(8/1/05) stomach exploded; i came because i was turned on; the city of night and darkness; $220 and 99-cent beach

(Entered in paper journal at 12:30 PM at Starbucks on 43rd Street and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

I was on the side of a wide highway on a mountain slope with my mom. It was a sunny day. the shoulder of the road seems to have been wide, but when I got out of the car I was almost hit a couple times by semi-trucks coming very close to me. They rushed by quickly and violently enough for me almost to be knocked over by the gusts.

My mom, who, while I couldn't see her, sounded more like my old boss KYB from my Americorps program near Los Alamos, told me to get back in the car. I thought I had been thoughtless to get out of the car.

I turned back to get in. The car (which before was a short, dark blue sedan?) was now a white vehicle like a pickup truck with no doors. I stood outside the truck and right beside my mom.

Another truck rushed by. I said, "It's not surprise that friend of my sister's got a burst stomach when he got hit by that truck."

My mom said, "Well, he did die of that burst stomach, but it may not have been just from the truck, and his stomach didn't burst right when the truck hit him."

(As my mom said the following I figured out that my mom actually knew two people who had been killed by a truck and that the kid I thought of had actually been mixed up with someone else. I also mainly saw my mom, but I also saw in my mind's eye some grey, slightly bloodied, plastic device over a bare sternum.)

My mom said, "I was there when he died. He was doing fine, just talking with people and joking. Some people may say he pulled something out of himself, one of the tubes. But he didn't. His stomach just suddenly exploded. The doctors said it had become very weak over a long period of time, maybe only two (weeks/months?).

"When his stomach exploded, he just became quiet. His eyes got really big, and only a small string of blood came out from the corner of his mouth. Just like the other person I know whose stomach exploded. He tried to speak, to scream, but all that came out was a little, scared sigh."

I now either felt or saw the young boy beside my mom, trying to contact me as a ghost.

Dream 2

I went to a restaurant with one or two female friends who were gay. I may have thought I was just going to a dinner alone with them. But it turned out it was a party. I sat at a huge table with a bunch of gay women. The table was a long, narrow oval, and I sat at the bottom end. My one or two friends were all the way at the top of the table.

All the women made comments about men. They said I had come here only because I was turned on by lesbians.

I looked to my left. My friend KB's friend SF was there, wearing a white t-shirt and pink, sweats-like pants. She was a little fatter than she was when I had seen her before. I was a little dejected. When I'd seen her before, I'd been really attracted to her. But now I was less so.

But, still, despite my lowered attraction, and the fact that SF was gay (like she, and my friend KB, were in waking life) I felt like if I only admitted to her that I was attracted to her, she would be with me. But I also wasn't quite convinced that she wouldn't just point me out as a typical male and an object of ridicule. So I couldn't bring myself to tell her anything. SF got frustrated at my indecision and left.

There was a guy a couple chairs down. I couldn't tell if he was gay. He tried to talk to me, just friendly. But I didn't want to talk to him or anybody at this party. I saw that about half the party had secretly left, anyway, including my two friends. I felt awful to think I had actually let myself believe I could make meaningful friendships with anybody.

Now, apparently, I was drunk. This guy and I were yelling at and making fun of everybody in the restaurant. But at some point I couldn't remember what I had said, and I was afraid I had unintentionally made derogatory comments about gay people.

Dream 3

It was a foggy night. I was walking on a concrete walkway by a concrete or stone building, all very nondescript, yet somehow resembling something old and European. There might have been a canal somewhere.

I turned around. I saw beyond me a city. It almost looked like a movie set of a big city like New York. But the way the fog and darkness surrounded and permeated it made me name it "The Night City" or "The City of Night and Darkness." I felt that if I looked into the folds of fog and darkness I could transport myself to that city. I was mesmerized terrified by the city.

Now I may have woken up. I lay in bed, still half-seeing the city. I saw a series of pathways where I had stood, ramping up in diagonals like ramping driveways in a parking garage or ramping walkways in a stadium.

I told myself, What a vision, and it's a spontaneous imagination, not a dream! if only I could feel myself in the scene.

I told myself, Well, just hold the image in your mind and let yourself fall into the image as a dream state. Now I fell asleep (?) and for a moment I stood staring at the ramping walkways. I tried to look at the city, but I was afraid my imagination couldn't believably construct something so vivid and intriguing.

