(11/21/05) shark broker; death plateau

(Entered in paper journal at 9:40 AM at Starbucks on Astor Place.)

Dream 1

A shark had attacked a ship like a freight ship. It was now on the ship, in some pool-like area. I and a crew were discussing who would deal with the shark. I was horrified by it, but I also wanted to kill it -- so much so that I was certain the plan was to go into the pool and kill the shark.

A woman volunteered to go in. She wore a spacesuit-like outfit. She brought down a ball I called a mine. It was heavy and metal, but small, maybe ten inches in diameter, and instead of spikes, it had handles jutting out of it.

She went down. I saw her from a close point of view. The shark came up to her. She stuck the mine in her own mouth. The shark came up to the mine and bit the other side of the mine gently. The woman now walked up to a ladder and up onto the deck. The shark somehow came with her. I wondered how the shark didn't die in the air, but it seemed to have a deep sea helmet now.

The woman was going to jump into the ocean with the shark and deliver it to safety. I was concerned about the shark now, but I still didn't like it too much. I was also joyfully proud of the woman, but also jealous of her.

a group of people and I stood in a smallish corner on deck. A guy like my old cross country coach from high school, BST, except with long, long hair and a beard and sunglasses, lectured me for not being as brave as the woman. The man told me that the least I could do was donate $1 and send it down below the ocean to help the woman on her mission.

I said, "Of course I'll donate a dollar. I've been wanting to give for a long time now."

The man turned away. I turned to a friend to my left. I said, "It's not like it costs me anything big, like I'd have to say, 'Stop. let me call my broker.'"

When I said this, the man turned around and looked at me, angrily puzzled. I fumbled with my words to explain that I hadn't been talking about him, that I had just been making an ironic joke that was especially ironic since I don't have enough money even to worrant a broker.

Dream 2

I sat in some place like a desert plateau at a dinner table with two or three women. There were some white bowls with candles on the table. It was approaching sunset.

The woman across from me told a story of a time she had been at dinner with her boss. The woman had taken some empty, white bowls from which they or somebody nearby had eaten. (At this point I knew she was going to say that she had done something so impressive and creative that her boss put her into a much better paying, more creative position. I controlled my jealousy.)

The bowls had some dense gas or fume in them from the used contents. The woman had lit a match over the bowl, she said, and the flames created tiny, dimly glowing bubbles of fire that would last for a long time. She then arranged the bowls on the table and in front of the door.

The boss had told her, "I brought you here to talk about one thing. But I'll be right back, and I think we'll make a different plan."

The woman paused, for a few seconds, as if she were right now, telling the story, actually waiting for the boss to come back.

I said, "So did he come back and say, 'Let me shower you in beautiful riches?'"

The women were all offended. They stopped eating.

The woman asked, "What did you mean by that? I'm an independent woman. I wasn't using him to get money or someone to take care of me."

I said, "No. That's not what I meant. He promoted you, obviously. And you have a lot of money now. I was just using a metaphor" (???) "for how impressed he was. I was just trying to show you I thought you were doing well."

The meal quieted down. Soon after, the woman and another woman got up, saying they'd be right back.

I sat with a woman like my old friend AL from my Americorps program in Los Alamos, who sat to my right. I thought, Now's the chance to lighten the mood again before the other women come back, so they can come back and feel comfortable.

I looked over the plateau, down the slope, across the desert plain, to a series of spire-like, lichen-encrusted, red sandstone "mountains." I said to the woman, "It's nice once you've been here a while and you can actually recognize the mountains, some of them even by name." I was glad that I sounded so cheerful.

The woman said, "That's nice. What are their names?"

I sudden realized that out of the roughly thirty formations in front of us I could only recognize three or four, and that I wasn't even sure of two of those names. I stuttered as I thought, Well, perhaps if I take a long time describing the two mountains I can name, I'll get out of having to talk abou the rest. But I couldn't remember any of the names now.

Six small mesas stood before the now enormous formations. For some reason I chose the mesa on the far right as my starting point. I said, "W-- w-- well, for instance, that mountain, right there, the one that uh... has the uh..."

Now we were driving down a hill and were close to the formations, all rubbled with rocks and boulders of barren, red sandstone on a humid, yellow-grey day.

