(Entered in paper journal at 9:35 AM at Starbucks at Twenty-ninth Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan.)
Dream #1
I came into a cafe which may have been on a narrow corner. The place was more like a bar, but it also had grey-white carpet. The walls and bar may have been black wood. My family all lay on the floor, under blankets.
A pretty, blonde girl stood behind the bar. She said, "Looks like your family was going to meet you here, but they decided to sleep here after all."
I may have looked around to see the place full of people sleeping. I thought, It must just be a popular thing for people to sleep here like this.
I may have started walking up a staircase that had a view (to my left) of the "cafe" below. I may have been talking with my mom, possibly about what nice place this was.
Somehow, possibly by a radio, we heard that some killers on the loose. My mom said, "We need to protect everybody."
I walked back down the steps and to the front door. I said, "Well, the first thing we need to do is lock the front door." I may have locked the door and then walked back up the steps. Other people may have been waking up.
Now three or so people, like the adults in a troublesome, low-income family, walked through the front door. I knew they were no good. I thought they might have been in my brother-in-law's family.
I didn't know how these new people had gotten in. I had locked the door so nobody could get in. The kids were politely saying hi to the new people. I wondered if the kids had let the new people in.
The people had mock-innocent looks on their faces, like they were looking for precisely the right place to cause trouble. They were about to head through a door to the kitchen.
I hurried down the stairs and stopped the people right in front of the door. My mom may have come out of the kitchen.
I asked the people who they were. They looked up and away, walking somewhere else. I stopped them again. This time they may just have been two men, maybe Italian, wearing bright green and purple suits (like the red suit Screamin' Jay Hawkins wore in the movie Mystery Train).
I grabbed one of the men by the lapels and let him go. He stopped. I said, "Tell me who you are! I know you think I'm nobody, that I'm just some kid that you don't need to worry about. But I'm somebody! I am -- or, I was..." My speech drifted off as my mind began to wander a bit. "... a researcher, a stock researcher... on Wall Street."
The man I'd grabbed nodded and said, "Oh, is that so?" like he liked me and didn't want me to feel bad, even though he knew that what I had been didn't matter anymore.
I physically wandered off now, still kind of talking to the people, like they were troublemaker friends of mine, whom I liked and looked up to but really didn't want around me anymore.
Dream #2
I was in a living room. I lay on the floor in golden sunlight. The room was like in a double-wide trailer. I lay on my stomach with my head pointed toward a small TV that stood on an unstable tray, like the trays people would eat their TV dinners from while sitting at a chair in front of a TV.
I lifted out of my body and was floating at a strange angle so that I couldn't really see anything around me. It took me a few seconds to realize I was out of my body. I thought, If I'm out of my body, I shouldn't just hang here in one place like this. I should try to go somewhere.
I tried to move, but as I did, I was pulled more and more back into my physical body. I told myself to relax and try to move.
My vision went dark and I felt a lot of rushing all over my body. I was in a lying position, on my back, so I thought I was back in my body. But I thought, If I were in my body, I would be lying on my stomach (at this point in my life, I generally fell asleep lying on my stomach). I also thought, Even if I'm in my body, I'm still feeling strange sensations. So I might as well relax and pay attention to them.
I was now floating, in a lying position, on my back, feet first, down a dark hallway. I flew just a few inches above the ground. The hallway had dark walls. There were a lot of doorways, and warm shafts of light glowed from each one.
I stopped flying at a doorway. A woman who may have looked like my mom sat on the floor in the doorway. The woman sat cross-legged and may have had a child in her lap. The child may have been nine or ten years old. The woman may have been wearing blue and red robes, like the robes a woman would wear in a Renaissance painting.
Showing posts with label proving identity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label proving identity. Show all posts
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Sunday, December 16, 2012
(3/1/09) venus and mercury linked; outed as gay
(Entered in paper journal at 8:35 AM at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)
Dream #1
I walked through the Rose Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library. I was at the north end of the north wing. The overhead lights (?) were all turned off, and it was dark outside, but some or all of the table lamps were on, giving off a pale light, almost like the lights of a flashlight or headlights. People were shuffling around a lot.
I saw a senior co-worker, BF, getting ready to sit down. Instead of looking like his normal, handsome self, he was in disarray. His hair was somewhat well organized, as usual, but it was maybe twice as long as usual. BF wore a big, black, puffy, hooded jacket -- something I'd never see him wear in waking life. BF's face looked dry and wrinkled, as if he were made up to resemble an aged man.
I waved at BF, not knowing whether he would recognize or even like me. He waved back, slowly, with an exaggerated, O-mouthed smile, as if he were pantomiming happiness, although I felt like he was genuinely happy to see me.
I may have sat down in a seat somewhere. For some reason I was now mad at some young man who sat a few tables in front of me. In front of his table was a big structure -- not like the usual central area of the reading room, but a big stone wall with something on it.
I was trying to make the young man understand who I was (???). The young man sat in a chair while I knelt on both knees to his left and crouched over the table with my full arms and elbows, like a child coloring in a coloring book.
