(9/25/06) yin yang pisces rats; happy sick dog; lutheran codex of the dead

(Entered in paper journal at 7:20 PM at home in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I was in the doorway to "Ben & Jerry's" "at Times Square." Apparently I was volunteering on some project. The inside of the place was dim, as if it were night or early morning, and only a light or two in the back of the store was on, lighting solid, rich-colored walls of maroon and goldenrod and other similar colors.

The volunteer manager was telling someone working for them (my Americorps co-worker JS), "He's just here as a volunteer. Don't make him go back down into the garbage room."

I said, "No, don't worry about that. I've been there before. I can go there again. It won't bother me."

I thought about all the roaches and rats in that basement. They had grossed me out (i.e. when I had actually worked for Ben & Jerry's in Times Square in 1998 and 1999), but I had generally been okay with them.

I walked down the basement steps with JS. One or two steps from the basement a rat scurried up to the steps, then away. I was shocked, but I kept steady. Then another ran, and a few more. A couple started running up the steps. I got grossed out and ran back up the steps. JS continued down to the garbage room.

There was a girl at the top of the stairs. The girl asked, "What are you afraid of? The diseases? The grossness? That they'll bite you? I can't blame you, although I'm used to it."

The girl held out her right (?) hand, on which two rats (palm-sized) scurried around like the "pisces" (?) or yin yang style.

They actually crawled all around her hands -- like roly-polies! But I strongly remember them making the "pisces" (?) or yin yang shape at one point.

Dream 2

I sat or lay on a couch. My friend R lay in an odd position on the floor by the arm of the couch at my feet. I called for my friend's dog. The dog was sick somehow, but she jumped up on the couch and flapped around happily while I pet her.

I felt dog's hyperactivity in reaction to my petting was the result of her sickness and would lead to more sickness. But I also felt R was jealous that I was petting his dog. So I think I made the dog calm down and made her jump off the couch to appease R.

R was almost bluish skinned, greasy -- it was like he had been strangled and was now decomposing. But he was still alive. I think we even spoke about about how good I was with animals.

Dream 3

I was with a woman in a room. The woman spoke to me about a catechism I had in my hands as I read the catechism. She said this was what the Spaniards used to convert the Aztecs.

There were two columns, I saw, of glyphs, and then a column (in English) of text. Most of the glyphs were shaded out by diagonal lines over the squares. The catechism followed the normal Q & A format. It spoke of the brown wood of the cross and the pink (comb? knife?) that drove the nails into the Christ.

The Aztec ("A"nswer to the "Q"uestion) said something like, "That imagery alone should denote in an aware mind the greatness of Christ. Destiny brought him to those two symbols, which even alone mean greatness."

I "remembered" now that the woman in the room (Mexican-looking, youngish) had been holding brown wood and a weird, pink, plastic knife/comb/mirror before. She had been trying to tell me something -- about herself?

(1/26/08) crowley's catholic wedding

(Entered in paper journal at 8 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I was driving in a car along a hill in very dark night. Down the hill I saw a city which I thought of as Albuquerque. The city was spiral, in an almost hexagonal pattern. I felt like I lived in a trailer on the outskirts of the town.

From the center of teh city the "power" went out. The very center of the city was black, lightless, except a tiny circle of light, as in the center of a pentagon. From the center the orange and yellowish lights went out, to the edge of the city. All that were left were greyish-white lights, although those lights may actually have provided half the light in the city.

I felt like the town's energy had gone out because people hadn't been conserving, and so it would go out completely if people didn't finally start conserving. I wondered about my trailer on the outskirts of town. I couldn't doubt that I, too, had not conserved. But was I wasting energy even now, while I wasn't even in the trailer? I thought I should consider every way in which I could conserve.

I was in a church. There was a wedding, possibly between my old boss and constant mentor, EB, and a blonde woman. I stood near the back of the church. The church was brightly lit and full of people. EB (?) stood at the back of the church, in business attire rather than a tuxedo. He was a couple rows ahead of me, but on his side (the left side) of the church it seemed the pews ended a couple rows up from the rows on my side, so that EB and I both stood behind the back pews of our respective sides.

I stood by the bride, who was dressed in a normal wedding gown. At one point I leaned close and spoke with the bride. She was standing. She may suddenly have been wearing a thick, pink nightgown. At this point I may also have been a woman and wearing the same thing.

I was myself again. Everybody was kneeling for part of the church service, as if this were now a regular Catholic (?) service. The bride may have knelt (in her wedding gown again) on a footstool. I may have tried to go up a couple rows to find some space available on one of the kneeling benches in the pews.

