(2/28/09) bar house; equations and jet flight; the fairy's burden; team change

(Entered in dream journal at 8:40 AM at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was at a bar, which also looked like a living room in a small townhouse or apartment. I actually started up in a bedroom upstairs from "the bar." I could hear my co-worker BK arguing downstairs. I stopped whatever I'd been doing (probably sitting on the floor doing something like a puzzle or board game) and walked a few steps down the stairway.

I saw BK at the end of a line, arguing with some people who were maybe halfway up the line. The people were maybe three black men in black jeans and black, puffy jackets with their hoods pulled up.

The floor was split into two rooms, something like a living room and a dining room. The living room was before me. The dining room was to my right. There might have been a third room to my left, beyond the view of the stairs. The line snaked through the living room and dining room. The living room and dining room were offset from each other, i.e. not having their walls in a straight line with each other. There might have been a stairwell going down to a basement level. The light of the whole place was a pink rosy-white.

I knew BK was getting himself in trouble, so I went downstairs and tried to console him and calm him down. he was a lot smaller than in waking life (I may even have noticed this in the dream). Whereas he's usually a couple inches taller than I and probably fifty pounds heavier, now he maybe came up to my chin and had a roundish, but tiny, frame.

(I also keep on feeling that throughout this whole sequence, from the beginning up to this point, I may have been a pretty girl, skinny, with tan skin and long, slightly ring-curly, black hair.)

I may have told BK that he was drunk and he needed to go upstairs to rest. I may have managed to get BK going up the stairs.

Now I was upstairs. (I was myself now.) BK wasn't a part of things anymore, apparently. (I don't quite get the space of the dream here.) I sat on a couch somewhere, as if I were in a small hallway-type area that may possibly have been overlooking the room below. There were three bedrooms, one on each side of me and one before me and down a short hallway. All the rooms were dark.

I had a light in the room where I sat. I may have seen myself as if from a point outside my body. (I actually can't say whether I was myself or a woman.)

A pretty, Hispanic girl with coppery skin, blondish hair, and a thickish but smooth and sexy body, wearing a short, blue party dress (sprinkled with tiny rhinestones or mirror-like beads?) walked up the stairs. She said she was too drunk to party anymore, and she wondered if she could sleep here tonight. I said of course.

I thought I'd guide the woman to my room, but she said she wanted to sleep in my brother's room. I saw the woman get into my brother's bed and lay close to the wall, the right side of the bed, as if she were snuggling with the wall. The bed had its mattress high up, propped maybe two and a half or three feet high, on red, metallic (?) bedposts.

I walked into my room. I may have turned on the light. I may have heard my brother downstairs. I was a little jealous that the woman had wanted to sleep with my brother instead of me. But I thought it would only be right for me to let my brother know the woman was waiting in bed for him. So I went downstairs (possibly as my brother was coming upstairs) to let my brother know.

Dream #2

I found a box or shelf full of DVDs that looked really interesting. I brought some into a dark room, like a bedroom that had been made into a film viewing room. The DVD I put in projected onto the wall with the same crisp, but used, quality of an old 16mm film.

The beginning image was a table, like a table of contents, with black background and white lettering. The table looked like something out of a 1970s (or earlier) government tet. It was actually manipulable, like the tables of contents on a DVD.

The top of the screen had a strange warning, about how this was an educational film relating either to the air force or to piloting jets. I knew this meant two things: first, that there was a lot of stuff the average viewer would find tedious or useless (this was strongly implied by the wording of the warning); and second, that there would probably be real scenes of people who had been injured or killed in jet accidents, crashes, shootings, etc. (this is something I thought by myself, by deduction, from what "I knew" about "films like this.").

I had second thoughts about the film, and I thought I'd just surf to the spots I wanted to see: the parts having to do with the functioning and flight of high-altitude jets and rockets.

But the "DVD" started automatically. It began with a narration of what was apparently a history of fighter jets. But the imagery was all of people, alone and together, scribbling out equations on paper, at desks in small rooms like laboratories, bigger rooms like classrooms, and even at chalkboards in large rooms like lecture halls.

The imagery was all "live" -- i.e. it showed the actual scientists in the moment of creation; it wasn't a dramatization. But it also wasn't a history. I realized this as soon as I started paying attention to what was being written. It was a lesson. All the scenes were linking together various pieces of an equation or set of equations relating to propulsion or trajectory.

I was fascinated; nevertheless, I kept waiting for a sudden intrusion of images of people who had been killed while flying jets. Now there were images (almost as if superimposed on the pages with equations) of rockets like the X-15 ascending steeply into the air. There may even have been footage of an SR-71 doing the same thing.

