Friday, February 22, 2013

spirit driver and vitamin deficiency

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was probably in a room with some other people. We were dealing somehow with a murderer: either we were trying to stop a murderer from getting in to where we were, or one of us (I myself?) was a murderer, or was trying to stop from being accused of murder.

I was now in a car at night. I was in the front passenger's seat. The car was driving, but nobody was in the driver's seat. The car came to an intersection. I looked right, up a small slope. The car turned left and drove down a small slope, through a residential road with small houses and thickly lined with trees.

Somehow I now understood that the car was being driven by something like a spirit. The spirit had something to do with the murderer. I was trying to get the spirit to drive the car to the scene of the murder, i.e. the room I'd been in before. But the spirit may have been guilty of the murder. By bringing the spirit to this place, I could prove my innocence. But the spirit may also have been innocent, so I'd need to prove its innocence, as well.

But now the car was driving really haphazardly. It would veer and swing off to the sides of the road, getting perilously close to slamming into the trees. I began yelling at the spirit driver. I don't know whether it made a difference. I may have had to find some other way to stop the car. Finally the car came to a stop at a stopsign.

At this stopsign, or possibly at some other place, I saw the scene of the crime. It was daytime. A tallish, thinnish, kind of impish, old man in a suit and a fedora stood before the door of a brick building. The building looked like a small house, but it had a wall coming off its front end: an arched wall, like what might lead to a courtyard.

The man knocked on the door of the building. I understood that the man was the murderer. He had killed a number of people already with firework-like bombs. He was trying to lure out the remaining people so he could kill them, too. But they weren't coming out of the house. So the man left.

But as the man left, he tossed some firework-like bombs against the wall, underneath something like record sleeves that stood against the wall. The fireworks started going off, like sparklers. I had the idea that the fireworks would set the whole building on fire, killing the remaining people, if they remained inside.

I may have had a view of the people inside. They may have been good-looking, maybe with a 1950s style. One of the women may have looked like Tippi Hedren from The Birds.

The view may have changed into some other storyline, involving the woman. The background may have been deep, but vivid, green. The feeling may have been really watery, almost like the scene was out of focus. The scene then may somehow have changed into an anime, which may have given some story of how all the characters were doomed.

My view then shifted to a scene that seemed to be partly indoors and partly outdoors. The indoor part seemed like a Chuck E. Cheese video game and pizza parlor. Up a small slope to my left were something like ski-ball machines. The outdoor part seemed like a desert wilderness, with small trees and scraggly shrubs.

I heard a male voice narrate how a woman had criticized the anime I had just seen. Apparently my whole experience had, now, realy been part of the anime.

The narrator said that the murders couldn't have happened as they did in the anime. This was because the murders implied a busy time in the city where they'd taken place. But the woman pointed out, the narrator said, that anybody who knew about Japanese culture could tell you that the city where these murders took place was very slow at the time of the year when the murders took place, due to some local traditional or religious festival.

The narrator said that the woman's name was Brewster HXXXXX. She was an American, but she was well known for her knowledge of anime, as well as, apparently, her skill in creating anime.

I saw some kind of table with the woman's name written in big, plastic letters, almost like the letters were the landscape for a model train set. The letters were lavender, lined at the edges with a darker purple. I then saw another (or the same?) table, this time with the letters spelling out the word "ANIMEISTER," probably in different colors, and with other decorations around it.

The narrator explained that Brewster H. was considered a master of anime, or an "animeister," even though she was American. The term was kind of a compliment, but the narrator was saying it in a way that made it sound like an insult, because he was a little bitter that Brewster H. had made such an incisive comment about the anime. The narrator -- and maybe I, too! -- may have been especially bitter, since Brewster H. was a young woman, maybe even a girl.

My boss JE now came walking up through this space. There were a few cheapish dining tables in the space. I sat at one of the tables. Some of my "co-workers" (none of whom I recognized) sat at the other tables, one person at each table.

JE was telling us each what vitamins we were lacking. He had notes with him, like a real, physical study had been done on each of us. He may have been taking this seriously. But he was jogging around a little from table to table, as if it were all a joke. He also seemed to enjoy holding each of us in suspense to hear about what our deficiencies were.

I heard JE tell somebody else about a vitamin B deficiency. I thought this must be my deficiency. I saw a list of vitamins, with a colored square and the vitamin's letter, then maybe a photo or other image and a short description of what the vitamin did. The list said that vitamin B helped draw water to your skin.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

a conspiracy of friends

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I sat alone at long, round table in a nice, wood-walled room, like a fancy library or a board room. The doorway to the room was open. Beyond the doorway may have been a hallway in a cheap-looking shopping mall. I may have known that I was set to meet my mother here, though she hadn't shown up yet.

