(7/4/06) the stream test; being part of the hill; my brother wrecks house; suspicion in the video store

(Entered into paper journal at 9:02 AM at Starbucks on 17th Street and Broadway in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

I was in a stream with a boy and a girl. I was someone like Carlos Castaneda, and this stream was a new test for me. I was eager, excited. But the kids were indifferent.

I stood in the water so it came up near my solar plexus. I looked down to the bed of the clear stream. The bed had a floor of tan and coppery, smooth cobblestones.

I looked back up. Huge waves heaved toward me. They were deep blue like the sea. As the flooded over me I felt some kind of intense magic. I had to battle to absorb it to stay conscious.

But to my left the little girl was standing or treading water as if nothing were happening. And the little boy was scuttering around to my right, near the bed of the stream, which now looked like an Islamic tile floor, and wearing big, clunky, eyes-and-nose swimming goggles and having fun. I felt stupid for thinking my experience had been intense at all.

Dream 2

I was running up a hill in a park. The hill was all lush, beautiful lawn, lit by powerful, white lights so that the atmosphere was dim and the vibrant lawn had a crystalline, undersea look.

I headed toward a log cabin on the hill to get something for a group of friends below. I felt some person below judging me for having been running up and down the hill all day when there were easier ways to do things.

I was a pretty girl. I thought, But I like running up the hill. I like the exertion. Plus, I like being part of the hill. It's beautiful.

Dream 3

I was (possibly) watching an apartment for a woman like my landlady. My brother came in. I told him he could stay, but that he had to treat this place with respect. My brother started bashing all over, making tons of noise.

Suddenly the place was full of noise. The TV was blasting. There were pots boiling full blast in the closet-sized kitchen. And my brother was taunting me about all the noise he could make.

I said, "I'm just giving you a couple more chances to calm down."

My brother went into the bathroom and broke the handle off the sliding door of the shower. He brought it out to show me how he didn't care what I told him, and how he would do whatever he wanted.

I went to the store and pulled out a blue business card from under a gross, damp pile of dish rags. My landlady's phone number was on the top line of the card. Then, written in blue ink on lines below, were three other numbers, one of which was for the police.

I called one of the numbers. Now my brother had to leave, or these people would come for him. I felt bad for rejecting my brother. But he'd already broken one thing in my house.

My brother was now standing on the couch in the living room. He said, "Okay, okay. I'm going before they get here. But just look at this before I go."

A movie was playing on the TV: some comedy starring Owen Wilson. But this particular scene was of a forest. A huge, dull-yellow turtle with brown-black spots walked between pine trees. Now an enormous snake was somewhere.

Dream 4

I went into a video store at night. There were almost no lights on in the store. I went to the back of the store and found something I liked.

I went to the cashier. The cashier yelled at me, "What do you have in your backpack?"

I, without taking off my backpack, showed the cashier I hadn't stolen anything from the store. The cashier was satisfied. But he still didn't like me. Either he threw his arms up in the air or he made me throw my arms in the air. A white bracelet of a loose, rubbery material fell down one of our arms.

The man said, "Next time you come in here, you get one of these," (the bracelet) "which means you leave your backpack right here until you leave the store!"

I thought, Great. Now I can't even bring my backpack into the video store. I noticed the man now. He was short, a little fat, with long hair pulled back into a ponytail. He had a beard that was reddish brown with grey undertones. He was angry-looking but also small and lazy and weak-looking. I thought, Well, this guy is a lot like me!

(3/28/09) movies you don't ever want to see

(Entered in paper journal at 10:15 AM at home.)

Dream #1

I was in a video store. The place was well lit, but the walls and ceiling were dark. The shelves were metal frame style shelves, mostly about shoulder-height. The place was large, and there were a few other people around.

I found a shelf of lesbian movies -- really, lesbian erotica. The cases of the movies were all dark. They were either, or both, VCR cassette cases and DVD cases. There were little cover pictures and blurbs on each case. Most of the blurbs were written like copy for a porn magazine. I was intrigued by it, but I also felt ashamed for looking at such obviously pornographic material.

There was a wide "doorway" into another section or room of the store. I walked toward it. At some point before I got into the room I saw a shelf full of pornographic films with the title PIG or P.I.G. I didn't even want to look at these cases: I knew those films were really twisted.

In the other room there was another shelf full of lesbian movies. A sign above the shelf said something like, "Due to popular demand, we have brought in more of these enticing movies." The sign may also have said something about enjoying the movies in the summer heat.

Whereas the movies I had previously been looking at were lesbian movies that seemed to have a lesbian erotica edge, these movies were really just flat-out lesbian porn. I walked way from the shelf, not really interested.

There was a tall, wall-sized shelf before me. All the movies on this file were from the PIG series. I only saw the sides of the boxes. Each box-side had a picture. I had the feeling that these films were like porn, but that they also had something like real torture or death scenes in them. I turned away and walked off to the right.

A wall-height shelf to the right had a sign over it saying, "MOVIES YOU DON'T EVER WANT TO SEE." This shelf of movies had the faces of the boxes all showing. I could tell these were movies with real death scenes in them.

I tried not to look at any of the boxes, but I saw a photo (as big as on a poster) of a heavy, dark-skinned, Hispanic (?) man with long, straight, black hair. The man wore a red t-shirt and had his hands folded as if in prayer. Between the man's hands was the end of the man's hair, or else something like hair, which was coated in or transforming into a mass of congealed blood.

I saw another photo, this one only the size of a video cassette case's front, of a young, white man with short, red hair. The young man wore a black t-shirt. Out of the left side of the man's head grew another head, which was like the man's first head, except grey and distorted.