(8/31/07) las vegas taco bell; mute phones; pressure helmet; acquisition; cartoon aircraft; lesbian bergman; i look fat

Dream #1

I heard someone talk about some financial project to rebuild Las Vegas. My view descended to the left and down a steep dune of sand in which were embedded signs for casinos, like in the (at the time I entered the dream in my paper journal) new Resident Evil movie ads. I thought, That makes sense. Las Vegas is ready for a change.

I now saw a Taco Bell restaurant. It stood alone in a parking lot. It may have stood slanted. Its sign was shredded like it had been a tarp-like or awning-like sign hanging on the building. The inside had a weird, torn-to-pieces look as well, like the glass doors and windows were busted and swirling around.

I heard a narrator say, "All the work that went into creating this one store was destroyed in a very short time by the angered workers." I thought that this one store meant a lot to the operations of the overall company. Now it was gone.

I stood in line at a Taco Bell with my co-worker CJ. The line was all tall, white, overweight businessmen in suits. CJ was preparing a speech he would give when we got to the front of the line. I was hoping the speech wouldn't anger the workers or the people standing in line. CJ assured me it wouldn't. It was possibly about the need to rebuild the torn-to-pieces restaurant now that it had been destroyed.

The store in which we stood was dim. There seemed to be no seating area: the front area was entirely taken up by a belt-strap line-maze. The only other area was the cashier counter and the food-prep area. Dim natural light came in through the window. The cashiers stood on a platform maybe two feet in front of us. In front of us was a platform elevated maybe a foot from floor-level. CJ stood on that platform to give his speech.

Dream #2

I sat in a kind of dank, yellowish presentation room on a high floor of "my office building." A lot of people from "my work" were there. I sat somewhat in the back, toward the right wall. For some reason, maybe because I was slouching (or lying down?), I couldn't see to the front of the room.

A very important person, who worked for our company but who came from a different location, had come to speak. One of my senior colleagues from a different department of my company, maybe BSi, brought the man up to speak. The person may have had shaggy, red hair and a shaggy, red beard.

BSi said something to the effect of how much progress we'd made in our work. Someone's voice came on over the phone/intercom and made a snide comment about the internet, implying something about our company. BSi asked, "Could everybody listening in please mute their phones?"

The person on the phone/intercom interrupted, "No. We won't mute our phones. I'm not going to be quiet now." The person continued ranting. I was trying to figure out who he was. I knew I knew him, but I couldn't figure out who he was. He sounded laid back, not angry, but definitely like he was going to stand his ground.

I had the image in my mind of a tall, brown-haired frat-boy I knew in college. I told myself the person on the phone couldn't be this boy, because I didn't work with him nowadays. The person had to be someone I currently worked with.

A couple of my friends must have known who the person one the phone was. They stood up, walked toward me, somehow signaled they were going to the guy's desk office to stop him before things got worse, and left the room. I heard the man continue ranting. The last thing he said had to do with police putting handcuffs on him.

Dream #3

I sat on the floor and beside either a table or the back of a couch. I was speaking with someone like my old friend ML about preparations for some aircraft like an SR-71. Some man stood near me. I was saying things in hopes of impressing him. The man and I were in a room like a dining room. It had a messy feel somehow. ML stood just beyond a wide doorway into another room.

ML told me I had forgotten something for the pilots' helmets. I started fiddling with some criss-crosses of transparent tape on the tablecloth or sofa covering that seemed to be attached to black velvet. I asked what help the forgotten additions would be, anyway.

ML angrily said, "They'd help the pilots fly more comfortably!"

I could now see in my mind's eye that I had forgotten to add a seal to the helmet. This seal would make the helmet and the rest of the pressurized suit continuous and closed. The helmet and the suit may both have been black.

I got mad at myself. All this time I had tried to act smart to impress the older man, who was like a General or an esteemed inventor. But now I turned to him and said, "Why do I always forget things like this?"

The old man said, "Don't worry about it. You just need more experience. I had similar troubles when I was younger."


Dream #4

I sat out in a wooded area, on a folding chair before a folding table like a TV-dinner table. I got a phone call. One of my boss BS' clients asked me about one of the companies we did research on. BS wasn't around, and I didn't want the client to go away empty-handed.

I put the client on hold. I didn't know whether anything new was happening with the company in question, though I knew the question had something to do with another company, a company called Northwest XXXXX (can't remember), possibly with them wanting to buy the company in question. But I couldn't turn on my computer to see what price the stocks for the two companies were trading at.

I just picked the phone back up and started speaking. I hoped I would know what I was saying. The client asked me more questions.

Now there were two men standing by me. They were both tall, in shape, maybe in their late thirties. They asked me more questions.

We were now in a car, driving in a suburban, residential area to a meeting with (the men's client? possibly a meeting with Northwest XXXXX?). I sat in the backseat. I was telling the men about how the difference between the first company in question and Northwest XXXXX was only marginal and how a deal with the two companies would only be of little benefit to Northwest XXXXX.

The clients said something like, "You're giving us a lot of information we normally wouldn't get from your boss." I felt flattered by the comment.

