(Entered in paper journal at 12:23 PM at Starbucks at Houston Street and Hudson Street in Manhattan.)
Dream #1
I looked out a window that was tall and narrow. My mom may have been to my left. I saw a submarine emerge from the water. At first I wasn't sure it was a submarine. I just saw the surface of the vessel. But it drove forward and I saw the central portion (?) of the submarine, which tiered upward.
As I watched, the submarine was revealing itself to be much larger than I had imagined. At the top, or in the top, of the submarine, were two or three cockpits in which pilots sat. I was shouting in happiness finally to have seen such a great vessel.
Somehow my view followed the submarine as it traveled along the surface of the water. We passed some square structures like building-top fan-boxes for air conditioning systems.
I wandered off from the submarine at some point near the shore. I flew (?) through an amusement park, first through something like a maze of mirrors, then through some kind of spinning swing ride, the top of the carousel of which was lined with framed, rectangular mirrors. I descended as if diving into one of the seats.
Showing posts with label submarine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label submarine. Show all posts
Sunday, February 10, 2013
(10/12/07) bergman's submarine sisters
(Entered in paper journal at 5:35 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)
Dream #1
I walked into a movie theater. The lights were still on. A man stood up front, giving a brief discussion of the film that was about to play. I had come in from the left side of the theater. I walked across in front of the front row and over to the right side. I headed out the door. I was looking for the ticket-taker. I wanted to get my ticket torn, but the movie was about to start.
As I walked out the door, I saw a black man. I was about to hand him my ticket: I assumed he was the ticket-taker. But I saw that he was heading in to watch the movie as well. The man had his son, a ten-year-old boy, with him. The father was discussing the importance of Ingmar Bergman to the history of cinema. Apparently the movie Cries and Whispers was showing, though I may have called the film Smiles of a Summer Night.
I walked up a short stairway outside the door and looked left and right for a ticket-taker. The father called to me, "I don't think we give our tickets. I think we just head on in."
I said, "Oh. Okay." I turned back toward the door. The man and son were gone. A ticket-taker, tall, white, with a broad, bald forehead and wearing a suit like a security guard might wear, stood before the door. He took my ticket. I went into the theater.
The theater was now dark. I ran as quickly as I could to the front row -- my favorite area for sitting in a movie theater -- while the theater was still dark, hoping not to impede anybody's view by searching for a seat after the movie came on. I also hoped that once I found a seat, nobody would come along later and accuse me of stealing a seat that they had somehow saved for themselves. But then I remembered (?) that I had sat my stuff in a seat in the front row before I had headed out the right door. I sat beside and older man and woman.
The movie began. Liv Ullmann was walking beside a huge, black-hulled ship with a man and possibly another woman. The time period of the movies was probably the 1970s. The man was olive-skinned, tall, with dark black hair. He looked strong and suave. He wore a long, tan peacoat. Liv Ullmann was fattish and wore a blue, velvet-like (terry cloth?) jumpsuit. Her hair was frizzy and bright and enormous.
The man was telling Ullmann why she wasn't good enough for him. He said she was afraid of everything and that she could never go anywhere with him. Ullmann couldn't take the criticism. She ran of the end of the dock. The man would get on his ship and leave her, I knew. Then Ullmann would go with her sisters somewhere.
I thought, I don't remember this film (Cries and Whispers) being set in modern times. But, I thought, perhaps the village where Ullmann visits her sisters still observes traditions from the older days. Perhaps that's why I remember the style of the movie being that of an older time.
At another part of the docs a person in a huge, thick, old-style diving suit climbed up a ladder and out of the water. Having undone the spherical, metallic diving-helmet, the diver now revealed herself as Bibi Andersson. Andersson was "the tough sister" of the film, with the job of being an underwater explorer. She had come here to meet Ullmann so the two of them could go to the village together.
But now both sisters were in the water together. Ulmann looked a little healthier, less pale. She had short hair (like Andersson's typical short hairstyle), and her hair had a more subdued tone. Neither Ulmann nor Andersson had put their diving helmets on yet.
Near the sisters was a glass sphere. This was the exploration vehicle they would use. Apparently Bibi always took Liv on "one last exploration" before the sisters went to the village together.
The water was murky and brownish. There were a couple large vessels surrounding the sisters and the exploration vehicle. Liv had looked down into the water and was afraid. She had seen a large creature. She asked Bibi (both sisters still treading water) what the creature was. Bibi said, "I'm not sure. It didn't look like a shark or a whale. I guess we'll find out." In my mind's eye, I saw the silhouette of a shark passing over the silhouette of a whale in murky, brown water.
Liv got even more afraid now and started hyperventilating a little. I wondered if she would even get into the exploration vehicle.
Dream #1
I walked into a movie theater. The lights were still on. A man stood up front, giving a brief discussion of the film that was about to play. I had come in from the left side of the theater. I walked across in front of the front row and over to the right side. I headed out the door. I was looking for the ticket-taker. I wanted to get my ticket torn, but the movie was about to start.
