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 exploding wall

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

It was night. My viewpoint was from out on a street, looking up toward the third or fourth floor of a concrete building. The wall had blown out in a small section of the building, revealing a room that looked like a private bath or sauna. The rest of the outside of the building was bathed in an amber glow, like a fire was burning somewhere across the street.

The view now drifted upward, so I could see a few people standing in the hole gaping in the wall. The light was out in the room, so that everything was illuminated only by the amber glow. A couple of the people standing near the hole were stereotypical detectives in khaki trench coats and fedoras. In the center of the detectives stood a sexy, but kind of old, woman with platinum blonde hair, tan, but weathered, skin, and wearing a black mini-dress.

It was now understood that the woman worked for some kind of service that employed beautiful women. The manager of these women had been an aging, overweight, bald man. When the wall had exploded, the man had fallen to his death. He may have been wearing only a tank top and boxers at the time.

The detectives asked something like, had this ever happened before? The woman said that nothing like this had ever happened before. Apparently this place was something like a bath house or sauna house, with room after room of private baths and saunas. The woman said that bad or weird things had happened in the rooms. For instance, people had been found sick and dead in the rooms.

Also, the woman said, people had been discovered having "weird sex" in the rooms. This conjured up an image in my mind of two women having sex by scissoring in a kind of sitting position, with each woman having one of her legs in a regular downward position, with her feet on the floor, and the other leg high up in the air.

The woman and the detectives were now walking back down through the hallway between the rooms. The light in the hallway was dim and amber as well, like it also was lit only by whatever light was burning out on the street.

attacking mom; foxes and wolves

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a huge room, like the Rose Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library, with my family. The section of the room we were in was all cluttered with blankets. Either I or my mom was holding up my little niece.

Suddenly, my mom decided to spray me directly in the face with perfume. The perfume had a purple kind of smell. I was angry that my mom had sprayed my face. I can't stand anything getting in my face. So I ducked. I cursed at my mom. My mom said she couldn't see why I was getting so upset over it. Besides, my mom said, my niece had a medical condition where she needed to be sprayed in the face. So my mom would spray whenever she felt like it. My mom sprayed me again.

My mom was now running away, with a small group of people, maybe family members, or maybe some of her friends. I began running really quickly after my mom. I finally caught up with her and grabbed her around her neck. I shook my mom by the neck a few times. I then stopped and walked away. I knew that what I had done just then had injured my mom enough so that she would die soon. But now that I knew I had injured my mom to the point where she would die, I felt terribly guilty.

Dream #2

I was standing out at the back end of the back yard of the house my family lived in while I was in high school. I stood up on some deck-like structure built just beside the garage. The deck was bounded by a chain link fence which went up to about my sternum.

I saw a huge "fox" stalking through our backyard. It then jumped over the fence and onto the deck. I was afraid it was going to kill and eat me. But it just kind of snuggled with me for a second. It then walked down the steps of the deck behind me and walked into a forest-like area. I was surprised that the fox had been so gentle.

I now saw another animal, though, stalking up out of the woods, from where the fox had been. I told myself the animal was a cheetah (though the animal was kind of fat for a cheetah). I was certain it could smell the fox on me. I thought the cheetah would be mad to smell the fox on me. The cheetah was "my type" of animal. So by letting the fox put its scent on me, I was betraying the cheetah.

But the cheetah disappeared, and now a huge wolf (which I may have called a coyote) stalked up from the woods. The wolf had fur as brown as a buffalo's. I could tell the animal was angry at the fox, though I'm not sure the anger had anything to do with me. The way was coming my way, not to attack me, but to jump over the fence and into the backyard. The wolf would fight the fox in the backyard.

I turned to look at the backyard. I could see the fox back there. The grass was really tall, and the fox was crouching down into the grass, hiding itself so it could attack the wolf by surprise. The wolf jumped over the fence. It suddenly occurred to me that the fox wasn't very well hidden. The grass didn't seem so tall, after all.

But now I saw a second fox hiding in the grass. The wolf was in the center of the two foxes, with something like a wild turkey hanging dead in its jaws. I knew the poorly hidden fox, on the wolf's left, was a decoy. The wolf would attack that fox, and the second fox would come up from behind and attack the wolf. But for some reason I didn't know whether that would work. The wolf seemed way too strong to beat.

Now there was a second wolf. And now it seemed to me that the wolves and foxes were evenly matched, and that there would be a fair fight. The fight must have begun. But time passed, and it was now dark outside. I had been behind some wall this entire time. I now looked around the wall. I knew the fight was over. I figured I could tell who'd won by seeing what bodies were left in the yard. I feared that all four bodies would be found lying in the yard.

