(9/25/06) yin yang pisces rats; happy sick dog; lutheran codex of the dead

(Entered in paper journal at 7:20 PM at home in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I was in the doorway to "Ben & Jerry's" "at Times Square." Apparently I was volunteering on some project. The inside of the place was dim, as if it were night or early morning, and only a light or two in the back of the store was on, lighting solid, rich-colored walls of maroon and goldenrod and other similar colors.

The volunteer manager was telling someone working for them (my Americorps co-worker JS), "He's just here as a volunteer. Don't make him go back down into the garbage room."

I said, "No, don't worry about that. I've been there before. I can go there again. It won't bother me."

I thought about all the roaches and rats in that basement. They had grossed me out (i.e. when I had actually worked for Ben & Jerry's in Times Square in 1998 and 1999), but I had generally been okay with them.

I walked down the basement steps with JS. One or two steps from the basement a rat scurried up to the steps, then away. I was shocked, but I kept steady. Then another ran, and a few more. A couple started running up the steps. I got grossed out and ran back up the steps. JS continued down to the garbage room.

There was a girl at the top of the stairs. The girl asked, "What are you afraid of? The diseases? The grossness? That they'll bite you? I can't blame you, although I'm used to it."

The girl held out her right (?) hand, on which two rats (palm-sized) scurried around like the "pisces" (?) or yin yang style.

They actually crawled all around her hands -- like roly-polies! But I strongly remember them making the "pisces" (?) or yin yang shape at one point.

Dream 2

I sat or lay on a couch. My friend R lay in an odd position on the floor by the arm of the couch at my feet. I called for my friend's dog. The dog was sick somehow, but she jumped up on the couch and flapped around happily while I pet her.

I felt dog's hyperactivity in reaction to my petting was the result of her sickness and would lead to more sickness. But I also felt R was jealous that I was petting his dog. So I think I made the dog calm down and made her jump off the couch to appease R.

R was almost bluish skinned, greasy -- it was like he had been strangled and was now decomposing. But he was still alive. I think we even spoke about about how good I was with animals.

Dream 3

I was with a woman in a room. The woman spoke to me about a catechism I had in my hands as I read the catechism. She said this was what the Spaniards used to convert the Aztecs.

There were two columns, I saw, of glyphs, and then a column (in English) of text. Most of the glyphs were shaded out by diagonal lines over the squares. The catechism followed the normal Q & A format. It spoke of the brown wood of the cross and the pink (comb? knife?) that drove the nails into the Christ.

The Aztec ("A"nswer to the "Q"uestion) said something like, "That imagery alone should denote in an aware mind the greatness of Christ. Destiny brought him to those two symbols, which even alone mean greatness."

I "remembered" now that the woman in the room (Mexican-looking, youngish) had been holding brown wood and a weird, pink, plastic knife/comb/mirror before. She had been trying to tell me something -- about herself?

(6/23/07) the giant fly; what i never saw; two girls in one; lucid in reality

(Entered on Q-train, but don't know when.)

Dream #1

I lay in bed. I opened my eyes and looked at the wall (to my left). An insect, a small roach, I thought, climbed quickly down the wall. I was disappointed to have a roach in my house. I thought I would get up and kill it. But now I saw two on the wall. I thought I might be seeing things.

I closed my eyes and opened them again. There were lots of insects (flies?) climbing all over my wall. I leaped out of bed, possibly in a straight-bodied roll parallel to the floor and landing in a crouch facing the wall. The wall was full of insects. I wondered what I could do to get rid of the insects. I thought I might have to call an exterminator and leave my house for a little while.

Down on the lower, right section of the wall, or perhaps on the "left foot" corner of my bed, was a fly about the size of my fist. It seemed to call for me, and to control all the other insects so that they, too, would call me. I was afraid, but I got closer. The giant fly made a semi-melodic, buzzing sound, almost like wings beating against a champagne flute. The fly's body was spiny and shine, an orange-green, reflective color. It had orangish wings.