A husband and wife, maybe in their fifties or sixties, walked into the room and sat down to my left. I knew who they were -- a group of friends of my mom's sister -- even though I didn't recognize them. The couple may have explained something to me or asked how I was doing in my life.

My mom now walked into the room. Either as or right after she entered the room another couple entered. My mom sat down across from me and a little to my left. The couple sat just to my mom's right.

I may have introduced one of the couples to my mom, who knew the other couple were friends of my aunt. My mom began to eye me suspiciously, as if I were setting up some sort of trap against my mom on my aunt's behalf. I wanted to assure my mom I had only planned to meet her here: I hadn't known anybody else would be here. But I don't think I said anything.

I now noticed that the second couple were extremely attractive, especially the woman, who, although old, was thin, well-made-up, and rather intelligent, but cheerful-looking. She had short, auburn hair and tan skin and wore a vanilla-yellow sweater.

A third couple, and maybe even more people, all friends of my aunt, and all wealthy-looking people in their fifties or sixties, came into the room. The table now seemed to be full. The door to the room may also have been shut.

One of the men at the end of the table near the door now told my mom that we were all meeting here to come up with some plan to take some kind of action against my aunt. Either my aunt was planning to do something bad to my mom, and we needed to stop her, or my aunt was doing something bad to herself, and we needed to intervene.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

my new late friend; i don't paintbal enough

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a hospital, probably with a friend. We stood in. A hallway, before a hospital bed in which was a female friend or acquaintance of my friend. The woman was really sick. She may have had to go in for some treatment. We may have been seeing her off.

My friend and I also had somewhere to go in the hospital. We went there. We may have sat down for a moment in a bar-like area. My friend may have had to go somewhere else within the hospital.

I may have heard something about the woman. I felt like I needed to get back to her. I went back to the hallway. The woman was being cared for in the hallway like it was a hospital room. And she had a young nurse in scrubs constantly attending to her, standing near her right shoulder.

I noticed that the woman was really ravaged by her disease. The blanket had come away and exposed her legs. The woman's legs were extremely thin, even thinner than I'd have assumed her bones would be, and there were brownish-purple spots where, it seemed, the woman's flesh had decayed away.

But the woman was pretty. She was tan, with dark black hair. Her face looked a little chubby at first. But after I'd looked away and looked back to her face, her face was thinner, kind of like a supermodel's face. Her face looked healthy, even though the rest of her body seemed ravaged.

The nurse, or somebody, may have told me that the woman had to go. She was being taken in for another procedure, possibly something like chemotherapy. She was going to being taken into a room right near where she'd been laying in the hallway.

I was reluctant to see the woman go. I'd formed a bond with her somehow, in just these few minutes of being with her. I didn't want her to go into the procedure, go through a lot of pain, and maybe even die, without her knowing that I cared for her.

My friend may have been standing at the woman's left shoulder. At this point my friend may have looked like my old boss and constant mentor EB. With the nurse and man by the woman and some kind of stuff cluttered around the woman on her bed, it was now really hard for me to see the woman's face.

My friend may have told me to come closer to the woman's face. I did so. I may have spoken and smiled with the woman a little. I may have wanted to give the woman a kiss goodbye.

Dream #2

I was in some cafeteria in a basement. The cafeteria was filled with people sitting at long tables. But the space was small, with low ceilings, and kind of dim.

I sat at a table. Some of my co-workers, in particular DK, sat around me. DK sat directly across from me. Then my co-worker MS and some other person, maybe CP, came up.

MS sat right beside me. His plate was heaped full of food -- stuff like mashed potatoes and corn. I contrasted it with my own plate -- either nothing or very little food. I hadn't taken much food. I didn't think my stomach could handle it.

For some reason MS scared DK, as if MS were a tough kid in high school and DK were one of the smarter, calmer kids. I was a little unbalanced by these feelings, and it made me a little tense around MS and the other person as well. I was hoping to calm things down, if I could. But I don't think I knew how.

Now DK was gone. His space was just empty. MS now moved, under the table, into DK's space. Once seated there he managed -- somehow! -- to reach back under the table and pull his plate of food over with him.

I knew MS had moved, at least partly, because he didn't want to sit by me. Even though he liked me, he found me boring, almost awkwardly quiet. He would never say so to me, but that's how it was. And now he could sit next to his friend and talk with him.

I now stood before a counter either like a bar or a hotel concierge's desk. I had been turned away from it at first, talking with a couple people, probably about something business-related. Now I turned to face the desk.