Dream 4

I was in the backseat, either of a car or a van which my dad was driving. My brother and sister were also there. My dad was taking us to the beach. He had bought some Aloe Vera lotion, which was supposed to be better than sunblock. It was actually like some kind of yogurt, pinkish with strawberry flavor and with greenish jelly-matter in it that was Aloe Vera. I took some and rubbed it all over my stomach.

We had to go into a 99-cent store. I may have bought something. I may have felt guilty for spending money on an item, something like $2.99, especially at a store where things were only supposed to cost ninety-nine cents.

Now we were in a huge parking lot at the beach. The lot was basically empty. The driver was no longer my dad but some blonde guy who looked like a lifeguard or a camp counselor.

I spent a while getting ready to go in the water. I was fumbling around all through the van, in all the seats, picking things up, losing things, changing clothes, getting a towel. Then I was going back and forth between the van and some car at the other end of the parking lot.

My brother and sister had become "a few people I work with," vague people, although I think I may have seen KB at one point taking off her shirt and shorts to reveal a bathing suit.

I fumbled at one point with my wallet. I had a bunch of bills which I was trying to fit into my wallet. I did this right in front of the lifeguard, wondering if displaying my money right in front of somebody was a good idea. Eventually I stuffed all my bills crudely but sufficiently into a surprisingly loose pocket of my wallet.

I now rushed all over the place, looking for my towel. I realized I hadn't brought one and that I'd have to go back to the 99-cent store to buy one for $2.99, which really was more money than I could afford to spend.

But now, rushing once again to the car from the van, I tried desperately to remember whether I hadn't been to the 99-cent store yet today. I knew I had, and that I had bought just what I'd needed. But now I couldn't remember what I needed, even though even now I was looking for it.

I got to the car and realized I had so much to do before I could even get into the water.

I stopped and said, maybe out loud, "It should not take this long to do something as easy as going to the beach!"

Now the blonde leader sat before me in the vehicle, which was now more like a van than a car. He said, "Okay, I've collected today's fee from everybody except you. Once you give me the $220, you're free to go to the beach -- after we go to the dollar store so you can buy a towel."

Now I was even more confused. I knew first of all that I didn't have $220. But I was also trying to remember whether a $220 fee was stated before I'd gotten in the van. I couldn't figure why anybody would pay $220 just to go to the beach for a couple hours. I wasn't convinced I should pay the leader. In fact, I was, probably, more worried about having to go buy a new towel, knowing the trip to the 99-cent store would take a long time.

(4/14/08) jets and highway murder

(Entered in paper journal at 5:30 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I was watching a television show about jets. Then it was like I was actually in a plane, looking down on the jets as the narrator discussed them. My brother was with me. I pointed out each jet to him.

We would gain altitude to reach each new grouping of jets. I was afraid of gaining so much altitude, but I didn't show it, and I was happy to see the jets up so close.

I pointed out one of my favorites to my brother, one called the Skylab. It had three wings in a triangular configuration and a sloping nose. There was another large plane that flew alongside it. After that was a "scout plane" with a disc-like or flying-saucer-like front end. My brother didn't seem to be interested in any of these jets.

I had seen this whole progression of jets before, on television, and I knew there would be a last jet to follow, which would head straight up into the sky. I hoped we would follow this jet soon.

But now my brother and I were in a car on a highway, in a shallow recess between two slopes. As we approached a bridge that passed over the road we were on, I looked out my side of the car (the right side?) and saw a little, Hispanic boy (or girl?). We must have been driving at normal speed. But now it seemed like we were driving at a walking pace. The little, Hispanic child had been killed. His arms and legs were taped together. Beside the child were various cultic objects, like candles.

I wanted to get out of the car to tend to the dead child, but I thought it wouldn't be smart. The people who had killed the child might still be around. This might be a trap.

As we passed under the bridge I saw the rest of the family lying in the dirt. They all were also all dead and taped up. There also seemed to be a table and food, all overturned, like this had been the family's house. The mother's eyes were open, and it was like she was looking at me. I thought, I've never seen a dead body before.

I might have been driving the car. I told my brother to call 911. I gave my brother my cell phone. We had called 911 and gotten to a turnoff from the highway into a part of a turn like an industrial park.

I now thought I needed to head back to where we had come from. Somebody was supposed to arrive here after us, but I wanted to get to them and warn them that the might have trouble doing so.

