casket shrine of the mystic river

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was with a group of people who were younger than I, maybe in their early twenties, on the banks of some river passage between two rocky cliffs. The sky was dark and swirly. In some way, it felt like we were inside rather than outside.

We all had to jump into the river. There were holes or chutes in the bottom of the river. I knew the chutes were lit, like the lights in swimming pools. There was some spherical stone we all had to touch. The stone was polished and black, but it also had a dim, blue-grey glow to it. The stone gave people who rubbed it extra gravity, which allow people to sink all the way to the bottom of the river and through the chutes.

Almost everybody, it seemed, had jumped into the river. The only person remaining, other than myself, I could see was a boy who looked like Justin Bieber. I was having some misgivings about jumping into the river. I felt like someone was trying to get me in trouble by having me jump into the river.

My view shifted. I was now out on a street like a residential street in some stereotypical musical about late-1800s London. It was pouring rain. A long, cream-colored, old-style car drove slowly along the road. I had the feeling that this car held the body (?) of a young man. The car belonged to a mafia-type group that was basically been aiming to frame the young man, whom I may have thought of as both myself and the Justin Beiber-like boy. The group wanted the boy in prison.

My view now shifted to the backyard (?) of some huge mansion that probably had an Asian style to it. It was night, and the rain was still pouring down. My view was mostly taken up by a pool or pond that was surrounded by a pagoda- or shrine-like structure. The shrine was tall and multi-tiered, but none of the tiers had a ceiling.

A man in an old, black, Asian-style outfit and black, round-framed glasses sat at the edge of the pool. The man was the head of the crime organization against the young man.

The man watched as a nice, cream-colored (?) casket rose up out of the pool. It rose up, but it may have been like it was actually descending. The man was upset by this. This casket probably held the young man's dead body. The crime boss hadn't wanted the young man dead: the young man was dear to the crime-boss somehow; the crime-boss had only wanted the young man disabled, imprisoned.

The crime-boss was also upset by the casket getting wet. It meant that the young man's body was also likely getting wet. This may have been bad befause it prevented the young man from coming back to life, or because it was uncomfortable to the young man, if he were alive, or because it was a dishonor to the young man's memory.

the sinister force; mashed potatoes; cliffhanger

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

A group of people (I may have been among them, or I may have been in the scene, but passively viewing it, like watching a movie) were in some desert building. The building may have been some kind of bunker or military building from the 1940s, or it may have been an old, desert house.

The people were some kind of official workers. They were here on an investigation. They were trying to get beyond one door, possibly a door leading down to a basement. The door was probably in the kitchen, which was bright with natural light.

The men finally decided to blow up the door using a large amount of explosives. They set up a canister as big as an oil barrel against the old, thick, wooden door. The canister may have had the force of 620 XXXXX (something I can't remember).

The men went outside the house during the blast. They crouched behind a wooden structure built like a mix between a horse trough and a well house. The men may all have been wearing leather trench coats an old style gas masks for protection.

The explosion occurred. It was supposed to have been intense, but I don't remember it at all. The men may have been expecting to uncover some dangerous criminal, or the things he'd stolen. But they'd released something much worse: some kind of sinister, demonic force.

I had a view of this force rising through the surrounds like a green gel or a green light, which then subsided back to the ground.

The men were all still standing around outside. They knew that the demonic force, though its eventual goal may have had to do with attacking all of society, was first concerned with attacking one specific woman. The men needed to protect the woman. But they couldn't, for some reason, tell her they were protecting her.

The woman was here among the men. She was a glamorous, 1940s style woman. She was so elated that the door had been open that she said she was going to run all the way somewhere, maybe all the way to the nearest (small) town. The woman ran away along a ridge of rocky soil that rose a couple meters above the flat ground.

The men thought this might be convenient. If the woman ran fast enough, she might be able to evade the spread of the sinister force. And if she stayed in town, the sinister force couldn't attack her. Then the men wouldn't have to explain anything to her.

