(9/23/08) long wait for a train; the fancy restaurant

(Entered in paper journal at 6:15 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I was on a subway platform that may have been much larger than usual. There were a lot of people walking around. Behind me the platform may have gone up to a larger waiting area. There was a feeling that something was wrong with the timing of the trains. The power might have been out, we all thought.

I saw a group of kids take some stairs down a ways off to my right. I decided to follow them, thinking they knew of some other train where the power wasn't out. And, after all, I really wasn't sure where I was going. Maybe they knew the right way.

I walked down the steps. At the end of the steps was a tunnel. The tunnel led straight into darkness. I thought, Perhaps there's a light at the end. It still seemed plausible that the kids knew where they were going better than I did.

There was a woman behind me. She had followed me, thinking I knew where I was going. I stood before the darkness. The kids called to me from somewhere within the darkness. As they did, they also chuckled to one another. I knew now that the kids had drawn me into the darkness in order to get me alone and hurt me. I might still have gone on, but now I thought of the woman behind me. I didn't want to mislead her and get her hurt, too.

So I went back up the steps to wait for the train. At this point I don't think the woman was with me anymore. I stood at the end of the platform which would have been for the last car on the train. There were a lot of people standing all around me. They all looked like middle-aged business people.

A train pulled into the station. But I saw that it was a D-train. It was an express. But this was a local stop. So the train wouldn't stop here. It was a huge inconvenience, I thoughtl, to have waited all this time for a train, and to have this one just pass us by.

The train seemed to be on tracks two or three feet above the level of the platform. I looked up into the windows as the train passed by. I might have seen a lot of middle-aged business people.

Dream #2

I walked into a restaurant to sit down and do some writing. The restaurant was actually a "fancy" one -- although another memory also comes through: as if at first I had walked into a grimy cafe at night, and as if all the electricity in the place were out except behind the counter, where one waiter may have stood. After this, the cafe may have changed into the "fancy" restaurant.

But even though the restaurant was "fancy," it looked more like a cheapish set of living rooms strung together. The "sunlight" coming into the place seemed like light from a TV studio set. There was a kind of scuzzy-looking family sitting by the front door. In spite of all this, I still thought the restaurant was fancy.

I was afraid to sit down for a long time to study. I didn't know if such a thing was proper in such a fancy restaurant as this. Nevertheless I went to find a seat. I went into a room where the chairs and tables were cluttered all over the place. There might also have been paper strewn on the floors.

I sat at a table against a wall or waist-high room divider that was topped with lattice. The light seemed to fade out behind me. There was a waiter who wandered about through all the rooms.

(4/6/09) room 430; lost luggage; asking for a book

(Entered in paper journal at 8:10 AM at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was outside a large apartment complex. I had been sent out to get something for my mother. I was now trying to get back to the apartment as soon as possible. I ran to a glass door (like a hall-end entrance door at a hotel) and hit a buzzer button, probably buzzing my mom's apartment. My mom buzzed the door open.

I knew the room I was looking for was number 430. But I was in a hallway with rooms numbered in the 200s. The rooms all had their numbers engraved on large, oval, gold or brass plaques on the doors. I ran down this hallway to get to the hallway numbered in the 400s. I ran through the 300s hallway.

I thought I'd wasted time by coming in through the 200s hallway. I also wondered why my mother had let me into the 200s hallway instead of telling me to go to the correct hallway.

I now ran into a large atrium or lobby-like area. A few different hallways converged here. There were some little garden- or fountain-triangles set into raised brick-structures. The ceiling was glass, and gentle daylight flowed through. Some apartments stood within this area. I could see room 430 just beyond and between two garden triangles.

I saw my co-worker BT walk away from the apartment, as if he'd possibly just left the room. I didn't say anything to him -- I was too hurried. I approached the door.

Dream #2

I stood on a two-sided subway platform. I may have had a lot of baggage with me. A train pulled in on the other side of the platform. I suddenly realized this was the train I was supposed to catch. I ran across to catch the train. But I realized I had left all my baggage on the other side.

I was trapped in the train door, half turned out of it. The train doors opened. I ran to where my baggage had been. It wasn't there. I thought of it. It was now like another train had come on this side, and like my baggage had somehow gotten on that train.

I thought, Now I have nothing. There's no way I'll get all that stuff back. People have probably stolen it by now. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I now had nothing. I looked at my BlackBerry to try and figure something out.

A group of subway workers, black men and women, were joking about me, how stupid and lost I looked now that I had nothing, and how stupid I was for thinking that I'd get anything back. But they might also have been saying that if I looked serious or honest or skillful enough, they might help me. They may even have had my baggage, so that they would give me a piece back as I successively (not successfully) proved my identity.

I looked in my book bag to see if there was some way I could either get started back up in life without all my missing baggage or else prove my identity to the subway workers.

But now I thought, Wait -- I have my BlackBerry. I have my book bag. I have access to my money. I hae my identification. Everything else is just extra stuff I don't need. Why was I thinking I had nothing?

Dream #3

I was in an office space. I walked into an office, behind which my old co-worker IA stood. His desk was cluttered. Before the desk stood a woman who looked like my old boss JT, except that she looked thinner and had blonde streaks in her hair. IA was trying to impress JT professionally (he would have had no need to do so in waking life, JT being a supervisor over people other than IA) by showing her how organized he was.

I had come in to get a set of books like a mix between the FINRA Series 86 course material and some kind of large numbers-book like a book full of market data. I had done this, partly, to help IA n a project in a very important way. When IA handed me the book he was quick and curt, but also polite.

I walked out of the office, back into the larger office space, which was like a bunch of tall filing cabinets and short, wide work spaces that could be used for things like stapling documents together.

As soon as I left the office, I could hear IA talking bad about me to JT. IA said something like, "See the silly kinds of demands he makes? What kind of a person needs a book?"

I now realized either that I was finished with this book already or else that this wasn't the correct book. I knew I'd have to take the book back to IA right away so I could start getting the work done as soon as possible. But I was also afraid to go back into the office. I didn't want to give IA another reason to talk bad about me behind my back.