(4/11/09) graveyard/shooting; lone men and mobs

(Entered in paper journal at 8:31 AM at Connecticut Muffin in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

It was daytime. I was in a car with my family. The blue sky was possibly webbed over with thin clouds, dimming the overall light. My mom was probably driving the car. We were driving down a mountainside road, into a small valley between two mountains. The valley was part of a range that extended far in the distance to my left. We were arguing about where we were, as if either this landscape wasn't a certain kind of landscape or as if we were heading in the wrong direction.

 We now approached the valley. At the base of the slope opposite us were tallish headstones, all of orange-tan stone, mainly shapes like square columns with smaller spheres on top. I made some comment about this place being a cemetery, as if that proved we were or weren't in the right place.

We turned right and drove through the valley. I looked to the right (I had been in the backseat on the driver's side, but I wasn't quite there now) to see monumental, white headstones. There were gigantic heads springing out of columns like flowers; headstones of double-men, from the torso up, reaching out and looking forward; and other similar headstones, all in a style like an Art Deco imitation of Hellenistic sculpture.

The size and odd style of these headstones gave me an ominous feeling, as if where we were was a prophetic indication of something bad that would happen to us.

We now drove among headstones. We drove past (to our right) a tall headstone of greyish stone, like a pedestal displaying a large sculpture of a man, not unlike the torso-men, driving a chariot carried by two horses. The sculpture almost seemed alive to me.

Now, along both sides of our car, a group of "horses" ran up from behind us, then running ahead of us, turning a slight left, as we would, with the road, toward a tallish, arched, pale tan-orange stone gate.

The horses were pale slate colored, with a deepening grey on their sides, and with their sides dappled with black spots. Their legs were, however, long and spindly, so that their bodies stood perhaps ten feet above the ground. They were ridden or guided by a group of people who may have been wearing yellow and red silk clothing. I again thought that all of this was ominous.

There was now a view, of which I was, at first, not necessarily a part, of a man giving a speech to a large audience. The speech the man gave was like an Oscar acceptance speech. But it was also supposed to be like a political speech.

The man was about six feet tall, a little heavy, wide-faced, slightly balding on the forehead, but distinguished looking, with red hair, a short, red beard, and glasses. The man wore a nice, pale coffee colored suit with a cream colored shirt. Behind the man was a satiny, purple curtain. The man stood behind a podium.

Suddenly, someone shot the man. Now it was like I was the man. In a series of reveries (like I was in a half-waking state, rather than a dream state) I wondered to myself how bravely I'd act if I really were shot. I wondered whether I'd flinch or maybe scream in a high-pitched voice.

I thought that perhaps I'd take the shot alright, but that if I fell and the person who had shot me were to proceed to attack me physically, I might, in my death throes, thrash about and flinch like a weakling. I also thought that if I were attacked, and the person who shot me were straddling me and pummeling me physically, I might sit up and attack him with all my strength.

But I thought that even then, I'd lose my realistic consciousness, like the police officer (Bannerman?) did in the Stephen King novel Cujo, and imagine that I was fighting on, while really I had fallen back down and was rolled onto my left side, dying.

I, as the man, was lying down. My head had been shot. I was lifted onto a stretcher and into a bunh of material like a gauzy blanket. The people who carried me may have been Mexican boys or young men.

I was carried into an "operating room," which looked more like a run-down barber shop. It had purple-painted walls and unpainted, uncovered, concrete floors. I sat in a barber's chair, possibly before a mirror, though I couldn't see my face.

All this time people had been telling me not to move but to stay awake. They may also have been telling me not to speak. I had also not been allowed to be part of a certain aspect of all the action that had been taking place around me.

But now the group of people had placed on my head a wrapping of gauze as thick as a helmet. With this "helmet," which went over the crown and sides of my head and under my chin, with a strap across the middle as well, to go over my nose, the people now told me, "Okay," as if I were now "allowed" to be fully conscious of all the events around me.

I could feel blood gushing down from the crown of my head and down along my left ear. The blood felt cold, but it was like a fresh gushing, like it had just begun.

