(9/16/06) the volcanic oxygen of love; even if you were kidding, you deserved it; the lawnmower boyfriend; an empty office in the cards

(Entered in paper journal at 8:57 AM at Ozzie's coffee shop on Garfield and 5th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

A group of people were chosen to deal with something like a volcano. Although each person was chosen for a different task, everybody in the group was chosen because they were of the highest level of intelligence.

Each person had been sent into their separate locations around the volcano to perform their separate missions. But all of them or almost all of them were close to the point of death now, having delved deep into the workings of the volcano without actually making it function.

I saw a man in a tall but ragged office building which was next to and a little skewed from a similar building. I also saw a woman in Army fatigues in a very small cave that was lit red. With both of them (three, possibly -- the woman may have had a man with her) it was like the oxygen was depleting, suffocating them.

The people weren't trying to make the volcano work to "bring back oxygen" in their spaces. Their goal was something else. But their having gotten so far into the workings of the volcano "tripped" something antagonistic that was now killing them by suffocation. They had not done all they had needed to do, and they were only seconds from losing consciousness, so they simply relaxed and resigned themselves to death.

Then out of nowhere the volcano erupted. It was more like a geyser. It was just a blast of water from flat, boggy, salty ground. Steam and mist wafted and billowed violently over the land.

And suddenly oxygen filled the areas. The woman, who may have been cradling the man (boy) with her, looked back toward the exit of the cave. She breathed deeply.

The man in the office stood up. He looked out the window to the office next to him. A man and woman, both very strong and attractive, stood up and kissed each other.

I was now the man in the first office. I thought, This is finally all over; at last they can have their love.

Dream 2

There were a dog and a wolf in a field. The wolf was used by farmers (?) to keep wild animals (possibly even giraffes) in check But the wolf may have had a bad or abusive side. The way the wolf "disciplined" was to jump on the animals and bite their necks as if attacking them to eat them. But he would just rough them up until they stopped.

The dog wasn't doing anything bad, but the wolf decided to jump on the dog anyway. The dog was angry because he wasn't wild and shouldn't have been jumped on anyway. He lay down, which was the general animal sign of submission, but then rolled over and bit onto the wolf's throat.

The wolf and the dog wrestled quite a ways, mainly with both standing and the wolf trying to shake off the dog. When the wolf had finally shaken off the dog, though, the wolf's throat was completely gashed open. The wolf walked away to die -- it knew it was going to die. It had a meek, little smile on its face, as if to tell the dog, Couldn't you see I was just kidding?

I (watching all this from the hills) thought, Even if you were just kidding, you deserved it! You were abusing your power!

Dream 3

I was in a big but cheap looking, kind of modern living room with glass walls. It was night. There were a few people in the house, but in particular a young woman, who probably owned the house. I was there to be with her. She had just broken up with her boyfriend. She liked me, and I knew, though I didn't necessarily like.

I knew the woman's boyfriend also knew the woman liked me. He wanted to kill me and kill her because she liked me. I was going to stand up to him and tell him to leave her alone. But now he came at the house. He looked like me somehow, when I had long hair.

At a sprint the boyfriend pushed a lawnmower-like device through the window wall. He skirted all of us and ended up by a dining table, holding a knife out at us. He wasn't going to listen to reason. He wanted to kill.

Dream 4

I put a birthday card in my co-worker AS's office. The whole office space was cluttered and confused, full of dirty, white-green office light. After doing something, I came back to the office. Everybody was there now, whereas they hadn't been before.

I went into CJ's office, which was around a cluttered hall corner from AS's, and down a long hall from everybody else's office. I thought of AS and headed into her office, which was now empty (but dusty), dotted sparsely with a couple wires, a keyboard, etc.

AS walked out of the office. I tried to tell her happy birthday. But she just looked at me as if soemthing in the card (or the fact that I hadn't signed the card everybody else had signed?) had really offended her. AS had blonde hair, as opposed to her usual brunette hair color. I called after her, "I like your hairstyle change!" But she walked away without even pausing to acknowledge me.

I went back into CJ's office. CJ asked me, "Did you get the research done out there?" CJ had sent me out to an open field like at the Valles Caldera, near Los Alamos, New Mexico. I hadn't found out what he had wanted me to find out. But I told him what I had seen. CJ made an angry face but didn't say anything.

I drifted back in my vision to the valley, which was slightly obscured as if I were (thought I wasn't) standing behind a final corner or bend of a mountain. During this time I was trying to figure why the "lava" from the "volcano" I had witnessed a while back (as if my first dream were real) hadn't glopped over the ground and hardened into basalt.

Some image came into my mind of a gradual hardening of ash from the point of ejection in a circle outward. The ash would be invisible until it hardened.

(12/7/07) panties for a jealous boyfriend; emotional goodbyes

(Entered in paper journal at 5:05 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I had come into a building to lead a volunteer event. A woman had brought her boyfriend, out of compulsion. The boyfriend was trying to prove that I was either trying to steal his girlfriend, make his girlfriend feel stupid, or expose him personally for some illegal activity. I had agreed to go off somewhere with the guy while the woman did the event -- to prove that I wanted nothing other than for the woman to do the event.

