(Entered in paper journal at 7:34 AM at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)
Dream #1
I was sitting in a library, like the Mid-Manhattan Library on the fifth floor and east side. Some daylight came into the space from windows beyond the books stacks to my right, but the place was mainly lit by fluorescent light.
I stood up and walked into the stacks. I had a pile of books with me. I started to put them all back where I had gotten them, all from different locations in one aisle of shelves. There was a lot more sunlight through the shelves, with probably a triangle of sunlight at the end of the shelves next to the windows.
As I put the books back, a couple people walked through the aisle. One of them, a young, Hispanic girl with pale olive skin and red-brown hair, was putting books back on the shelf, as if she worked at the library.
I was watching the people who walked through the aisles out of the corner of my eye. I wanted to make sure they didn't see and take the books I was putting back on the shelves: I still needed those books. Nobody seemed to be paying attention.
I was almost finished putting the books back when a man (tallish, white, a little tan, with short, brownish hair, who was maybe in his fifties and was thin but with body a little sagging and wrinkled, and who wore a white polo shirt and tan khakis) walked just behind me.
The man said in a slightly effeminate voice either that I shouldn't put the books back myself or that I should be paying better attention to where I was putting the books. The girl, the man said, was really working hard to put back a lot of books. The girl couldn't take the time to fix any mistakes I'd make. I felt guilty for having put my books back so quickly, although I was pretty sure I'd put them all back correctly.
I went to check on one book. I still had a couple books to put away, and I'd sat them on an empty space of shelf. I looked at the book I'd come to check on. The book was hard covered, with a solid grey cover, and maybe 250 pages. I noticed, by checking the Dewey decimal number, that I'd put the book just out of place. I thought, Gosh, now I really will have to check all the books.
I was about to start checking when I realized I'd made a much bigger mistake. I had actually checked out all the books away. Instead of checking them back in, I had simply placed them back on the shelves. Now I would have to pull all the books back off the shelves. I'd have to remember every single book I'd taken, more by decimal number or actual position on the shelf than by title, as if I couldn't remember the title of any of the books I'd checked out.
It seemed like too much work to me. I thought for a moment that I'd just leave all the books on the shelf. But I realized that if I left everything, I'd be counted as having kept the books, even though they were in the library. And I'd be charged a lot of overdue fees. So, as difficult as it would be, I'd have to take the books back off the shelves.
I was now on the first floor of the library. It was dim. Daylight came in through the windows: sky-blue and white-grey. There were no electric lights on on the floor. The area was large, with tall ceilings, like the Mid-Manhattan library. But the library felt more like a college library in the southwestern United States, with white walls dark wood trim, and possibly a large god's eye ornament decorating one of the walls.
I sat before a female librarian. She sat on the other side of a table which she used as a desk. Behind the librarian, across a short walkway, was a row of filing cabinets or microfiche machines (or computers?).
I was looking for a book to check out (possibly The Gilded Age, which I had bought from the Housing Works Bookstore in waking life in the day before this dream.). I may have seen this book on the shelf upstairs. I may even have been holding the book in my hands. But the woman told me that there wasn't a copy of this book at the library. She'd have to request the book from another library.
I asked the woman how long it would take to get the book. The woman said she could put in a request, which would take a couple days. But Monday was a holiday. So I wouldn't get the book until Tuesday at the earliest.
This seemed like an awfully long time to wait, and I wasn't even sure I'd get it, even if I went through the hassle of ordering it. I felt terribly insecure, like the woman really didn't want to help me after all.
Dream #2
I was in a 1950s-style diner. The place was tight and crowded, like some of the old downtown diners. The diner had a small and strange feel, like it was a double-wide trailer set off a road somewhere, or a small, flimsy field office for an archaeologist, or even a child's playhouse set up to look like a diner. The ceiling seemed small. The walls were all close, maybe paneled with wood in vertical strips. By the door was a small, bedstead-like shelf, possibly with a couple phone books on the shelves.