There was something on the desk, like brochures or magazines, maybe for resorts or vacations. In some photos on the papers was a really beautiful, almost 1940s-style, but very contemporary, woman, engaged in a fun, but extremely competitive, game of paintball.

There may have been a woman working behind the desk. She may have been pretty, pale, kind of young looking, red-haired, a little chubby or chubby-faced. She may have criticized me, telling me I didn't have enough to do with something like the paintball games, like I was emotionally incomplete because of that.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

family hospital

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

My brother was in the hospital. My mom and I were in the room with him. The room was barren, with drab, greenish grey lighting, white floors and walls, and the white bed. My mom and I may have sat in a couple of chairs. There may have been one or two cluttered bags, maybe of my brother's possessions, near my mom and I or in a corner of the room.

My brother must have been healing from whatever he'd gone through. Whatever he'd gone through must have included some sort of psychological issue. But now he'd also calmed down from that psychological issue. He seemed to be physically and mentally stable. It was a real relief.

But then something started going wrong. My brother was having some sort of episode -- maybe he was getting really nervous, or maybe his body was starting to go into convulsions. This may have been because he needed to take medicine and he hadn't taken it in a while. Or it may have been because I myself had given him a bad pill that had thrown him off his psychological balance.

I ran out into the hallway to get a nurse. I knew that a nurse could probably take care of this situation, even though I felt like my brother, who had seemed so close to going home, would now have to stay at the hospital a while longer, to get his balance back.

I had gone down to the end of the hallway, and now I was turned around and walking back toward the hospital room. I was walking with a pretty nurse who was dressed in the stereotypical white cloth, sexy-nurse-style dress and hat. The hallway wasn't wide, but it felt spacious. Windows ran all the way along the right wall, letting in a good amount of natural light. And there was a lot of activity: doctors and nurses, and maybe patients, walking back and forth and taking care of duties.

The nurse and I were speaking about my mother -- apparently my mother, not my brother, was now the patient, though this didn't seem to register with my dreaming mind. I was criticizing my mother for not having done something to keep healthy. The nurse was agreeing with me. The nurse confided to me that if my mother didn't XXXXX, she'd either be in the hospital for longer than she wanted to be, or else she'd be back in the hospital sooner than she thought.

I hadn't realized, but we'd been talking about all this stuff as we'd approached very close to my mom's hospital room. The door to my mom's room was open, too. I thought there was no way my mom couldn't have heard everything the nurse and I had been saying.

We opened the door (???) -- my mom was inside, thrashing around on the bed. My mom was flailing around upside-down in the bed -- her head at the foot of the bed. She had the sheets jammed up over her head. Two nurses were struggling with my mom, maybe trying to restrain her or calm her down. The sheet came down from my mom's head. Her head was huge, and her eyes bulged out of the sides of her head, like fish eyes or alien eyes.

We walked into the room -- again, as if what had just happened hadn't really happened. The door was wide open. My mom was sitting in a chair, wearing a hospital gown. Either two nurses or a nurse and my brother or just my brother were rubbing lotion on my mom's legs. The part of my mom's lap that wasn't getting lotion was covered in a pine-green blanket of rough fabric.

My mom looked at me, not angrily, but a little ruefully. She'd caught me saying something bad about her. She was a little offended by what I'd said. But she seemed to be more occupied in finding a way to use what I'd said to make me feel guilty, rather than getting herself too upset over it. She gave me a steady look from under a furrowed brow and said something to me that made me feel very bad about myself, like I'd really screwed something up beyond repair, either because of the statement I'd made or because of having forgotten to do something hospital-related for my mother.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

nothing personal, but don't touch me

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was at some place like an art fair at a big exposition building with my co-worker VP. We stood in front of some small booth.

VP seemed to be attracted to me and flirting with me. I wasn't very interested, but I didn't mind. But then VP touched my face in some weird way, maybe running her finger around my lips and then touching my cheek.

I was really upset by this, and I backed a few feet away from VP and the booth. But I didn't want VP to think that I was mad at her. So I said something about not touching my face as nicely as possible.

Friday, February 15, 2013

teaching tooth brushing; the son's return

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a bathroom with three of my nephews. The only nephew I recognized was my youngest nephew. We were all standing in front the sink. I was apparently teaching my nephews how to brush their teeth.

All of my nephews may have been playing with their toothbrushes in a really messy way. But at least the older two seemed to be brushing their teeth. But my youngest seemed to be really messy. He was running his toothbrush back and forth under the faucet and knocking it against the sink. It was hard to tell whether he was having trouble learning how to rinse his toothbrush correctly or whether he was just having fun being messy.