As I walked out the door, I saw a black man. I was about to hand him my ticket: I assumed he was the ticket-taker. But I saw that he was heading in to watch the movie as well. The man had his son, a ten-year-old boy, with him. The father was discussing the importance of Ingmar Bergman to the history of cinema. Apparently the movie Cries and Whispers was showing, though I may have called the film Smiles of a Summer Night.
I walked up a short stairway outside the door and looked left and right for a ticket-taker. The father called to me, "I don't think we give our tickets. I think we just head on in."
I said, "Oh. Okay." I turned back toward the door. The man and son were gone. A ticket-taker, tall, white, with a broad, bald forehead and wearing a suit like a security guard might wear, stood before the door. He took my ticket. I went into the theater.
The theater was now dark. I ran as quickly as I could to the front row -- my favorite area for sitting in a movie theater -- while the theater was still dark, hoping not to impede anybody's view by searching for a seat after the movie came on. I also hoped that once I found a seat, nobody would come along later and accuse me of stealing a seat that they had somehow saved for themselves. But then I remembered (?) that I had sat my stuff in a seat in the front row before I had headed out the right door. I sat beside and older man and woman.
The movie began. Liv Ullmann was walking beside a huge, black-hulled ship with a man and possibly another woman. The time period of the movies was probably the 1970s. The man was olive-skinned, tall, with dark black hair. He looked strong and suave. He wore a long, tan peacoat. Liv Ullmann was fattish and wore a blue, velvet-like (terry cloth?) jumpsuit. Her hair was frizzy and bright and enormous.
The man was telling Ullmann why she wasn't good enough for him. He said she was afraid of everything and that she could never go anywhere with him. Ullmann couldn't take the criticism. She ran of the end of the dock. The man would get on his ship and leave her, I knew. Then Ullmann would go with her sisters somewhere.
I thought, I don't remember this film (Cries and Whispers) being set in modern times. But, I thought, perhaps the village where Ullmann visits her sisters still observes traditions from the older days. Perhaps that's why I remember the style of the movie being that of an older time.
At another part of the docs a person in a huge, thick, old-style diving suit climbed up a ladder and out of the water. Having undone the spherical, metallic diving-helmet, the diver now revealed herself as Bibi Andersson. Andersson was "the tough sister" of the film, with the job of being an underwater explorer. She had come here to meet Ullmann so the two of them could go to the village together.
But now both sisters were in the water together. Ulmann looked a little healthier, less pale. She had short hair (like Andersson's typical short hairstyle), and her hair had a more subdued tone. Neither Ulmann nor Andersson had put their diving helmets on yet.
Near the sisters was a glass sphere. This was the exploration vehicle they would use. Apparently Bibi always took Liv on "one last exploration" before the sisters went to the village together.
The water was murky and brownish. There were a couple large vessels surrounding the sisters and the exploration vehicle. Liv had looked down into the water and was afraid. She had seen a large creature. She asked Bibi (both sisters still treading water) what the creature was. Bibi said, "I'm not sure. It didn't look like a shark or a whale. I guess we'll find out." In my mind's eye, I saw the silhouette of a shark passing over the silhouette of a whale in murky, brown water.
Liv got even more afraid now and started hyperventilating a little. I wondered if she would even get into the exploration vehicle.
Friday, February 1, 2013
(12/7/07) panties for a jealous boyfriend; emotional goodbyes
(Entered in paper journal at 5:05 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)
Dream #1
I had come into a building to lead a volunteer event. A woman had brought her boyfriend, out of compulsion. The boyfriend was trying to prove that I was either trying to steal his girlfriend, make his girlfriend feel stupid, or expose him personally for some illegal activity. I had agreed to go off somewhere with the guy while the woman did the event -- to prove that I wanted nothing other than for the woman to do the event.
I was in the boyfriend's and girlfriend's apartment bedroom. There were four beds. The boyfriend lay on one and I lay on another. We both lay so our heads were at the feet of the beds. The boy was black, but he may have had his face painted bright white with cracked, caked paint.
I asked the boy what he did as a job. He squirmed off the bed impatiently and sat on the floor. He said, "I'm tired of you always asking questions. What about you? Why are you doing this event?"
I sat on my knees on the bed. The room had been dim, as if it were sunny outside, but as if the curtains had been blocking the sunlight. Now the room was light with incandescent light, and it was as if there were no windows in the room.
I told the boy my personal story. I was about to finish by telling the boy that I worked at New York Cares (I volunteered, but never worked, there in waking life). But I didn't want the boy knowing too much about my life and following me all over the place. So I just told the boy I did volunteer work.
There was now a woman in the room, a roommate to the girl and boy. The boyfriend had often had sex with this girl behind the girlfriend's back.