The scene was like a movie. A group of older men sat in a booth. A younger man (possibly like Ewan McGregor from Trainspotting) stood before the counter. He was possibly heading for the door. But before the Ewan character opened the front door, the old men, like mafia men, said, "This is it. You've owed us this money long enough. We've given you chances to pay us. Now you better just watch your back. You better be careful."
The Ewan character took a little of a supplicant tone, possibly even hunching over one of the swivel stools before the counter, and said he would pay the money, if the old men would only give him a little more time. Ewan left the diner.
I saw the area outside. The day was hot and grey. There was a wide road over which I highway overpass ran. On the other side of the street that ran under the overpass was a thin, triangular median, which was probably made of asphalt. On the other side of the median was another, smaller road, on the other side of which were some small shops like mechanics or auto shops, then a wide residential road lined with run-down looking houses and apartment buildings.
The Ewan character ran across the street. I watched him until he approached the median, at which point my view may have changed. I knew the Ewan character was now really trying to figure out how to get the money he owed the mob guys. I thought it was possibly for the Ewan character to get the money. But, I thought, the guys already told him they were out for him. They aren't giving him any more time. He's in danger right now.
I saw a young, blonde woman, probably the Ewan character's girlfriend, walking with an old man. The old man wore a long-sleeved t-shirt and a thin, billed cap: both items he may have gotten from participating in a volunteer event or running in a race. The blonde woman and old man came out of a wooden, shack-like building that seemed to be set into an old, small junkyard or tire yard. I thought that the Ewan character would run up at any time soon to enlist his girlfriend for help.
At first, not seeing Ewan, I thought that I wasn't seeing right, and that the person I saw as an old man was actually Ewan. But then I noticed that the old man was small, thin, and wasted, with either injured legs or no legs at all, and that he was using forearm crutches to walk. There was no way this old man could be Ewan.
The woman and the man crossed a wide asphalt road, then turned left around a wide corner of vacant lots and houses to a wide, run-down residential road. The old man walked ahead of the woman. The woman fell far behind the man.
Another man ran, somewhat stealthily, up behind the old man, also possibly thinking, like I had thought, that the old man was the Ewan character. The other man threw a tube, like a metal tube of paint, in the man's direction. I knew this tube was really a bomb. I wanted to call to the man, to protect him. But I didn't.
The paint tube, possibly with dried paint (or caulk?) layered on its surface near the cap, flew over the old man's head and landed maybe ten or fifteen feet in front of the old man. The tube "exploded." It made a loudish, hollow, popping sound, but did nothing visual. But there were airy shock waves that knocked the man over.
I could tell, as the old man flew backward and to the ground, that more damage had been done to him. He'd probably sustained some pretty severe injuries in his limbs. I thought, Now that this has happened to the old man, will the Ewan character fight the mob guys?
Showing posts with label scapegoat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scapegoat. Show all posts
Monday, November 19, 2012
Sunday, November 18, 2012
(5/25/09) damaged gift; man-eating bug; mexican gunmen; grandpa's dazed spirit
Dream #1
I stood before a large house, like the house my family lived in with my mom's boyfriend when I was nine years old (we called this house the "mansion" because it was bigger than any place we'd lived in before -- or after!). It was either early morning or early evening, and the sky was dark.
I walked into the house. I stood in a dark room just inside the doorway. The room was shallow, but wide, almost like a "covered porch" might be. The room opened to what looked like a small, run-down kitchen or dining room or pantry area. A light was on in the kitchen. The entry room had no light. It was very dark, as if the kitchen's light couldn't even penetrate the room.
I stood on or just behind the threshold between rooms. To my left was a wall, behind which I may have half-hidden. My old co-worker JR stood in the kitchen. I held up a bench, which I was giving to someone from the job I'd just gotten let go from as a gift. When I showed it to JR, he just chuckled to himself, as if I was silly to think I could give something like that as a gift. The sentiment, JR implied, was so half-hearted.