I had been yelling sweat-brainedly at the man. But my angry attempts to show the young man why he shouldn't be bothering me kind of faded away. I was now crouching over the floor, drawing with chalk. It was like the table, from the portion I had knelt at and all the way to the left, had vanished, leaving the floor, which was like concrete, wide open.
I drew two images. Both were rectangles, around six feet long and three feet wide. They both had solid backgrounds with stringy line-designs in one or two colors, outlined with one or two colors. One rectangle had a yellow background with green and white designs. The other had a white background with blue and red designs.
I can't remember the design of the yellow rectangle. But the white triangle had something like two Venus signs (or two Mercury signs, or a Venus and a Mercury sign) linked together, with shapes, like line-pentagrams, scattered throughout.There might also have been words.
When the young man saw this, he understood.
Dream #2
Some presentation, possibly for work, had just finished. Everybody was in an auditorium. We were all funneling out. I may at first have been walking in a crowd of people along the right wall, heading up toward the back of the auditorium. I was now walking along the left wall. I was with a group of friends.
We got to the back wall, on which may have been a cork board bulletin board on which was a grid of photos with tidy, little paper rectangles with captions below each photo. I had been listening to a conversation everybody around me was having, possibly about girlfriends and boyfriends.
My co-worker NF stood right behind me. She was much skinnier and better looking than she had been the last time I'd seen her in waking life (in 2007). She asked me, "How's your boyfriend doing, Preemie?"
I thought, Boyfriend? I don't have a boyfriend. But NF said, "Don't be shy. Everybody knows you're gay."
I thought, Is that what everybody thinks about me? I didn't seem to worry about it too much. If everybody thought that was the case and they had been treating me just fine all along, it didn't matter if somebody said it out loud.
Dream #1
I walked through the Rose Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library. I was at the north end of the north wing. The overhead lights (?) were all turned off, and it was dark outside, but some or all of the table lamps were on, giving off a pale light, almost like the lights of a flashlight or headlights. People were shuffling around a lot.
I saw a senior co-worker, BF, getting ready to sit down. Instead of looking like his normal, handsome self, he was in disarray. His hair was somewhat well organized, as usual, but it was maybe twice as long as usual. BF wore a big, black, puffy, hooded jacket -- something I'd never see him wear in waking life. BF's face looked dry and wrinkled, as if he were made up to resemble an aged man.
I waved at BF, not knowing whether he would recognize or even like me. He waved back, slowly, with an exaggerated, O-mouthed smile, as if he were pantomiming happiness, although I felt like he was genuinely happy to see me.
I may have sat down in a seat somewhere. For some reason I was now mad at some young man who sat a few tables in front of me. In front of his table was a big structure -- not like the usual central area of the reading room, but a big stone wall with something on it.
I was trying to make the young man understand who I was (???). The young man sat in a chair while I knelt on both knees to his left and crouched over the table with my full arms and elbows, like a child coloring in a coloring book.
I had been yelling sweat-brainedly at the man. But my angry attempts to show the young man why he shouldn't be bothering me kind of faded away. I was now crouching over the floor, drawing with chalk. It was like the table, from the portion I had knelt at and all the way to the left, had vanished, leaving the floor, which was like concrete, wide open.
I drew two images. Both were rectangles, around six feet long and three feet wide. They both had solid backgrounds with stringy line-designs in one or two colors, outlined with one or two colors. One rectangle had a yellow background with green and white designs. The other had a white background with blue and red designs.
I can't remember the design of the yellow rectangle. But the white triangle had something like two Venus signs (or two Mercury signs, or a Venus and a Mercury sign) linked together, with shapes, like line-pentagrams, scattered throughout.There might also have been words.
When the young man saw this, he understood.
Dream #2
Some presentation, possibly for work, had just finished. Everybody was in an auditorium. We were all funneling out. I may at first have been walking in a crowd of people along the right wall, heading up toward the back of the auditorium. I was now walking along the left wall. I was with a group of friends.
We got to the back wall, on which may have been a cork board bulletin board on which was a grid of photos with tidy, little paper rectangles with captions below each photo. I had been listening to a conversation everybody around me was having, possibly about girlfriends and boyfriends.
My co-worker NF stood right behind me. She was much skinnier and better looking than she had been the last time I'd seen her in waking life (in 2007). She asked me, "How's your boyfriend doing, Preemie?"
I thought, Boyfriend? I don't have a boyfriend. But NF said, "Don't be shy. Everybody knows you're gay."
I thought, Is that what everybody thinks about me? I didn't seem to worry about it too much. If everybody thought that was the case and they had been treating me just fine all along, it didn't matter if somebody said it out loud.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
(4/6/09) room 430; lost luggage; asking for a book
(Entered in paper journal at 8:10 AM at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)
Dream #1
I was outside a large apartment complex. I had been sent out to get something for my mother. I was now trying to get back to the apartment as soon as possible. I ran to a glass door (like a hall-end entrance door at a hotel) and hit a buzzer button, probably buzzing my mom's apartment. My mom buzzed the door open.
