(9/25/05) tents and sprinklers; dangerous design

(Entered in paper journal at 9:10 AM at Ozzie's coffee shop on Garfield Street and 5th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I was changing or moving sprinklers early in the morning on a sunny day. The place was a park. I think it was wide open, but it was also like a labyrinth. It felt uncannily lonely.

There were hundreds of sprinklers running along the hose. I was proud of the way many of them had been set up.

The park developed into a labyrinth of tents The sprinklers became just streams of water shooting out of spaced holes in the hose. I wondered how water could get around the whole lawn, but I was also amazed at how high the stream went.

The tents were dull green and house-shaped and had an overhanging flap in front of the door. I went under a flap and saw my college friend SA laying with her head toward the door. She looked tired and weak, but she waved at me and smiled. I smiled and waved and walked away again.

Dream 2

There was a design like on an Olmec plate, something like this.

There was also a glowing woman in bright white clothing and black hair. I couldn't step on some part of the design, either the one-circle or the two-circles, or something would happen to the woman.

(10/20/07) woman in the treetops; the sick cat cart

(Entered in paper journal at 4:08 PM at Starbucks on Houston Street and Hudson Street in Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I ran through a courtyard like in a stone castle at night. I flew up at some point to move as I needed to go. I flew up into trees. I was amazed that I was flying, but I told myself to remain calm so I would keep flying.

At some point a woman in the treetops reached out at me. I turned as I flew to see who she was. She snuck back into the trees, giggling.

Dream #2

It was daytime. I may have been sitting in a grocery cart. I didn't see too much around me. My mom pushed the cart down a street, possibly down the middle of the street, going down a hill. My mom's best friend T walked beside my mom, possibly to her left.

In the cart with me was a cat. The cat may have lain under a white sheet. My mom and T spoke with each other about the cat, either about how the cat was dead or about how sick it was. I thought, They aren't taking good enough care of it!

I saw the cat. It had orange fur that was pale, as if even the fur were sick. The cat lay as if dead. Then it was standing, walking around limpingly, as if it were very sick. I thought, If my mom and T can get this cat somewhere soon enough, they can save it.

The cat looked at me. It had round eyes that were a milky grey throughout, with no pupils (like cataracts?). The cat then lay again as if dead.

(6/1/08) my ancient friend; rescued from cannibals

(Entered in paper journal at 9 AM at Starbucks on 29th Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I was near the edge of a tall plateau that overlooked the ocean. A black dog sat before me at the very edge of the plateau. I was afraid the dog would attack me, but I walked up to it anyway.

There was somebody, possibly a woman, possibly my mother, standing down at the foot of the slope. The person called up to me, yelling something disparaging about my interaction with the dog. The person wore a strange costume, multicolored, like Chinese or Caucasian dress, with a triangular headdress of some kind.

Possibly out of defiance, I knelt and put my right arm around the dog and pet the dog. The dog was like a Black Labrador. It was very friendly. Suddenly I realized the dog was mine or had been a friend of mine.

I was now somewhere like the kitchen in my great-grandmother's house. I was still petting the dog. I grabbed the dog's left foreleg. Something about the leg seemed sickly thin.

I felt the presence of people, possibly Ancient Egyptians, behind me. I may have realized that the dog and I had had a relationship in Ancient Egypt, as if it were a court dog and I were its caretaker, or as if I were some member of the court and the dog had been mine.

Dream #2

I was a woman. I was with two other women. We three were all beautiful and blonde. We probably wore sundresses. We were investigating a house. The people who lived in the house were suspected of doing something bad.

The house was all or mostly basement-level. We had gotten down into the house, into the living room. It seemed like there was nobody there, although we could see that the table was set for dinner. The food seemed to be orange: maybe orange-colored blossoms and oranges or peaches.

Somehow I had gotten separated from the other two women. I was in a dark bedroom. The living room, which I could see through the half-closed doorway, was also dimmer than it had been.

I knew that the other two women had been caught by the people living here and were either dead or being prepared to be killed. I knew now that the people in the house were cannibals and had trapped us to kill and eat us. I knew that the people who lived here were home now, with guests. I had an idea that I could get out of here if I left the bedroom and moved through the living room at just the right time.

But now the man and woman who lived here came into the room. They turned on the lights. The couple were older. They looked like a couple in their fifties might have looked in the 1970s. The husband looked like Larry Tate from the TV show Bewitched.

I knew that the couple had had me trapped in the bedroom this whole time, though I hadn't suspected it before, and that I couldn't have left, even if I'd been given time to try.  A few of the guests also funneled into the room. They all stood around like this was just part of the dinner party.

The husband produced a book, which he opened in order to show me pictures. The book was like a 1960s style cookbook, with photos in black and white and line-drawings (like in CPR manuals) of people preparing food.

But the whole book was on preparing human body parts for being eaten. One series of photos showed an arm being chopped in pieces. It may have been the arm of the woman preparing the food in the photos and line-drawings. The woman may have been cutting her own arm, while it was still attached to her body.

The husband now took on an angry demeanor. He yelled at me for invading his space. He told me something about how all the people around me would eat me sooner or later, and how I would never be able to rescue my friends.

The lights were off again. It was like I was by myself again. But I could still hear the husband. He may have been in the room. He told me to read the book, and that if I started getting hungry I could just start cutting pieces off my own body and eating them.

I now saw, as if I were watching the situation as a movie, a stone-floored outdoor area, possibly near a building. There was a square hole leading to an underground cell. I knew my two friends were in that cell.

Suddenly a group of people like ninjas ran into the scene. They were dressed in thick, navy blue fabric. Their bodies were covered completely except their eyes. Their head coverings were wrapped in layers, more like Arabian turbans (except around the head and face) than like a ninja's small face mask.

The ninjas ran quickly, making windy, shuffling sounds with their clothing. They all slid down a pole or rope and into the cell. They were here to rescue my friends.