I took a look at the bench. It was about six feet long. It looked like it was made out of material that would usually go into making a cheap office desk: veneered plyboard, chromed metal, and some thin, black metal or plastic for legs.
But now I noticed (I held the bench upside-down and diagonally, so that an end was near my head) that the right leg of the bench (the end near my face) was missing. I realized I was about to give someone a broken bench as a gift. I also felt like I was in trouble: JR would definitely spread a bad word about me because of what I'd done.
I walked away from the kitchen (and possibly out of the house altogether). I thought of giving another co-worker, BT, a call on my cellphone, to put in a few kind words and show myself as being a good person, in hopes that my own good words could buffer opinion against the words of bad opinion that JR, I feared, would soon be sending out.
Dream #2
I was in an office with a man and a woman. The man was in a managerial position. The woman and I were about on the same level professionally. We all stood in a thin hallway. All around us were walls the bottom half of which were wall and the top half of which were window-walls, opening to views of "offices."
The views may sometimes have been of areas like manufacturing areas or loading areas. The areas looked empty, porbably shut down, as if the working shifts were through for the day.
The man then pointed out a couple "offices" which were more like strange areas full of canisters with no lids. The tops of the canisters were covered with a white, thin, softish, plastic material, under which things, which were apparently alive, were moving, like piles of worms. Either the man said or I understood that the things in these canisters would probably devour a human being if one fell into their environment.
The three of us stepped outside the office building, almost unintentionally, as if the momentum of our movement down the small hallway couldn't be stopped. We stood outside, by a fire escape door, on wooden landing at the top of a wooden staircase. It was night.
As if realizing that we had come outside, we walked back into the building through the door, which was still open. The man walked far ahead of the woman and me. The woman walked a few steps ahead of me.
I looked into another "office." This was also a storage area of canisters. The canisters in this room had no lids or tops at all. There were organisms in these canisters like snake-sized meal worms. They had a brownish-red color, very dry and rough looking.
I was slightly disappointed. I thought that being eaten by these organisms would be far less "smooth" (and, thus, far less enjoyable) than being eaten by the organisms under the white covers.
But then it occurred to me that the organisms under the white covers might be the same as these organisms, or even, that it was possible that the canisters with the white tops no longer existed. I thought, Then if one is going to be devoured, it would have to be by these organisms. This seemed awfully disappointing to me.
But, I thought to myself, I probably won't be devoured. The man, I now recalled, had mentioned his disappointment with the woman's job performance. Whoever performed poorly would likely be the one to get eaten. So I assumed the woman would be eaten. I was relieved.
But I also felt bad. How petty of me! I didn't just feel relieved: I felt smugly satisfied to think of the woman being eaten. I even thought, with pleasure, of her falling down into the room of open canisters.
Dream #3
I stood out in an open area. It was a slightly hazy, blue day, with the sun glowing white in the sky. The land was mostly barren, like a dirt parking lot, except with thin patches of small grass and weeds. I walked to the foot of a hill which was all of barren, tan soil. I looked up the hill. Near the crest were a few smallish, sandstone-like rock formations, one of which was like a natural arch.
Two Mexican men stood near the rock formations. Both looked like Indians: they had coppery-tan skin, were shortish and stoutish, and they wore blue jeans and t-shirts. The man on the left stood near the natural arch. He had a squarish face and hair waving down to just below his shoulders. He wore a tight, nicely colored, but faded, purple t-shirt.
I had probably planned to climb the hill. But when the two men noticed me, they sent out a definite signal that they didn't want me around, or even looking at them. They were calm and composed, but something in their body language indicated that they were already harboring violent intentions toward me. I turned and walked away from the hill.
I stood now in an area with a field-office trailer on my left side and a freight trailer or shed-trailer on my right side. A few other people stood around me. They were dumpy-looking, official-looking workers.