The boy decided I was fine to go. We were all getting ready to go back to the event. It was like I was getting out of bed. I wore a blue polo shirt and no pants. I wore pink, satin panties. The woman wore similar clothing. I didn't want the boyfriend to see my panties and think I was gay. But I still did, for some reason, want to show off my panties.
I hurried to get my regular clothes, which were by the back wall, piled on top of a duffle bag. As I got them I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. I may have looked like an Hispanic woman. My bottom was huge, misshapen, and flabby. I was disgusted with myself. I bent down to pick up my boy clothes, which were possibly black slacks, a dark grey, button-up shirt, and a tie.
Dream #2
I walked up to the door of the office of my co-worker RJ. The door was only half open. I thought that RJ was leaving our company. She was busy, but I wanted to tell her goodbye. I poked my head into RJ's office. RJ was typing.
I said, "RJ, I know you're busy. But I just want to say I was happy to know you, and I wish you the best of luck."
RJ looked up at me and giggled a little. She said, "Uh... okay," as if she had no idea what I was talking about. She looked at a woman who sat behind the door and whom I couldn't see. I could tell they were both acting serious, but that they would be laughing at me soon.
I backed out of the office, feeling foolish, and walked into the next office. Through the walls I could hear RJ say, "Why did he just say that? Why did he act so sad? I'm only going away for a few days."
I now stood on a small bridge over a wide river. It was snowing heavily. Clouds gathered thick over the water, obscuring my view of the left bank as I walked to the right. The water looked almost black. The clouds were reddish pink, possibly from streetlamps of towns on the banks. The bridge was of white stone and done in a classical style, like one of the short bridges between Boston and Cambridge.
In my head I heard a conversation "I'd had" with TO, a person who'd led a volunteer project with New York Cares that I now led. In the conversation I told TO, "I just thought I'd check in, see how things were going."
TO said, "They're fine. What would you need? Do you need me to help you somehow at the park?" TO's voice was sharp. He sounded upset and inconvenienced.
I said, "No. I was just calling to check in and let you know I was still thinking about you. After all, you are my mentor."
TO laughed and said, "Mentor? How do you figure that?"
I looked at a piece of paper for a moment. On it was written dialogue similar to this.
I now saw an old, black, 1940s-style car drive off a short bank and into a river during the daytime. The bed of the river appeared to be shallow and gravely, but the car sunk right down, all the way into the gravel. I thought, That's how it happens: first you go deep into the water. Then you go deep into the mud. The water fills up the car first. And then the mud fills up the car.
After I thought this I saw from the inside of the car. It was now like the car had fallen into the river I stood over on the bridge at night. The car kept falling deeper and deeper into the dark blue-green water, as if it had fallen into a whale's ocean.
In the backseat of the car were a young boy -- possibly Asian -- with whom I identified, and two Asian men, who sat to the young boy's left. The man in the center wore thin-rimmed eyeglasses. Both men were dressed and groomed very well.
The water had filled up the car. Now I saw traces of mud curling up through the water. But suddenly there was no water in the car. I thought that the passengers would run out of air and die of suffocation. The older men were dying first, since the young boy was smaller and needed less oxygen.
The men were in a state of delirium. At first they were panicked. Then they acted drunk. Now they were calm and still.
The man on the far left said, "It's cold, so cold here."
The man in the center said, "We'll come back here on November fifth."
The man on the left agreed and spoke in slurred speech. Both men began talking in a mix of an Asian language and some other language, very slurred.
I thought, Why can't these men regain their composure around a child? Aren't they worried about panicking the child?
But the child was the first to notice that the car was moving back up, as if something were rescuing it. The child didn't want to stir the men up too much, so he didn't say anything.
There was some turbulence as the car lifted further up and up. Then there was a huge amount of turbulence, which finally got the men's attention.
Now, out of the windows, we saw a submarine. It sat on the floor of the ocean. The captain (?) stood halfway out of the hatch. He wore a grey uniform. He was old, strong, with blue eyes, white hair, and a white mustache. He held a black book like a Bible in his hand.
We floated around the submarine, as if we were actually driving the car around underwater. I thought, We've finally been rescued! But then I thought this didn't make sense. I thought, How can the captain be standing out of the hatch underwater as if he were in open air? And how can we see everything as if there were spotlights all around us?
Dream #1
I had come into a building to lead a volunteer event. A woman had brought her boyfriend, out of compulsion. The boyfriend was trying to prove that I was either trying to steal his girlfriend, make his girlfriend feel stupid, or expose him personally for some illegal activity. I had agreed to go off somewhere with the guy while the woman did the event -- to prove that I wanted nothing other than for the woman to do the event.
I was in the boyfriend's and girlfriend's apartment bedroom. There were four beds. The boyfriend lay on one and I lay on another. We both lay so our heads were at the feet of the beds. The boy was black, but he may have had his face painted bright white with cracked, caked paint.