I backed away from the sink. I seemed to be backing out of the bathroom altogether. I may have started to give up hope on being able to teach my nephews after all. But I stopped at the threshold. I didn't want to put off a feeling of being disappointed in my nephew. So I smiled and said, "My dear, little nephew," so he'd know I loved him.

Dream #2

I was reading a book, probably about some incident that had "really occurred" (at least in the dream world). A young man had gone missing. Most people had given the young man up for dead. But the young man's sister (?) and mother believed the young man was still alive.

The book had some narrative segments in conventional third person. But a lot of the book was, I think, letters between the mother and the sister. The mother kept living, somehow, as if the young man would be found. The sister was often ambivalent. Sometimes she seemed to criticize the mother for being so optimistic about finding the young man.

The conflict between the mother and sister eventually became pretty painful. The mother herself was even starting to wonder whether she was crazy. The conflict was so painful, and the waiting for the son so tedious, that I started flipping through the pages, toward the end of the book.

I must have read this book before. I knew there were one or two final letters from the mother, where she really thought she'd gone too far in her hopes, and where she was finally resolved to give up hope of seeing the young man alive again. I turned to these letters, knowing how beautiful they were, and knowing that the next letter or "article" in the book would reveal that the young man had been found alive.

I knew there was a photo, like from the 1940s, of the young man being escorted out of the car by two policemen, probably because he was too weak to walk.

I knew that there was also a photo of the mother as she had gone to reunite with the young man. The woman was kind of stately, elegant, wearing a white dress and a small hat with a feather on top and a small, net veil coming down from the brim of the hat and down just over the woman's brow.

I knew that there was some part near this climax where the mother had decided to wear this outfit before she'd known the young man had been found. She'd called it her reuinion dress. Now that the young man had been found, the mother felt justified in having worn the dress. This didn't quite make sense to me, given that, just before, the mother had resolved to give up hoping for the young man's return.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

skydiving contract; a bathroom of one's own; neglected nephew

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was among a small series of rooms with a few other people. The rooms were brick walled, kind of half-finished looking. There were some occasional incandescent bulbs lighting the rooms. The furniture was maybe just benches jutting out from the walls.

There were two women sitting on the benches along the back wall of the back room. They were getting ready for some kind of stunt, which was probably also part of an art project. They were just about ready to head off.

But a third woman off to my left stopped the women. She said the stunt the women were about to do was very dangerous. Before the women did the stunt, the woman needed to make sure the women had signed the contracts waiving any liability the third woman's organization might have.

The women, I now knew, were actually wearing their contracts. The contracts were a kind of netted bodysuit. The netting was made of a coarse, yarn-like material colored a dark red-pink. The netting made diamond patterns, the holes of which were rather wide. But the material squeezed tightly against the women's bodies. I think the women were wearing other clothing, though not much, below the netting outfits.

The contracts, I knew, would be visible when the outfits were taken off and unfurled. Between some of the holes in the netting ran some gauzy billows of material. These billows just looked like fraying or tattered material. But when the contract was laid out flat and arranged correctly, the billows took on the appearance of sheets with letters. The signature line of the contract was near the collar of these outfits.

The third woman asked the woman on the right whether she had signed her contract. Apparently the woman on the left had definitely signed her contract. I had a feeling that the woman on the right hadn't signed her contract. I was a friend to the two women. But for some reason I felt obliged to tell the third woman that the   signature line better be checked for the woman on the right. The woman on the right was angry at me. She felt betrayed.

But now both of the women were heading off to do their stunt. The stunt was probably skydiving. I went outside to watch the stunt. The sky was a kind of dim, pale blue fading into dark grey near the top, but a pale, lightless yellow at the horizon. It almost looked like a stage sky. There were some trailer-like buildings maybe twenty or thirty meters away from me. There were people scattered all about, looking up into the sky.

It now seemed like the stunt was a skydiving race. There may have been three women in the race. One of them, possibly the woman who had previously been the woman I'd "betrayed," was my co-worker SC. Another one of them may possibly have been my co-worker AW. The racers had their parachutes open and were somehow racing to see who could reach the ground first. I was cheering for SC. I felt like I looked up to SC, like I was a young girl and that SC was my lover.

At least one of the parachutists, maybe SC, was now close to the ground. My view of her/them was obscured by the trailers and the people around me, who all felt a lot taller than I. I couldn't tell who was winning or who had won the race. I was hoping SC had won. But I also didn't know whether SC's landing had been safe. I was hoping SC hadn't been injured.