I knew the room I was looking for was number 430. But I was in a hallway with rooms numbered in the 200s. The rooms all had their numbers engraved on large, oval, gold or brass plaques on the doors. I ran down this hallway to get to the hallway numbered in the 400s. I ran through the 300s hallway.
I thought I'd wasted time by coming in through the 200s hallway. I also wondered why my mother had let me into the 200s hallway instead of telling me to go to the correct hallway.
I now ran into a large atrium or lobby-like area. A few different hallways converged here. There were some little garden- or fountain-triangles set into raised brick-structures. The ceiling was glass, and gentle daylight flowed through. Some apartments stood within this area. I could see room 430 just beyond and between two garden triangles.
I saw my co-worker BT walk away from the apartment, as if he'd possibly just left the room. I didn't say anything to him -- I was too hurried. I approached the door.
Dream #2
I stood on a two-sided subway platform. I may have had a lot of baggage with me. A train pulled in on the other side of the platform. I suddenly realized this was the train I was supposed to catch. I ran across to catch the train. But I realized I had left all my baggage on the other side.
I was trapped in the train door, half turned out of it. The train doors opened. I ran to where my baggage had been. It wasn't there. I thought of it. It was now like another train had come on this side, and like my baggage had somehow gotten on that train.
I thought, Now I have nothing. There's no way I'll get all that stuff back. People have probably stolen it by now. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I now had nothing. I looked at my BlackBerry to try and figure something out.
A group of subway workers, black men and women, were joking about me, how stupid and lost I looked now that I had nothing, and how stupid I was for thinking that I'd get anything back. But they might also have been saying that if I looked serious or honest or skillful enough, they might help me. They may even have had my baggage, so that they would give me a piece back as I successively (not successfully) proved my identity.
I looked in my book bag to see if there was some way I could either get started back up in life without all my missing baggage or else prove my identity to the subway workers.
But now I thought, Wait -- I have my BlackBerry. I have my book bag. I have access to my money. I hae my identification. Everything else is just extra stuff I don't need. Why was I thinking I had nothing?
Dream #3
I was in an office space. I walked into an office, behind which my old co-worker IA stood. His desk was cluttered. Before the desk stood a woman who looked like my old boss JT, except that she looked thinner and had blonde streaks in her hair. IA was trying to impress JT professionally (he would have had no need to do so in waking life, JT being a supervisor over people other than IA) by showing her how organized he was.
I had come in to get a set of books like a mix between the FINRA Series 86 course material and some kind of large numbers-book like a book full of market data. I had done this, partly, to help IA n a project in a very important way. When IA handed me the book he was quick and curt, but also polite.
I walked out of the office, back into the larger office space, which was like a bunch of tall filing cabinets and short, wide work spaces that could be used for things like stapling documents together.
As soon as I left the office, I could hear IA talking bad about me to JT. IA said something like, "See the silly kinds of demands he makes? What kind of a person needs a book?"
I now realized either that I was finished with this book already or else that this wasn't the correct book. I knew I'd have to take the book back to IA right away so I could start getting the work done as soon as possible. But I was also afraid to go back into the office. I didn't want to give IA another reason to talk bad about me behind my back.
Dream #1
I was outside a large apartment complex. I had been sent out to get something for my mother. I was now trying to get back to the apartment as soon as possible. I ran to a glass door (like a hall-end entrance door at a hotel) and hit a buzzer button, probably buzzing my mom's apartment. My mom buzzed the door open.
I knew the room I was looking for was number 430. But I was in a hallway with rooms numbered in the 200s. The rooms all had their numbers engraved on large, oval, gold or brass plaques on the doors. I ran down this hallway to get to the hallway numbered in the 400s. I ran through the 300s hallway.
I thought I'd wasted time by coming in through the 200s hallway. I also wondered why my mother had let me into the 200s hallway instead of telling me to go to the correct hallway.
I now ran into a large atrium or lobby-like area. A few different hallways converged here. There were some little garden- or fountain-triangles set into raised brick-structures. The ceiling was glass, and gentle daylight flowed through. Some apartments stood within this area. I could see room 430 just beyond and between two garden triangles.
I saw my co-worker BT walk away from the apartment, as if he'd possibly just left the room. I didn't say anything to him -- I was too hurried. I approached the door.
Dream #2
I stood on a two-sided subway platform. I may have had a lot of baggage with me. A train pulled in on the other side of the platform. I suddenly realized this was the train I was supposed to catch. I ran across to catch the train. But I realized I had left all my baggage on the other side.
I was trapped in the train door, half turned out of it. The train doors opened. I ran to where my baggage had been. It wasn't there. I thought of it. It was now like another train had come on this side, and like my baggage had somehow gotten on that train.
I thought, Now I have nothing. There's no way I'll get all that stuff back. People have probably stolen it by now. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I now had nothing. I looked at my BlackBerry to try and figure something out.
