Dream 1
I was in a full classroom. One of my NYC Americorps crew chiefs, AL, was at the front of the class, teaching us something like a mix between physics and good ways for dealing with our strange paycheck situations. She drew "cycles" on a chalkboard. One was a circle on the line of which a triangle traveled clockwise. There may also have been a square with a similarly traveling triangle.
AL asked us if we could trace the pattern in reverse for the eventual symmetry of the universe. I thought to myself, We can't do that. We live in a left-handed universe! But I knew and took pride in the fact that I could trace the movement backwards.
Now AL drew a line with slight loops moving from right to left above and to the left of the circle. This was slightly difficult to follow and to conceive backwards. Then she drew a tight series of loops from left to right below. the circle. Since we had to reproduce each loop exactly as AL had produced it, except with reverse movement, and since she had drawn the loops so randomly and uniquely, I was less sure I could succeed.
Dream 2
I was possibly in a clothing store. There were some people close by who knew me. I was standing by a grey counter behind which were some dressing rooms and a grid of cubbyholes with jeans in them. I turned away from a woman who was either my friend or an attendant and possibly another woman who was likely my friend.
I wore my usual jeans and t-shirt. I took off my jeans and t-shirt, possibly also my underwear, and put on a royal blue t-shirt that was a little baggy and some white jeans that went only about to mid-shin. The jeans were a bit saggy, although they were supposed to be tight. These clothes were supposed to be women's clothes. But they just seemed like an embarrassing outfit one might use but wouldn't want to use to paint a house.
I only seemed slightly embarrassed at the possibility that some guy had seen me getting into these clothes and that he had laughed at my hopes of being somewhat feminine.
Dream 3
It was the middle of night. I was out on a wide sidewalk corner facing a wide, gulfing street. Near the corner, also facing the street, was a newsstand booth, wider than usual and lit as brightly as a bodega with fluorescent light. I walked toward the corner, slightly near the newsstand, only peripherally paying attention to the newsstand.
I was trying to ignore a member of my NYC Americorps program, who kept shouting at me, as if not to me but to some absent friend, a bunch of strange and obscure half-jokes about how rude and stupid white people are. I wondered if I should turn on him and say something.
Now I was before a door like a backstage door or the backdoor for some kind of nice store. It was like I had been led out of the store by a nice, pretty woman who was about forty years old. She stood in the doorway, holding the door open. I stood by something like a black-painted, cast-iron stairwell or tall fence just outside the door.
The woman tried to make small talk to get me to feel comfortable enough to make a move on her. But somehow I messed up the conversation. We were now talking about how it had been so cold yesterday but how today it was nice.
I lifted up my arms. I wore a sort of tight, long-sleeve shirt. As I talked about the warmth, which, according to my conversation wasn't warm but maybe forty or fifty degrees Fahrenheit, the actual weather became misty, warm, oddly liquid, not humid, but like strings of nonexistent water, which, as well as the mist splashed against my skin before vanishing.
I kept insisting as I spoke that the weather was about forty to forty-five degrees Fahrenheit, with no rain, just nice, because I was afraid if I didn't calm down the actual weather with my speech, we'd get horribly humidity, which would cause me to break out with bad acne.
Dream 4
I was at some place like Coney Island on a warm, grey day. I sat on "the boardwalk" in a tall, wooden chair and read a book. People flooded all around me in front of me and out from behind nearby booths. I saw my crew mate and friend KB. She wore a maroon shirt and a brownish burgundy leather jacket. I waved at her.
Now something else happened. Now I was back to sitting in the chair at this boardwalk. But now I sat between two booths that were separated by maybe fifty feet. A fence stretched between the two booths. People came in through a gate as if this were the entrance to an amusement park.
In front of me, just inside the gate, a pretty, brown-skinned girl in a soft, turquoise or sea-green shirt and a white miniskirt waved in my direction. I waved, as if annoyed, because I knew that although she was waving at some guy in a white SUV off to my left, she wanted to play a joke on me by having me think she was waving at me. I thought I'd just blow her off by letting her have her joke.
Then KB walked through the gate. I waved at her and tried to be cool. I noticed she didn't have her jacket on. I realized tht it had been a whole day since I last saw her and that I'd just been sitting in this chair the whole time. It was obvious, too: I had the same book in my hands. I felt ashamed.
Now I was in some small place, like a lab at the Los Alamos National Laboratories. The place was lit with yellow fluorescent light, with a half-octagonal (?) counter behind which I sat in a metal chair, reading some kind of suspense novel or science book.
Behind me I heard, almost as if I had read what I was hearing, a couple people talking about the danger of something exploding, possibly a nuclear reactor or nuclear missiles. I stood up to see if there was anything I could do to help.
I ran to a door. One of my NYC Americorps crew chiefs, NM, ran up to me and put her hand on my chest to block me. She said, "You just go back to that chair."
I went back. I tried to read what was happening. The words at first slightly didn't match what was happening and what was being said. Then they stopped making sense altogether.
Dream 5
I was on top of a long, steep hill that looked down on a running track. It was a clear day, either late afternoon or a little after early morning. On the other side of the track was another tall, steep hill. People had to go one at a time down the hill I was on, to the track, then walk around it once while freestyle rapping.
My crew mate RA was down there as the dream began. Now he was done. He may have come back up the hill. Now I walked down. As I went down I thought, At least nobody will hear me: I'm so far away. Then I considered that there could be a hidden camera or microphones somewhere.
I started rapping. As far as I can tell I sounded really old-school.
Dream 6
I walked into a room through a thin doorway in a hallway lined with dark wood. The room was full of fossil skeletons, mostly of flying animals. I stood beside a tall, thin, white man who looked like a curator/insurance salesman. He was bald on top, had a birdlike nose, and kind, gentle eyes and mouth. His suit almost looked like a school uniform or black slacks with a club jacket.
I said, "This is it. This is the room from my dream."
I tried to walk in but was afraid the fossil skeletons would come to life. But I looked over at the "curator." I thought, I don't want him to know I'm afraid.
I walked a couple steps into the room. It seemed like the skull in front of me shifted or melted or expanded somehow.
Dream 7
I walked down above an arroyo or canal with short, concrete banks. In th blue water swam a strange duck. I called it a red-breasted morganza (though I *think* nowadays (2017) I meant a red breasted merganser), but it actually was far different. It was like a video game. Its head and neck were bright red. The red shot about one-third down the center of the back, tapering off and line with yellow like a comic book flame. The body was turquoise and vivid blue, all mixed up and shifting and shading.
I was with "my sister" -- a nondescript girl who was maybe ten years old -- and "my mom," whom I probably never saw. I told my sister the duck was a red-breasted morganza.
My sister knelt down and reached her hands into the water to pet the duck. I yelled nervously at her, "No! Don't do that. Those ducks have densely packed needle teeth. It'll bite. You'll lose a finger, possibly a whole hand."
