Wednesday, July 11, 2012

equal science; vesuvius resort; get to know your mother; strawberry sugar soap

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

A vision of blue sky striated by thin, white clouds. I may have been flying through this view, spinning or somersaulting about. I was hearing some conversation about a man and a woman who were trying to do some project together. The project was possibly some sort of science project. They were trying to do the project together to promote equality between men and women.

Dream #2

A rocket was lifting off. The rocket was huge and kind of squarish looking. It had four small rockets in a row at its base, which impressed me for some reason. As soon as the rocket started lifting off -- almost immediately -- it seemed to be going through shelf-like layers of clouds. It never seemed to stop going through these shelf-like layers of clouds.

All the time that the rocket was lifting off, I could hear people talking. I probably heard two male announcers. It was like I was watching the liftoff on TV, even though I felt surrounded by the view, as if I were right there.

But there were other TV-like effects. The rocket had a number of stages, different sections of rocket that fired, then burnt out. As one stage burnt out, another would turn on. But there would always be a pause between the burn-out and turn-on, where the rocket would not have any propulsion at all. At these points, the rocket would slow down. But my view, the "camera," expected the rocket to keep going up at the same speed. So it would go upward a bit without the rocket, then have to come back down.

I was actually a little worried. I knew that a rocket had to go a certain speed to break free of the earth's gravity. But if the rocket kept slowing down a little in between each of the stages, would it ever get going fast enough to break free? I convinced myself it would break free. After all, it kept going higher and higher. And maybe each new stage was more powerful than the last.

Finally I heard the announcers talking about the mission. It was something like a commercial space mission. The announcers even seemed to be making an advertisement for space travel now. It was like the rocket we were watching was heading to some kind of space resort, or was heading to some earth resort at a really fast speed via space travel. The announcers were putting in a plug for this resort.

My view now shifted to some big estate. My view was floating. I might even have felt like my body was floating there.

The first thing I saw was a castle in the distance. It was made out of some brownish tan stone. It may have been made out of brick (???). It was at the end of some long expanse. The expanse wasn't a road or a walkway. It seemed to involve a lot of concrete. It was like a network of aqueducts or channels of some kind.

I heard the announcers speak again. Apparently they were speaking about this place, which had something to do with making wine. It certainly didn't look like a vineyard. But the announcers were promoting the place as a great place to come to for great wines.

I was still outside the gates of this place. The gates were very complex, almost like a miniature of the castle itself. They were made out of brownish tan brick. I floated over to the left to see the name of the estate on one of the lower expanses of brick. The sign was in big, gold letters. It said "Vesuvius." I may have wondered why this place would have the name Vesuvius if it was well known for wines.

The announcers may have spoken again, telling me about how the Himalayan Museum was putting on a comprehensive show about the lifestyles of the Himalayan religion. I don't know whether Vesuvius was still Vesuvius. But I knew that the Himalayan Museum being mentioned was now down in the "basement" area in the building structure that was now created by this network of gates and concrete aqueducts.

I was now down in the basement. It was like a giant hotel lobby, kind of dim, with dark carpeting and upholstery everywhere. There seemed to be a decent amount of people here already, a lot of well-off people. And the whole thing had an air of a convention. Exhibits seemed to have been set up. But nobody seemed to be occupied with any of the exhibits yet. It may have been that a scheduled movement through the various exhibits had not yet been started.

I floated down to some big, circular area. It was like rotating tiers of silver. Coming out of each of the rotating tiers were little, silver plates. On each of the silver plates were little glasses, like little communion glasses. There may have been three glasses to each little plate. The glasses were full of a yellowish liquid, which I guessed to be a kind of thick, sweet liqueur. I may have taken one. But I may not have. I may have thought that it was fine just to look, but that I didn't want to actually take one until the scheduled movement through the exhibits had started.

Off in an area behind me and over my right shoulder was a whole setup for manga books and other artsy kind of books relating to anime and manga. There were a lot of kids over there, sitting on the floors in front of the shelves, reading the anime and manga. I got up and walked over to a knee-high bookshelf with some manga books in it. There was a girl sitting on her knees and reading. I grabbed a book and sat by her to read.

I may have felt ashamed of reading manga. I may have felt ashamed of being around so many kids. I didn't want the kids to think I was some pervert, just reading the manga so I could follow them around or something. And I didn't want the other adults to think I was being immature by reading manga.

Somehow, though, I heard that one of my old friends, SA, was going to be doing a show somewhere. I may have been in New York now. SA may have lived for some time outside of New York. But now she had come back to New York to do this show. I decided it would be great to see her. I probably floated up through the manga library and then up a maroon-carpeted stairway.

I was now up in a luxurious apartment on the high floor of a skyscraper. The walls were all windows, looking out over the tops of the buildings of New York. The interior of the apartment was kind of full of stuff, so that it felt a little cluttered. SA stood in front of me as I sat in some chair.

I was telling SA how good it was to see her again. SA didn't quite seem to believe me. But she started talking about the show that she was putting on. It was like she was discussing it with me as someone who might be able to offer her some constructive opinions. But it was also like I had had something to do with the show, like I had either written a portion of it or else been a big inspiration for it.

Dream #3

I was walking through a grocery store. I picked a big, lavender colored box off of one of the shelves. The box was about the size of a cereal box. I think I was looking at the back of the box. The product was called "Get To Know Your Mother." I looked inside the box. It was just sleeves and sleeves of thin, brown cookies. It looked like the top two or three sleeves of cookies were missing -- like someone had opened the box and stolen the cookies.