A group of subway workers, black men and women, were joking about me, how stupid and lost I looked now that I had nothing, and how stupid I was for thinking that I'd get anything back. But they might also have been saying that if I looked serious or honest or skillful enough, they might help me. They may even have had my baggage, so that they would give me a piece back as I successively (not successfully) proved my identity.
I looked in my book bag to see if there was some way I could either get started back up in life without all my missing baggage or else prove my identity to the subway workers.
But now I thought, Wait -- I have my BlackBerry. I have my book bag. I have access to my money. I hae my identification. Everything else is just extra stuff I don't need. Why was I thinking I had nothing?
Dream #3
I was in an office space. I walked into an office, behind which my old co-worker IA stood. His desk was cluttered. Before the desk stood a woman who looked like my old boss JT, except that she looked thinner and had blonde streaks in her hair. IA was trying to impress JT professionally (he would have had no need to do so in waking life, JT being a supervisor over people other than IA) by showing her how organized he was.
I had come in to get a set of books like a mix between the FINRA Series 86 course material and some kind of large numbers-book like a book full of market data. I had done this, partly, to help IA n a project in a very important way. When IA handed me the book he was quick and curt, but also polite.
I walked out of the office, back into the larger office space, which was like a bunch of tall filing cabinets and short, wide work spaces that could be used for things like stapling documents together.
As soon as I left the office, I could hear IA talking bad about me to JT. IA said something like, "See the silly kinds of demands he makes? What kind of a person needs a book?"
I now realized either that I was finished with this book already or else that this wasn't the correct book. I knew I'd have to take the book back to IA right away so I could start getting the work done as soon as possible. But I was also afraid to go back into the office. I didn't want to give IA another reason to talk bad about me behind my back.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
(5/1/09) detained after defending; naked at the florist jeweler's; greedy buffet
(Entered in paper journal at 8:08 AM at home.)
Dream #1
It was a sunny day. I was out on a small lawn, like a lawn between buildings on a college campus. The lawn was slightly rolling. I may actually have been standing on a wide, concrete walkway near the lawn. I may have stood before a small, wood-framed bulletin board.
Two young men stood down the lawn from me, menacing another young man. The two young men were tallish, heavy, thuggish, either black or dark-skinned Hispanic. The two young men held guns on the other young man, who was probably Hispanic, about normal sized, and a little dumb-looking.
The two men were yelling at the young man about a gun he'd had, as if he had personally and purposely gotten it to attack the two men. The young man kept saying it wasn't so, but he was too sheepish to explain his situation.
I remembered the situation (it may actually have been an earlier part of the dream). I yelled at the gunmen, "Leave him alone! He's right!" I told the gunmen how two other men had come along and forced the young man at gunpoint to take the gun.
The gunmen listened to me and let the young man go. But they now walked up to me and stood before me with their guns drawn. They told me they wanted to see my ID. Then they told me to put my hands in the air (or behind my head?). They then made me lie face down on the concrete walkway (or on an unfolded cardboard box that lay on the concrete?).
I may have handed the gunmen my ID while I stood, but now, as I lay down, I also handed the gunmen my ID. The gunmen, who had previously seemed to me like thugs, now, without any change to their dress seemed to me like police officers.
I thought about having guns pointed on me. I had always thought I'd be really afraid. But now, even though I felt like I could be killed at any moment, I also felt calm and composed. I did what I had to do for the men. I thought compliance would get me out of this situation more quickly.
We were now in some place like an airport or bus station hallway. The place was full of people. It had a concrete-grey and window-green atmosphere. I lay on the ground while one of the men (or maybe the two men were now only one man?) sat against a wall just beyond my feet. I had a bunch of things -- papers, backpacks, etc. -- all laid around me.
The man was now lighter skinned, maybe black, Hispanic, or Italian. He was dressed in ragged clothes, a big, black, puffy jacket, and a baseball cap, which he had tilted at a sloppy angle. He was reading a paper copy of my screenplay. He got to a really wordy metaphysical passage. He read about halfway through it, then laughed lightly to himself. He told me, "Okay, you can go now."
I pulled some of my stuff together, then stood up to leave. The man also stood up. We were both about to leave through a wide, sliding-glass door, like the automatic exit doors to the covered parking areas at Denver International Airport. But right before we exited, the man said, "Only, could you tell me where you did the research for your book?"
There was a cheapish looking, office-style desk before the door. On the desk was a white, cardboard box. I took something like a Rolodex card out of the box to write down the places where I'd done research for my screenplay.
But I found it difficult to explain. Everything in the screenplay, I thought, was a hybrid of different sources. And some of the more metaphysical passages, which may have been the man's chief area of concern, were largely based on things I'd picked up over the years, or through texts related only little, if at all, to the subject matter of my screenplay.
I then thought that the man was only trying to stall me or distract me. He had no intention of letting me go. He was just trying to buy time while he was thinking of a way to keep me.
