeans. I wore my regular clothes. The Asian woman was kind of laughing at me, that I was afraid to move. But she was also impatient with me, because she had wanted to take one of the ladders a long time ago.

She sighed and leaned hopelessly against me. I looked away from her, jumped up onto the fiberglass or plastic beam, which wasn't shaky at all, and was quite easily reached, so easily reached that I was upset at myself for having waited this long to get to it. The beam was depressed in the middle, with a straight line, like a track, i.e.

I walked to the platform, still slightly afraid but now mostly regretful that I hadn't gone up one of the ladders.

I reached the platform. The first area, the only one I saw, was just a six foot by six foot square of concrete, walled with thin, ridged, beige-painted sheet metal. Its right side opened to a wider platform which was open to the air and went down in a slight slope. Nobody was in this room, but I could tell that somebody, some man, was nearby to ridicule me for having been afraid.

In the corner, by the door, was a short, small table with two books on it. One book was a modern book, I don't remember what, although I now feel it was some book about being afraid of heights. I don't know what it was, but I did then. The other book was a Bible. I'm pretty sure it was highlighted in many passages which, I believe, were also supposed to discuss my fear of heights.

I felt like I was already being teased and judged, and I started to form defenses against accusations of cowardice, trying to make myself believe these accusations. (Or did I mean "make myself believe these defenses?")

***

(Another entry regarding this dream was made in my daytime paper journal from 9/27/04)

BEFORE I SAY ANYTHING ELSE --

In the dream I had where I was on a bridge and had to jump onto a fiberglass beam: the book beside the Bible on the table in the corner of the room before the concrete, outdoor platform was How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. It may also have had the Dr. Strangelove prefix, like in the title of the book (actually, the title of the film, not the book) in waking life. But the "Stop Worrying..." part was definitely there. I have remembered this for days, now, intending to write it down, but I always forget.

(12/1/08) life after love; egyptian tomb; integrity; pure hargrove; ML/sellers; not built for me

(Entered in paper journal at 7 AM on B-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

A scene like in a movie or a TV show. A barroom. A bunch of military men were gathered together, possibly after the test-flight of some new jets. The lighting in the bar was somehow very pale and stagey.

A young man who looked like Ron Howard when he was on Happy Days stood by a white, square column. Another, older man came up to him. He slung his right arm up against the column, to kind of get close to the young man, as if he were trying to hit on him.

I was now the young man. I thought, Well, I'm not attracted to this guy. The man got flustered and embarrassed. He said, "Now I will show you real willpower. I can show you that someone can be in love without having his love fulfilled, without even trying to have his love fulfilled, and that he can still be happy and do everything he should." He then walked away.

Dream #2

Black and white footage rolling, as if part of a documentary. The narrator's voice that of a woman or a young boy or girl. The first view apparently of the entrance to an Egyptian tomb. A smooth wall with an ornate, horseshoe-shaped doorway. From the doorway pursed a flood of hard debris.

The narrator spoke about how this place had originally been covered in debris, soil, and rocks, and had looked like a mountain, even though she (?) knew that this place had been here all along. She may have spoken about how good a job had been done of clearing the space out.

The view was now of the cave/hall just inside the entrance to the tomb. The floor and ceiling were of brick/stone and were wide and smooth and may have met, in a flat ellipse shape.

The view was like the lung-lining in the film Fantastic Voyage.

There was now a view from a point farther in through this hall, looking backward toward the doorway. A few men, spaced far apart from each other, walked through the wide passageway. The men looked and were dressed like miners.

The floor began undulating in small, separate rolls, as if there were a gentle earthquake or as if the floor were becoming alive. The men now fell into the floor, as if the hard stones which made the floor were actually quicksand. There seemed to be no panic about this.

Dream #3

I was in "my mom's house" in the bright daytime. I was all by myself. My mom put me in charge of watching the house while she was away. In particular, she asked me to keep people out of the house.

I walked to the front door. I knew my mom had told me to keep the front door closed. But, I thought, since the screen door also had a lock on it, I would keep the front door open and close and lock the screen door.

I walked to the door and looked outside. The day was incredibly colorful, with some parts somewhere in the landscape as bright as Galle glass.

I tested the screen door and found that the lock didn't work at all. You could simply push on the door and it would open. I was a little nervous, as if I had already left the front door opened and unlocked for long enough to compromise the integrity of my mother's house.

Dream #4

I was in a museum. I may have just come out of an exhibit that was partly Egyptian and partly something else. I stood in a darkish "lobby"-type area -- dark walled like the gems section of the American Museum of Natural History.