I asked the boy what he did as a job. He squirmed off the bed impatiently and sat on the floor. He said, "I'm tired of you always asking questions. What about you? Why are you doing this event?"
I sat on my knees on the bed. The room had been dim, as if it were sunny outside, but as if the curtains had been blocking the sunlight. Now the room was light with incandescent light, and it was as if there were no windows in the room.
I told the boy my personal story. I was about to finish by telling the boy that I worked at New York Cares (I volunteered, but never worked, there in waking life). But I didn't want the boy knowing too much about my life and following me all over the place. So I just told the boy I did volunteer work.
There was now a woman in the room, a roommate to the girl and boy. The boyfriend had often had sex with this girl behind the girlfriend's back.
The boy decided I was fine to go. We were all getting ready to go back to the event. It was like I was getting out of bed. I wore a blue polo shirt and no pants. I wore pink, satin panties. The woman wore similar clothing. I didn't want the boyfriend to see my panties and think I was gay. But I still did, for some reason, want to show off my panties.
I hurried to get my regular clothes, which were by the back wall, piled on top of a duffle bag. As I got them I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. I may have looked like an Hispanic woman. My bottom was huge, misshapen, and flabby. I was disgusted with myself. I bent down to pick up my boy clothes, which were possibly black slacks, a dark grey, button-up shirt, and a tie.
Dream #2
I walked up to the door of the office of my co-worker RJ. The door was only half open. I thought that RJ was leaving our company. She was busy, but I wanted to tell her goodbye. I poked my head into RJ's office. RJ was typing.
I said, "RJ, I know you're busy. But I just want to say I was happy to know you, and I wish you the best of luck."
RJ looked up at me and giggled a little. She said, "Uh... okay," as if she had no idea what I was talking about. She looked at a woman who sat behind the door and whom I couldn't see. I could tell they were both acting serious, but that they would be laughing at me soon.
I backed out of the office, feeling foolish, and walked into the next office. Through the walls I could hear RJ say, "Why did he just say that? Why did he act so sad? I'm only going away for a few days."
I now stood on a small bridge over a wide river. It was snowing heavily. Clouds gathered thick over the water, obscuring my view of the left bank as I walked to the right. The water looked almost black. The clouds were reddish pink, possibly from streetlamps of towns on the banks. The bridge was of white stone and done in a classical style, like one of the short bridges between Boston and Cambridge.
In my head I heard a conversation "I'd had" with TO, a person who'd led a volunteer project with New York Cares that I now led. In the conversation I told TO, "I just thought I'd check in, see how things were going."
TO said, "They're fine. What would you need? Do you need me to help you somehow at the park?" TO's voice was sharp. He sounded upset and inconvenienced.
I said, "No. I was just calling to check in and let you know I was still thinking about you. After all, you are my mentor."
TO laughed and said, "Mentor? How do you figure that?"
I looked at a piece of paper for a moment. On it was written dialogue similar to this.
I now saw an old, black, 1940s-style car drive off a short bank and into a river during the daytime. The bed of the river appeared to be shallow and gravely, but the car sunk right down, all the way into the gravel. I thought, That's how it happens: first you go deep into the water. Then you go deep into the mud. The water fills up the car first. And then the mud fills up the car.
After I thought this I saw from the inside of the car. It was now like the car had fallen into the river I stood over on the bridge at night. The car kept falling deeper and deeper into the dark blue-green water, as if it had fallen into a whale's ocean.
In the backseat of the car were a young boy -- possibly Asian -- with whom I identified, and two Asian men, who sat to the young boy's left. The man in the center wore thin-rimmed eyeglasses. Both men were dressed and groomed very well.
The water had filled up the car. Now I saw traces of mud curling up through the water. But suddenly there was no water in the car. I thought that the passengers would run out of air and die of suffocation. The older men were dying first, since the young boy was smaller and needed less oxygen.
The men were in a state of delirium. At first they were panicked. Then they acted drunk. Now they were calm and still.
The man on the far left said, "It's cold, so cold here."
The man in the center said, "We'll come back here on November fifth."
The man on the left agreed and spoke in slurred speech. Both men began talking in a mix of an Asian language and some other language, very slurred.
I thought, Why can't these men regain their composure around a child? Aren't they worried about panicking the child?
But the child was the first to notice that the car was moving back up, as if something were rescuing it. The child didn't want to stir the men up too much, so he didn't say anything.
There was some turbulence as the car lifted further up and up. Then there was a huge amount of turbulence, which finally got the men's attention.
Now, out of the windows, we saw a submarine. It sat on the floor of the ocean. The captain (?) stood halfway out of the hatch. He wore a grey uniform. He was old, strong, with blue eyes, white hair, and a white mustache. He held a black book like a Bible in his hand.
We floated around the submarine, as if we were actually driving the car around underwater. I thought, We've finally been rescued! But then I thought this didn't make sense. I thought, How can the captain be standing out of the hatch underwater as if he were in open air? And how can we see everything as if there were spotlights all around us?
