(2/1/09) who'll get fired?; the shooting game; a new religion

(Entered in paper journal at 8:22 AM at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I walked through an office hallway. The hallway was narrow, with harsh, white, fluorescent light, grey carpet, and greyish walls. It was like a maze, or it was like this hallway would break off into other maze-like hallways.

I came to a small room, like a pantry, to my right. The head of my department, MR, stood before a tight circle of people, mostly low-level workers like me. He was talking about planning something out, like who would still be working here. He asked the people around him not to say anything.

I was now in a big, warm swimming pool in a room with warm, tan tiling on the walls and floor. The water in the pool was clear and green with depth. I swam before a weird "computer," like an old television with wires connecting in tangles to a rough set of units below it.

My old boss BS swam somewhere behind me and to my left. He said, "Well, I wonder who it's going to be who stays. Well, anyway, it's gonna happen soon." BS stepped out of the pool and told me he'd see me later.

Dream #2

I was in a big room like a mix between a studio and an inner courtyard. The room probably had black walls and columns, like a small theater, and probably had a big window showing blue sky out front. There were a few people with me.

One person and I were having something like a gunfight. We were both climbing up and down aluminum ladders, possibly trying to get up to a balcony level. The man shot me in my ribs, on my left side. The shot was like a puff of air. I don't think the shot hurt, but it made me flinch and it scared me somehow. I was disappointed in myself for having been so weak.

The scene replayed, or else the man and I, as if we were rehearsing, started our actions over again. The man was long-haired, possibly Asian. He was explaining to me how this whole thing worked. He showed me that we shot little, neon-green pellets out of our guns. The pellets were soft, like Styrofoam. They didn't hurt at all. They were really fast, but their impact was like it had no speed.

The man shot me again in the ribs, and I flinched again and got scared.

Dream #3

I was with either my old friend R or my brother. We were in a gigantic structure which may itself have been an entire city, an ancient city. The structure was all made out of huge, tan blocks of stone, and warm, soft light flowed into the structure, possibly from windows high up on the walls.

I had gone out of one room and into another. I had been speaking with R/my brother, and was now considering whether to change my religion. The room I was in now may actually have been like a library with grey stone walls. There may have been a long, maroon, velvety banner hanging down from a narrow wall, like one would expect to see draping down behind a throne. I tried to consider the differences in the religions I was deciding between.

I went back into the tan room. All along the walls were doorways to different churches. It was now like I was flying past, and just over, all the doorways, focusing in particular on three doorways. One was to a Catholic church. There may have been a statue of a church official before the door and to the left. I thought there was something I did like about this church, like the monks, but that the overall view of this church didn't match mine.

The next doorway I focused on was something like a Lutheran church, but with some kind of new-age ideology combined with it. I thought this was my church. I felt some kind of familiarity with it, and thought this must have been where I should go. But then I realized there was  a lot of stuff in this church's ideology that I didn't feel comfortable with intellectually, and that I felt might actually make me soft or unhealthy. Before this doorway, to the left, was a sculpture, maybe five or six feet tall, of a palm branch.

These first two doorways had been along the left wall of the building, both toward the middle of the wall. The next doorway I focused on was on the right wall, near the top corner, and off to the right of it may actually have been an altar. This doorway was for the Lutheran church. I may have headed directly for this doorway after the previous doorway, as if I needed to convince myself that this doorway actually existed, that the stable church I was looking for was real, not just existing in admixture with things I didn't believe.

I may have been standing on the ground now, not flying. The room itself may also actually have been a sanctuary, with dim lighting, dark walls, and purple carpeting. But the stone doorway to the church still stood in the wall.

(1/2/10) for and against the ocean

(Entered into paper journal at 8:30 AM at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was in a car with my family. We had gotten finished with something -- possibly some kind of trip into the mountains. We were now driving back home. It was a sunny, cloudless day. We may have been driving along a field of tall, green grass and little flowers. I probably sat in the backseat, on the passenger side.

I thought to myself that I would like to take a walk after we got home. I didn't feel like I'd gotten enough exercise for the day.

But now we were driving alongside a cliff. I looked over the cliff. The ocean and a beach were down at the bottom. The beach may have been ten or twenty meters below. I thought the water was beautiful: a dark, lapis lazuli color, with thin waves lacing with foam at the gentle crests. I thought it would be terrrific to go for as swim. As we drove on, the cliff got taller and taller, so that the beach eventually seemed to be one or two hundred meters below.

I thought to myself that perhaps I shouldn't swim in the ocean, either because the ocean was too cold or because the water was contaminated somehow. I thought there must be something wrong with the water, since it didn't look like there were any people in it. But then I did start to see a few people here and there, wading in the water. I thought it might be nice, after all, to go swimming in the ocean.

I wondered how far I could swim out without being in danger of shark attacks. I could see, in my mind's eye, a band of ground under the ocean which sloped gently down and then sharply down after a short distance. I was pretty sure that staying in that band would keep me safe.

I thought that I possibly shouldn't go to the ocean, anyhow. I still had to go for a walk, to get some good exercise. If I went to the ocean, I'd have to get good exercise there, to justify my being there. But I had a feeling I wouldn't get good exercise there: I'd probably just wade around and play in the water. But I still thought I would go into the ocean anyway. It seemed too beautiful to pass up.