But when I tried to get back onto the highway, a female police officer stopped me. The highway had been closed, the officer explained, while the murder of the Hispanic family was being investigated.

(12/21/08) L's sick mother; the land of mutated children

(Entered in paper journal at 12:08 PM at girlfriend H's apartment.)

Dream #1

I was inside an apartment. It was smallish, with grey carpet and pale lighting. It might have been early morning or late afternoon. I might have been all alone in the apartment.

My friend R's wife L walked in. Apparently the apartment belonged to R and L. I might have been in there, trying to get something while neither of them were there. But now L saw me. She went in and sat on her bed, which was (apparently) in the living room. The bed was all messy.

I asked L how she was doing. She seemed very mellow, almost depressed. She said she was fine. I asked her how her mom and dad were doing. She said, "Oh, my mom..."

I saw a picture in my head of a cartoon dad and mom at the very top of a greyish-green screen.

The mom popped out of the picture. I understood that this meant that L's mom was having health problems, or maybe that she had cancer.

I had to leave. L didn't want me to go, but, as bad as I felt for L's mom, I didn't want to have or start anymore contact with L or R.

I walked out the door. I wore both my shoes, but my right foot was also wrapped in a brown, plastic bag. I walked down a long, grey-painted, wooden stairway to a small parking lot/road that was bordered by a slightly wooded area. I knew R would be coming around soon. I wanted to be gone before he got here so I wouldn't have to see him. I may have walked another road.

Dream #2

I got onto a small airplane. The seats of the plane were arranged like a bus. The pilots got in. They sat in a seating area like bus drivers might sit in.

The plane began speeding up. The light outside was greyish like on a cloudy day. We coated past a landscape of full, green trees.

As the plane began taking off, I looked to my right, i.e. toward the front of the plane. The light outside was deep blue, like late afternoon, almost night. I saw through the pilots' windows. I thought, I've never been in a plane where you could actually see through the pilots' windows like this!

We passed through two sets of trees, which were arranged on either side of us like gates. We would scrape against the trees as we passed them. The trees may have been half-barren, not full. The horizon was a band of pale purple.

It was now daytime. The pilot was talking to some passengers in the front row as if he were a bus driver. I looked around. We were flying barely above street level, above a highway, following the highway's source. Then the plane was actually driving along on the highway. Finally, the plane had transformed into a regular bus, driving along the highway.

I thought, Well, maybe this is just for the first leg of our trip. I remembered having taken a bus once from Newark Airport to Allentown, Pennsylvania. I thought, Well, once we get to our next place we can take an actual airplane.

I was now skateboarding down the highway. The highway had a weird appearance, like it was smaller or cleaner than usual. The day was warm and bright. There was also a feeling along the highway like it was passing under bridges or just within range of barriers or enclosures, though there were grass slopes on either side of the road all the time. There were no cars. Instead there were kids, maybe teenagers, playing all through the street.

I tried to keep off to the left shoulder of the road. The shoulder was lined with tan bricks. My skateboard kept moving without any effort from me: I was going down a slope the whole way.

I was trying to avoid the kids because I didn't want to interrupt their fun, but also because I didn't want them to think I was a kid, too, and have them start bothering me. But eventually some kids did start to notice me. I skated over to the right shoulder of the road in hopes of avoiding them. But they followed me.

I got off my skateboard. I walked up onto the grass slope. Here, too, were kids in small groups, like picnic groups, playing here and there under the wide shade of the sparse trees.

I reached the top of the slope. The space was empty of trees, completely open to the clear, blue sky. All around me I saw rolling hills of grass, with small groups of kids playing everywhere.

I was being followed again by a group of kids who walked with a zombie-like slowness and will-lessness. I tried to avoid the kids. I walked to my right, toward a rocky cliff. Three zombie children cornered me at the cliff. They all looked like average, slightly troublemaking, white teenage boys. One wore a brown t-shirt.

I knew if I jumped off the cliff I'd die. I hadn't been afraid of the kids before: I just didn't want to be bothered by them. So I figured there was no use being afraid now. I might as well just see what they were planning to do.

But the kids didn't reach me. They may have stopped. The head of one of the zombie kids suddenly re-shaped. It puffed out into a grotesque circle, like out of a Garbage Pail Kids card. The kid seemed to be doing this in order to make me afraid. But I still wasn't afraid. Another kid expanded his head so that it grew a leg and an arm, both of which had a gross, rubbery appearance. I was trying to figure out what kind of disease these children had that was making their bodies do this.