Sunday, January 27, 2013
(1/14/08) injured superhero; submarine library; frozen burrito; lingerie shortcut; domestication; dirty panties; dirty blanket
(Entered in paper journal at 6:07 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)
Dream #1
I was in a locker room. The scene might have been cartoony. A few people were in with me. There was some kind of narrator talking about a superhero who had been injured. The narrator said something like the hero had been hurt by a trick played on him while he was under the Green Lantern's tutelage.
The narrator then said something having to do with flying jets, like how if you go above nine thousand (???), you either need to prepare to land, prepare to hit fourteen thousand, or know that you're going to crash.
Dream #2
I stood outside, at the top of a hill at night. I may have been on a cobblestone walkway beside or near a building. Below me were openly spaced trees maybe a one-hundred-foot slope, then flat land which became a river to my left (?).
There was a weird, bluish light slightly glowing on the tops of the smaller vegetation. The light seemed to be coming from the left. I walked toward the left to see what was making the light.
Where the river began there was a small submarine, its top part barely sticking out of the water. A blue light glowed at its top. The beam of blue light was very strong directly in front of the submarine. In front of the submarine was a man only visible in silhouette.
There was some weird pipe coming out of the submarine. It seemed to hear people, possibly even their thoughts. Then it would call out mean things to those people, which was a sign you were in trouble. I hoped the pipe wouldn't say anything mean to me.
The blue light was now gone. I saw the submarine in dark shadow. The man seemed to be smoking a cigarette.
I was in a city area, walking down a slight hill to a library. A tallish, young, white man was barreling toward me from the other direction. I rushed toward the library: I felt like the man had wanted to beat me to the door. But after I reached the door, the man kept walking.
I walked down some steps and into the basement of the library. I was looking for a specific book, but I got sidetracked by a shelf full of books by "my favorite author." I was surprised. The library had so many of the author's obscure works, including one book in particular that I din't think anybody had.
The library also had a couple collections of the author's plays. I reflected that I hadn't ever really been a fan of the author's plays. He'd try to be funny in the plays. But the humor would just be kind of flat.
I reminded myself that I needed to focus on the specific book I'd come here for. But now, as I was putting all "my favorite author's" books away, I found a pile of magazines, like People magazine. They were all "special issues" with the weird theme of the top-25 (?) people you don't want to make fun of just because they're dead. A few of the celebrities were familiar to me.
One of the magazines began with Gilda Radner. The second interview about her was with Gene Wilder. For some reason the picture of the interviewee, though, was of a pretty, elegant, blonde woman wearing a black hat and net-like veil.
I thought, I already know what Gene Wilder thought of Gilda Radner. I flipped to the first article about Radner. The theme of this article was that you shouldn't make fun of Gilda Radner, because after she got pregnant she lost a lot of weight.
There were pictures "Radner's" back in successive shots after she'd had her baby.The shots were supposed to show how much weight she'd lost. But the only difference, to my eye, from photo to photo, was that the topless "Radner" wore different skirts.
Dream #3
I was in an SUV with my family. We drove through an area like the foothills on a bright morning. I sat in the front passenger seat. My mom drove. My sister sat somewhere in the back.
I had possibly been cut from my job. Maybe my whole department had been cut. But I still had a company laptop with me. Clients were still requesting market data from me. My mom and I were laughing about how people were still interested in Nielsen market data even when they didn't have jobs anymore.
We stopped at a gas station. My mom told us to pick up something for ourselves to eat. I didn't want anything sugary. I wanted something with protein in it.
The store was maybe three times the size of a normal gas station convenience store. I went to a freezer section. There were frozen burritos. I thought, I've always liked these, and they're cheap. I looked at the price. Seventy-one cents.
I was looking for a spicy beef burrito. But I couldn't find the right box. I began shoveling through all the boxes. I started throwing all sorts of frozen-food pouches on the floor. But I still couldn't find the right burrito.
But now I looked at what I'd thrown on the floor. I found a coupe bagel sandwiches. I thought I might like one of the sausage sandwiches. I thought, Well, that's really what I was looking for all along.
Dream #4
I was in a store in a basement with my mother and sister. A lot of sunlight came in through the window. The store sold lingerie. There were two rooms.
My sister was now gone. My mom was in the other room, talking with the man who ran the store, possibly about buying something for me. I looked at the stuff in the front room. I found a lot of stuff I liked. I wanted to try it on, but not in front of my mom or the man. I didn't want them to know about my lingerie fetish.
In some other area was a small hallway with a door at the end. Mexican workers would come in and out of the door. At one point they left the door open. I saw that beyond the door was a coin-op laundromat.
I thought, I could just come to the laundromat when my mom and the man aren't here. Then while I'm doing my laundry I can come in here and try stuff on. I can use this back door, so nobody will even know I've come in here. They'll all think I'm still in the laundromat!