The Mexican men on the hill could still see me easily. I knew they were planning on opening fire on me soon. I was trying to get out of their sight, hoping that they would forget about me if I stayed out of sight and out of attention long enough. I decided to hide behind the shed-trailer, which was now more like a simple wall of thick, corrugated metal, probably painted grey-white.
But as I hid, one of the workers started talking to me. He stood before/beside the shed-trailer, so that he was in plain view of the Mexican men. I thought, His talking like that is only going to keep the Mexican men aware of my presence. Then soon they'll open fire.
But, I thought, relieved, they'd probably open fire on the worker instead of me, just hoping that they'd be able to attack somebody. I felt ashamed about this, but I almost felt a grimy pleasure to think of the worker being shot full of holes instead of me. Finally, I thought, I'd see a sucker get what was due to him.
Dream #4
I stood in a busy room. The room was full of activity, people rushing around, taking care of business. I was and was not in the room. It was like I was watching a past that someone, or some television show, was telling me about.
The room was tall, with pumpkin-colored walls. There were windows high up on the walls, letting in plenty of grey-white daylight, although incandescent lights also lit the room. The room was a tall, but narrow square. It was probably a room in some kind of TV studio. I stood near one wall. I saw a doorway on the opposite wall and a doorway on the wall to my right. The doorway to my right was possibly ten or twelve feet tall.
I suddenly saw my maternal grandfather (who, in waking life, had died a little more than six months before this dream). He sat on the shoulders of a very thin, tall man. My grandpa looked like he did before he got cancer. But he was wearing a cowboy hat, which I don't remember him doing very often in waking life.
I "remembered," or heard a narrator say, that my grandfather had been a cast member of some local children's show in Colorado. He did this in addition to being some kind of executive businessman. His work on the TV show was something like a charitable activity. He did it for free. The TV show itself was somehow a means of gathering funds for a charity. Nevertheless, my grandfather was something of a star among the local children who watched the show.
This whole scene had been "shown" to me to not only to prove that my grandfather had been a lot more professionally active than I had known or would acknowledge, but also to illustrate that he was more active in the community, did more things with his free time, cared about people more, and had more artistic ability, than I had ever acknowledged.
My grandfather had a really vacant, smiling look on his face, as if he were blissfully close to being brain dead. I realized my grandpa's role in the show had been that of a gentle, good-natured, stupid clown-villain character. But my grandpa's vacant expression was too genuine. It didn't look like he was acting. It looked like this stupor was his real condition.
As part of the comic act, though none of this was being filmed -- or even on stage! -- the tall man walked through the doorway, and my grandpa, just tall enough, knocked his head softly (although it was supposed to be perceived as a rough bump) against the top of the doorway. The tall man then backed up and gave my grandfather a few seconds to utter his catch phrase, which, I knew, was, "I'll get you yet!"
But my grandpa said the catch phrase very softly and vacantly, half like he was playing a gentle character, but half like he no longer had enough brain power to say anything with any sort of emotion or character. The tall man then walked my grandfather through the door without my grandfather knocking his head against the doorway-top.
I saw my grandfather a few moments later. He was walking back into the room I stood in. He walked with a group of businessmen who were all about his age, i.e. around seventy years old. My grandpa was obviously a part of the group, and he walked within the group. But he wasn't attending to the group at all: his eyes drifted off vacantly into space. He still wore a gentle, brainless smile, partly like he was playing his clown role and partly like he was genuinely brainless. I felt very uneasy watching him.
I stood before a large house, like the house my family lived in with my mom's boyfriend when I was nine years old (we called this house the "mansion" because it was bigger than any place we'd lived in before -- or after!). It was either early morning or early evening, and the sky was dark.
I walked into the house. I stood in a dark room just inside the doorway. The room was shallow, but wide, almost like a "covered porch" might be. The room opened to what looked like a small, run-down kitchen or dining room or pantry area. A light was on in the kitchen. The entry room had no light. It was very dark, as if the kitchen's light couldn't even penetrate the room.