But now the woman had turned around and was running back toward the house. It turned out that she had only been kidding. She wasn't actually going to run off anywhere.

The men now knew the woman was in danger of being attacked by the sinister force. I thought she may already have been attacked by it. Her running off and then coming back, apparently out of joy, seemed a little strange to me. I thought her actions might really have been due to the fact that the sinister force was already infecting her mind.

Dream #2

I walked into a house through a side door. I walked into a kitchen that was kind of small and dim and dirty.

There was a pot of potatoes to my right, either on the counter or on the stove top. The potatoes were in a mixture of water and butter. The water wasn't boiling, but the butter was melted and mixed in with the water like the water was boiling.

A young woman, kind of average looking, a little heavy, but pretty, stood just out of my sight somewhere in the kitchen. The woman and I probably lived together, and we were probably lovers.

But the woman had now started having a relationship with some other woman. She was talking to me now about this other woman, not saying right out that she was having an affair with this woman, but saying nice things about the woman to kind of hint that she might be attracted to her.

I had a feeling that the woman was partly trying to conceal the relationship and partly trying to make me jealous of it. Either way, it was annoying. I decided to ignore the woman. Anyway, I thought, if the woman left me, it would be kind of a relief. I didn't like the woman that much, anyway.

I turned my attention to the potatoes. They were really soft. I grabbed a spoon and began fumbling around with some of them. They were all still in their skins, but they were cut in half.

I spooned into some of the potatoes, scooping out all the insides, then mashing them while keeping them in the water. I thought to myself how much I liked eating potatoes like this, especially when they were soaked in butter, like these potatoes were.

I think the woman was still talking, on and on, about the other woman. When the woman noticed I wasn't paying attention, she might have started yelling at me.

Dream #3

It was a grey, cool day. I was riding a bike down some path in the mountains. I was all alone on the trail.

I had come from a pretty far distance in the mountains, and from a pretty high elevation. But now I was heading home. I was just about to hit the edge of the deep moutains. But I still had a ways to go, through the foothills and the city, before I got home.

I rode down a narrow section of path that ran between two tight cliffs of tan stone. At the bottom of that slope was a trail which, I knew, I'd take off to the right. But below that trail another slope went down to a river, which also flowed off to the right.

I got off my bike and went down to the slope. I'd taken off all my clothes except my boxers (in waking life I never wear boxers -- only boxer briefs). I now got into the river. I had a feeling that I could just lay back and let the water carry me downstream. It could carry me, I thought, almost all the way back home.

But I reflected on all of this. It didn't make sense. First of all, the water was really cold. By the time I got to the end of the river, I'd be sick from the coldness of the water. Second, the river wouldn't take me all the way home. I wouldn't have my bike with me. So I'd have to walk. The walk home would make the whole trip a lot longer than it would have been just taking my bike down the path.

So I got out of the river and headed back up toward my bike. After all, I now told myself, I had only gone down to the river to get a little washed up.

But now, for some reason, I'd climbed up a steep rock outcropping to get back up to the trail. There were a few large boulders that took me a lot of effort to scale. After scaling two black boulders I had to scale a really tricky tan-orange one. I could see my bike just over this boulder.

But I was either having a hard time or pretending to have a hard time climbing this boulder. There were a few ledges I kept seeming to swing off of or arch myself forward or backward to reach.

At some point I almost fell from the ledges. I realized that I was actually really high up, and that if I slipped, I'd fall and die. But I was still wet and slippery, and the boulder was, somehow, just as wet and slippery as I.

I slipped and suddenly found myself hanging from a ledge. I knew I was in trouble. But I also felt like I could save myself if I remained calm.

rub her crotch; important people; fitness video; pulled by a ship

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

There was a naked woman on a bed. She lay on her back with her legs bent, so that her knees were up in the air. There was a man on the bed with her. There may have been one other person on the bed.

The woman may have had a miscarriage or an abortion. Her vagina may have been in pain. She was trying to expose her vagina to the man on the bed so that he'd rub it and make her feel better. She didn't want to have sex. She just wanted to be comforted.

