(7/2/05) stove in my room; the magical paper; verifying the eagle

(Entered in paper journal at 7:15 AM at Soap Opera Landromat on 116th Street and 8th Avenue in Harlem.)

Dream 1

I went into "my" "bedroom" and closed the door to avoid the noise of my roommates. The stove was in my bedroom and took up most of the space. All four burners had something on them. I turned on the back left burner, not aware whether any other burner was on.

The burner turned on powerfully. Blue flames spread all up the sides of the "pan," which was like a thick, deep skillet. I panicked. I may have tried to turn down the skillet, but I think the flames reached out for me whenever my hands got too close to the stove. Now I realized all the other burners were in use.

I thought I should open the door for my roommates, who were standing outside my door and talking about how I always lock myself in. I couldn't figure out why I had the stove in my bedroom. Now the front right burner hissed and pressed out a huge plume of smoke. I turned off all the burners, but everything was still going. I noticed how filthy everything was, too.

Dream 2

An Asian woman gave her student or child (who I may have been) a napkin or a strip of brownish, natural- or recycled-looking paper with what looks now like Chinese calligraphy on it. During the course of the day(s) the child kept wanting to get rid of the paper (?). The woman scolded him strongly. "I" couldn't tell why.

Now it was night. (I'm pretty sure I was the child now.) The child stood in a wide, vast courtyard like at a Chinese palace. In the center of this courtyard was a shrine or temple. The woman, now in beautiful, formal, religious attire, including a flowing headdress, sat at an altar.

From somewhere, pale, peach-colored flames glowed and lit the underside of the woman's face brightly. The woman was saying a spell to get rid of a demon or a curse. Somehow this was the moment, it was implied, for which the child's strip of paper would be needed.

Now the child (I?) had this paper in his hand, but it had also been given up during the day. The Asian woman also had it in her hand, even though it had been given up. (At this point I no longer had the child's view but a "low-angle shot" of the woman sitting before the altar.) The woman put the strip of paper before the altar and said some words, maybe reading it.

But wind, I believe convection from the fire, blew the strip of paper out of the woman's hands. It was like the strip of paper dissolved, though once again, the paper could still be seen floating in the air, not really even going higher than two feet above the woman's head.

Dream 3

It was daytime. I was in the woods with a group of folks who were friends and coworkers. I think we were in a pine forest. The feeling was coppery more than green.

We were doing some research. Everybody had been far more observant than I, and I was jealous and downhearted. Now I saw a bird I took to be a red-tailed hawk. I called it out to everybody as it flew over us. Everybody looked and congratulated me, but I thought they were being patronizing. On a closer look, the bird looked too thin to be a red-tailer. It had a lot of grey and black on it, too.

Now it was night. We were across a river from where we had been. We had to come back to verify the presence of the hawk both at day and night. If the hawk did not appear at night, it was an illusion. We might have started calling it an eagle at this point.

Somehow, as if the area were lit by a back-light, we could make out a limb possibly from a downed tree, pretty much parallel with the ground and about eight feet high. We had to sit all night and stare at that branch. The instant we saw the "eagle" we had to wade across the river and look at the eagle up close.

I could feel the approach, though I also thought the "eagle" had to be an illusion and couldn't possibly arrive.

(Continued entry at 8:30 AM on downtown-bound C-train from 116th Street station.)

At the moment when the anticipation got eeriest an owl landed on a branch behind us. Some of us may have turned around to look. I, jealously guarding my chance at "the big moment," didn't turn around.

In a watery, automatic voice, the owl recited a rhyming poem that ended in the line, "Have you ever been an owl?" The poem insinuated I had been an owl. I didn't want to believe that. I wanted to believe I had been an "eagle" and thus had a close connection with the one we were to see. I waited for the owl to say more. But it said nothing.

I now saw, low on the opposite bank of the river, two bears and either a dog or an elk (?!) on a narrow shelf of grass. I felt there was a kinship between all three animals. But I didn't think the animals did enough to show this.

The "elk" now somehow nuzzled a huge clump of grass over to a bear. The bear began gnashing and tearing at the grass. I smiled as if this were cute. But I couldn't figure out why I thought such a violent, almost insane, action was cute.

Now the "eagle" landed on the limb. I don't know if I was first to see it. Two of us, I and someone like my brother or my friend R, were picked up to cross the river.

(Continued at 8:47 AM on the 7-train from Times Square.)

We wore hip waders. We stood on a shelf of land and maybe a couple boulders that jutted out of the water. My friend was ready to go. But I was hesitant. I thought about how squishy the mud would be in the river and how cold the water would be at night. Then I made a big deal about taking everything out of my pockets so nothing would get wet.

My friend may have gone ahead of me. Either way, I knew I was taking too long getting into the water.

(3/4/06) we're millionaires; the owl means something; ridiculous $400K

(Entered in paper journal at 8:41 PM at Starbucks on 1st Street and 7th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I walked into an office. It was wide with long desks and it looked out over a larger office space. The desks were all messy. The place was cluttered and bright but felt comfortable. One of my senior coworkers, BK, stood at the front desk. Someone sat to his right. The few people in the room were all talking and joking.

BK saw me walk in and joked a little louder so I would hear and involve myself. He then shouted, "I'm a millionaire!" He didn't say it in a forced way. He was comfortable and happy.

Finally I did it, too. I could feel the words in my chest and throat. Everybody was surprised I said it too. I felt like maybe I shouldn't have said it. But nobody was angry. They were just surprised.

Dream 2

I was walking along an asphalt path in a lawny (?) park. A young girl walked by, to my right. I spoke with her about nature.