I looked back to the back of the box. The box was divided into a grid of squares. Each square was about the size of a pantyhose box, like the boxes, I think, that L'eggs pantyhose come in. Each square had a celebrity's photo in the upper left corner. There was then a description of the celebrity.

All of the celebrities were minor. But they were all getting together, with Get To Know Your Mother, for some sort of entertainment festival, the proceeds from which would go to some charity. Some of the celebrities seemed slightly familiar to me. They all seemed to do different things, acting, dance, music, etc.

One of the celebrities on the top row was actually "Weird Al" Yankovic. He had his hair cut short and his face shaven. He was also pretty muscular, and he wore clothes that fit him closely. He sort of looked like Chris Isaak. The description called him Al Yankovic. But under that, it said, in small letters, "Al Smith," as if Al Smith were Weird Al's real name. It was like Weird Al was trying to get people to call him Al Smith from now on, like he was trying to get away from the "Weird Al" Yankovic identity altogether.

My attention was caught by the celebrity in the square on the far left side and second from the top. He was a white man, kind of balding, kind of overweight, with a pale face and scared-looking eyes. He wore a black, leather jacket and a kind of chunky-looking sweater. He was also holding a guitar. The description said that this man was a stand-up comedian whose act involved playing rock songs that sounded serious but were actually funny.

My attention was now directed to a clipped-out newspaper column that was -- somehow! -- located to the left of the box I was holding. The paper may not have been newsprint. It may have been regular paper, as if the newspaper column had been photocopied.

The column spoke about how some guy who was running a science TV show for kids was announcing his retirement. The show had basically been set in some kind of pretend laboratory, full of all kinds of fun gadgets.

The article said that the science guy was retiring because some intern (intern wasn't quite the word) who the science guy had known "was no good at all" from the very beginning had broken into the laboratory and messed up a bunch of stuff. This, I knew, included stealing a bunch of documents belonging to the science guy.

Dream #4

I was with my maternal grandmother. We were in some room which was apparently a part of her house, though it may have been a part of my house. The place felt really cluttered, almost like it was used more for storage of things than for actual living.

My grandma and I were talking about the soap I use when I take a shower. I was telling her something about how the soap I really liked had strawberries and sugar (???) in it. But, I said, the soap I was currently using didn't have strawberries and sugar in it. So it wasn't as effective as my favorite soap.

My grandma may not have believed this. So we got up and walked to the other house (not sure if it was my house or her house) to take a look at the soap.

We walked through the door and out into an "open space," which actually felt more like a fake lawn in some TV sound stage. The "open space," though, was also kind of cluttered, and probably with stuff that didn't belong in the open space, maybe even with stuff like spotlights and so forth.

The other house was just across this fake lawn. On the way to the other house we met my mom. My mom was out doing something like catching or killing lizards or dragonflies. Or it may have been that she'd been involved in an accident which had ended in the death of a lizard or dragonfly. My mom either joined my grandma and I or told us she'd be joining us soon.

My grandma and I walked into the house. The room we walked into was like some kind of small, disheveled warehouse. But it also seemed like it was made simply as a preparation room -- just to prepare a person for going into the bathroom for a shower.

My grandma and I were now looking over the soap in question. It may have been like my grandma had just given me this soap right now as a present. The soap was in a small, thick container. It looked more like a container of Vaseline. The soap itself was thick, like Vaseline. It was pink, too. The container was full, like it was a brand new container. The lettering on the container was big, blocky, black letters, like the product was trying to market itself as being kind of old and "vintage."

I went through the list of ingredients on the back of the container to prove to my grandma that there were no strawberries or sugar in the soap. The ingredients were all listed in alphabetical order. I went to the end of the list. At first, some fruit other than strawberries was listed. I told my grandma, "See? They have -----, but not strawberries." But when I looked again to point it out, the strawberries were actually listed.

I went back up, near the beginning of the list of ingredients, where I expected sugar to be. But instead of sugar, I found cream. I again told my grandma, "See? They have strawberries and cream, but not strawberries and sugar." But when I looked again, sugar was in the place of cream.

My mom had now come into the house. Both my grandma and I were kind of flustered by my mom's presence. It was like my mom was in a really weird emotional state, and she was spinning a lot of her state out onto us.

I had gone into the bathroom, possibly to grab my soap container out of the shower so I could show my grandma what ingredients were in it (? -- again?!). I had closed the door to the bathroom as I'd gone in. I may even have taken off my clothes.

I grabbed the soap out of the shower. It was about half used. I flipped the container around to look at the ingredients. I was walking back toward the door with the container. As I did, I passed the sink.

In the sink lay a dead dragonfly. The dragonfly was pretty big, maybe about 10cm long. It was bright green, and it had bright pink eyes. I knew this was the dragonfly that my mom had killed before we'd met her outside. The sink was also full of hair, like someone had cut their hair or shaved themselves and then just left the hair in the sink.

I opened the door a crack, either to hand the soap through to my grandma or to list the ingredients off to her. But I believe I could see sugar and strawberries both on the list of ingredients already. But as I opened the door, I could hear my grandma and mom talking to each other regarding something about me. Whatever they were saying made me feel like I should go out and address the issue directly. So I opened the door and walked out of the bathroom.

***

UPDATE: A discussion of some of the images in these dreams can be found at this entry in my dreamday journal.

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