The woman was then lying on the floor, in the same position, with her crotch turned toward the bed. But now there may have been nobody on the bed. The woman was still in pain and still looking for someone to comfort her.

Dream #2

I was probably in the living room of an apartment, which was probably my mom's apartment. My mom may have been throwing some kind of party there. There weren't many people. The lights were dim. The living room was mostly empty. The floor seemed to be a little littered with blankets.

It was getting late, so I decided to leave. My apartment was just across the hallway from my mom's apartment. Just as I was getting into my apartment, I heard that somebody very important was going to be coming for a visit. For some reason, I thought they were going to be coming to my apartment.

My apartment was just as empty as my mom's There was one blanket on my floor. I sat on it and read a book. I was dressed in something strange, like boy's pajama pants and a pink girl's shirt. I may even have been wearing some kind of big jester's hat.

I'd thought at first that when the important person came over, he, or she, or they would be impressed by the book I was reading. But now I thought my clothes, as well of the kind of lazy way in which I was reading, would make a bad impression on the important person or people.

So I stood up to change my clothes. I got into a pair of jeans and a regular t-shirt. But I still felt like even in clothes more like daytime clothes I still looked raggedy and lazy. But I didn't know what else to change into.

I also got the feeling, now, that the important person or people were coming to my mom's apartment, not mine. I decided I'd better head back over to my mom's apartment.

Dream #3

I was in a living room with a small group of people. I don't know what my relation to them was. They were men and women, good looking, in maybe their twenties and thirties. One of the guys was an exercise instructor. He was the biggest and most muscular of us all. He was tanned golden brown, and he had long, platinum blonde hair. He wore a tight, red t-shirt that showed off his muscles.

It was now time for everybody to go to bed. I went into my bedroom, even though everybody else may have been staying in the living room. My room was dark. But on one wall there was something like a TV screen that was surrounded by neon lights. The TV screen began to play a fitness video. I lay on the floor, covered in blankets. The main thing the fitness video was doing was leg lifts. So I did leg lifts with the video.

The exercise instructor walked into my room. I was ashamed that he'd caught me working out with the fitness video. The fitness video came from a different company than the company he worked for. I either tried to justify myself or apologize to the man. But the man said it was alright. His fitness company didn't have a leg lifts program like this one. So he'd suggest I use this tape if I was concerned with doing leg lifts.

The exercise instructor left the room. The fitness video was now turned off. The only thing showing on the wall were the neon lights, which shined in a pattern of top half, then bottom half, then top half, then bottom half. I think I was using this pattern to continue my leg lift exercises.

Dream #4

I was out near water with my family. It was a grey day, but it wasn't raining. My brother-in-law, sister, and a couple of my nephews were all out in the water on a small, very narrow, white-painted boat. The boat may have been made out of some kind of metal. The water was greenish and relatively calm.

I stood on some dock or boardwalk, leaning against some waist-high metal railing. My mom may have been standing next to me -- although she may have been a tall, youngish, thin woman wearing a flowing, white dress, a broad-brimmed, white straw hat, and sunglasses.

The woman/my mom and I may have been having some discussion. Possibly because of that discussion, I decided I needed to have some fun in the water. So I jumped in. I swam to the boat. My brother may have been somewhere in the water as well.

I climbed onto the boat. I sat in the boat for a moment. There were little puddles toward the bow end of the boat. In the little puddles were greenish animals, which I may have taken for lizards, even though they seem to have been creatures more like neon green anemones.

I knew my brother-in-law was sitting at the stern end of the boat. My sister and nephews were also on the boat, and I think I could occasionally see my sister and my youngest nephew, although I couldn't actually see them on the boat. But I decided that the boat was way too crowded for me to stay on it. I jumped back off.

I jumped out on the opposite side of the boat from the dock, so that I felt like I was in deeper water. We were in something like a river, or maybe more like a canal. It was easy for me to swim farther and farther away from the side I'd jumped in on. But when I tried to swim back toward the boat or the dock, I felt a strong pushing against me.