The woman had been saying all this time, "No, I don't see it. Which one do you mean? Describe it to me. Name it."

I now realized and said, "Well, you can't see it now. We're right at the foot of it. I can't name any of the mountains. We can't even see them. What would be the point?"

She said, "Well, I saw them before. I have them in my mind pretty well. What were their names?"

We now drove down to and past a chain link fenced area holding hundreds of fighter jets. The jets' wings were folded down, as if the jets were (though they weren't) suspended in air. All the jets seemed compact and fragile.

I thought, I could have been a fighter jet pilot. But I got too afraid at some point. I love those jets so much I should be flying them. But I gave up my chance. Everybody must know that. That's why they think I'm so worthless.

My mind wandered, and I thought to a story of two Japanese fighters in World War II. They were both training to be kamikazes. One made a promise that he would go with the other to see the other's family on a certain day. But just before that day, the one was called to go out on his suicide mission.

The other was angry. He said, "You promised you'd go to see my family with me! Tell them you mush wait! Our deaths are a certainty. They will be here today or tomorrow, and we will go to them proudly. But if you die now you'll never see my family!"

The one answered, "Our deaths call us when they call us, and we must face them. We must show we can give everything for them. A life is full of promises. We cannot postpone our deaths for these promises."

I now saw a lock on a plane. A padlock-latch, actually. It was shaped so that there was no way a padlock could actually hold the latch shut.

(3/22/06) being followed; under suspicion; swiftly tilting

(Entered in paper journal at 5:41 PM at Mid-Manhattan Library at 40th Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

I walked through narrowly perceived spaces, some internal, some external. A young, black boy followed me. I felt like he was trailing me. I wanted him to get away from me. But I also didn't want to "give him the slip" and somehow substantiate his motives for following me.

We walked along forest trails and through "houses" that were "offices." It all seemed like a track or a ride in an amusement park -- somehow stagey, not enclosed, but narrowly perceived.

Dream 2

I was on a bus. I sat at an aisle seat. A black boy on the aisle seat in front of me and to my right, i.e.

looked back at me around the edge of his seat-back. He said my name. I asked him how he knew my name.

I don't know if I forget or if my thoughts changed. But it now seemed like I knew him, too. I felt uneasy around him, like I was under suspicion. But I also spoke regularly and happily about regular things.

Dream 3

I don't know where I was -- high up in the air, possibly on the edge of something (like Hans Pfaal's moon balloon?). My sight was of the blue sky on a beautifully sunny day and just the tangent of something off-white -- maybe:

I feel like the object I was on was lenticular

and rubbery, with something coming off its top like a pagoda

of very thin wood, delicate.

I was possibly "myself/a woman" -- "two in one." I heard/thought "my/a woman's" voice speak of a bird-god/goddess (who was, as goddess, the woman) who called birds, maybe one certain kind of bird, to a "corner" of the earth.

I imagined (spontaneously, but not quite fully) an enormous hawk -- human-sized, very pale red-tan. Then I imagined a flock of similarly colored birds fluttering from left to right, superimposed over the profile of the hawk's head, which faced right.

"The woman/goddess/I" sounded weak, distracted (as if in reverie), but unmistakably godly. The speech was of the woman calling to the birds. The birds flew to the corner of the earth, "So fast," "she/I" said, "that the earth" -- ("I" felt the earth getting ready to tip at "her" command. "I" thought, No. Don't let her say it tipped.) -- "was knocked into an even quicker spin."

I felt the birds approaching. They were far off still, but they also had already reached the corner of the earth.

"I/the woman" continued: "The spinning became so fast and violent that finally the earth flipped over."

Again "I" thought, Please, no, I couldn't take the pain of the earth tipping.

Instead of the earth tipping I was descending into the ocean. I now plunged deep, deep down below the surface. I was above the sea floor.

"The woman" (no longer "I") continued narrating. She told of a civilization buried beneath the water. She also told of a dangerous shark that killed but that also led a group of some kind of creatures.

First I saw the shark. The woman warned me to stay away and not draw attention to myself. Now slowly the ancient city appeared. The shark traveled through the city along some canal-like road. There were gate-like structures at intervals

and some plain buildings like stone houses. I saw it all like I was on a hillside.