Dream #2
I was naked, floating down a cobbled street, like in Tribeca, Manhattan, on a misty, grey day. I may have been in a "bad neighborhood," but all the buildings looked clean and freshly painted. The buildings were like taller than normal row-houses, with their entrances right off the sidewalk instead of elevated atop a stairway.
I saw the buildings to my left, as I floated along, down a slight slope. Some of the buildings to my left had shops in them. To my right, the road may have been wider than usual, with the right side of the street bearing the backs of tallish, wide, brick buildings, like small factory buildings or warehouses.
I noticed a couple women standing out in front of the shops. I hoped the women wouldn't see me flying around naked. To make things even more embarrassing, I had a huge erection. I tried hurriedly, floating past the buildings, to remember which one I was supposed to go into. I wanted to get inside as soon as possible. But none of the buildings looked familiar to me.
At some point I thought, elliptically, how the paint jobs on these buildings reminded me more of England than America.
I looked into some of the buildings. Inside, they looked like run-down, kind of scuzzy, apartments. I figured they looked like the kind of place where I was supposed to be, but that they weren't the actual, specific place. I got frustrated, suddenly thinking I had gone down the wrong block. But all the blocks looked so similar here, it was only natural that I'd make a mistake like this.
I was at the bottom of the block. The slope leveled off, and the road widened out, taking a circular shape, in which was an octagonal or circular building, quaint-looking, with large windows from about two and a half feet up to the roof of the building and red brick from two and a half feet down. The roof was black shingles, sloped up to a point or a weather vane.
As I floated past the building a black woman, young, in shape, with straight, brown-blonde hair, ran after me. She, too, may have been naked, or she may have been dressed in a business style pantsuit of purple material.
The woman yelled at me that my appearance had distracted her, that it had kept her from thinking of something very important to her job, which she had to go to right now. I felt like the woman was accusing me of sexual harassment. I didn't want to be seen as that kind of a person, so I turned to speak with the woman and try to clear up the issue.
But the woman had gone into her workplace, which was the quaint-looking building. I opened the door and looked inside, not wanting to come all the way in, since I was naked. The woman and another pretty, black woman stood behind a cash register. The place looked like a jeweler's and a florist's shop.
I tried to ask the woman how I had offended her, and I tried to say I really hadn't meant to cause any discomfort because of my appearance. But I wasn't saying that at all. Instead I was stutteringly asking confused questions about the nature of this shop.
The woman wasn't listening to me. She was visibly eager for me to leave. But the second woman was very kind. She kept inviting me in, though I kept saying I couldn't come in. She also kept telling me all sorts of things about the shop. She asked if that was what I'd had in mind when I'd asked my questions.
Dream #3
I walked into a large, dim room, like a convention room or a high school gym with little or none of its lights turned on. I had a big, green stick of bamboo, which I was eating.
I looked at a cross-section of the stick, as if my teeth had cleanly hacked the stick in a straight line. The inside was a tan circle, like a tree's wood, with three kidney-shaped cavities evenly distributed at the circle's edge. The cavities were filled with a speckled, yellowish substance which I may have called marrow. I licked this substance. It was sweet.
I thought, This is what the koalas eat bamboo (?! - not eucalyptus?) for -- the sweet marrow, not the leafs. I tried to pull the marrow out of the shoot so I could eat eat alone. I pulled a big chunk out by using my fingernail. The chunk was solid and had the consistency of a candy bar. It was vanilla yellow, with speckles in it like chopped nuts.
I nibbled the pieces. It was only mildly sweet. I was somewhat disappointed. But I suddenly felt worried. What if this marrow was actually poisonous to humans? I thought, It couldn't be poisonous: it tastes so good.
I imagined myself as a koala in the trees, eating bamboo.
Now there were other people in the room, maybe twenty or thirty people. But the people all huddled in one small part of the room, an entrance area which had a much lower ceiling and much tighter space, but which was actually lit (by incandescent light).
I walked over from where I was (it now seemed like a few rows of long, church-style pews) to be with the people. They looked like a church group. They were of varying ages, but all dressed nicely.
Everybody in the group held paper plates filled with food. They motioned for me to go get some food. I walked over to a kind of cluttered, smallish buffet table. There were serving trays filled with different kinds of food. But for some reason I felt like I had been "assigned" to one plate which already had food on it.
As I approached the plate a boy, maybe in his early teens, light-skinned, black, thin, with close-cut hair and wide eyeglasses, also approached the plate. The boy looked mild and gentle, but I could tell he was just waiting for a chance to annoy me.
I tried to start eating from my plate, but the boy now started reaching for anything I'd reach for. I now understood that the boy and I had been "assigned" to share this plate. But any time I'd reach for anything the boy would quickly grab it first. The only thing I could grab was something I didn't want: a bland, white fold of a corn or wheat flour tortilla. The boy may have been eating, but he was also occupied in piling at least some of the stuff he grabbed (eggs, cheese, bacon) all on top of each other in a little wedge-shaped area, which he protected closely.