I walked into the laundromat to make sure it was for the public. It now seemed like the place was a big grocery store. I walked around in the store for a while. But then I started flying around.
At some point I was laying down on the grey, concrete floor. I had blankets and maybe even something like baggage all around me. To my left were a line of people, a metal-detector gate, and an airport terminal sign listing airlines. I realized this area was an extreme shortcut to one of the New York City area airports.
I thought, I could just come here to get to the airport. It's so quick! At first I was pretty sure the shortcut was to the LaGuardia Airport. But now I looked closer at the sign. It said this was a shortcut to JFK Airport.
Dream #5
I was out walking in the woods on a sunny day. I was heading to the head of a trail that went up to the top of a smallish mountain and then along the crests of a range of mountains.
From the opposite end of the trail came a middle-aged man and his son and daughter (?). The man wore a red t-shirt and pale khaki shorts. The kids were probably blonde.
I could tell the man had sped up on seeing me to cut me off a the trailhead so he could slow me down going up the trail. But I hurried to get in front of the family. The area we had been on was a clearing, mostly grassy and shrubby. But once we turned onto the mountain trail, the area was densely covered with pine trees.
The dad was still trying to get ahead of me. But was walking too fast for him. He finally gave up and told his kids, "Let's turn around and head on back."
I was walking on the ridge of the mountain range. I was a worker at this national park or forest. It was night. There was a lot of snow on the ground. I was thinking about how I would describe my job to people.
I stopped and looked out at a point where the trail edged over the slope at a sharp point. A lot of the landscape below -- probably where the trail headed -- was visible.
When I looked back at my footprints in the snow I saw that for a while I had veered off the trail and down the slop a little way. I was back on the trail now, but I couldn't figure out how I had gotten off the trail in the first place.
I walked down to the footprints then continued backwards, back up to the trail, and then back to a gate-like set of rock walls through fell which a shaft of incandescent light.
I was about to walk back through this gate, as if I were now continuing backward. But when I turned right and into the gate, I started a white wolf. The wolf jumped up and trotted down a path that went straight down the slope from the gate. I noticed that the wolf had small patches of grey fur on its sides.
The wolf stopped trotting away at a certain distance. It turned to look at me. There was no incandescent light. The light was now just moonlight.
I was about to start walking forward instead of backward. But now saw another white wolf, this one standing and facing me on the trail, except straight and past the gate. It trotted after me a little quickly. I was afraid. But I soon figured there was no reason to be afraid. If the wolf attacked me, there was nothing I could do about it. Now the other wolf came after me, too.
I was moving backward along the trail, along a rock face, as quickly as I could to get some distance between me and the wolves but also to continue facing them. But they overtook me pretty quickly. They started nuzzling me and licking me like domestic dogs would. They seemed happy more than anything else.
I was now probably in an apartment living room or kitchen. I could look out the window and see the snow-covered mountain range in the moonlight.
The wolves, now more like dogs, ran around a kitchen table and toward me. Then they continued licking me and playing with me. The more the dogs licked me and played with me, the more they lost their whiteness and the more they turned into domestic dogs. This upset me, as if I were watching a disease in them progress.
Dream #6
My psychiatrist A was in "my apartment." She was having a session with me. But she was actually or also redecorating my house. As A went to my closet she got a call on her cell phone. She had the closet door open. She was distractedly flipping through some things (books, clothes, etc.) as she spoke on the phone.
I hoped A wouldn't notice the dirty panties in my closet. I wanted even to tell A not to file around in there.
A spoke to some man about getting some stuff for my place. In particular she mentioned some kind of wallpaper. I imagined my walls having a weird wallpaper on them. The wallpaper seemed to be flecked with gem crystals: long, thin, pale blue crystals. I was touched by such a kind through from A.
I lay on "my bed." A was off the phone. She sat in a folding chair and was arranging a wall-wide, single-shelf bookshelf. As A did this she might have been talking to me distractedly about how we needed to deal with the dirty panties in my closet. They just didn't fit in with the rest of the design.
I got a call on my cell phone. It was possibly my brother. We were probably making some kind of arrangement for seeing each other.
Dream #7
I was in a big, dark, indoor area. There were a lot of people around. But there was one group of people in particular focused on me. The people in the group seemed to be Latino. There were maybe ten people in the group. Most of the people in the group were women. In particular there were three really pretty girls.
I had been sleeping under a blanket that may have been thirty feet long. The group of people were helping me fold the blanket. I was trying not to let them help me fold up my blanket. I knew there were semen stains all over the blanket and that the blanket smelled like urine and sweat. I didn't want to let the people know that I was the kind of person who would get a blanket all dirty like that and not do anything about it.
But I couldn't stop the people from folding the blanket. I had to resign myself to the fact that they'd see how dirty my blanket was.