Now (possibly as a second dream?) I was in a room like a workshop (?) with my old friend R's wife L. L was telling me about an air and space museum that she thought I'd be interested in.

In particular there was a ride or simulation where you stood on something like a yellow mat (hexagon shaped?) and were lifted into the air, possibly by means of something like a sphere-like object, like the EPCOT Center sphere, which may have expanded in order to make the yellow mat rise. This ride or simulation (the whole experience may just have been part of a small virtual reality machine) was made to demonstrate the speed and angle at which the X-15 would accelerate on its missions.

I got giddy and afraid even thinking about something like this ride. I knew I probably couldn't do a ride like that. But I thought I'd have to make myself do it. After all, how could I fantasize all the time about these flights and then chicken out when I finally had the chance to experience something like them? And beyond that, if L and R had done it without my having done it, they'd always gloat about it and hold the fact over my head.

I thought I'd have to go to this museum. L told me the museum was in Dixie, which I assumed (almost envisioned in writing) meant Dixie, Kentucky (or "Dixie, KY").

Dream #3

I was in a field like an orchard or a nice valley in a park. It was a nice, sunny day. There were a few people around, all friends, relaxing.

My old friend R's wife L and I were flying about in the air, about ten feet up, or even higher, under or within the canopy of a wide tree (like an elm?). L carried me on her lap. I realized at some point in the dream that something else was carrying L, something like a fairy (like a human-sized version of the fairy in an episode on disc 7 of the Urusei Yatsura anime series DVDs).

L and I perched on one of the lower limbs of the tree, near the trunk of the tree. The sunlight through the canopy was silvery all around us. L and I may have moved apart from each other. There were a few people below the canopy, relaxedly playing some game like tag, but also slightly paying attention to me and L.

I thought I'd like to go even higher up the tree, maybe even higher than the tree. But I didn't want to fly without L wanting to -- I didn't want her to start claiming that I was a burden to her. But then I thought, Isn't it the (fairy?) that helps us fly? L doesn't even feel my weight on her lap, let alone the effort that would be required in making us fly.

I thought I would ask the fairy either to help me and L or just me fly even higher. But now I saw that the fairy (which was really invisible, or else so crystal clear that seeing her was nearly impossible) was a few levels of limbs below me and L, as if L and I were no longer on the lower limbs of the tree. I thought I would be making too much of a burden out of myself if I called the fairy from all the way down there (about ten feet below me?). So I decided not to ask after all.

Dream #4

I was in a meeting with somebody. We were in an office lit with whitish, fluorescent light. The room was small, and it was just the other person and I, but the room felt very busy.

The meeting ended. I walked out into a small office which ended with a little area like a snack bar. This area also seemed to be busy, but there didn't seem to be anybody around. Very hurried, I asked for something from the person behind the counter.

While the person was getting my order, my co-worker BT came up from behind me. He stood to my left and slapped his arm around my shoulders. He said, "Hey, boss, did I see you coming in here to have a meeting with somebody at 5 AM today?" I said yes. BT said, "We need to have a talk a little bit later on. Alright? Seriously. Stop by."

I laughed a little bit -- I was pleasantly shocked that I'd been recognized for actually coming into work early. But my laugh, instead of sounding pleasantly surprised, sounded almost condesending, as if I were trying to say, "Why would I need to talk to you?"

I understood that both BT and I had either gotten fired from here or else that were were going to get fired. BT wanted me on his team at whatever company he'd be working at next because he realized how hard I worked.

BT had gotten whatever he'd ordered, but either he didn't pay the cost of his meal, one dollar, or else he only paid one dollar for his meal when it actually cost five dollars. He walked away. I now paid for my order. The order cost one dollar. I gave five dollars. The cashier didn't give me my change and moved onto the next person in line.

I thought that a change machine in front of me (which looked like either a black, metal change-making machine -- like in laundromats -- or a clear, glass tip jar half-full of bills and change) was supposed to scroll out my four dollars in change. I waited, but the machine didn't give me my change. I was about to ask the cashier to give me my change.

But now BT came back up. He gave the cashier the money he hadn't given before. He then turned to me and looked me in the face. He said, "Hey, about what I said, I'm serious, okay?"

I knew BT had taken my laugh as if he'd thought I was laughing him off. I tried to be as serious as I could. I told BT, "Yes. I will definitely come talk to you."

For some reason, however, I may have felt like it was now already late in the afternoon. BT must have thought I'd blown him off by not coming to see him for the whole day. (Also, BT may have been shorter than he is in waking life. In waking life he towers over me by a head. But in the dream he was looking at me eye to eye.)