I was surprised that everything was in black and white. but it also made sense to me somehow, like the city had lost something.

Now I saw the shark's legions following behind him. At first they were some kind of disgusting creature -- unnameable, black and furry, like black rats, except made of glop, not flesh. I hated it -- I knew I was one of them. I again thought, Please don't let this be -- I couldn't stand being one of them. Now they were all black dogs. I was still disgusted, but I could tolerate it.

I was now in an enormous, opulent restaurant. A conference had just been held. It was now over. A line of people were piling out. One of them, a woman I had flirted with, came up to me and acted flirty, but in a needy way. I now saw how old she was. I tried to "cancel out" the flirty direction of our interaction. But I kept flirting instead.

The woman was handing me some files. I kept looking at the door. I hoped that either she would leave or that I could get away. I slowly felt more and more embarrassed that I had flirted with her in the first place.

But even now, apparently regretful of flirting, I was right up on top of her, even bending my right leg so that it went in between her legs. (She wore a miniskirt.) As time went on, her hair got more and more frazzled.

(7/27/06) beautiful building and woman; i don't even like her!; shark rabies

(Entered in paper journal at 6:43 AM on B-train from 7th Avenue in Brooklyn to Rockefeller Center in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

A beautiful building in something like an Art Nouveau style. Pinkish bricks in a round battlement configuration. Beige-goldenrod stone arches moving inward toward the doors and windows. The "battlement" structure maybe three/four stories high. From that, a brick "tower" like a smokestack.

Evening. A beautiful woman standing before me and looking at me.

Dream 2

My friends R, L, and maybe CV were in a dim grocery store that faded toward the front into a living room. R and L were talking about some woman CV had had sex with, like I was supposed to be jealous. But they wouldn't tell me who the woman was. Finally I pieced together that it was L's sister A.

I stood by the vegetables (where we had all been standing before) and said, "That's supposed to make me jealous? I don't even like A!"

Dream 3

I was swimming in "the ocean" on a sunny day. There were small waves. I was standing on the beach, on a tall, sandy hill high above and at least one hundred meters away from the water. I was with a group of people, all having fun, probably putting on sunscreen before heading into the water. There was a big trailer somewhere. It provided shade somewhere.

A couple big, blonde, tan, cheerful guys jogged down to the water. One (red shorts, though I feel I only saw his right shoulder) joked at the other, "I always go in first and then you go in. But you always say we'll go in together."

A group of girls giggled at the guys statement and ran off to the right to head into the water (the guys had run straight forward, down the hill). I walked behind them, passing a very pretty, tiny-bodied girl in a swimsuit that appeared to be made out of basket wicker, beige with some gentle, blue, sky-like design.

The girls jumped off some stone ledge and into the water. When I got to the ledge I noticed how far down it was to the water. I was afraid to jump, but I did. Somehow my body stretched so I kept one foot on the ledge while the rest of me extended way out over and finally into the water (at which point I turned to my "regular size" again).

I played around in the water, which I wasn't sure was ocean water. The water was so brown, it couldn't be ocean water. And I had jumped into the water from a tall ledge that was more like a river's bank than an ocean shore or cliff.

I worried about sharks. I swam around and tried not to worry. I imagined myself as a squid. I put my head under the water, closed my eyes, and just imagined my body flowing like a squid's body. Then I heard my mom talking about how if sharks bite you, you get rabies.

I was in a car with my family. My mom drove. She was talking about how my oldest nephew and XXXXX needed to get their their rabies shots or she would get arrested for neglect.

We drove through a gas station and then (it was night) before a wide, tall, square apartment complex behind which was an enormous tree and the final eggshell blue and pale gas purple of the horizon. We drove down a skinny street which ended at a gate.

I saw a man's severed head in my imagination. I knew you got your head cut off after you got rabies. I had thought earlier about getting myself some rabies shots. Now I wondered something about getting my head replaced.

(9/21/09) bathroom painting; sharks and whales

(Entered in paper journal at 7:51 AM at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was in an auditorium, at least halfway back in the rows of seats. The lights over the seats were off. The lights over the stage were coldly bright. I'm not sure I could see the stage. The seats were about average height, but it also seemed like they were too high for me to see over.