The blanket was now folded. The women were kind of giggling to one another about the stains on my blanket. But they didn't seem to care too much. They might have made a statement about needed to get me a new blanket.
Dream #1
I was in a locker room. The scene might have been cartoony. A few people were in with me. There was some kind of narrator talking about a superhero who had been injured. The narrator said something like the hero had been hurt by a trick played on him while he was under the Green Lantern's tutelage.
The narrator then said something having to do with flying jets, like how if you go above nine thousand (???), you either need to prepare to land, prepare to hit fourteen thousand, or know that you're going to crash.
Dream #2
I stood outside, at the top of a hill at night. I may have been on a cobblestone walkway beside or near a building. Below me were openly spaced trees maybe a one-hundred-foot slope, then flat land which became a river to my left (?).
There was a weird, bluish light slightly glowing on the tops of the smaller vegetation. The light seemed to be coming from the left. I walked toward the left to see what was making the light.
Where the river began there was a small submarine, its top part barely sticking out of the water. A blue light glowed at its top. The beam of blue light was very strong directly in front of the submarine. In front of the submarine was a man only visible in silhouette.
There was some weird pipe coming out of the submarine. It seemed to hear people, possibly even their thoughts. Then it would call out mean things to those people, which was a sign you were in trouble. I hoped the pipe wouldn't say anything mean to me.
The blue light was now gone. I saw the submarine in dark shadow. The man seemed to be smoking a cigarette.
I was in a city area, walking down a slight hill to a library. A tallish, young, white man was barreling toward me from the other direction. I rushed toward the library: I felt like the man had wanted to beat me to the door. But after I reached the door, the man kept walking.
I walked down some steps and into the basement of the library. I was looking for a specific book, but I got sidetracked by a shelf full of books by "my favorite author." I was surprised. The library had so many of the author's obscure works, including one book in particular that I din't think anybody had.
The library also had a couple collections of the author's plays. I reflected that I hadn't ever really been a fan of the author's plays. He'd try to be funny in the plays. But the humor would just be kind of flat.
I reminded myself that I needed to focus on the specific book I'd come here for. But now, as I was putting all "my favorite author's" books away, I found a pile of magazines, like People magazine. They were all "special issues" with the weird theme of the top-25 (?) people you don't want to make fun of just because they're dead. A few of the celebrities were familiar to me.
One of the magazines began with Gilda Radner. The second interview about her was with Gene Wilder. For some reason the picture of the interviewee, though, was of a pretty, elegant, blonde woman wearing a black hat and net-like veil.
I thought, I already know what Gene Wilder thought of Gilda Radner. I flipped to the first article about Radner. The theme of this article was that you shouldn't make fun of Gilda Radner, because after she got pregnant she lost a lot of weight.
There were pictures "Radner's" back in successive shots after she'd had her baby.The shots were supposed to show how much weight she'd lost. But the only difference, to my eye, from photo to photo, was that the topless "Radner" wore different skirts.
Dream #3
I was in an SUV with my family. We drove through an area like the foothills on a bright morning. I sat in the front passenger seat. My mom drove. My sister sat somewhere in the back.
I had possibly been cut from my job. Maybe my whole department had been cut. But I still had a company laptop with me. Clients were still requesting market data from me. My mom and I were laughing about how people were still interested in Nielsen market data even when they didn't have jobs anymore.
We stopped at a gas station. My mom told us to pick up something for ourselves to eat. I didn't want anything sugary. I wanted something with protein in it.
The store was maybe three times the size of a normal gas station convenience store. I went to a freezer section. There were frozen burritos. I thought, I've always liked these, and they're cheap. I looked at the price. Seventy-one cents.
I was looking for a spicy beef burrito. But I couldn't find the right box. I began shoveling through all the boxes. I started throwing all sorts of frozen-food pouches on the floor. But I still couldn't find the right burrito.
But now I looked at what I'd thrown on the floor. I found a coupe bagel sandwiches. I thought I might like one of the sausage sandwiches. I thought, Well, that's really what I was looking for all along.
Dream #4
I was in a store in a basement with my mother and sister. A lot of sunlight came in through the window. The store sold lingerie. There were two rooms.
My sister was now gone. My mom was in the other room, talking with the man who ran the store, possibly about buying something for me. I looked at the stuff in the front room. I found a lot of stuff I liked. I wanted to try it on, but not in front of my mom or the man. I didn't want them to know about my lingerie fetish.
In some other area was a small hallway with a door at the end. Mexican workers would come in and out of the door. At one point they left the door open. I saw that beyond the door was a coin-op laundromat.
I thought, I could just come to the laundromat when my mom and the man aren't here. Then while I'm doing my laundry I can come in here and try stuff on. I can use this back door, so nobody will even know I've come in here. They'll all think I'm still in the laundromat!
I walked into the laundromat to make sure it was for the public. It now seemed like the place was a big grocery store. I walked around in the store for a while. But then I started flying around.