To my right was a staircase upward. The staircase was thin, painted sky blue with white trim and banisters, and looked like something in an old Pennsylvania Dutch house. I might possibly have remembered that up that way was another Egyptian exhibit -- one which hadn't been disappointingly remodeled (as, apparently, the one I'd just been to had been).

I climbed the stairs. I was now in an almost completely dark, dark-walled room. Somewhere ahead of me, on a wall to my right, was a video screen, which may have been showing only a black screen, but which gave off a small amount of light.

To my right I now saw an Egyptian bust at the top of a black staircase. A spotlight lit the bust. The bust was tannish white, as if made of impure (?) white quartz, and outlined in black over a very dark blue for the eyes, beard (?), and crown/headdress.

I thought, This is what I was looking for. I walked to the foot of the staircase. At the foot was a small, black bust. Its pedestal was set into the first couple steps of the stairway, so that it divided the stairway for those steps. The bust was a pharaoh image (like the Hatsheput (?) at the Brooklyn Museum of Art (where I had gone in waking life on the previous day)). The bust had no nose.

I continued up the steps. At the top was now a different bust, unlike anything Egyptian I had ever seen. The bust was a pharaoh image, in completely clear crystal material, with all the features and the lines of the pharaoh's head in a beautiful deep blue. The image wasn't lit. The only light which fell on it was ambient light from some area beyond the entrance to this exhibit. The sculpture was small, the bust being maybe nine inches tall.

From the left side of the bust was a thin rectangle, maybe twelve inches long, of the pure, clear crystal. The whole sculpture was balanced as if this long rectangle were resting on a tiny podium, so that the whole sculpture angled down from there.

I looked at the title card, which was black with white lettering. The card said that the clear material was "pure Hargrove."

I began hearing heavy breathing, as if it were right in my ears. (I woke to some noise like heavy breating. I'm not sure what it was. It could have been my own heavy breathing. It could also have been something outside my apartment, in the hallway, where I may have heard the shuffling of feet up the stairs.)

Dream #5

I was standing in line somewhere like a convenience store. I had gotten the things I was looking for. I stood in line, but a few people walked ahead of me. The people were all old women, and the line was only loosely formed, anyway, so I didn't mind very much mind being cut ahead of. The convenience store was messy but comfortable-looking, possibly due to the warm-yellow winter light coming in from outside.

One of the key figures at my company, ML, now got in line ahead of me. I didn't mind him, either. He might have noticed me. I wanted to talk to him, but I couldn't think of anything to say.

I now sat in a strange place which was possibly supposed to be a living room. The floor was smooth, like some futuristic plastic, and it sloped downwards. I was with a few other people, friends or family, including ML. We were all watching a TV which was down low on the ground, possibly attached to a weird wiry device. We all sat or sprawled along the floor.

I kept losing track of ML's identity in my mind -- forgetting who he was.

As the show we were watching, Dr. Strangelove, started, the first view was of Peter Sellers as Dr. Strangelove. He didn't say anything, but he was making a strange, awkward, serious expression. I was laughing out loud.

I now looked back at ML. Was he Peter Sellers? Was he a friend of Peter Sellers? I thought I'd ask him what Peter Sellers had been like. But then I realized that ML hadn't known Peter Sellers at all. I wanted to talk with ML. But I had no idea what to talk about.

Dream #6

I was in a space like an outdoor area that looked like it was indoors. There was a partly-constructed house that may have been fully constructed. To the right of this house was another place, which may have been something like a collection of cubicles in an open-walled structure. To the left of the house was something like an office -- just one office -- which may have been housed by a shed-like structure.

The ground through all this area was something like grey gravel. My boss BS had sent me here to check out how some of our business would work, to make sure our new conditions would be alright. As I got there, a group of rich people, led by a guide who may also have been rich, also arrived. The rich people were all old and white and they wore jeans and nice, but light, jackets.

I had checked out something with a phone cable in the cubicle structure and was now hammering some nails into the roof of the central house. (I had also, probably, at some point, been nailing a tiny wheel, like a ship's steering wheel, but only about two inches in diameter, onto the edge of the roof.)

The rich people climbed up onto the roof and talked all around me, as if I didn't matter at all, as if I was just some idiot. I thought, I'm their equals. They don't even realize it. This place is being built for me. Just because I'm helping out with its construction doesn't mean I'm just some idiot.

But now I had my doubts. Maybe BS was planning to demote me.

A prettyish woman, a little overweight, with tannish skin and long, black hair, had climbed up the ladder to check something and then climbed back down to go to the shed office. BS had told me about her. BS' company and one other company would be working heree. The woman was an assistant from the other company. She would be like an assistant and receptionist for both companies.

I was kind of attracted to the woman. I thought I would go ask her if she'd like me to turn on some music -- in my mind's eye I could see a silver boombox somewhere nearby.