The audience was milling around, getting into their seats, the auditorium only half full and not populated in any orderly fashion. The row I sat in was taken by a group of people of which I was a part.

To my left, either right next to me or one seat removed, was a black woman, probably in her early or mid twenties, with straight, blonde-brown hair. The woman told me that this meeting was a rally against cancer. This excited me, and I expressed my approval, after having previously thought we were here for something silly.

But when I expressed my approval, the man sitting to my right, who looked like one of my old Americorps co-workers, SC, told me, "Hey, why don't you go to the bathroom? Didn't you say you needed to go?" I knew the man was just doing this because I had just connected with the girl. The man was jealous of me and wanted to get me out of the picture.

But I acquiesced and went to the bathroom. For a moment I was in the bathroom by myself. The bathroom was kind of run-down, possibly painted in somewhat vivid sea-green and tan-orange, and lit by incandescent light. I may have urinated in a urinal the base of which was on the floor and the body of which extended up the wall to about chest height.

I was now in a room with my psychiatrist A. The room was like an artist's studio. The floor was concrete. The walls were greyish white and maybe thirty feet tall. There were two large paintings: one, lying propped against the wall in front of me; the other, hung high up on the same wall.

A stood on a big, thick, wooden ladder, level with the painting that was hung on the wall. The painting may have had a lot of reds and oranges in it, as well as some purples. A was pointing to the painting and asking me something.

I kept worrying that A would fall off the ladder. The rungs of the ladder seemed wobbly, like bicycle pedals or buckets (?) on the wheel of a watermill. It didn't look like they'd be easy to stay balanced on. I felt bad that A should put herself at such risk just to show that she had this kind of artistic sensibility, and that she was doing this all just to show that she cared about my emotions and what I said.

Dream #2

I stood out on some cliff overlooking a beach. The sky above may have been a buzzy grey, with low, warm, pale clouds. The whole place felt very lonely. There was some kind of storm happening, even though it wasn't raining. But now the level of the sea rose greatly, almost overtaking the cliff I stood on.

I may have seen a weird sea creature swim, belly-up, in the water. I may have thought of the creature as a shark or a whale. But its flesh was all torn and pink, like that of a mutilated animal.

I may now have been in the water, looking back at the cliff, which was a wedge of boulders. The cliff looked like it shouldered above the water pretty well now.

The water was grey and slick. Waves would surge up and slam over me. The waves seemed large in the distance. But by the time they got to me, they seemed much smaller. But each wave that hit me seemed to be larger than the last. The last wave that hit me was just as large as it had been in the distance. I was very scared watching the wave loom over me.

I now stood in some futuristic room, looking out a bubble window at the night sea, possibly from a vantage point near a port. A pretty, blonde woman, a little taller than I, stood to my right. She was talking about the fact that people had been seeing a lot more creatures in the sea lately. As she said this, a whale's back humped up above and then back down below the surface of the water.

I said to the woman, "Look! A whale!"

The woman said, "Yes, I know. I've seen them before."

The whale's tail now broke above the water, coming straight up, then flapping back down, almost on the window.

"The same" whale now jumped out of the water, maybe twenty feet above the surface of the water, revealing itself to be a killer whale. It didn't make sense to me that this could be the same whale. The whale we'd seen before had been much larger than this killer whale.

We looked down into the water, as if the bottom half of the bubble-window were now below the surface of the water. We saw a shark. Another shark, which looked like a small whale, swam up to the window -- as if the whole window were now underwater! The shark laughed at us in a human, high-pitched voice, to scare us.

Another shark, with lobed shapes along its body, in shadow (?), swam straight up the window and beyond -- as if we were now deep below the surface of the water. I called this last shark a hammerhead. This shark also laughed a very scary, human-sounding laugh as it passed us. This laugh was a hunting tactic, used to scare prey out of hiding, perhaps.

The woman and I were now speaking about something, possibly about the killer whale and the sharks and something about differentiation.

I was now scuba diving underneath a futuristic sea vessel or submarine. I was with three other people. all of whom were ahead of me. The floor of this part of the sea was just below us, and the underside of the vessel was just above us. I swam with my belly up toward the vessel.