But I couldn't see the yard. It was too dark. So I switched on a light switch, like for a ceiling light. It may have been daytime. My mom walked down into the yard from the house. I told my mom, somewhat astonished, that there had been a fight between wolves and foxes here just over the past evening. My mom said, "What? You think that's a big deal? I've seen stuff like that before. It's nothing new. It's just a part of nature."

cooking potatoes; grandma's and my bills; not dying

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

It was night. I was in the kitchen of some apartment. All the lights in the apartment were off. The only light coming into the apartment was the blue light of the moon coming in through the windows. There were no windows in the kitchen, so the kitchen was particularly dim.

I may have been myself, or I may have been a young woman with black hair done up in pig tails. I had been cooking potatoes, doing so as a kind of illustration for somebody on how to cook potatoes.

There were a group of men, kind of tough-looking men maybe in their forties, all sitting out at my dining table. The light of the moon shone directly onto the dining table.

In my mind's eye I saw some small potatoes all piled up on top of each other on a square plate. The potatoes were covered over with something like a napkin or handkerchief. I imagined the napkin being pulled off the potatoes as I told the men that ----- potatoes (I can't remember what kind) were very special in that, to protect their (moistness or flavor?) they needed to be covered over with a satin sheet.

I was now back in the kitchen. I had a small pot full of full-sized potatoes. The potatoes looked like they had been baked, but they may have been boiled. I grabbed one of the potatoes. I pulled the skin all the way off the potato in one easy pull. It was like the skin had only been fitting very loosely onto the potato. I then shoved all the skin in my mouth and ate it. I thought it was delicious, and that it meant the potato would be very good.

I commented to the men at the table that the skin had come off so easily. I thought that might mean that the potato would be bad. The men replied that that meant the potato would be good. They even asked me what I was asking them for. Hadn't I just mentioned (or thought?), they asked, that a potato with loose skin would be good?

I knew they were right. I thought that the potato itself would be really moist and soft. I knew it would be delicious. I may have thought of eating one right now.

Dream #2

My grandmother had an electricity bill that needed to be paid. But somehow my mom and I had paid it off. We now needed to tell my grandma that we had paid off this bill.

We found my grandma down in some huge basement. It seemed like it may have been the basement for a house, but it was really huge. The place seemed run-down. It was really dim, like there was just some bright incandescent bulb, like might be found in a mine, shining for the whole basement.

I saw my grandma and told her that her electricity bill was paid off. My grandma hugged me and said thank you. My mom paced behind my grandma, giving her a mean kind of look, as if she were jealous of my grandma for thanking only me and not my mom.

My grandma then either told me that she had paid my electricity bill, or that I should also worry about my own electricity bill. My grandma made it sound like my bill was dangerously behind. I was kind of surprised by this. I didn't know my electricity bill had been behind. But my grandma said it was.

My mom took me upstairs to explain my electricity bill. We were up in a smallish living room. The lights were all on, but it still wasn't bright. The living room was pretty active, with all my nephews  playing around, running into and out of the house. My sister may have been in the living room as well.

My mom had something like a sketch pad that was wire-bound at the top. She flipped open the sketch pad. I could see something about the pad that implied that the identity of the person whose usage of electricity I was going to have to pay for was a pretty, long-haired woman. I saw -- somewhere, somehow -- a quick sketch of the woman in the nude, the curves of her body accentuated in a sexy way.

My mom showed me the electricity I had used. This usage had led me to believe that I only owed a certain amount on my electricity. But there had been additional usage, possibly by this woman, that I hadn't known about. I hadn't paid my bills on this usage for a number of months now, and now I owed something like $85.

The utility worker who would come out and inspect meters and decide whether to turn the electricity off or keep it on, and who was herself a very pretty woman, had been kind to me, my mother explained, and allowed my electricity to stay on, even when I wasn't paying the bills. But now, my mom explained, it was getting to the point where I would have to pay the money I owed.


Dream #3


It was night. Somebody may have been in a hospital and dying. It may have been me. My whole family was in one room of the hospital, possibly in with the person who was dying. 


I felt like I needed to prove that I wasn't the one who was dying. I was now at some other place in the hospital, and I needed to get back to my family to prove I wasn't dying. I entered the room that my family was in. I tried to prove to my family, apparently just with my presence and the fact that I could walk upright, that I wasn't dying.


***


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


UPDATE 2: Added drawing for dream #1, July 12, 2012, 11:34 AM, Mountain Standard Time.

kicking a little dog; purple diapers and t-shirt; phonecall pools; exhibit m; hill climbing

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in somebody else's house. The house was yellow with daylight coming in through the windows. The house seemed cluttered. The furniture and other items in the house were brown.