Dream #2

I walked into a nice, big dining room. There might not have been any table. The room was narrow and long. The walls were wood. Some dim, warm daylight came through a yellowish curtain at the other short end of the room. The door I walked in through was at the lower part of the right long wall. A little farther up that wall stood my co-worker and good friend CL. Between us was a chest of drawers.

I walked in and immediately turned to face the chest. CL asked me if I had brought XXXXX (can't remember). I had some green, fleshy-looking sack in my hands. I cut it open and pulled out a "flying saucer." This was something like a silver table ornament or serving tray. It looked like a cake tray with no glass top and with ridges or slots all through it. I put it on the chest.

I thought CL might be trying to hide this object from others, as part of an overall conspiracy. I thought CL might be trying to convince me as well that I hadn't seen the flying saucer. CL very harshly asked me a question insinuating that I had already told my co-worker JB about the flying saucer. I became tense and slightly afraid.

Dream #3

I sat in the front row at some show. The seating was all rows of folding chairs. The floor was white tile. The lights were brightish orange and fluorescent. The place was full of people. The "stage" was level with the floor. On the back wall (a back wall) was a screen against which was projected a karaoke video.

A song started up. The girl to my left, who looked like my co-worker and fellow-Assistant FA, said, "Oh, you should sing this one! You love these guys!" It took me a second before I recognized the song as a Smashing Pumpkins song.

But I couldn't "catch" the words fast enough to begin singing with the music. Plus, the words on the screen weren't the same as the words to the song. And the video would occasionally fade in and out unexpectedly. I  told the girl that I did love this song, but that I didn't know it well enough to keep up.

I began cuddling with the girl. She had nice, dark skin. She wasn't thin, but she had the prettiness of a thin girl.

I was disappointed in myself for being so boring that I couldn't sing a song.

I now sat laying across the girl's chest. The girl now looked like one of my good friends, PD. She was still not thin. She wore a pastel turquoise-green, soft-fabric shirt. Below the collar, squared holes were cut out to look like an Egyptian necklace. The fabric between the holes was also strung in a way to look and feel like beads.

I ran my left finger along this "necklace" collar-piece. I also touched some jewelry on the girl's right upper arm. I felt like a child. I hoped this wouldn't turn the girl off and that we could still have sex. The girl said, "I will miss you very much when I am gone."

Dream #4

I woke up from a dream. I stood out of my bed by the foot of the bed and walked to the wall facing the foot of the bed. There was a wooden ladder folded against the wall. I was going to take it away from the wall, but I hung on one of the steps and looked at my wall. There was a yellowish, chipped substance dirtying the wall.

I didn't remember such messiness. At first I thought, Well, maybe I don't look at this wall well enough to have seen this dirty patch. Then I thought, No. This wall is different in another way: it's missing its little framing decorations: it's just completely smooth.

The discrepancy between this wall and my normal perception of my bedroom wall made me wonder where I was. I told myself, I just woke from a dream. I have to be awake. But I was now getting the strange feeling that life was a dream, and that I could wake into lucidity from waking life just as I would wake into lucidity in dreams.

I did something like what a person would do holding his breath and bracing for a plunge into a swimming pool. I thought, This is exactly what people think can't be done. And I'm trying to do it.

I felt the electric buzz (which, as I'd read in the literature, was a precursor, not for lucid dreams, but for out-of-body experiences). But when lucidity came, I realized that this had all been a dream after all. I wasn't "lucid" in (or ex-) reality. I was only lucid in my dream.

I wanted to explore the lucid dream, but I didn't believe I could imagine anything other than what I was presently seeing: the ladder and the wall. So I told myself, You are going to turn around clockwise. As you complete the turn you will wake back into waking life and you will be back in bed.

But even as I "held my breath, braced," and turned, I thought, Why am I doing this? If I'm lucid I should go exploring. But it was like I couldn't control myself, like I was being controlled by another will and now was in a gravitational spin that I couldn't pull out of.