I was still speaking, somehow, with the woman. I said something about being able to prove the differentiation we'd been speaking about. Just then a shark that looked like a small killer whale floated over me. I thought, That proves it. But I was also afraid that the shark had passed so close to me. I thought, But if you aren't afraid of the sharks, aren't the sharks nice to you? Don't they even play with you sometimes? But now the shark was gone.

I swam forward, looking down to the floor of the sea. I knew that the person directly ahead of me was an older man, thin, tall, with longish, grey hair and pale, blue eyes, possibly wearing glasses as well.

We were now all apparently swimming down here without oxygen tanks. The man ahead of me was running out of air, but he didn't want to make this known to the two people ahead of him: a woman (maybe the one I'd been speaking with) and a young, black boy.

The man said he had to go back and check on something. But I knew he was going back to the entry hatch to get some air. I saw that before he turned around he stuck his mouth to a white and yellow device that looked like a water fountain.

The man was now gone. But I was now running out of air. I turned to head back to the hatch. As I did I saw the device the man had used. It was basically an "oxygen fountain." When a person stuck their mouth to the device and released a valve, the device would release oxygen, which the person could then breathe in. I noticed that these little valves were placed at pretty even intervals along the bottom of the vessel, so that oxygen could be obtained as needed.

But looking at these fountains, which were like white, plastic shields or basins with yellow, plastic nozzles, I noticed that they were dirty, grimy looking, or grown over with algae. I thought, I'm not going to stick my mouth around that! I thought I'd go back to the entry hatch and try to find something that would enable me to preserve my oxygen so I wouldn't need to use these oxygen sources.

For instance, I remembered a packet the old man had: a metallic-pink, thin, square package, like the shape of the wrapper for Pop-Rocks candy. The man had opened this package and pulled out a pink tissue that looked like a wet-nap napkin. He had then chewed this tissue like gum, I remembered. This tissue had then either produced oxygen or allowed the old man to preserve the oxygen already in his system.

I thought that using this tissue was kind of like cheating on the man's part. But I also thought it was reasonable. I wondered if I couldn't find something like that to use. But I also wondered how the woman and boy could just keep on going and going without needing oxygen. Why were they so good? Or what was wrong with me?

I was now in the entry hatch, which looked somewhat like the stairwell up from the basement at the house my family lived in when I was in my last three years of high school (and when I was seven and eight years old), except that it was painted in a warm, tan-orange color.

I looked around for a while for oxygen tanks. I couldn't find anything, and I felt like even I actually did find oxygen tanks, I'd probably feel to guilty and ashamed to wear them, anyway. I thought that I'd look for some of that oxygen gum, or smaller "devices" like that. If I couldn't find anything like that, I'd at least wander around here for a little while and catch a few breaths before going back into the water.

I wandered into a messy kitchen. There were a few people, mostly young kids, in the kitchen. A motherly woman sat before the stove with a young, black boy. There was some kind of barrier, almost like police tape, around the stove and the area where the woman sat and the boy stood. The boy sat in a wooden chair, his feet against the door of the oven. On the front right burner boiled a pot of chocolate. The chocolate was being prepared for fudge.

The woman, who might now have been my mother, and the boy both looked at me as I entered the room. Another small, white child placed, possibly in a crib, near my right leg. I knew the woman and boy knew me. I waved at them. The boy just looked at me like I was a piece of shit that didn't deserve his attention. He looked back to the stove.

I was so scared by the boy's look that I shyly walked past the boy and the woman. I thought to myself, Great. Now I can't even come to see my mother without some black guy getting in my way. (???) I walked through the kitchen, to the other doorway, which would probably have led to a living room or dining room.

(10/17/09) strong woman protects my love; pond of sea creatures; i toss out a good resume

(Entered in paper journal at 7:35 AM at Connecticut Muffin in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was in a dim room, something like a cafeteria (like a cafeteria in a Kmart my family used to shop at when I was a young child). I stood before a long counter. A pretty girl stood before me, behind the counter. She was short, blonde, and skinny. On either side of her were two partitions, maybe wood-framed, with translucent, but mottled, plastic. The girl and I seemed to be speaking friendly.

Suddenly R came up behind the counter from the left. He made a strange remark about how if I wanted this girl I wasn't going to have her. He slid out another partition between the first two. This partition was like a sheet of plywood pasted over with old newspaper pages. There were two eye holes in the board, so that I could at least see the girl's eyes.