We pulled up to a (vanilla-yellow colored?) house. This was the office where our meeting would take place. I said, "I'm sorry I'm not dressed up." (I was just wearing jeans and a t-shirt.) "I wasn't expecting to do a meeting like this. You caught me off guard." I might have sounded apprehensive, or even a little annoyed. But I was really excited about the whole situation.

Dream #5

Some cartoon-like description of an aircraft. At some point the aircraft could fly on its own. There was an image of five aircraft below the main aircraft somehow being vaporized -- even with a "POOF!" caption. This would be the first time that the craft had flown on its own.

Dream #6

I read or heard something about photos that celebrities in the 1940s and 1950s didn't want people to see. I opened a book or turned a page to see one of the photos. It was of Ingrid Bergman in a Fallingwater-style house, in a hot tub with a blonde woman, getting ready to kiss the woman. Both women were fully dressed, and their clothes were completely dry. This photo was so shocking and scandalous to me that I slammed the book shut.

Dream #7

I stood in an aisle of a store like a K-Mart. I stood before a display of women's two-piece bathing suits. I tried on one of the bathing suits. I realized that the rule was to wear your underwear when you tried on bathing suits. I'd brought a pair of pink panties with me -- just in case I'd wanted to try anything on. I put the panties on.

There was a woman standing behind a desk, possibly in a place like the electronics department. She was watching me. I knew that was okay. She was just making sure I didn't steal anything. But I was hoping I would finish up before any customers came by and saw me.

I looked down at my body. I was disappointed. I looked  a little fat.

(12/9/07) deadly friends; las vegas descent

(Entered in paper journal at 9:25 AM at Connecticut Muffin in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I stood on a subway platform with my old friend R and his fiancee L. The platform was very busy, but it was wide, with tall ceilings. I was waiting for a Q-train. As one train pulled up, R started talking about how he and L did something really cool that I could have been a part of if I hadn't stopped being friends with him.

The train that pulled up was an N-train. It was heading in my direction. But I needed a Q-train. Through the windows of the train I saw that my train was coming, but on the other platform. I ran off from R and L, kind of happy not to have to listen to R's talking anymore.

I didn't know if I could make my train. The stairwell up, which I would need to take to cross and get down to the other platform, was full, mostly of Hispanic people, mainly Mexican. Somehow, though I managed to jump about three-quarters of the way up the stairways side and grab the handrails.

I waited until a group of people made an opening for me. Then I flipped myself onto the stairs. The handrails were a softish-feeling aluminum.

I quickly ran to the other stairway and jumped down over its side. I got into the train (which appeared to be packed with people) right as the doors were closing.

I walked through the car. It was almost completely empty. It was filthy, and it had a weird smell, as if a homeless person were in it.

Three little Hispanic kids ran around in the train. I thought they were chasing around me, trying to taunt me in the guise of playing an innocent game with one another.

The kids' mother lay on one of the long benches (grey benches). She was covered entirely by a (pink?) blanket. Somewhere near her was a dried patch of blood. I probably stepped in the blood. It was sticky. I headed quickly into the next car, more out of a sense of indignant disgust than fear.

I was in a very dark room. My mom was somewhere, possibly even just talking to me by cell phone. I may have stood by a desk, kicking little cubes of safety glass out of the ridges of a green car-floor-mat.

My mom told me about the last time she'd seen my brother. My brother's friends had done something bad to him. My mom told my brother something like he shouldn't be surprised that these things happen if he keeps making friends with people like that. My mom said that my brother agreed and didn't seem too violently upset.

But my brother ended up found (?) in some place like an area by the side of a road or in a field. His mouth had been taped, my mom said. I could "see"/"feel" my brother's mouth and eyes taped over with silver duct tape.

My mom said it had later been determined that my brother had conspired to have himself killed by a friend. He had gone to a friend's house and had a drug mixture called a "coke XXXXX" ("coke set"?). He passed out. He then had his mouth taped by his friend so that he couldn't breathe -- as if the drug mixture impaired my brother's ability to breathe through his nose. His friend then took him and dumped him somewhere (roadside or field) to die.

Dream #2

I was in a commercial airplane. We seemed to be landing. I could see a lot, as if the windows on the plane were enormous. Suddenly we pulled up steeply. We ascended quickly, to a level where the blue sky became dark indigo. Big chunks of snow flew all around us. I laughed with glee. It was like I could feel the snow.

We now descended in Las Vegas. Somehow we landed on the road heading to the toll booth for cars. We pulled into the toll booth as far as we could.

A van in the toll booth pulled backwards and crashed into us. Its whole back end was smashed. I worried that the driver would sue us. But I realized he couldn't: he couldn't blame us for such a stupid action of his own. He must have realized that. He drove off to our side and away from us without even going into the airport.

I was at my dad's house. My stepmother was there and was somehow also my mom. I was trying to get out of the house and go somewhere. But my mom/stepmother kept threatening me, saying that if I left, she would make me very sorry. She also tried to convince me that, for now, this was where I wanted to be.