(8/31/07) las vegas taco bell; mute phones; pressure helmet; acquisition; cartoon aircraft; lesbian bergman; i look fat

Dream #1

I heard someone talk about some financial project to rebuild Las Vegas. My view descended to the left and down a steep dune of sand in which were embedded signs for casinos, like in the (at the time I entered the dream in my paper journal) new Resident Evil movie ads. I thought, That makes sense. Las Vegas is ready for a change.

I now saw a Taco Bell restaurant. It stood alone in a parking lot. It may have stood slanted. Its sign was shredded like it had been a tarp-like or awning-like sign hanging on the building. The inside had a weird, torn-to-pieces look as well, like the glass doors and windows were busted and swirling around.

I heard a narrator say, "All the work that went into creating this one store was destroyed in a very short time by the angered workers." I thought that this one store meant a lot to the operations of the overall company. Now it was gone.

I stood in line at a Taco Bell with my co-worker CJ. The line was all tall, white, overweight businessmen in suits. CJ was preparing a speech he would give when we got to the front of the line. I was hoping the speech wouldn't anger the workers or the people standing in line. CJ assured me it wouldn't. It was possibly about the need to rebuild the torn-to-pieces restaurant now that it had been destroyed.

The store in which we stood was dim. There seemed to be no seating area: the front area was entirely taken up by a belt-strap line-maze. The only other area was the cashier counter and the food-prep area. Dim natural light came in through the window. The cashiers stood on a platform maybe two feet in front of us. In front of us was a platform elevated maybe a foot from floor-level. CJ stood on that platform to give his speech.

Dream #2

I sat in a kind of dank, yellowish presentation room on a high floor of "my office building." A lot of people from "my work" were there. I sat somewhat in the back, toward the right wall. For some reason, maybe because I was slouching (or lying down?), I couldn't see to the front of the room.

A very important person, who worked for our company but who came from a different location, had come to speak. One of my senior colleagues from a different department of my company, maybe BSi, brought the man up to speak. The person may have had shaggy, red hair and a shaggy, red beard.

BSi said something to the effect of how much progress we'd made in our work. Someone's voice came on over the phone/intercom and made a snide comment about the internet, implying something about our company. BSi asked, "Could everybody listening in please mute their phones?"

The person on the phone/intercom interrupted, "No. We won't mute our phones. I'm not going to be quiet now." The person continued ranting. I was trying to figure out who he was. I knew I knew him, but I couldn't figure out who he was. He sounded laid back, not angry, but definitely like he was going to stand his ground.

I had the image in my mind of a tall, brown-haired frat-boy I knew in college. I told myself the person on the phone couldn't be this boy, because I didn't work with him nowadays. The person had to be someone I currently worked with.

A couple of my friends must have known who the person one the phone was. They stood up, walked toward me, somehow signaled they were going to the guy's desk office to stop him before things got worse, and left the room. I heard the man continue ranting. The last thing he said had to do with police putting handcuffs on him.

Dream #3

I sat on the floor and beside either a table or the back of a couch. I was speaking with someone like my old friend ML about preparations for some aircraft like an SR-71. Some man stood near me. I was saying things in hopes of impressing him. The man and I were in a room like a dining room. It had a messy feel somehow. ML stood just beyond a wide doorway into another room.

ML told me I had forgotten something for the pilots' helmets. I started fiddling with some criss-crosses of transparent tape on the tablecloth or sofa covering that seemed to be attached to black velvet. I asked what help the forgotten additions would be, anyway.

ML angrily said, "They'd help the pilots fly more comfortably!"

I could now see in my mind's eye that I had forgotten to add a seal to the helmet. This seal would make the helmet and the rest of the pressurized suit continuous and closed. The helmet and the suit may both have been black.

I got mad at myself. All this time I had tried to act smart to impress the older man, who was like a General or an esteemed inventor. But now I turned to him and said, "Why do I always forget things like this?"

The old man said, "Don't worry about it. You just need more experience. I had similar troubles when I was younger."


Dream #4

I sat out in a wooded area, on a folding chair before a folding table like a TV-dinner table. I got a phone call. One of my boss BS' clients asked me about one of the companies we did research on. BS wasn't around, and I didn't want the client to go away empty-handed.

I put the client on hold. I didn't know whether anything new was happening with the company in question, though I knew the question had something to do with another company, a company called Northwest XXXXX (can't remember), possibly with them wanting to buy the company in question. But I couldn't turn on my computer to see what price the stocks for the two companies were trading at.

I just picked the phone back up and started speaking. I hoped I would know what I was saying. The client asked me more questions.

Now there were two men standing by me. They were both tall, in shape, maybe in their late thirties. They asked me more questions.

We were now in a car, driving in a suburban, residential area to a meeting with (the men's client? possibly a meeting with Northwest XXXXX?). I sat in the backseat. I was telling the men about how the difference between the first company in question and Northwest XXXXX was only marginal and how a deal with the two companies would only be of little benefit to Northwest XXXXX.