Some woman, either my sister or a copper-skinned woman with jet-black hair and deep, black eyes swimming next to me, said something like, "Now you know the lesson."

I said, "Uh-huh. I do."

The woman said, "You don't swim too deep into the water. Or the current will pull you away. It will be really hard for you to get back to shore."

I thought about my cell phone, which I knew was in my pocket. I cried, "Oh, crap! My phone!" I pulled it out of my pocket. I held it above the water, hoping that irreparable damage hadn't been done, and that I could keep the phone out of the water from here on out.

There was a ship in the water. It was pretty big, for the space it was travelling through. Its hull was mostly black. Toward the deck the ship turned white. Almost all the top portion of the ship was white. The ship looked like some sort of military or commercial vessel. But it may also have been used for some kind of recreational purposes.

I got caught up in the pull of the vessel. I tried to swim out of it, but it was too hard. I got pulled closer and closer. I figured that, at this point, there was nothing I could do. I'd probably get sucked under the ship and die. But I thought that if I didn't die, I could push off of the ship and try to use some of that force to get myself out of the pull of the vessel.

I reached the ship without being pulled under. I kicked off of it and broke free of a little bit of the pull. But I ended up drifting around so I was now behind the vessel. From the back, the vessel looked even more like some recreational vessel, maybe even like a really big yacht. The name of the ship curved around the top of the back end of the vessel.

I was now in the ship's tow. I couldn't avoid it. Wherever the ship went, I would go as well. The ship looped around, apparently, then headed down into some area that was like a gigantic tunnel. The ship slowed down a lot. I could tell it was coming to a stop. I worried that when it came to a stop I'd be drawn all the way back to it and then sucked under the ship, where I'd be chopped up by the rotor blades.

The ship stopped. But I wasn't sucked under. I moved a little closer to the ship, then I stopped. Behind me was a small boat carrying my aunt and her husband. Behind my aunt's boat were a whole string of small boats. It was like we were actually on some kind of theme park ride, like this had all been some kind of water slide.

There was a wooden walkway just to our right. My aunt was complaining about the ride as she and her husband stood out of it. I pulled myself up out of the water.

I think my aunt was now complaining about a broken down refrigerator on the wooden walkway. Apparently my aunt thought she'd be able to get food out of the fridge, like it was a fridge that my family had reserved space in. But since it was broken, my aunt wouldn't be able to get any food. I thought my aunt's complaints were unfair. I was trying to think of a way for her to get food. If I could tell her a different way to get food, maybe she'd stop complaining.

We had been let out of the water at some level below the place we'd come from. So we had to walk up a long stairway to get back to the regular level. As we did, I looked down to the wooden walkway, to the refrigerator my aunt had been talking about. It was surrounded by other machinery, and it was lit in orange streetlight. The area surrounding the refrigerator actually looked like a parking garage to me.

My aunt and her husband were now gone. But I was surrounded by people, all people who'd gotten off the ride I'd apparently been a part of. A lot of us were walking up the stairs. I assumed we'd be going up to the river that I'd originally jumped into. But we were now heading up a steep slope of dry, dusty soil. At the end of the staircase, we ended up walking out onto some dirt walkway. The dirt walkway, I knew, headed to a sidewalk that led into the edge of a shopping district of some neighborhood.

As I headed toward the sidewalk, I kept having to dodge young guys who were rushing down to where I'd come from. They were all really excited about taking the ride that I'd just taken. I felt like they kept getting in my way to stop me from moving, like they were afraid I'd get onto the ride before they did -- even though I was heading away from the ride, not toward it.

When I got up to the sidewalk, I saw that I'd need to turn a corner to the left, then cross a street and walk a couple blocks to get to the shopping district. There was a little vacant lot to my right, between me and the street. I decided to cut across that while I was heading toward the street.