(5/27/09) a surprising reflection; science fiction romance; tragic urusei yatsura; remembering dream

(Entered in paper journal at 8:45 AM at Starbucks at 29th Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I stood in a room that had dark, wood walls and was lit with dim, incandescent light. I stood before a mirror and saw "reflected" a thin, wiry, Asian looking man, possibly wearing a tan-brown, vest-like robe. The man looked almost serene, but extremely mean. I gasped when I saw that this was actually my own reflection. But it wasn't quite my reflection, as I was I, and my reflection was this man.

When I gasped, my reflection said, "What? Why are you so surprised? Didn't you call for me?"

Dream #2

I was in a living room with a few other people. The living room was wide, pale, sparsely furnished, and cheap-feeling.

My old friend R was somewhere. He had annoyed me in some way. Now he was sitting, self-satisfied, in a chair across the room. There was a plain table a few feet away from the chair. R may have fallen asleep in the chair. He may have been holding a science fiction novel on his lap. I thought I would do something mean to R while he was asleep to pay him back for how he had annoyed me.

I approached the chair. The chair was tall-backed, cushioned thinly, upholstered with slightly worn, blue velvet. The chair had thin, wooden legs and looked cold and uncomfortable in the raspy blue light that came into the room.

I sat down in the chair, as if R had stood out of it. I now saw R walking back toward the chair, as if he'd been led out of the room but was now returning. I wasn't going to let R have the chair. I would fight for it.

But now I felt bad for having been mean to R. Perhaps, after all, he didn't deserve it. But I also felt afraid. Maybe if I acted mean to R, R would make me pay for it later on. Maybe, I thought, I should just go ahead and make up with R.

Now an older woman stood near us. The woman was tall, thin, and pale, with blonde, well-styled hair. The woman was Southern. She wore a white turtleneck sweater, a beige jacket, and dress slacks. I may have thought of this woman as something like R's mother.

To make up with either the woman or with R I asked some question about the science fiction novel, which now appeared to be full of color plates showing the artwork of some man from the 1950s. The woman explained to me, as if in answer to the question, that the man had been something like an advertising artist, mainly.

I looked at the plates, which did, in fact, show painty scenes in garish colors of tough, shirtless, well-groomed businessmen and scantily clad women, pale-skinned, coiffured, in slips or negligees, laying across beds and perhaps laughing. These plates looked more like romance novel covers than science fiction illustrations.

I rose from the chair and walked to the table. There may have been something like a deck of tarot cards on the table. R and I may have stood by the table and talked, as if I were making up with R.

Dream #3

I saw a room like my great grandmother's dining room. Lum and Ataru, from the anime series Urusei Yatsura, stood at the head of the table. Lum was wearing her schoolgirl outfit, as opposed to her tiger-striped bikini outfit. Lum and Ataru held rocks that were dark grey and porous, like basalt, or possibly like moon rocks.

Either Lum or Ataru had somehow discarded or destroyed one of the rocks. Immediately, Lum began to disappear, from the feet up. She was disappearing very quickly, almost too quickly even to say anything. As Lum's chest disappeared, it was revealed that Lum's heart was itself one of the porous, grey rocks. Thus destroying a rock would destroy Lum. (???)

Lum knew she was doomed. She said "gomennasai." Then she was gone.

Ataru cried out, "Lum!"

It all seemed so strange to me. The TV show, or movie, wasn't over yet. There was a lot to go. But Lum was now gone. How could the show go on without Lum?

Dream #4

I walked along some path, possibly an asphalt path in a park, with a few women. It was early morning. The park may have been a vast field of cut grass, with one single, small tree to our right.

I had been trying to remember some of the dreams I'd had earlier in the night. (I had probably fallen asleep rehearsing my night's dreams and faded right into this dream.) I must have been talking out the dreams with the women.

One of the women, to my left, told me something like not to worry about it, that it sounded like I was remembering things just fine. (I may have been speaking with the woman about some dream before the "reflection" dream, which had a similar "split personality" theme and which involved Zeus. This "remembered" dream seemed to have been shrouded completely in blackness.)

As the woman spoke, she passed ahead of me and joined the other women. The woman was maybe in her late thirties. She was a little overweight, heavy-legged, and she wore a runner's outfit: black, spandex pants, possibly a pink shirt, black sunglasses, and a beige cap. She held two cups of coffee, possibly both in one hand, stacked one on top of the other.

As the women passed under the lone tree I thought how nice it was to have a group of supportive women to help me through things. But I also looked at the woman's rear end and noticed how it was getting flabby, how she had "saddlebags" kind of pointing out from the sides of her legs, and how disappointing that was.