But then I thought that once I got back from the ocean I'd have to wash my shorts. I imagined my knee-length khaki shorts. I thought, Well, they'd just be wet once I got back. I could just throw them into the dryer. But for some reason I thought the salt from the ocean water would catch fire in the dryer. I'd have to wash my shorts before putting them in the dryer, to get the salt out. This seemed terribly inconvenient, and a good reason for not going into the ocean.

(2/9/10) flying to the intrepid; long, diseased lives

(Entered in paper journal at 6:20 AM, on B-train to work from Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I walked down through a park like Madison Square Park. It was a sunny day. I saw two gardeners working on a ground-level flower bed at the south side of the park. One was a man; the other, a woman. The man stood while he worked on the flowers. The woman lay on her left side, possibly digging in the soil. The soil was dark and rich.

The man told me, "She's here, KB (an old friend of mine) is here." I now saw that the woman working the flower bed was KB. I may have bent over her to wave hello. She sat up and greeted me. We started talking. I had told her at some point that I was going to go to the Intrepid Museum. We walked away from the flower bed and now faced a wide river.

It may have been like I had now come back from the museum. KB spoke as if I had invited her to come with me, though she had declined. She now said she was sorry she hadn't come, since she'd always wanted to go there. I may have said it had been fun. But I didn't want to talk about it too much -- I felt like I was starting to sound obsessed.

As I spoke, I watched the river, which seemed to be moderately active. I now saw the Intrepid, which was partly like an aircraft carrier and partly like a gigantic pier. I pointed it out excitedly to KB, even though I was again afraid that my being so excited would make me sound obsessed, or like a know-it-all (against which KB would react by saying a lot of things she knew).

But KB said, "Oh! How great!" in almost a motherly tone of approval. I pointed out one jet, which looked a little like a Falcon jet. I pointed out how the plane was propped up on a ramp that seemed to lean against the control tower.

I said, "That jet hadn't been that way before." But then I thought about it and said, "Well, maybe it had." KB seemed interested in my statements.

We were now moving across the river, as if we were floating in the river up to our chests, but moving as quickly as if we were flying over the river. We saw the SR-71 Blackbird, which was enormously long, and which I also didn't quite feel was in the right place.

We now stood on a walkway of wooden planks and metal just a couple of feet above the surface of the water. The sides of the aircraft carrier towered (straight up, not curved over) over us. There was some series of metal walkways over us as well. We were alone.

At some point KB may have put her arms around the underside of the nose of an older plane, clapping her hands against the surface for a moment. We spoke a little more. Then KB told me, "I'm broke." She said this as if she were also a little bit panicked about her future.

I said, "Do you need money? If you need money, we can go get you some right now. I'll lend it to you, no problem." KB looked at me with a stunned expression, her pale eyes blank. KB was unable to say anything. Finally she accepted.

Dream #2

I was in a small living room which was dim, with only natural light flowing into it from behind thick curtains. The room was narrow and slightly long. I sat on a couch on the right side of one end of the room. My mom and my aunt B sat on either a couch or chairs on the left side and other end of the room.

My aunt spoke with my mom and me about how people live to a certain age even with certain diseases or health problems. My aunt said something to the effect that my great grandmother lived with her disease until she was 80 years old -- and that was an old age to live to with that specific disease.

(3/9/10) boss is a glass dyer; i don't want to love a man

(Entered 3/9/10, 6:15 AM, on the B-train into work from Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was in an office with my old boss BS. The office was kind of spacious and it had a wide window wall, possily looking out over a city from a high floor. The office was moderately, not overly, cluttered.

BS told me he had to make some extra money to supplement his work pay now that times were tough. He handed me a stack of business cards. The cards were all about half the height of normal business cards, so that they looked more like strips than cards. Each card was a different kind of crafty or odd-jobby kind of profession. The top card, however, struck me most. It said, "GLASS DYER." I was astounded that BS knew how to dye glass!

BS was now walking out of his office. He said, "Well, anyway, it helps me make money, and it's something I like to do." I called after BS, telling him I thought it was incredible he knew how to dye glass. I wanted to know more about it. I felt like he had somehow thought I was being condescending about the whole thing, which I wasn't.

Dream #2

I lay on a stone walkway in the garden of some Mediterranean-style villa. I lay right by a gate which jutted out from the wall of the house. The gate had a grey, stone column. The column seemed to divide the area on the other side of the gate into two walkways.

I thought to myself something about how I wished I could find love. And now, at the end of the left walkway, a tallish, lean, muscular man with tanned skin and black hair came turning around a curve from the right. He wore only knee-length shorts. He was wet, as if he had been out swimming.

I thought that since I had seen the man so soon after having thought how I needed love, that the man was the one I was supposed to be with. I was upset. I thought, I'm not gay; I don't want to be with a man. Then I thought, Besides, this guy's a real jerk, too.

Now a whole group of people came walking up the right hallway. The man had crossed before me and headed into a doorway into the house, to my right. Now the other people were doing the same thing. They had all come from swimming. Apparently I was one of their group. But I hadn't gone swimming: I hadn't felt up to it.

Now, looking at all the people, I thought, Maybe I could be with one of the girls in this group. But, I (possibly) thought, I couldn't really feel attraction to any of them.