As I looked I saw a glass door to my right. Through the door I saw another sanctuary, also full of people. A couple people, my co-worker CR and a tall man with a wide, baldish head and white hair, were walking toward the door.

The man was a Lutheran minister, and he wore a collar. I thought he had come dressed up for the wedding. I had previously only seen him in regular clothes. I didn't know if he knew me, but I knew him. I was happy to see him dressed up.

I was getting ready to hold the door open for the man and CR. But the man brusquely opened the door, almost pushing me over, and walked past me, barely acknowledging me, and not acknowledging me in any friendly way. I was shocked.

I saw a sign, as if it were turned on its side. The sign was maybe eight feet long and one foot wide. There was white lettering against a red background for most of it, but on the far right side was a black and white photo of a man who looked like Aleister Crowley except with a huge, black beard and a broad-brimmed hat.

The words that took up most of the sign described this man and were pairs of adjectives separated by slashes. The description pairs weren't quite opposites, more like between opposites and complements. The last part was "tall by nature and tall by stature/but always a stranger."

(2/1/09) who'll get fired?; the shooting game; a new religion

(Entered in paper journal at 8:22 AM at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I walked through an office hallway. The hallway was narrow, with harsh, white, fluorescent light, grey carpet, and greyish walls. It was like a maze, or it was like this hallway would break off into other maze-like hallways.

I came to a small room, like a pantry, to my right. The head of my department, MR, stood before a tight circle of people, mostly low-level workers like me. He was talking about planning something out, like who would still be working here. He asked the people around him not to say anything.

I was now in a big, warm swimming pool in a room with warm, tan tiling on the walls and floor. The water in the pool was clear and green with depth. I swam before a weird "computer," like an old television with wires connecting in tangles to a rough set of units below it.

My old boss BS swam somewhere behind me and to my left. He said, "Well, I wonder who it's going to be who stays. Well, anyway, it's gonna happen soon." BS stepped out of the pool and told me he'd see me later.

Dream #2

I was in a big room like a mix between a studio and an inner courtyard. The room probably had black walls and columns, like a small theater, and probably had a big window showing blue sky out front. There were a few people with me.

One person and I were having something like a gunfight. We were both climbing up and down aluminum ladders, possibly trying to get up to a balcony level. The man shot me in my ribs, on my left side. The shot was like a puff of air. I don't think the shot hurt, but it made me flinch and it scared me somehow. I was disappointed in myself for having been so weak.

The scene replayed, or else the man and I, as if we were rehearsing, started our actions over again. The man was long-haired, possibly Asian. He was explaining to me how this whole thing worked. He showed me that we shot little, neon-green pellets out of our guns. The pellets were soft, like Styrofoam. They didn't hurt at all. They were really fast, but their impact was like it had no speed.

The man shot me again in the ribs, and I flinched again and got scared.

Dream #3

I was with either my old friend R or my brother. We were in a gigantic structure which may itself have been an entire city, an ancient city. The structure was all made out of huge, tan blocks of stone, and warm, soft light flowed into the structure, possibly from windows high up on the walls.

I had gone out of one room and into another. I had been speaking with R/my brother, and was now considering whether to change my religion. The room I was in now may actually have been like a library with grey stone walls. There may have been a long, maroon, velvety banner hanging down from a narrow wall, like one would expect to see draping down behind a throne. I tried to consider the differences in the religions I was deciding between.

I went back into the tan room. All along the walls were doorways to different churches. It was now like I was flying past, and just over, all the doorways, focusing in particular on three doorways. One was to a Catholic church. There may have been a statue of a church official before the door and to the left. I thought there was something I did like about this church, like the monks, but that the overall view of this church didn't match mine.

The next doorway I focused on was something like a Lutheran church, but with some kind of new-age ideology combined with it. I thought this was my church. I felt some kind of familiarity with it, and thought this must have been where I should go. But then I realized there was  a lot of stuff in this church's ideology that I didn't feel comfortable with intellectually, and that I felt might actually make me soft or unhealthy. Before this doorway, to the left, was a sculpture, maybe five or six feet tall, of a palm branch.

These first two doorways had been along the left wall of the building, both toward the middle of the wall. The next doorway I focused on was on the right wall, near the top corner, and off to the right of it may actually have been an altar. This doorway was for the Lutheran church. I may have headed directly for this doorway after the previous doorway, as if I needed to convince myself that this doorway actually existed, that the stable church I was looking for was real, not just existing in admixture with things I didn't believe.

I may have been standing on the ground now, not flying. The room itself may also actually have been a sanctuary, with dim lighting, dark walls, and purple carpeting. But the stone doorway to the church still stood in the wall.