Off in the distance to my left, I could see one of the women, perhaps AW, landing. It seemed like she'd had a hard landing. She had, it now seemed to me, been the third woman in the room, the one who'd asked whether the women's contracts had been signed.

The third woman, I now knew, had been so concerned about the safety of this jump. But I myself (probably as myself and not as the "young girl") had convinced the woman of the safety of the jump, and that she herself was fine to jump. But now, watching the third woman, I could see that her landing was actually really hard. I was pretty sure the landing gave the woman physical pain. I also feared that the woman had sustained some sort of injury. Now she'd blame me for the whole thing.

I looked back forward, to where I assumed SC would be landing. The space was clear, and I could see all the way to the barren, flat, stage-like horizon. But there was now sign of the parachutists. There were instead two strange devices, like giant spotlights, sending something, maybe beams of light, maybe parachutes, up into the air.

I now understood that these devices were part of a show, like a live-action version of an anime. The parachute/skydiving race was a stunt, a contest, on its own. But it was somehow integrated into this anime. There were probably a number of races. Before and between the races, the anime show took place. The show may have justified sending the racers up into the sky. But the racers in the show may have been sent up into the sky not by a plane or any other vehicle, but by their parachutes and the spotlight-like devices.

This didn't quite make sense to me. But I was kind of eager to see the anime show. I wondered what the drama would be about.

Dream #2

I was in a public restroom. Something had gotten me offended. I felt like there had been a huge crowd of people, all trying to stop me from using the restroom -- even though I didn't actually ever see anybody in the restroom.

I was in a narrow hallway, like a hallway between one section of the bathroom and another, standing (all by myself?) as if I were standing in line. Suddenly I got so frustrated by the feeling of being crowded out and having my position in the bathroom line threatened that I began walking quickly through the hallway, all the way to the end of the hallway.

I may have heard or imagined people talking about me -- or I may have simply been thinking about myself. The statements I heard or imagined were like a questioning: why I'd run off and acted so rudely toward everybody else, as if I had been suspicious of everybody else for no reason, or as if I'd thought I was better than everybody else.

I now felt kind of silly for having run off. But I was already on my way. I was looking for a toilet that nobody else would try to take from me. I ended up in front of four toilet stalls. I turned left in front of the stalls. On the wall across from the stalls there was a half-opened door. The door opened to a small room with two or three more stalls in it. I walked into the room and toward the first or second stall in the room.

But I again felt rushed or crowded out by someone -- someone I couldn't see! I quickly exited the stall and moved to the very back stall of this room. I stood in front of the toilet and began urinating into the toilet.

Dream #3

I was probably outside in a suburban neighborhood with my family. We may all have been lounging around in the middle of the street (???). We were probably at the corner of the street. The building at the corner may have been a single-family house. But it may also have been an apartment complex or some kind of office building that I'd taken as being a house.

My youngest nephew sat on the curb, playing around with something. I knelt beside him. He asked me something like, "Are you mad at me?" I told him I wasn't mad at him. He said something like, "I thought you were mad at me, because you never come to see us anymore."

I felt really bad. I may have hugged my nephew or patted him on the back. We were now in front of the house, maybe right before a screen door or in the threshold of the doorway. I explained to my nephew that the fact that I didn't visit the family's house very often didn't have anything to do with him. I tried to tell my nephew that I really loved him and thought he was a good little boy.

Beyond the doorway, in the kitchen?, there was now a lot of activity. My brother-in-law was in the kitchen, and a few little children were running around, creating a little sense of chaos. I felt like my brother-in-law was regarding me suspiciously. I didn't know why. But I felt like I should back away from my nephew.

I was now "somewhere else," talking with my brother-in-law on my cell phone. But my view was "in my family's living room" looking at some vague activity, which may have been like the phantom motions of people, of members in my family.

My brother-in-law was explaining how my youngest nephew had begun to act strangely. He was doing things like wearing a dunce cap and beating himself on the head. He was constantly criticizing himself and others in the family, being extremely severe with them morally. He was blaming everybody, including himself, by turns, for my not coming to the family's house as often as I used to.

My brother-in-law was probably telling me all this stuff to get my opinion on whether my nephew was going crazy. But it also seemed like he was blaming me for my nephew acting this way, like I'd done something bad to him -- not neglectful, but actively bad -- to make him go crazy.

I was trying to convince myself that my nephew wasn't acting strangely, that he wasn't going crazy. I also felt like I had done something bad to my nephew: not that I had done something actively bad to him, but that I had emotionally been neglectful of him. But I was trying to convince myself, again, that that really had no effect on my nephew, and that my nephew was fine.