The clients said something like, "You're giving us a lot of information we normally wouldn't get from your boss." I felt flattered by the comment.

We pulled up to a (vanilla-yellow colored?) house. This was the office where our meeting would take place. I said, "I'm sorry I'm not dressed up." (I was just wearing jeans and a t-shirt.) "I wasn't expecting to do a meeting like this. You caught me off guard." I might have sounded apprehensive, or even a little annoyed. But I was really excited about the whole situation.

Dream #5

Some cartoon-like description of an aircraft. At some point the aircraft could fly on its own. There was an image of five aircraft below the main aircraft somehow being vaporized -- even with a "POOF!" caption. This would be the first time that the craft had flown on its own.

Dream #6

I read or heard something about photos that celebrities in the 1940s and 1950s didn't want people to see. I opened a book or turned a page to see one of the photos. It was of Ingrid Bergman in a Fallingwater-style house, in a hot tub with a blonde woman, getting ready to kiss the woman. Both women were fully dressed, and their clothes were completely dry. This photo was so shocking and scandalous to me that I slammed the book shut.

Dream #7

I stood in an aisle of a store like a K-Mart. I stood before a display of women's two-piece bathing suits. I tried on one of the bathing suits. I realized that the rule was to wear your underwear when you tried on bathing suits. I'd brought a pair of pink panties with me -- just in case I'd wanted to try anything on. I put the panties on.

There was a woman standing behind a desk, possibly in a place like the electronics department. She was watching me. I knew that was okay. She was just making sure I didn't steal anything. But I was hoping I would finish up before any customers came by and saw me.

I looked down at my body. I was disappointed. I looked  a little fat.

(3/8/09) creative violence; constructive dilemma

(Entered in paper journal at 8:46 AM at Connecticut Muffin in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was sitting at a table like a picnic table of heavy wood in front of a building like a concession stand that was made all of heavy, old, dark wood -- like it was part of some Old West theme park. It was daytime, but it also felt like we may have been inside some larger building. A few friends of mine stood in front of the stand. They were all lounging around.

I started talking out loud (possibly having been asked?) about a dream or an imagination or some piece of creative writing. I was giving a broad overview of how some key events in the thing I was talking about matched up with some violent event like a murder or mass murder. My friends suddenly looked a little worried, though they all seemed to be trying to put on a show of still being relaxed and lounging around. Some seemed to want to ignore me.

One man, however, sat down to my left. I may have just continued talking, as if I were delusional or not in control of myself. The man sat listening to me, as if we were carrying on a conversation.The man looked Hispanic, with black clothes on, baggy, a wool cap, and stubble almost grown to a beard.

Dream #2

It was a grey day. I stood with a group of people, about my age or a little younger, before a ditch or a dry creek in a landscape with black (cindery?) soil and full clumps of tan-yellow (leafless?) shrubs. Most of the people I was with were women. We were all led by two or three older women who were dressed in a 1930s businesswoman style (or a style like that of the bordello keeper in Federico Fellini's Roma). At first only one of the leading women was visible.

The group of us were climbing down the slope, which, despite the apparent dryness of our surroundings, was very muddy. The one lead woman who was visible was talking to the other lead woman about how one of the girls in our group was afraid to come down the slope. They both agreed to let the woman alone, that it was regrettable that she was afraid, whether it be of the steepness or of the muddiness of the slope, but that there wasn't time to try and convince the woman to join the rest of the group.

Where we had gone down into the ditch, the slope was maybe ten feet tall. It sloped roundly down to a very narrow bed. We turned left and walked forward. The bed widened out. The slopes may also have become more like the walls of a box canyon. The bed was now maybe twenty feet wide.

To our left, possibly where another river or box canyon jointed into the one we were walking in, there stood a building like a mix between a Native American ruin and a Spanish mission. It seemed to be made of tan-brown stones or adobe bricks. The building belled upwards in two tiers, with two arches on the bottom tier, possibly separated by a square section of building, with another small arch on top.

We were all here to do some kind of work on this building. But one of the group, my co-worker CT, didn't want to do the work. In fact, she now appeared to be gone.

I stood near a woman who was tall, blonde, pretty, and full-bodied (on the verge of being overweight). I was flirting with the woman. When CT was around, I'd flirt with her, but when she wasn't around, I'd flirt with the blonde woman. I was known for always having to flirt with one of the girls.

The blonde girl and I were now driving deeper and deeper underground in a tunnel like the Eisenhower tunnel in Colorado. The woman was driving.

The woman explained to me that CT couldn't do the work on the building because her beliefs assigned a specific meaning to the building as it currently was. She couldn't contribute to changing the building and altering that meaning.

I thought, That makes sense. I had thought that CT had simply been afraid of going into the dark building, which looked a little scary from the outside, or that she hadn't wanted to get dirty by doing the work. I now wanted to be back in the box canyon with everybody, so I could possibly find CT and let her know I supported her.