I was now in a house or an apartment. This place may have been underground. The place was only half-lit, as if a few random lights in unseen rooms were throwing into the main room the only light the room had. The place was sparsely furnished but seemed cluttered nonetheless. There was a lot of activity, maybe from a lot of children running around. The place seemed more like a mental hospital than an apartment or house or even a school building.

At first I was floating, as if I were coming down a stairway and into the main room. I tried not to attract anybody's attention. I thought if anybody saw me and tried to connect with me, they'd give me whatever disease they had.

I floated through the main room (over an air-hockey table?) and into a very small, lit hallway. A couple kids ran out of a doorway to my left. As they ran past me they mutated themselves. One added limbs to his head the way the other had done. Another added bubbling lumps, two or three times the size of his actual head, to the back of his skull. A little girl came out and mutated her head so that it looked like a short body attached to a tall body at the neck, with the tall body in a pink dress and the short body in a blue dress.

Finally a woman came out of the room. She looked like Daryl Hannah's Pris character in the movie Blade Runner. She was very sexy and sleek. She wore a black and white striped tights costume and had spiky, pale blonde, almost white, hair. She herself was a mutation. But she was known as the "mother" of all these children. She had hypnotized them to be mischievous. But she was like a role model to them, so even if they weren't hypnotized, they probably would still be mischievous, if that was how she told them to be.

The woman touched me. I knew that since she touched me, I, too, would probably also start acting mischievously.

(10/18/09) a mcdonald's sundae; corpse chute

(Entered in paper journal at 7:43 AM at Sit & Wonder cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was either in a plane or in a car that drove on a high overpass over the industrial area of a city like Denver. My old boss BS was driving the plane/car. One other person was in the plane/car, possibly my younger brother. I sat in the backseat, on the driver's side. The other person was possibly in the front, passenger seat.

BS was taking us somewhere, as if we had to be with him, not as prisoner, but as wards of some kind. BS told us, after one of us had expressed some misgivings about our well-being, that he would give us everything we needed, and even everything we wanted. That seemed fine to me, although I felt like it might be going a little overboard to give me everything I wanted.

BS saw a McDonald's down below. He exited the overpass. Our movement was steep, just like we'd been flying and were now descending sharply through the air, as well as driving down a highway exit ramp.

We were now in the drive-thru for the McDonald's. BS ordered one ice cream cone, for himself. The other person in the car acted happy, as if we, too, were going to get ice cream cones. But BS said he had stopped here to get an ice cream cone only for himself. That was fine with me, as we had, I remembered, just eaten a big meal. The other person was disappointed.

But BS realized what he had just done. He wasn't giving us everything we needed and wanted. He said, "Well, actually, I can get you guys each a sundae. Would you like that? A sundae?" I imagined a McDonald's hot fudge sundae, in a clear plastic sundae cup. I thought that a sundae was really too much.

Dream #2

I stood down in a weird place, like some area in an industrial warehouse. There were a lot of chutes like gigantic air shafts, which sloped down to the floor, forming walls for a small room. The gigantic shafts all had flaps at their ends. The floor of this "room" had boxes, packing materials, styrofoam, plastic, and paper scattered all over the place. And beyond the shafts, piles of the same refuse could be seen, as if this were part of a large trash heap or garbage dump.

I stood with a few other people, co-workers, but younger than I by a few years. One of the people may have stood at a podium with something like a computer which recorded the items we retrieved from the shafts, as if the shafts were chutes for sending or receiving packages or other items.

But now women somewhere were being killed, and the bodies were being sent down the shafts. We received a few of the bodies. We tried to figure whether we could do anything to stop the person who was killing these women. That may have been why we were receiving the bodies: to figure out the mystery and stop the deaths. Or perhaps the killer was personally sending us the bodies, to taunt us.

Now we received a particularly grotesquely mutilated body. It lay in the chute. Either I or a woman who was like my mother (or, perhaps, I myself as a woman who was like my mother) opened the flap of the shaft just enough to see the body. I or the woman quickly closed the flap again.

Everybody asked if we were going to take the body out. But either I or the woman decided the body was in too repulsive a state for everybody else to see. Either I or the woman sharply said, "No. Keep this door closed. I'll take care of this one when everybody else is gone."