Friday, February 8, 2013

looking for allen ginsberg; driving into construction

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a cafe, like an old-style cafe where all the beat poets would hang out. But the cafe actually looked like the back kitchen of some restaurant. There was a long preparation table running through the middle of the room. One long side was elevated from the other side by about half a foot.

The room was full of people, all hanging around, sitting on the floors, leaning against the walls. The people were all, apparently, famous from around the beat era. I couldn't recognize any of them at all.

But somehow I knew that Allen Ginsberg was somewhere around here. I saw one young man with a kind of big, scraggly beard. I assumed that was Allen Ginsberg. But something about him wasn't quite right.

I walked along the back long wall. One young man sitting in something like a tall, narrow, doorless corridor looked like Allen Ginsberg when he was young: clean-shaven, with a square haircut, wearing a yellow or green button-up shirt. But something about the young man made me understand that the young man wasn't Allen Ginsberg.

I walked along a little ways more. There was a young man with kind of shaggy, blonde-brown hair. He wore thick-rimmed glasses, like Allen Ginsberg might wear. I had the feeling that this boy and I were attracted to each other, or dear to each other emotionally in some other way. But I didn't want to be attracted to the boy, and I didn't really want to get involved emotionally with anybody at the time.

Toward the left end of the kitchen was another young man who somehow reminded me of Allen Ginsberg. Suddenly I started to wonder whether I really knew anything about Ginsberg at all. If I knew anything about Ginsberg, or poetry in general, I'd probably have picked Ginsberg out of this crowd quite easily.

Dream #2

I was in a car driven by a young, thin woman, maybe Asian or Hispanic. The girl was maybe twenty years old. She wore a white tank-top with navy blue spaghetti straps and a pair of short, dark jean shorts. She had jaw-length, black, soft hair.

The girl had been driving me wherever I needed to go. We had first been driving through a commercial neighborhood, a wide road lined by shops. We drove up over some hill and then onto an exit road that led, via a closely-walled road, to a highway.

The highway curved up and around. We may have taken an exit ramp. I had a feeling that the ramp was under construction, but I didn't say anything to the girl. I thought that maybe the construction was done and that we could get through.

But now we came around the corner and saw two huge, yellow construction vehicles almost totally blocking the road. The vehicles were fronted by huge shovels. The girl almost drove into the backside of one of the shovels before stopping.

I think I imagined or had the idea that beyond the vehicles the road was all torn up, and that huge chunks of concrete would make the road impassable for cars. The girl turned around.

I was pretty sure I'd given the girl the idea of traveling along this road in the first place. I had only done so because I'd thought it would be a lot quicker. The girl was driving me wherever I needed to go because I didn't have a car. I didn't want to inconvenience her more by making her take a long drive for my sake. But now my attempt to take a shortcut ended in the girl maybe having to take an even longer drive.

I felt like a burden. So I told the girl that she could just loop around back to the commercial neighborhood and drop me off there. From there, I was pretty sure, I could find my way, maybe by bus, to wherever I needed to go.

We were back at the commercial area. The girl was upset at me for what I'd said. She asked me if I just didn't want her to drive me somewhere. She said she'd volunteered to drive me, so why didn't I just let her drive me? She said something like, "You just don't get it, do you?"

I got the feeling now that the girl liked me, that she was attracted to me, and that she wanted to drive me around so she could be near me. I felt kind of dumb for not having realized that earlier.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

accusing nephew; brother's lecture; space cosplay

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in some rundown room, kind of like a cluttered workshop, hunched over a worktable and shuffling through some cards like business cards. My oldest nephew jumped up from behind me on my right side and huddled close by me. He slapped down a bunch of cards of his own and started asking me about them in a bullying kind of way.

I must have gotten jealous of my nephew's cards. I didn't know how he could have had just as many cards as I had. I suddenly had the idea that he had somehow stolen my cards from me. I'm not sure whether that was true.

My nephew stood up and walked down a hallway to another, smaller room which may have led to the exit of this building. I followed after him and caught and stopped him at the threshold of the smaller room. I accused him of having stolen my cards. My nephew was upset that I would have accused him of something like that.

My brother was suddenly behind me and my nephew. My brother started justifying my anger toward my nephew. He explained to my nephew how I was only looking out for him and trying to make sure he didn't get started down the wrong path in life by stealing things.

I started to feel guilty. I walked back to the workshop. I felt bad for having accused my nephew of stealing my cards. I knew I had had two or three stacks of cards. I now seemed to have one stack less, while my nephew had a really good stack. But that didn't necessarily mean my nephew had stolen anything.

I also felt bad about my brother. He was defending me to my nephew. But what right did I have to be defended, especially by my brother? I'd neglected my brother for all these years. And when we were kids, I'd gotten really mad at him and treated him terribly quite often.