I was placed in a wheeled chair, something like a cross between a wheeled hospital bed and a dentist's chair. There were people carting me along, people carting things like IV bags along, and people walking backwards before me. We walked toward a doorway to an "operating room" (?).

The people walking before me kept telling me to stay awake. They kept asking me questions to keep me talking. I wondered why they were making such an effort to keep me awake. I thought, I'm doomed, anyway. I might as well lose consciousness now, and either die or wake up with irreversible brain damage.

Dream #2

I was with my brother in a "movie theater lobby," which was a lot more like a cafe, except with the dim lighting of a bar, and the feeling that this room was in a much larger building, like a big shopping mall or an airport. The light was dim orange-yellow, like candlelight.

I was in the ticket-taker's line. I noticed my brother was over at the "concession stand." I walked over to him, awkwardly, like I'd suddenly realized I should be with my brother, although I still actually wanted to stay in the ticket-taker's line.

I looked into a cafeteria-style glass case displaying desserts. There were a lot of things that looked like brownie squares with layers of some kind of pale brown "chocolate" cream in them. Some of the brownie squares had their top layers out of shape like they were stale, so that the old brownie layer was bending upward at the corners. Some of the brownie squares, however, looked very fresh and appetizing. I couldn't decide what I wanted.

A man who was black or Hispanic, or both, stepped between me and my brother. The man was about my height, wiry-muscular, with a tight face. He had shaggy, curly, pale brown hair, that was kind of long, but not quite down to his shoulders. He wore a tan cap and blue-reflective sunglasses. He had a mustache. He wore a beige windbreaker.

The man started making weird comments to me about how tough it was for someone like him to come here and see movies. He then made a comment like, "It's really tough when there are all these fags here, isn't it?"

I thought the man was half-thinking I'd agree with what he said, but that he also half-thought I was gay and that I'd stand up for myself and other gay people by starting a fight with him. I just backed away from the man, figuring that other people had heard him, and not wanting other people to think that I was with this guy or that I agreed with what he was saying.

I had stepped backward and out of the line for the "concession stand." But I thought, I didn't really need to eat anything, anyway. I'll just wait for my brother. I ended up standing behind a table that held one or two tallish, cylindrical, chrome coffee makers and a couple baskets of different-colored tea-packets. I even ducked behind it.

But now the man turned in my direction and shouted out, "But what's even worse than that is the spics, isn't it?"

I knew there were a lot of Hispanic people here, and that I had to stand up against the man's racial slur about Hispanics.

I stood up as tall as I could. My head peeped up about halfway over the coffee makers. I said, "Oh, yeah?!"

I thought I'd say something else. But I looked around to see that all the Hispanic people in the place were staring at me, like I was also responsible for what the man had said. Everybody, disappointed in me, may simply have dropped me from their minds.

The people now turned and ran out of the place, as if the man had run out before them and they were now chasing him. I ran along with everybody else, trying to prove myself to them.

We all ran through a series of balconies, like the indoor balconies in an office building or hotel. The balconies had red carpet and light-colored, wood railings. There were stairways going up and down. Balconies randomly turned and intersected.

The group of people stopped in their chase while heading up a small staircase. I was at the back of the group. As the group started moving forward again, a black man, tall, wide, wearing black jeans, a black, leather jacket, a backward cap, and slightly tinted, round eyeglasses, jogged down the steps.

As the man went past me (I stood still, like a straggler), he swung his arm out and grabbed my right leg, around the calf, skimming and swinging along on it like it was a handrail, to annoy me. He hustled off confidently, thinking I'd do nothing.

I turned and ran off after the man. I was going to catch up with him and fight him. But he was now ahead of me and apparently running himself. He ran along a balcony and then into a glass-walled corridor that ran alongside the balcony he'd just run through (so that he'd run in a hairpin curve). I followed him through the corridor, which was kind of stuffy and fluorescent-lit.

The man then turned down a narrow, grey-walled, fluorescent-lit hallway. I was about to follow him down this hallway, but I saw that he was heading into a doorway on the left wall. The door was automatically locking, with a number punch-code fixture over the knob. Another person, a tallish, thinnish, black man wearing a red polo shirt, let the man in.