I thought, I didn't want this girl, romantically, in the first place. Bust still, how dare R think he has the right to block me from somebody I'm interested in?

I now sat, reclining, on a bed in a large, dim room. A pretty, tiny, skinny, blonde girl lay in bed with me. The girl was topless. Below the waist she was covered with a lot of blankets.

I got up. I needed to take a shower. The girl got up as well, either following me or leading me down a filthy, neglected hallway. The long hallway was dim, as if the only light came from within the rooms along the hallway.

I heard a man say that the woman liked me and that I should be with her. I thought both that that couldn't be true and that she wasn't exactly the one I was interested in.

The woman now stopped before a door. I walked ahead a few steps before noticing. I turned back to look at the woman. She was topless, and she wore a black skirt. She said she was going into this room for a shower. I had a feeling she wanted me to join her. But I thought that would be too much of a commitment for me. I said that was the women's shower, and that I had to go to the men's shower.

I left the woman behind and walked ahead to the next bathroom. The sign on the door may have been a "women" sign.

I went in. The place was horribly filthy, horribly run-down. There was old water all over the floor. I stood in a weird compartment that looked partly like a public shower and partly like a toilet stall.

I started hearing people talk very badly about me, saying things that might even have been dirty. I got very frustrated. I felt like I didn't want to have any more to do with any of this. I may also have thought that I'd I'd thought I'd found someone who actually liked me, but that it now turned out she was one of the people gossiping against me. I thought I was through with everybody.

I was walking through a hallway which was in decent repair, carpeted, with white, stucco-like walls, almost like a college dormitory. A door was open. I saw inside, to a room which was like a dorm room, except that the floor of the room tiered down partway through.

A tall, muscular, black woman who almost looked like a man stood in the room, down on one of the tiers, so that from my view it looked like she was kneeling. The woman wore a red t-shirt that went down to just above her belly button. She was lifting weights, lifting shiny, black barbells up over, and then behind her head. Her stomach muscles showed as she did this.

I was immediately attracted to the woman, even though I couldn't tell for sure whether she was actually a woman. I walked into her room, possibly at her invitation. She'd finished exercising. I walked down the steps before me as she walked up a couple steps to my right.

The woman asked me if I was having a tough time in my life. I told her I was. She lay down on her bed, her back propped up against a pillow that was propped up against the wall. To the woman's right was a window through which a lot of bright light shone.

The woman now looked different. Her skin tone was a lighter shade of brown. Her hair was longer, possibly done in a pony tail. Her stomach was smoother. Her breasts were big, so that they lifted the shirt higher up from her bellybutton.

The woman told me not to worry about people who said bad things about me. I suddenly felt very attracted to the woman. I wanted to get in bed with her. But I was afraid she'd think I was dirty. I also still wasn't sure whether she was really a woman. But I really wanted to lay in bed with her and kiss her and stroke her stomach.

The woman's breasts may have grown, or her shirt may have gotten smaller. I could now see the undersides of the woman's breasts from underneath the bottom of her shirt.

(At this point I stopped writing at the cafe. I got onto the Q-train at Prospect Park to head into Manhattan. Once on the train, at 10 AM, I resumed writing.)

Dream #2

I stood out on the banks of a large pond or river. There may have been a few other people around. The day was sunny, blue, and warm. It may have been autumn. There seemed to be brightly colored leafs on the muddy ground.

I looked over a ledge of land, down maybe six feet, to the water. I may have seen a lot of fish under the surface of the brownish water. The fished looked huge. I thought I even saw a shark or a whale. I may have seen other people in the water, possibly in boats.

I thought I would test to see whether there were large animals in the water. I was afraid, but I jumped in. Under water, I opened my eyes. I saw a lot of large fish, not dense schools of fish, but a large number of fish, averaging about my size, all swimming around, scattered, by themselves. Some of the fish looked fleshy, like deformed, or skinned, humans. After some looking around, I found a gigantic creature, either a shark or a whale. I was excited but also afraid.

I surfaced. The water around me now looked like an ocean. The surface of the water was a steely grey, reflecting the grey of the sky.