I was in the boyfriend's and girlfriend's apartment bedroom. There were four beds. The boyfriend lay on one and I lay on another. We both lay so our heads were at the feet of the beds. The boy was black, but he may have had his face painted bright white with cracked, caked paint.

I asked the boy what he did as a job. He squirmed off the bed impatiently and sat on the floor. He said, "I'm tired of you always asking questions. What about you? Why are you doing this event?"

I sat on my knees on the bed. The room had been dim, as if it were sunny outside, but as if the curtains had been blocking the sunlight. Now the room was light with incandescent light, and it was as if there were no windows in the room.

I told the boy my personal story. I was about to finish by telling the boy that I worked at New York Cares (I volunteered, but never worked, there in waking life). But I didn't want the boy knowing too much about my life and following me all over the place. So I just told the boy I did volunteer work.

There was now a woman in the room, a roommate to the girl and boy. The boyfriend had often had sex with this girl behind the girlfriend's back.

The boy decided I was fine to go. We were all getting ready to go back to the event. It was like I was getting out of bed. I wore a blue polo shirt and no pants. I wore pink, satin panties. The woman wore similar clothing. I didn't want the boyfriend to see my panties and think I was gay. But I still did, for some reason, want to show off my panties.

I hurried to get my regular clothes, which were by the back wall, piled on top of a duffle bag. As I got them I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. I may have looked like an Hispanic woman. My bottom was huge, misshapen, and flabby. I was disgusted with myself. I bent down to pick up my boy clothes, which were possibly black slacks, a dark grey, button-up shirt, and a tie.

Dream #2

I walked up to the door of the office of my co-worker RJ. The door was only half open. I thought that RJ was leaving our company. She was busy, but I wanted to tell her goodbye. I poked my head into RJ's office. RJ was typing.

I said, "RJ, I know you're busy. But I just want to say I was happy to know you, and I wish you the best of luck."

RJ looked up at me and giggled a little. She said, "Uh... okay," as if she had no idea what I was talking about. She looked at a woman who sat behind the door and whom I couldn't see. I could tell they were both acting serious, but that they would be laughing at me soon.

I backed out of the office, feeling foolish, and walked into the next office. Through the walls I could hear RJ say, "Why did he just say that? Why did he act so sad? I'm only going away for a few days."

I now stood on a small bridge over a wide river. It was snowing heavily. Clouds gathered thick over the water, obscuring my view of the left bank as I walked to the right. The water looked almost black. The clouds were reddish pink, possibly from streetlamps of towns on the banks. The bridge was of white stone and done in a classical style, like one of the short bridges between Boston and Cambridge.

In my head I heard a conversation "I'd had" with TO, a person who'd led a volunteer project with New York Cares that I now led. In the conversation I told TO, "I just thought I'd check in, see how things were going."

TO said, "They're fine. What would you need? Do you need me to help you somehow at the park?" TO's voice was sharp. He sounded upset and inconvenienced.

I said, "No. I was just calling to check in and let you know I was still thinking about you. After all, you are my mentor."

TO laughed and said, "Mentor? How do you figure that?"

I looked at a piece of paper for a moment. On it was written dialogue similar to this.

I now saw an old, black, 1940s-style car drive off a short bank and into a river during the daytime. The bed of the river appeared to be shallow and gravely, but the car sunk right down, all the way into the gravel. I thought, That's how it happens: first you go deep into the water. Then you go deep into the mud. The water fills up the car first. And then the mud fills up the car.

After I thought this I saw from the inside of the car. It was now like the car had fallen into the river I stood over on the bridge at night. The car kept falling deeper and deeper into the dark blue-green water, as if it had fallen into a whale's ocean.

In the backseat of the car were a young boy -- possibly Asian -- with whom I identified, and two Asian men, who sat to the young boy's left. The man in the center wore thin-rimmed eyeglasses. Both men were dressed and groomed very well.

The water had filled up the car. Now I saw traces of mud curling up through the water. But suddenly there was no water in the car. I thought that the passengers would run out of air and die of suffocation. The older men were dying first, since the young boy was smaller and needed less oxygen.

The men were in a state of delirium. At first they were panicked. Then they acted drunk. Now they were calm and still.

The man on the far left said, "It's cold, so cold here."

The man in the center said, "We'll come back here on November fifth."

The man on the left agreed and spoke in slurred speech. Both men began talking in a mix of an Asian language and some other language, very slurred.

I thought, Why can't these men regain their composure around a child? Aren't they worried about panicking the child?

But the child was the first to notice that the car was moving back up, as if something were rescuing it. The child didn't want to stir the men up too much, so he didn't say anything.

There was some turbulence as the car lifted further up and up. Then there was a huge amount of turbulence, which finally got the men's attention.

Now, out of the windows, we saw a submarine. It sat on the floor of the ocean. The captain (?) stood halfway out of the hatch. He wore a grey uniform. He was old, strong, with blue eyes, white hair, and a white mustache. He held a black book like a Bible in his hand.

We floated around the submarine, as if we were actually driving the car around underwater. I thought, We've finally been rescued! But then I thought this didn't make sense. I thought, How can the captain be standing out of the hatch underwater as if he were in open air? And how can we see everything as if there were spotlights all around us?