I could tell this was the back entrance for a restaurant. The man was coming to work. I knew that I probably wouldn't be able to get past the locked door. But even if I got past the door, I thought, I'd have to deal with a whole group of men ready to fight me, instead of just the lone man.

(1/2/10) for and against the ocean

(Entered into paper journal at 8:30 AM at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was in a car with my family. We had gotten finished with something -- possibly some kind of trip into the mountains. We were now driving back home. It was a sunny, cloudless day. We may have been driving along a field of tall, green grass and little flowers. I probably sat in the backseat, on the passenger side.

I thought to myself that I would like to take a walk after we got home. I didn't feel like I'd gotten enough exercise for the day.

But now we were driving alongside a cliff. I looked over the cliff. The ocean and a beach were down at the bottom. The beach may have been ten or twenty meters below. I thought the water was beautiful: a dark, lapis lazuli color, with thin waves lacing with foam at the gentle crests. I thought it would be terrrific to go for as swim. As we drove on, the cliff got taller and taller, so that the beach eventually seemed to be one or two hundred meters below.

I thought to myself that perhaps I shouldn't swim in the ocean, either because the ocean was too cold or because the water was contaminated somehow. I thought there must be something wrong with the water, since it didn't look like there were any people in it. But then I did start to see a few people here and there, wading in the water. I thought it might be nice, after all, to go swimming in the ocean.

I wondered how far I could swim out without being in danger of shark attacks. I could see, in my mind's eye, a band of ground under the ocean which sloped gently down and then sharply down after a short distance. I was pretty sure that staying in that band would keep me safe.

I thought that I possibly shouldn't go to the ocean, anyhow. I still had to go for a walk, to get some good exercise. If I went to the ocean, I'd have to get good exercise there, to justify my being there. But I had a feeling I wouldn't get good exercise there: I'd probably just wade around and play in the water. But I still thought I would go into the ocean anyway. It seemed too beautiful to pass up.

But then I thought that once I got back from the ocean I'd have to wash my shorts. I imagined my knee-length khaki shorts. I thought, Well, they'd just be wet once I got back. I could just throw them into the dryer. But for some reason I thought the salt from the ocean water would catch fire in the dryer. I'd have to wash my shorts before putting them in the dryer, to get the salt out. This seemed terribly inconvenient, and a good reason for not going into the ocean.

(1/17/10) can't stop the crash

(Entered into paper journal at 8:38 AM at Sit & Wonder cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was in a car with my family. I was in the backseat, and possibly on the passenger side, but I was driving the car. It was night. We were on a lonely road in the desert. We had come from a town, to which I had driven (I saw, in my mind's eye) earlier in the day.

My mom, who sat in the driver's seat, reminded me to drive faster on the way back. I said I would. I remembered having had some trouble with other cars on the highway because I had driven at a slow speed on the way up. I had driven at what I'd thought was the correct speed, but it had been too slow.

We now turned right, off the small road and onto the highway. The landscape around the road was filled with tall mounds of red stone bounded by tan expanses of ground and little green shrubs The rad went downhill, though occasionally it would roll up a little. We were all alone on the road, but I kept my speed  up, slightly more than I though I should have, because I was jittery about someone driving up behind me and getting impatient.

I took a turn which I hadn't quite seen in time to drive through smoothly. It was a very wide curve on a long, mild, downward slope. The road itself was wide. I fell under the momentum of the missed turn. Instead of winding right with the curve, I drove forward and slightly left. The car was slowing down as we approached the left edge of the road.

I was trying to regain control of the car, but I couldn't. I knew we were going to go off the side of the road. I asked my mom how I could regain control of the car. But she didn't answer. I hoped that our drive off the road wouldn't be terrible. I called to my mom again, but she didn't respond. She just kept still.

We drove off the road. We rolled, slowly, gently, down a bank-slope about six or seven feet tall, then stalled on a flat stretch of land.

I called to my mom, asking how we could get out of this space. She just sat still, facing forward. I called to her again and again. She was motionless. I realized how worn out she looked. Her hair was grey and meager looking. I called to my mom again and again. Now my mom slumped forward as if dead or unconscious. I got extremely worried. I called frantically, "Mom! Mom!"