I looked around and realized there was food in serving trays all around me.I didn't have to eat from this one plate. In fact, I now wondered why I had been so focused on just this one plate. I thought, I'll distract the boy. I'll make him so proud of his little pile of food that he doesn't pay attention to me while I go get food of my own.
The boy's pile of food now just looked like a warm, greasy wedge of eggs and cheese. I told the boy something like, "Wow, that's a lot of food. Are you really going to eat all of that? Have you started eating any of it yet?"
The boy made some comment about how he didn't really care about the food and how he really didn't want to talk to me, either.
Dream #1
It was a sunny day. I was out on a small lawn, like a lawn between buildings on a college campus. The lawn was slightly rolling. I may actually have been standing on a wide, concrete walkway near the lawn. I may have stood before a small, wood-framed bulletin board.
Two young men stood down the lawn from me, menacing another young man. The two young men were tallish, heavy, thuggish, either black or dark-skinned Hispanic. The two young men held guns on the other young man, who was probably Hispanic, about normal sized, and a little dumb-looking.
The two men were yelling at the young man about a gun he'd had, as if he had personally and purposely gotten it to attack the two men. The young man kept saying it wasn't so, but he was too sheepish to explain his situation.
I remembered the situation (it may actually have been an earlier part of the dream). I yelled at the gunmen, "Leave him alone! He's right!" I told the gunmen how two other men had come along and forced the young man at gunpoint to take the gun.
The gunmen listened to me and let the young man go. But they now walked up to me and stood before me with their guns drawn. They told me they wanted to see my ID. Then they told me to put my hands in the air (or behind my head?). They then made me lie face down on the concrete walkway (or on an unfolded cardboard box that lay on the concrete?).
I may have handed the gunmen my ID while I stood, but now, as I lay down, I also handed the gunmen my ID. The gunmen, who had previously seemed to me like thugs, now, without any change to their dress seemed to me like police officers.
I thought about having guns pointed on me. I had always thought I'd be really afraid. But now, even though I felt like I could be killed at any moment, I also felt calm and composed. I did what I had to do for the men. I thought compliance would get me out of this situation more quickly.
We were now in some place like an airport or bus station hallway. The place was full of people. It had a concrete-grey and window-green atmosphere. I lay on the ground while one of the men (or maybe the two men were now only one man?) sat against a wall just beyond my feet. I had a bunch of things -- papers, backpacks, etc. -- all laid around me.
The man was now lighter skinned, maybe black, Hispanic, or Italian. He was dressed in ragged clothes, a big, black, puffy jacket, and a baseball cap, which he had tilted at a sloppy angle. He was reading a paper copy of my screenplay. He got to a really wordy metaphysical passage. He read about halfway through it, then laughed lightly to himself. He told me, "Okay, you can go now."
I pulled some of my stuff together, then stood up to leave. The man also stood up. We were both about to leave through a wide, sliding-glass door, like the automatic exit doors to the covered parking areas at Denver International Airport. But right before we exited, the man said, "Only, could you tell me where you did the research for your book?"
There was a cheapish looking, office-style desk before the door. On the desk was a white, cardboard box. I took something like a Rolodex card out of the box to write down the places where I'd done research for my screenplay.
But I found it difficult to explain. Everything in the screenplay, I thought, was a hybrid of different sources. And some of the more metaphysical passages, which may have been the man's chief area of concern, were largely based on things I'd picked up over the years, or through texts related only little, if at all, to the subject matter of my screenplay.
I then thought that the man was only trying to stall me or distract me. He had no intention of letting me go. He was just trying to buy time while he was thinking of a way to keep me.
Dream #2
I was naked, floating down a cobbled street, like in Tribeca, Manhattan, on a misty, grey day. I may have been in a "bad neighborhood," but all the buildings looked clean and freshly painted. The buildings were like taller than normal row-houses, with their entrances right off the sidewalk instead of elevated atop a stairway.
I saw the buildings to my left, as I floated along, down a slight slope. Some of the buildings to my left had shops in them. To my right, the road may have been wider than usual, with the right side of the street bearing the backs of tallish, wide, brick buildings, like small factory buildings or warehouses.
I noticed a couple women standing out in front of the shops. I hoped the women wouldn't see me flying around naked. To make things even more embarrassing, I had a huge erection. I tried hurriedly, floating past the buildings, to remember which one I was supposed to go into. I wanted to get inside as soon as possible. But none of the buildings looked familiar to me.
At some point I thought, elliptically, how the paint jobs on these buildings reminded me more of England than America.
I looked into some of the buildings. Inside, they looked like run-down, kind of scuzzy, apartments. I figured they looked like the kind of place where I was supposed to be, but that they weren't the actual, specific place. I got frustrated, suddenly thinking I had gone down the wrong block. But all the blocks looked so similar here, it was only natural that I'd make a mistake like this.
I was at the bottom of the block. The slope leveled off, and the road widened out, taking a circular shape, in which was an octagonal or circular building, quaint-looking, with large windows from about two and a half feet up to the roof of the building and red brick from two and a half feet down. The roof was black shingles, sloped up to a point or a weather vane.