I stood on or just behind the threshold between rooms. To my left was a wall, behind which I may have half-hidden. My old co-worker JR stood in the kitchen. I held up a bench, which I was giving to someone from the job I'd just gotten let go from as a gift. When I showed it to JR, he just chuckled to himself, as if I was silly to think I could give something like that as a gift. The sentiment, JR implied, was so half-hearted.
I took a look at the bench. It was about six feet long. It looked like it was made out of material that would usually go into making a cheap office desk: veneered plyboard, chromed metal, and some thin, black metal or plastic for legs.
But now I noticed (I held the bench upside-down and diagonally, so that an end was near my head) that the right leg of the bench (the end near my face) was missing. I realized I was about to give someone a broken bench as a gift. I also felt like I was in trouble: JR would definitely spread a bad word about me because of what I'd done.
I walked away from the kitchen (and possibly out of the house altogether). I thought of giving another co-worker, BT, a call on my cellphone, to put in a few kind words and show myself as being a good person, in hopes that my own good words could buffer opinion against the words of bad opinion that JR, I feared, would soon be sending out.
Dream #2
I was in an office with a man and a woman. The man was in a managerial position. The woman and I were about on the same level professionally. We all stood in a thin hallway. All around us were walls the bottom half of which were wall and the top half of which were window-walls, opening to views of "offices."
The views may sometimes have been of areas like manufacturing areas or loading areas. The areas looked empty, porbably shut down, as if the working shifts were through for the day.
The man then pointed out a couple "offices" which were more like strange areas full of canisters with no lids. The tops of the canisters were covered with a white, thin, softish, plastic material, under which things, which were apparently alive, were moving, like piles of worms. Either the man said or I understood that the things in these canisters would probably devour a human being if one fell into their environment.
The three of us stepped outside the office building, almost unintentionally, as if the momentum of our movement down the small hallway couldn't be stopped. We stood outside, by a fire escape door, on wooden landing at the top of a wooden staircase. It was night.
As if realizing that we had come outside, we walked back into the building through the door, which was still open. The man walked far ahead of the woman and me. The woman walked a few steps ahead of me.
I looked into another "office." This was also a storage area of canisters. The canisters in this room had no lids or tops at all. There were organisms in these canisters like snake-sized meal worms. They had a brownish-red color, very dry and rough looking.
I was slightly disappointed. I thought that being eaten by these organisms would be far less "smooth" (and, thus, far less enjoyable) than being eaten by the organisms under the white covers.
But then it occurred to me that the organisms under the white covers might be the same as these organisms, or even, that it was possible that the canisters with the white tops no longer existed. I thought, Then if one is going to be devoured, it would have to be by these organisms. This seemed awfully disappointing to me.
But, I thought to myself, I probably won't be devoured. The man, I now recalled, had mentioned his disappointment with the woman's job performance. Whoever performed poorly would likely be the one to get eaten. So I assumed the woman would be eaten. I was relieved.
But I also felt bad. How petty of me! I didn't just feel relieved: I felt smugly satisfied to think of the woman being eaten. I even thought, with pleasure, of her falling down into the room of open canisters.
Dream #3
I stood out in an open area. It was a slightly hazy, blue day, with the sun glowing white in the sky. The land was mostly barren, like a dirt parking lot, except with thin patches of small grass and weeds. I walked to the foot of a hill which was all of barren, tan soil. I looked up the hill. Near the crest were a few smallish, sandstone-like rock formations, one of which was like a natural arch.
Two Mexican men stood near the rock formations. Both looked like Indians: they had coppery-tan skin, were shortish and stoutish, and they wore blue jeans and t-shirts. The man on the left stood near the natural arch. He had a squarish face and hair waving down to just below his shoulders. He wore a tight, nicely colored, but faded, purple t-shirt.