But as I was cutting across this field a man and his girlfriend, maybe in their late twenties, came walking up from some other walkway. The guy spotted me and decided he was going to cut in front of me, to trip me up  in my walking. I kept walking in my own direction. But as the guy got closer to me and I could see that he was aiming to cut right in front of me, I sped up my walk and twisted my path a little. I crossed just in front of the guy. But even when I crossed in front of him, he threw out his legs and tried to trip me.

I passed the guy, and we both crossed the street, but we were heading in different directions. But now I could hear the guy talking to his girlfriend. The guy was telling his girlfriend about some criminal he either knew or admired as an historical figure. The guy liked the criminal because he was always looking for some occasion to be bad to other people. The guy was, apparently trying to take this for the model of his life.

I had the feeling that, even though I'd managed to stop this guy from cutting in front of me and tripping me up, he still felt like he'd won whatever game he'd played with me, just because he'd been able to engage in an activity where, at the very least, he'd had bad intentions.

***

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

sex or work?; lost biking in india

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

It was the middle of night in winter. I was probably in a car with a couple other people. We were probably out on a road deep in the woods. The snow was deep all around us. It was hard for us to get through wherever we were right then. But we were already preparing for a storm that would be even worse. It was snowing a little bit, even now.

The person who was driving the car was like our manager at wherever we worked. He may have been a black man, kind of tall, with a kind of big build. We were all going to our place of work. Our manager was telling us a number of things we needed to keep in mind as we prepared for the storm. He also told us that we should expect to be at our place of work for a while, because once the storm started we would probably be stuck right where we were.

We were now in some big place that kind of looked like a ski lodge. This was where I worked. It was a little dim. But it was full of people. Everybody seemed to be partying and having a good time. I was sitting on the right end of a couch. Two women sat directly to my left. Another person, somebody from my work, sat on a couch opposite mine.

The two women seemed to be talking to each other and to the person across from me. The woman right next to me was really looking for some boy to take home with her. But the woman to her left was making some argument against it. She was saying something like, In this kind of storm, you didn't need to make a long-term commitment with somebody. It would be way too difficult.

But the woman next to me said, "I'm not looking for a long-term commitment. I'm just looking for sex! I want a boy who wants to go home with me for the night."

I'd had the feeling that the woman had thought I was cute for a little while. But now I understood she was basically telling me flat out that she wanted to take me home with her. But for some reason I was still shy. I didn't want to respond to her, because I didn't know if she really liked me.

The woman must have been able to see this. She twisted around and grabbed me up in her arms. It was suddenly like I was so small, like maybe a nine- or ten-year-old boy! The woman was so huge to me -- especially her breasts. The woman basically just shoved my face right into her breasts and began snuggling me. The woman asked me, "What do you say? Do you want to come home with me for the night, little boy?"

Just being enveloped in the beautiful woman's body the way I was, I felt so aroused and so comfortable. I did want to go home with the woman -- as soon as possible. But I remembered that I was scheduled to work. We were going to have the big storm. I needed to be here to work the big storm. How could I just leave my job at the time when they needed me the most, just to go off and have sex?

But I knew if I didn't at least go ask my manager if I could get the evening off from work, the woman would be disappointed in me. The woman was still cradling me in her arms. But I was thinking of how, when I could get up, I could best phrase the request to my boss. I wanted to make it sound like it was some kind of real emergency, so my boss would let me go.

Dream #2

I was apparently in India with a male friend. It was daytime, and we were biking through some kind of desert. It was a hot, sunny day. My friend and I had gotten into some small argument about where we were going to go next. We were on a dirt trail I believe. But we had gone along a number of different trails, and now I may have felt like I wasn't going to be able to see what I'd wanted to see.

Somehow my friend and I got our issues resolved. (The resolution of these issues, oddly enough, may have involved the intercession of a huge, talking bird, kind of like a pale, mutated vulture that was almost the size of a human.) We had decided which path we were going to take. But my friend was still kind of being a jerk to me. So I decided that while we were biking, I would keep at a distance from him. I'd start really slow and then stay far behind him, so he couldn't talk to me.