As I floated past the building a black woman, young, in shape, with straight, brown-blonde hair, ran after me. She, too, may have been naked, or she may have been dressed in a business style pantsuit of purple material.
The woman yelled at me that my appearance had distracted her, that it had kept her from thinking of something very important to her job, which she had to go to right now. I felt like the woman was accusing me of sexual harassment. I didn't want to be seen as that kind of a person, so I turned to speak with the woman and try to clear up the issue.
But the woman had gone into her workplace, which was the quaint-looking building. I opened the door and looked inside, not wanting to come all the way in, since I was naked. The woman and another pretty, black woman stood behind a cash register. The place looked like a jeweler's and a florist's shop.
I tried to ask the woman how I had offended her, and I tried to say I really hadn't meant to cause any discomfort because of my appearance. But I wasn't saying that at all. Instead I was stutteringly asking confused questions about the nature of this shop.
The woman wasn't listening to me. She was visibly eager for me to leave. But the second woman was very kind. She kept inviting me in, though I kept saying I couldn't come in. She also kept telling me all sorts of things about the shop. She asked if that was what I'd had in mind when I'd asked my questions.
Dream #3
I walked into a large, dim room, like a convention room or a high school gym with little or none of its lights turned on. I had a big, green stick of bamboo, which I was eating.
I looked at a cross-section of the stick, as if my teeth had cleanly hacked the stick in a straight line. The inside was a tan circle, like a tree's wood, with three kidney-shaped cavities evenly distributed at the circle's edge. The cavities were filled with a speckled, yellowish substance which I may have called marrow. I licked this substance. It was sweet.
I thought, This is what the koalas eat bamboo (?! - not eucalyptus?) for -- the sweet marrow, not the leafs. I tried to pull the marrow out of the shoot so I could eat eat alone. I pulled a big chunk out by using my fingernail. The chunk was solid and had the consistency of a candy bar. It was vanilla yellow, with speckles in it like chopped nuts.
I nibbled the pieces. It was only mildly sweet. I was somewhat disappointed. But I suddenly felt worried. What if this marrow was actually poisonous to humans? I thought, It couldn't be poisonous: it tastes so good.
I imagined myself as a koala in the trees, eating bamboo.
Now there were other people in the room, maybe twenty or thirty people. But the people all huddled in one small part of the room, an entrance area which had a much lower ceiling and much tighter space, but which was actually lit (by incandescent light).
I walked over from where I was (it now seemed like a few rows of long, church-style pews) to be with the people. They looked like a church group. They were of varying ages, but all dressed nicely.
Everybody in the group held paper plates filled with food. They motioned for me to go get some food. I walked over to a kind of cluttered, smallish buffet table. There were serving trays filled with different kinds of food. But for some reason I felt like I had been "assigned" to one plate which already had food on it.
As I approached the plate a boy, maybe in his early teens, light-skinned, black, thin, with close-cut hair and wide eyeglasses, also approached the plate. The boy looked mild and gentle, but I could tell he was just waiting for a chance to annoy me.
I tried to start eating from my plate, but the boy now started reaching for anything I'd reach for. I now understood that the boy and I had been "assigned" to share this plate. But any time I'd reach for anything the boy would quickly grab it first. The only thing I could grab was something I didn't want: a bland, white fold of a corn or wheat flour tortilla. The boy may have been eating, but he was also occupied in piling at least some of the stuff he grabbed (eggs, cheese, bacon) all on top of each other in a little wedge-shaped area, which he protected closely.
I looked around and realized there was food in serving trays all around me.I didn't have to eat from this one plate. In fact, I now wondered why I had been so focused on just this one plate. I thought, I'll distract the boy. I'll make him so proud of his little pile of food that he doesn't pay attention to me while I go get food of my own.
The boy's pile of food now just looked like a warm, greasy wedge of eggs and cheese. I told the boy something like, "Wow, that's a lot of food. Are you really going to eat all of that? Have you started eating any of it yet?"
The boy made some comment about how he didn't really care about the food and how he really didn't want to talk to me, either.
Monday, November 12, 2012
(10/9/09) broken down spare car
(Entered in paper journal at 9:28 AM at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)
Dream #1
I had to take my car to the garage to get worked on. I walked into the front area, which looked like the interior of a shed or a concrete floored cabin.
My dad was the mechanic. He sat at a thin, metal desk, something that looked more like a tall toolbox being used as a desk, with an old computer on top of it. I told my dad it was nice to see him. My dad gave me the keys to a spare car. He told me that my car would be ready later on.
I took the spare care and drove down a road which was apparently part of a square circuit of road. I drove counter-clockwise around the circuit. The road was full of desert sunlight, sunglass-yellow, and flanked with business signs and places like car sales lots. I now saw a few amusement parks. I was eventually driving straight through an amusement park, with the road flanked by individual rides or clusters of rides.
Down the road, on my right, I saw an amusement park called Cosplay Land. I thought I might like that. It looked completely deserted, and also looked like it only had only ride. I saw a couple other amusement parks to my left, as well as, possibly, some fast food restaurants. I wondered what people would think of me if they saw me going into Cosplay Land.