A hawk (?) flew overhead. As it flew off in front of us from right to left I told the girl, "It's a hawk! Now watch carefully for which tree it lands in." (There were sparse rows of pine trees on each side of the lawn.) "We'll go to the tree and get a closer look."

The "hawk" perched. We went to the tree. Now I saw that the bird was really a hawk-sized owl. I told the girl, "This means something! I've never seen this before!"

But before I could make sure the bird really was an owl, it flew from the pines on the left side to the pines on the right. As it flew over us I saw it had something really sharp and thin to its appearance -- a bit unusual for an owl.

We walked to the right side now and searched for the owl. All the trees on this side were small and thin, almost like deciduous saplings in winter.

I spotted the owl. It was now as small as a saw-whet owl. I told the girl I'd spotted the owl. She said, "I can't see it."

I said, "It's on the low limb on that small tree. And look to the tree to the owl's right. It's a green parrot!"

The girl may have seen now. I told the girl again how special this was, even though I was slightly disappointed that the owl was so small. And it didn't quite look fluffy or fat enough to be an owl.

But now a whole flock of owls flew down and landed on the lawn before me and the girl -- all with that same thin, sharp look to them.

I felt a little overwhelmed with a feeling of meaning. But I also felt a disgust at seeing so many birds, and a disappointment that the birds were all that weird, small kind of owl.

Dream 3

I sat in a room/forest that was dark blue with night. I sat on the floor/ground in front of a desk, at the left corner, peering around the left side of the desk, to see my coworkers DE and CJ.

I had a notebook and was writing down figures -- my anticipated salary over the next few years. DE and CJ were -- I had the feeling -- that somehow they were -- ridiculing me.

But I continued writing the figures, trying to show them how I hoped the next five years of work would help make me secure for the rest of my life. The figures for each year were $40K, $60K, $80K, $100K, $120K. I realized this was $400,000. If I lived off the interest from that for the rest of my life, that would be about $20K per year.

(8/5/07) my new leotard; the owl man

(Entered in paper journal at 8:20 AM at Ozzie's cafe -- not sure which -- in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I went into a women's clothing shop. It was dim inside. A Hispanic man and woman worked there. The man may have helped me pick some lingerie.

I sat in a room of a (the previous?) women's clothing shop, on a couch in the center of the room, like a couch in the center of the room of an art museum. I looked into another room. The other room was dark and closed off by a locked glass door.

I remembered one of my female friends telling me how the shop was so exclusive that it stays closed except for when people come to buy stuff. Then it opens almost automatically. I thought the clothes must be very expensive.

I headed back into the (first?) women's clothing store. The clothes I had gotten before didn't work for me at all.

This time the woman helped me find some lingerie. She got me a couple nice things. Then she picked out something like a pink leotard with tiny sleeves, like the outfit a dancer might wear, with tights over her legs, for practice. It was just what I wanted.

I sat on the train. A white man and woman sat across from me. The man was saying, angrily, but not out of control, "I've got enough to do dealing with her!"

Apparently the man thought that since I had bought women's clothing I was trying to hit on him (not sure how that connection was made, either by him or me...). The man brought up the woman next to him, apparently his girlfriend, as proof that he had his hands full with his girlfriend and that he liked women, not men, anyway.

Dream #2

I was on a street corner at night. The blocks around me were all massy, roughly fifteen-floor apartment buildings of brick and stone, like buildings on Park Avenue. The sky was grey and stringy and murky, maybe hung with a yellow moon.

Caddy-corner from me (?) I saw what I thought to be a large bird perched atop the walk signal. I thought it was an owl. I walked across the street to approach it. The walk signal had transformed into a ten-foot-tall, black metal box.

The bird wasn't a bird after all, but a man dressed in white, robe-like clothing, with long, silvery-grey hair and a long, silver-grey beard. He crouched away from me, his legs bent so his knees were to his chest, as if he were imitating a bird.

I tried to get a view of the man's whole face, but I was afraid that the man was crazy, and that if I looked directly at the man's face the man would become afraid or angry and run away or attack.

Somewhere nearby I ran into my friend R. This place was far away from R's home. R was out walking his dog. I asked R, "What are you doing all the way out here?" I thought R was stalking me.

R said, "I had to come all the way out here. I had to take my dog to the vet."

We were now standing in the vet's office. I knelt down beside R's dog, who stood to my right side and faced R as he stood at the reception desk. I asked, "Is your dog having another one of her..." (I knew it was a skin problem, but I wanted to be delicate about the issue) "... things?"

R got angry, thinking I had forgotten about his dog's illnesses. R said, "Skin issues. She's having more of her skin issues."

I petted the dog and noticed that a lot of her coat was very thin. It was also brown and white in these patches, instead of black, her normal color.

(9/29/07) prisoner of the lake

(Entered in paper journal at 9:50 AM at Starbucks at Astor Place in Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I killed a man. I threw the gun I'd used into a lake. I may also have thrown the man's body into the lake. Now the police were searching the lake for evidence. I was hoping I wouldn't get caught.

The lake was brown and dirty. I saw, as if I floated over the water, a black suit-jacket sinking into the water. I seemed to be drifting out on the water but not getting any farther from the shore.

To my right I saw a white egret (or crane) sinking into the water. Now to my right, on the shore, an owl-like bird landed on a barren, black tree. The bird faced away from me. Its closed wings were like a shell or a shield on its back. The shell was glittery, silver, red, and blue, in a design like that of the Cuban flag.

I saw a man walking in a prison. The prison had stone walls and glowed a warm, purplish color. The man was looking for a prisoner whom he would let out to perform a certain task. I thought the prisoner was me. I was afraid to see what I would look like, after having been dead in the lake (?) for so long.

The man opened one of the big, old, wooden prison-doors. The cell was crammed full of men. But none of the men looked really unhealthy.