At some point I was laying down on the grey, concrete floor. I had blankets and maybe even something like baggage all around me. To my left were a line of people, a metal-detector gate, and an airport terminal sign listing airlines. I realized this area was an extreme shortcut to one of the New York City area airports.
I thought, I could just come here to get to the airport. It's so quick! At first I was pretty sure the shortcut was to the LaGuardia Airport. But now I looked closer at the sign. It said this was a shortcut to JFK Airport.
Dream #5
I was out walking in the woods on a sunny day. I was heading to the head of a trail that went up to the top of a smallish mountain and then along the crests of a range of mountains.
From the opposite end of the trail came a middle-aged man and his son and daughter (?). The man wore a red t-shirt and pale khaki shorts. The kids were probably blonde.
I could tell the man had sped up on seeing me to cut me off a the trailhead so he could slow me down going up the trail. But I hurried to get in front of the family. The area we had been on was a clearing, mostly grassy and shrubby. But once we turned onto the mountain trail, the area was densely covered with pine trees.
The dad was still trying to get ahead of me. But was walking too fast for him. He finally gave up and told his kids, "Let's turn around and head on back."
I was walking on the ridge of the mountain range. I was a worker at this national park or forest. It was night. There was a lot of snow on the ground. I was thinking about how I would describe my job to people.
I stopped and looked out at a point where the trail edged over the slope at a sharp point. A lot of the landscape below -- probably where the trail headed -- was visible.
When I looked back at my footprints in the snow I saw that for a while I had veered off the trail and down the slop a little way. I was back on the trail now, but I couldn't figure out how I had gotten off the trail in the first place.
I walked down to the footprints then continued backwards, back up to the trail, and then back to a gate-like set of rock walls through fell which a shaft of incandescent light.
I was about to walk back through this gate, as if I were now continuing backward. But when I turned right and into the gate, I started a white wolf. The wolf jumped up and trotted down a path that went straight down the slope from the gate. I noticed that the wolf had small patches of grey fur on its sides.
The wolf stopped trotting away at a certain distance. It turned to look at me. There was no incandescent light. The light was now just moonlight.
I was about to start walking forward instead of backward. But now saw another white wolf, this one standing and facing me on the trail, except straight and past the gate. It trotted after me a little quickly. I was afraid. But I soon figured there was no reason to be afraid. If the wolf attacked me, there was nothing I could do about it. Now the other wolf came after me, too.
I was moving backward along the trail, along a rock face, as quickly as I could to get some distance between me and the wolves but also to continue facing them. But they overtook me pretty quickly. They started nuzzling me and licking me like domestic dogs would. They seemed happy more than anything else.
I was now probably in an apartment living room or kitchen. I could look out the window and see the snow-covered mountain range in the moonlight.
The wolves, now more like dogs, ran around a kitchen table and toward me. Then they continued licking me and playing with me. The more the dogs licked me and played with me, the more they lost their whiteness and the more they turned into domestic dogs. This upset me, as if I were watching a disease in them progress.
Dream #6
My psychiatrist A was in "my apartment." She was having a session with me. But she was actually or also redecorating my house. As A went to my closet she got a call on her cell phone. She had the closet door open. She was distractedly flipping through some things (books, clothes, etc.) as she spoke on the phone.
I hoped A wouldn't notice the dirty panties in my closet. I wanted even to tell A not to file around in there.
A spoke to some man about getting some stuff for my place. In particular she mentioned some kind of wallpaper. I imagined my walls having a weird wallpaper on them. The wallpaper seemed to be flecked with gem crystals: long, thin, pale blue crystals. I was touched by such a kind through from A.
I lay on "my bed." A was off the phone. She sat in a folding chair and was arranging a wall-wide, single-shelf bookshelf. As A did this she might have been talking to me distractedly about how we needed to deal with the dirty panties in my closet. They just didn't fit in with the rest of the design.
I got a call on my cell phone. It was possibly my brother. We were probably making some kind of arrangement for seeing each other.
Dream #7
I was in a big, dark, indoor area. There were a lot of people around. But there was one group of people in particular focused on me. The people in the group seemed to be Latino. There were maybe ten people in the group. Most of the people in the group were women. In particular there were three really pretty girls.
I had been sleeping under a blanket that may have been thirty feet long. The group of people were helping me fold the blanket. I was trying not to let them help me fold up my blanket. I knew there were semen stains all over the blanket and that the blanket smelled like urine and sweat. I didn't want to let the people know that I was the kind of person who would get a blanket all dirty like that and not do anything about it.
But I couldn't stop the people from folding the blanket. I had to resign myself to the fact that they'd see how dirty my blanket was.
The blanket was now folded. The women were kind of giggling to one another about the stains on my blanket. But they didn't seem to care too much. They might have made a statement about needed to get me a new blanket.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
(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.
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.
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