Now I stopped the spare care and got out -- possibly because the spare car had broken down. As I walked a ways down the road I saw a cop standing beside a stopped car, talking to the driver, who was still seated in the car. Everything on either side of the street felt to me like scrapyards.
As I passed the cop and car I wondered why the cop had stopped the driver. It may have had something to do with identification, proof of being owner of the car, I thought. There was a lot of trouble going around nowadays with that stuff, I thought.
I was happy I was no longer in the spare car, so I didn't have to deal with any troubles cops might give me about producing proof that I was legally driving the spare car. But I was sure that, after whatever preliminary troubles I'd have to go through with the cops, I'd be able to prove that the spare car was my dad's and that I wasn't driving it illegally.
Then I suddenly realized that I hadn't given my dad the keys to my own car! I'd have to walk all the way back to the garage and give my dad the keys. The time for my car to get fixed would now obviously have to be pushed back. I wasn't likely to have it back by this afternoon, as I'd previously thought I would. When would I be able to have my car back? How soon?
I walked into the garage, possibly after having trudge through a snow-covered mountain path. My feet were soaked, and I dreaded having to walk back out onto that path again.
I gave my dad my car keys. I told my dad I'd see him soon. I told him something like I was sorry I hadn't seen him over the years, and that I was sorry I'd only seen him now by accident because I'd needed someone to fix my car. I did feel bad. But mostly I just said all this stuff because I didn't want my dad to ruin my car out of bitterness that I hadn't spoken with him in all this time.
My dad said he would have my car ready soon, and that after I had my car, he'd make sure to call me so that we could spend time together. He, also, hadn't made an effort to see me. My dad asked me how the spare car was.
I may now have been walking away from the garage. I thought to myself, I hope that my dad never finds out I got all the way here without having used the spare car. I also reflected that the reason I'd gotten out of the spare car in the first place was that I'd thought it had broken down. I thought with dread of what my dad would do when he found out his spare car was broken.
Dream #1
I had to take my car to the garage to get worked on. I walked into the front area, which looked like the interior of a shed or a concrete floored cabin.
My dad was the mechanic. He sat at a thin, metal desk, something that looked more like a tall toolbox being used as a desk, with an old computer on top of it. I told my dad it was nice to see him. My dad gave me the keys to a spare car. He told me that my car would be ready later on.
I took the spare care and drove down a road which was apparently part of a square circuit of road. I drove counter-clockwise around the circuit. The road was full of desert sunlight, sunglass-yellow, and flanked with business signs and places like car sales lots. I now saw a few amusement parks. I was eventually driving straight through an amusement park, with the road flanked by individual rides or clusters of rides.
Down the road, on my right, I saw an amusement park called Cosplay Land. I thought I might like that. It looked completely deserted, and also looked like it only had only ride. I saw a couple other amusement parks to my left, as well as, possibly, some fast food restaurants. I wondered what people would think of me if they saw me going into Cosplay Land.
Now I stopped the spare care and got out -- possibly because the spare car had broken down. As I walked a ways down the road I saw a cop standing beside a stopped car, talking to the driver, who was still seated in the car. Everything on either side of the street felt to me like scrapyards.
As I passed the cop and car I wondered why the cop had stopped the driver. It may have had something to do with identification, proof of being owner of the car, I thought. There was a lot of trouble going around nowadays with that stuff, I thought.
I was happy I was no longer in the spare car, so I didn't have to deal with any troubles cops might give me about producing proof that I was legally driving the spare car. But I was sure that, after whatever preliminary troubles I'd have to go through with the cops, I'd be able to prove that the spare car was my dad's and that I wasn't driving it illegally.
Then I suddenly realized that I hadn't given my dad the keys to my own car! I'd have to walk all the way back to the garage and give my dad the keys. The time for my car to get fixed would now obviously have to be pushed back. I wasn't likely to have it back by this afternoon, as I'd previously thought I would. When would I be able to have my car back? How soon?
I walked into the garage, possibly after having trudge through a snow-covered mountain path. My feet were soaked, and I dreaded having to walk back out onto that path again.
I gave my dad my car keys. I told my dad I'd see him soon. I told him something like I was sorry I hadn't seen him over the years, and that I was sorry I'd only seen him now by accident because I'd needed someone to fix my car. I did feel bad. But mostly I just said all this stuff because I didn't want my dad to ruin my car out of bitterness that I hadn't spoken with him in all this time.
My dad said he would have my car ready soon, and that after I had my car, he'd make sure to call me so that we could spend time together. He, also, hadn't made an effort to see me. My dad asked me how the spare car was.
I may now have been walking away from the garage. I thought to myself, I hope that my dad never finds out I got all the way here without having used the spare car. I also reflected that the reason I'd gotten out of the spare car in the first place was that I'd thought it had broken down. I thought with dread of what my dad would do when he found out his spare car was broken.
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