Dream #2

I had probably just gotten off a flight, or possibly off a bus. I now walked into an area like a food court or a waiting area at a bus stop. The place was packed full of people. It seemed to be late at night.

My brother was waiting for me at a table. I sat at the table. I may have spoken with my brother for a bit. It was close to time for me to catch a connecting flight or bus somewhere. I was afraid I was going to miss the flight or bus. But something was keeping me at the table.

I started speaking about my past, about my life in New York. It made me really depressed to think about what potential I'd had and how I'd really blown it all. I hoped I wasn't sounding pompous and self-righteous in front of my brother. But I was sure I did.

My sister now sat in place of my brother. While I'd been speaking with my brother I felt like I was speaking more to myself. But my sister seemed to be more attentive to what I was actually saying.

My brother now walked up from behind me. Apparently my sister was smoking a cigarette. My brother started giving my sister a lecture about how she should stop smoking. He may also have started lecturing my sister on how she should do other things to lead a healthier life.

My sister felt ashamed and annoyed by what my brother said. She may have told my brother to shutup and mind his own business. My brother then tried to drag me into the lecture. He told my sister how much I'd agreed with everything he'd said when we'd had a chance to talk alone about this stuff.

I looked down at the table top. I was kind of annoyed that my brother would say something like that. I remembered the time my brother and I had had the chance to speak alone. My brother had complained nonstop about my sister. I'd just listened without saying anything one way or the other. Apparently my brother had thought that meant I'd agreed with him.

Dream #3

I was possibly looking at a series of photos, either online or in a book, for a museum like the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. There was some exhibit for something like a space shuttle. Something about the exhibit was smoggy and obscure. It made me think that part of the exhibit included exhaust, as if the space shuttle made normal exhaust like car exhaust.

I thought about something regarding the exhibit for a little while. Then I looked back to the photos, which were now most likely online. In the place where the space shuttle exhibit had been was now a yellow room with a high-tech chair in the center. Jets from the ceiling shot down thin plumes of black-brown exhaust. I thought that this was an exhibit of the interior of a shuttle.

I was a little disappointed. This exhibit, I thought, was far less grand than the exhibit of the exterior of the space shuttle had been.

My disappointment may have caused me to continue (?) reflecting on what I'd been thinking about before: the fact that, if you aren't near the museums all the time, you're missing out on the most important things happening at the museums. The museums never show the best stuff online, I thought. They do that on purpose, so that people close to the museums can brag about having seen stuff other people didn't get to see.

I was now standing in the museum. The space was huge, very dim, with dark walls and carpet. The space was empty of both people and decoration.

I could hear something just around the corner. There was some video exhibit down the way. One video was projected onto a huge wall. Slow, kind of spooky, technological music accompanied the video. But the video was obscured by another wall. The wall hung from the ceiling and stopped about a meter or so from the floor.

I wanted to get past that wall and into the room with the video. But instead of walking I jumped up in the air and kick-pushed against the wall. I flew, in a swimming position, toward the room. I couldn't believe I was actually flying. I lost confidence in my ability to have continuous vision -- which would have implied the reality of my flight. My vision broke up.

I had flown into the room, apparently. The room was now bright, with yellow walls. It was full of people. Everybody may have been dressed in cosplay outfits. The room was apparently an exhibit celebrating cosplay culture. There were even cosplay artworks on the walls: masks that looked like ancient masks, but done in a bright, modern, cosplay style.

My view drifted clockwise around the room, finally settling on two women who were apparently my friends. The women were Asian, in their early twenties. They were being led, probably by an older, father-like figure, through some racks of clothes, as if part of this space were now a normal clothing store.

But one of the girls got distracted and came over to me. I was lying on a chair or couch. The girl straddled me. She wore jeans and a jean jacket. She showed me what she'd bought: a whole bunch of jean jackets.

I took two jean jackets and started playing with them like they were puppets, to amuse the girl, like she was a little girl. But then I got aroused by the girl and began fondling her legs and chest.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

mom's hospital arrangements

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was at a hospital or nursing home or rehab center to visit my mother. I may have been there with some other family members. My mom was probably getting moved to some other section of the place. She may have been in the middle of the move, so we couldn't see her.

I went out of the building I'd been in, which was the building my mother had originally been staying in, to find out where my mother would go next. I may have heard, or even received a paper saying, that some other building had information on where my mom would be next.

The outside area was a big, sunny, but kind of dry lawn. There were a few small buildings dotting the edges of the lawn. A lot of people seemed to be out here.