Now the path we were going along was a concrete path. We may have been a lot closer to a city, too. We started out by going down a kind of steep slope. The slope led to a grassy and tree-filled area around a river. But my friend had turned off on one path, while I either purposely or accidentally missed the path. Instead, I turned off to the left. I was now riding along a path on the opposite side of the river from my friend. I was also riding above the river, instead of at a level kind of below it, like my friend was.


I was a little worried. I didn't want to lose my friend, and I didn't want my friend to think he'd lost me. But when I looked out to my right, and just a little way ahead of me, I could see my friend on his path. He didn't seem to be aware, yet, that he'd lost me.


I figured I'd speed up. As long as I kept pace with my friend, from my path, then I could join back up with him. I knew that just a ways ahead the path curved right, with the river. I had the feeling that, just after the path curved right, there was a little section that ran back over the river. I could cross the river at that section and meet back up with my friend.


At this point, my friend may have realized that he'd lost me. He looked around. Then he saw me on the path across the river. He may have held his arms out, as if to ask, "What do we do now?"


I tried to shout something like, "Keep in touch with my by phones!" or, "Keep in touch with me by texting!" But I may have lost my friend's view around the curve as I was saying this.


I figured that my friend wouldn't have any idea that he was supposed to wait for me just around the curve. And he seemed to be riding even faster now. I'd have to speed up to get to the crossing point ahead of my friend, so I could meet him there, not have him go ahead of me and keep riding away.


There was a chain-link fence along my left side. Past the fence was a slight, grassy slope. Just beyond that I could see some big buildings, some of which kind of shone white in the sunlight. I knew that we must have been close to a town by now.


But now whole crowds of people came walking down the slope. They crossed through the fence and walked out onto the concrete path. Nobody was paying attention to me. I had to dodge everybody on the path. I managed to do so and keep up my speed for a little while. But then there were too many people on the path. I had to slow down a lot to keep from hitting people.


But now I could see that a whole lot more people were coming down the slope. I realized that I was in the middle of some big festival. The people may have come here to do something like wash in the river. But pretty soon this whole path, as well as the land, down to the river, would be filled with people. I knew it wouldn't be a matter of riding slowly. I'd have to get off my bike altogether. Even then, I probably wouldn't be able to walk. I'd probably be at a total standstill during the ceremony.

bleeding woman

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was standing out on some kind of promenade before a wide river. It was a bright and sunny day. The pavement of the promenade was some kind of pale stone or concrete that reflected the sun pretty brightly. A tall chain link fence bounded the promenade and blocked off the river, which glared in the sunlight.

On the other side of the walkway from the river was a wide, lawny field. I stood by the fence. A couple people stood with me. Some other people stood on the field. All the people around me seemed to be old, and they all seemed to be dressed in nice business suits or nice lounge wear and leisure jackets.

A young woman sat on the ground. She may have been my sister, or she may have been like my sister. She was wrapped up in blankets. She seemed to be suffering from some kind of illness. I knew she was sick. But nobody else seemed to think she was, or even to regard her.

But now the young woman began bleeding. At first she was bleeding a little bit -- from somewhere. But then it was like something had jabbed into her ribs, or like she had jabbed something into her own ribs, on her right side. I could see that the stab had been made through some kind of beige colored Ace bandage. The young woman began bleeding a lot.

For a moment I was looking at some weird kind of processed food. It was like a small, plastic canister of soup. The canister was shaped like a baby food jar. But it was bigger, and colored a solid blue, almost like a jar for powdered paint.

Inside the jar were what looked like cubes of bouillon. I knew that when water was added to these cubes, they would dissolve into broth. But there were also little sheets or flakes of some kind of white material. At first I thought these were ingredients for the soup, like slices of chicken. But then I realized these were also items that dissolved into broth.

It seemed like this whole soup was just broth. I'd wanted to eat the soup at first. But now that I realized it was all just broth, I no longer wanted it. It seemed too salty for me.

I may have seen the bleeding woman one more time.