I had probably planned to climb the hill. But when the two men noticed me, they sent out a definite signal that they didn't want me around, or even looking at them. They were calm and composed, but something in their body language indicated that they were already harboring violent intentions toward me. I turned and walked away from the hill.
I stood now in an area with a field-office trailer on my left side and a freight trailer or shed-trailer on my right side. A few other people stood around me. They were dumpy-looking, official-looking workers.
The Mexican men on the hill could still see me easily. I knew they were planning on opening fire on me soon. I was trying to get out of their sight, hoping that they would forget about me if I stayed out of sight and out of attention long enough. I decided to hide behind the shed-trailer, which was now more like a simple wall of thick, corrugated metal, probably painted grey-white.
But as I hid, one of the workers started talking to me. He stood before/beside the shed-trailer, so that he was in plain view of the Mexican men. I thought, His talking like that is only going to keep the Mexican men aware of my presence. Then soon they'll open fire.
But, I thought, relieved, they'd probably open fire on the worker instead of me, just hoping that they'd be able to attack somebody. I felt ashamed about this, but I almost felt a grimy pleasure to think of the worker being shot full of holes instead of me. Finally, I thought, I'd see a sucker get what was due to him.
Dream #4
I stood in a busy room. The room was full of activity, people rushing around, taking care of business. I was and was not in the room. It was like I was watching a past that someone, or some television show, was telling me about.
The room was tall, with pumpkin-colored walls. There were windows high up on the walls, letting in plenty of grey-white daylight, although incandescent lights also lit the room. The room was a tall, but narrow square. It was probably a room in some kind of TV studio. I stood near one wall. I saw a doorway on the opposite wall and a doorway on the wall to my right. The doorway to my right was possibly ten or twelve feet tall.
I suddenly saw my maternal grandfather (who, in waking life, had died a little more than six months before this dream). He sat on the shoulders of a very thin, tall man. My grandpa looked like he did before he got cancer. But he was wearing a cowboy hat, which I don't remember him doing very often in waking life.
I "remembered," or heard a narrator say, that my grandfather had been a cast member of some local children's show in Colorado. He did this in addition to being some kind of executive businessman. His work on the TV show was something like a charitable activity. He did it for free. The TV show itself was somehow a means of gathering funds for a charity. Nevertheless, my grandfather was something of a star among the local children who watched the show.
This whole scene had been "shown" to me to not only to prove that my grandfather had been a lot more professionally active than I had known or would acknowledge, but also to illustrate that he was more active in the community, did more things with his free time, cared about people more, and had more artistic ability, than I had ever acknowledged.
My grandfather had a really vacant, smiling look on his face, as if he were blissfully close to being brain dead. I realized my grandpa's role in the show had been that of a gentle, good-natured, stupid clown-villain character. But my grandpa's vacant expression was too genuine. It didn't look like he was acting. It looked like this stupor was his real condition.
As part of the comic act, though none of this was being filmed -- or even on stage! -- the tall man walked through the doorway, and my grandpa, just tall enough, knocked his head softly (although it was supposed to be perceived as a rough bump) against the top of the doorway. The tall man then backed up and gave my grandfather a few seconds to utter his catch phrase, which, I knew, was, "I'll get you yet!"
But my grandpa said the catch phrase very softly and vacantly, half like he was playing a gentle character, but half like he no longer had enough brain power to say anything with any sort of emotion or character. The tall man then walked my grandfather through the door without my grandfather knocking his head against the doorway-top.
I saw my grandfather a few moments later. He was walking back into the room I stood in. He walked with a group of businessmen who were all about his age, i.e. around seventy years old. My grandpa was obviously a part of the group, and he walked within the group. But he wasn't attending to the group at all: his eyes drifted off vacantly into space. He still wore a gentle, brainless smile, partly like he was playing his clown role and partly like he was genuinely brainless. I felt very uneasy watching him.
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