(4/5/08) the murderer's heroic journey

(Entered in paper journal at 7:42 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

A man, with whom I was possibly identified, had killed another man who had been abusive to the woman the first man loved. This took place in a small town. The killer fled and went on a journey in the woods. Eventually he took on the appearance of an archaic hero. He was engaged in battle against mystical creatures.

At one point the man entered a cavity in a cliff wall. Against the back wall of the cavity was an altar-like structure that was also an oracle or a monster. There was a domed, oven-like structure, atop which were two pots with torches in them. At the back of that was a gigantic sculpture in the image of the top half of a human skull. Inside the oven-like structure was a sword stuck in the floor of the structure and standing before the fire.

The man jumped into the domed structure and somehow managed to defeat the skull. There was a rope before the man. He grabbed it, jumped, and swung down and backward into the oven. He grabbed the sword and tried to pull it out. But he missed.

The man should have been thought of, at this point, as having failed. He hadn't been able to retrieve the sword. But he managed to get another chance, knowing that he was the only one who could pull the sword out of the stone.

The man jumped down into the oven again by means of the rope and pulled out the sword. But this time he couldn't swing himself back onto the domed top. He had to grasp onto an edge and pull himself up very awkwardly. As he did, people could be heard booing him, as if this were all a show like American Idol.

The man stood up, hoping he hadn't been counted as having failed. But he had failed, and he was killed in a strange way -- possibly by being shot out of the cavity and against a tree, and then having some implement fly at him from the cavity and cut his head off.

Through all of this episode, the man had been long-haired, big, and muscular, dressed in a bear-skin chiton or robe. But he now looked much like he had at the beginning, when he had been the small-town murderer: shortish, of medium build, olive skinned, with stubble all over his face and wearing a t-shirt and blue jeans.

The man walked through a particularly beautiful area of the woods, with trees flaring orange. He was heading back to the small town, hoping he could live here, having failed at the heroic test. The man arrived at the outskirts of the town, at an enormous lawn of baseball fields. The man then realized he had left the town because he was a murderer and a fugitive.

At this point I was the man, though at certain moments I still saw from outside the man's body. I hoped that the townspeople would somehow no longer recognize me. But I sat down on bleachers, watching some boys play baseball, with the specific hope that one of the boys, an old friend of mine, would see me and be happy to see me.

The game ended. The boy did see me. But as soon as he saw me, I hoped he would stop recognizing me before he remembered that I was the murderer.

The boy said something like, "You should get out of here or you'll be in trouble."

Another boy, kind of fat, kind of tan, with blonde hair, came up from the other end of the bleachers. He asked the first boy, "Who is that? I feel I should know him from somewhere."

I was now a boy about the age of the other boys. I felt that if the fat kid found out I was the murderer he would bully me and then go tell the police I was in town. But he came around behind me as the other boy said, "Does the name Hanley sound familiar?" The fat boy tried to be mean to me, but he only seemed to be happy now. I was acting defensively and trying not to let on who I was.

But as the fat boy continued talking to me he turned into a pretty girl. Another pretty girl, pale skinned, with pale blonde hair, also walked up toward me. Both girls were so happy to see me that they were hugging each other. The two girls and the first boy were all saying something like, "Hanley's back!"

(7/14/08) none of them survived

(Entered in paper journal at 6:10 AM on 2-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I was in a foresty area, like a summer camp or a retreat, with a group of people around my age. I was in one of the camp buildings, a stone and wood shelter made to look like a miniature castle, with at least one woman. We were doing something like fixing a barbecue.

The stone shelter was at the top of a steep hill that was maybe one hundred feet tall and green with trees. Another hill similar to this hill, facing this hill, had a similar stone structure at its peak. Our group leader, who looked like TO (the previous team leader for a New York Cares volunteer project for which I, in waking life, had assumed the leadership position about ten months previous to this dream), was in that stone structure.

I had a question about something, maybe the food I was cooking. I spoke very softly, questioning the leader, more as if I were pretending he could hear me than actually expecting him to hear me. But then I heard the leader answer, in the same kind of soft voice. It now seemed natural that the leader could hear me. It also seemed silly that I would have asked such an immature question of the leader, as if I had only been asking a question in order to get the leader's attention.

I stood near a small cabin in a lawny area that was more like a park than a forest. There was a woman with me. We stood before three eggs that were about to hatch. The woman bit the shell of the eggs. The eggs were like hard-boiled eggs. The woman would peel off the egg whites, and the birds would pop out. All three birds were female.

But there were also three male-bird eggs somewhere. We knew those eggs may have been rejected by the mother, and that they probably hadn't developed or survived. But, still, despite the fact that they were almost certainly already dead, I went looking for them.

The eggs seemed to be nearby at first, in a little circle cleared out among some tall grass. I went up to them, apparently having found them.

I was suddenly on a field like a soccer field. It was a golden day with a blue sky. Some sports team stood or ran around near me. They may have been wearing red soccer uniforms.

I wanted to test the eggs to see if they were ready. But I was too afraid I'd mess up and kill the birds. But now the group leader, a tall man, white, tanned, strong, wiry looking, bald, wearing all black clothes and blue-mirror sunglasses, came up to show me how to test the eggs.

The leader kicked two of the eggs. They skip-rolled a few feet away and then splattered open in a mess of liquid, though also with a feeling of hollowness and delicateness.

The leader was a little upset. He picked up the third egg and bit it. The shell scrapped open. A bunch of clear fluid spilled out. The leader said, "Damn it! None of them survived!"