I was reading that there were four different buildings. Each building had something to do with a nationality -- either they spoke that language or helped people from that region or something. The four buildings were Chinese, Japanese, North Korean, and South Korean.

I knew there were language differences between each building. The slip of paper I read illustrated this fact by showing a common word in each of the four languages. I couldn't figure how the North Korean and South Korean languages differed. But I figured I wouldn't ask or bring up the point with anybody. I didn't want to insult anyone.

I may have determined that I had to go to the Chinese building, or else I may have determined that my mom would be in the Chinese building, but that I needed to go to some general administrative building to confirm that.

I was now in a small, kind of rundown hallway of a building. The walls were white but dirty. The place felt a little scary. About halfway down the hallway I saw a nurse and one other hospital worker turning up the hallway from a corridor off to the left.

The nurse seemed to be blind. Her eyes were totally white. I made some kind of singing noise as I passed the nurse, to alert her to my presence. I wondered, as I passed the nurse, how she got by so well as a nurse when she was completely blind. I might have figured that that was a dumb thought, considering how well blind people get along in life in general.

I was now "at home," which may possibly have been where my whole family lived. I somehow knew that my mom was coming back home from the hospital/nursing home. This was kind of a surprise for me, as I'd thought she'd need a bit more time to rest and heal. But now she came walking through the door.

I may have been in the kitchen. My mom may have said that she needed me to help her get some of her things in order. I knew my mom had a bunch of movies in her room. I thought I could arrange her movies. I liked doing that, and, I now remembered, I'd actually arranged movies for my brother in a really neat, orderly way.

My mom's bedroom was right next to the kitchen. I stood in the hallway, often looking into both doorways at once. My mom knelt before her bed. Her bedroom was extremely cluttered. My mom pulled out a clear plastic bin of movies. She explained that the movies were to be arranged for my little niece.

We started arranging the movies. The boxes were like a hybrid of DVD cases and videocassette cases. The setup was different from the setup presented in my brother's collection, so I had to think of a different way of arranging things. I imagined arranging the movies in rows that would run the width of the plastic bin.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

old friend and joyce carol oates

Good morning, everybody. This dream was written in the morning, but I wasn't able to post it until now.
Dream #1
I was in a living room with my old best friend Y and possibly my brother. My view of the room was very close in, like all I could see was the couch. The room felt very bright and warm, but also very crowded. The couch may have been made of thick, brown fabric, maybe in a plaid pattern.

I hadn't seen Y in a long time. I was really happy to see her again. She looked just like she did when we were in college. But she wore a backwards baseball cap.

We planned to have a sleepover this night, like we would occasionally do in college. Y, who had apparently just gotten into town, suggested I get some movies (maybe VCR cassettes?) from my place. I might have been thinking of a movie for us to watch. But Y suggested one, one that I didn't care for too much, but which I'd go get anyway, just to make Y feel comfortable and welcome.

I walked down the hallway to get the movie. Apparently my room/house was just down the hallway and up the stairs. As I was walking, Joyce Carol Oates caught up to me and started walking with me. We may have spoken, either verbally or mentally, but not about anything in particular.

My mother's bedroom was now just to my right. This was where my videotapes were. The plan was to get my movies and then head up to my room (and/or to Oates' house?) to meet Y. Before, I think the plan had been to get the movies from my room then go meet Y somewhere else, wherever she was staying.

Oates came into my mom's room with me. She looked around and maybe asked questions. My mom was sitting at a desk, listening to something through big headphones like for control towers. My mom seemed to be in bad shape, like she was extremely depressed or going insane. The desk was cluttered and almost looked like a bed.

I answered some of Oates' questions. Oates may even have reminded me of what movies I was supposed to be taking. I picked up the movie for Y, as well as some other movies, and walked toward the door. Oates may already have been out the door.

But my mom, who had been either unaware or dismissive of my presence before, now made some move which intentionally or unintentionally got my attention. I got close to my mom. I could hear, through the other side of my mom's headphones, some kind of official sounding transmission.

My mom responded to the transmission out loud with a couple of short sentences. My mom's statements were brief, but gritty and curmudgeony. I had the feeling I was actually hearing paranoid ideation in my mom's head.

I worried that my mom was receiving transmissions about my involvement with something evil and that she was now resolved to kill me because of these perceived evil connections.

The transmissions did, in fact, seem to be of some revolutionary news show. The news being stated was not directly related to me. But I felt like, if one listened hard enough, one could see how the news implied bad things about me personally.

I probably started worrying about how to get on my mom's good side, so she wouldn't do anything bad to me. I may have walked out into the hallway. Oates may have told me not to worry about anything.