I put my head below the water again. I swam around with my eyes open, although I was afraid to see what might come up from the invisible depths. Possibly, I thought, a shark would try to attack me. I looked forward as I swam.

Ahead of me, not too far away, was a whale. It looked like a humpback whale, but it was maybe only twenty feet long. It looked like it was going to jump out of the water. I surfaced to watch it. I called out to some of the other people, who, I remembered, were in the water, to watch the whale. The whale humped up and back down. I was very close to its tail as it splashed back into the water. I was afraid I'd get hurt. But I was untouched.

Now the water was brownish, more like a large pond again, and the sky was blue and warm. I was flying above the water, possibly upright, in a standing position, and skimming the water with my feet.

I saw the people in boats. I thought they were trying to do harm to the creatures in the water. I felt like I was smarter than the people in the boats. They really didn't, and probably couldn't, know how to treat the creatures kindly.

I had to play a trick on the people to keep them from hurting the creatures. This had something to do with putting my right (?) hand in the water and emitting something like an electric charge. This was a little scary for me, though. There were some vicious creatures in the water, I thought, that would bite my hand if they saw it.

I now flew very quickly. The pond came to a bottleneck at one of its ends, the other "end" seeming, rather, to go on like a wide river. The bottleneck was narrow and smoothly oval shaped. There was a long, narrow, oval, concrete fountain pool in the center of the bottleneck. The back end of the fountain pool sloped up, so that it almost looked like a chariot.

As I approached the bottleneck I gained speed, going, I feared, beyond my control. I thought it was fun but dangerous. With my right hand I grabbed onto the edge of the concrete fountain pool. I whipped around the back of the pool with my momentum, but finally came to a halt.

I was now standing on a narrow path, between some shrubs, just up the banks from the pond. I could possibly hear some people, maybe men and women about fifty or sixty years old, talking in the distance to my right.

I looked before me and saw a stone slab path and a stone slab rest area with some wooden benches. Near or on the benches was a plaque, maybe nine by twelve inches, saying that the benches were in honor of Mr. and Mrs. XXXXX, who had given a donation for the area.

I believe I had also seen, before I'd jumped into the water, a similar plaque, bearing the names of a different donor couple. I may now have stood before the current benches, trying to remember the names written on the plaque on the previous benches. I may have thought the donors were the same couple, or that the two couples had remarkably similar names.

(At this point I got off the Q-train and went into the Rose Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library, where I resumed writing at 10:49 AM.)

Dream #3

I sat in an office, possibly by myself. The office was bright with fluorescent light and natural light from a blind-drawn window wall to my right. The desk was an office desk. I sat before it, not behind it. I looked at a resume that I didn't like. I tossed the resume.

Later, there were two or three people standing behind me and on my right side. One of them tapped my shoulder. I looked up to see that it was my old department head, GR. He looked younger, and he had a full head of lightish brown hair, cut squarely, maybe one and a half inches long. He didn't wear glasses. His face was smooth and a little tan. He smiled at me and spoke kindly to me, as if he were being polite to someone whose good word would get him into this company.

I didn't quite recognize GR at first. When I finally did I couldn't get his name right in my head. I acted really happy to see GR, hoping that would make up for my having forgotten his name. I now realized that he was the person whose resume I'd tossed just a while ago. I kept racking my mind, trying to figure out the name on the resume. I was sure it had been different from GR's actual name.

Now another of my old department heads, and a mentor of mine, JS, walked up behind me and said some nice things. There was another desk to my right. JS sat behind the desk. GR sat before the desk. I could tell JS was interviewing GR for a position. I could also tell that JS, thinking highly of GR, would likely hire him.

I felt ashamed of having simply tossed away GR's resume without much thought. I buried my head in paperwork -- my desk, as well as JS's, was piled with paper. I tried to act ignorant of my having thrown GR's resume away and approving of JS's interview with GR.

I wondered, How could I have treated a person so good as GR with such coldness? How could I have tossed his resume, based on a few minor details, with so little thought, after all the nice things he'd done for me?

Then I suddenly remembered, or was pretty sure, that GR had, after all, used a different name on his resume, so that I hadn't been aware that it had actually been GR's resume I'd tossed. I may have tried again to remember the name on the resume.