I had to move something out of the house. I had gotten whatever I needed to move out of the house (it may have been something like a tall, wood-backed chair). I was heading for a door.

But now a little dog came running at me. It had longish, red-golden hair. It was skinny, with a long, pointy face and pointy ears. It was barking at me a lot. I thought it was going to bite me. I had been told about the dog, I believe. I knew that while I was taking the item out of the house I had to keep the dog in the house. If the dog left the house, it would be really hard to get it back.

So I kicked at the dog kind of violently, to keep the dog in the house. I had the door open and was pulling the item out of the house when the dog attacked me again. This time, instead of just kicking at the dog, I kicked the dog. I kicked the dog a number of times before the dog ran yelping away into the house.

Once I'd secured the item outside the house I started to feel bad for having kicked the dog. I went back into the house to see the dog and make sure it was okay. When I found the dog it was afraid of me. It scuttered away from me and hid behind a chair. I followed after it. The dog was laid over on its left side. The dog was now black, with sleek fur, almost like the feathers of a starling bird.

I believe I petted the dog and that, after a while, the dog began to feel comfortable around me and to respond to me.

Dream #2

I was at "my step-grandmother's house." I had apparently either come to live with my step-grandmother or to spend a few days with her. It was night. We were in some room kind of like a living room mixed with a study. The light in the room was dim -- maybe just one lamp for the whole room.

My step-grandmother had been telling me all the preparations she'd been making for my arrival here. As she told me this stuff, she sat in a high-backed, cushioned chair, while I sat down at her knee, on some comfortable, cushioned stool.

My grandma told me something about how she'd made similar preparations for someone who'd come to live here before me. The person seemed to be alternately a man and a woman -- or perhaps there had been a man and then a woman in succession. I believe that when my grandma spoke about the woman, she seemed to mention the woman as if she were very fashionable, as if my grandma always had to think of how to be "fashionable enough" for her guest.

But when my grandma mentioned the man, she mostly liked to draw attention to his quirks. For instance, my grandma mentioned an "unfortunate" collection the man had left of fashion magazines. These magazines smelled like perfume. My grandma hadn't even known the man had had such a huge stack of fashion magazines. And my grandma hoped that I wouldn't mind them being in the room I'd be using. My grandma would soon be throwing these magazines away.

When I heard about the magazines, I kind of wanted to tell my grandma that she shouldn't throw them away. I loved fashion magazines, and I wanted to see the ones the boy had left.

I had now stood up and paced out across the room and back. As I did, my clothing changed from normal boys' clothing to a tight, short, purple t-shirt and a purple Pampers Underjams diaper.

My grandma was discussing difficulties she'd had in getting the place prepared for me personally. She seemed to be at the end of the list once I'd gotten back to her. But now she said, "And, here. See? Let me see here. What are you wearing under this shirt?"

My grandma lifted up my shirt. She said, "Ah. Just what I suspected. Diapers."

My grandma stood up and paced to the opposite side of the room. I followed her. I now noticed that the opposite wall of the room was of stone, with a fireplace set into the stone, and a little platform in front of the fireplace.

My grandma said, "I was thinking of setting you up with a girlfriend while you were here. But I didn't, because I knew you were going to be wearing diapers. I just didn't know, if you were wearing diapers, if you'd want to be spending any time with a pretty girl as well."

I was sad that my grandma hadn't set me up with the girl. I thought that maybe I shouldn't have worn diapers here after all.

Dream #3

I walked through the doorway of some kind of stone- or cinder-wall barrier. A pretty, skinny, tall, blonde woman had been walking with me. But she stopped walking and stood just inside the doorway, on the right (our right) side of the doorway.

It was a clear, hot, sunny day. I was walking along a wide concrete path. Off to my right were pools of water. They were square-shaped, divided from each other by concrete walls. The water in each pool looked a little different. The shapes of the floors of the pools was also different. Some pools were just even cubes. Others had steps or tiers in them. Some may actually have extended out a lot farther than the others.

Some of the pools had flowing water, and some of the pools had still water. The water in all the pools seemed to be clean -- I think the one thing the water had in common was a slight greenish tint (which I think I've always associated with chlorinated water). I think there were supposed to be living creatures in at least some of the pools. But I don't think I ever saw any creatures.

After walking a very short distance, I suddenly crouched down and called my boss' phone. I was crouching down on some kind of basalt outcropping that seemed to jut over a larger body of water than any of the pools. I didn't reach my boss. I decided to leave a voice message for him. But I kept talking and talking so much that the time limit ran out on the voice message.

I hung up my phone. I figured I'd said enough to my boss. I stood up and started walking along the pools again.

But now I realized I hadn't said enough to my boss. In fact, there were key points I'd left out of my voice message. So I called my boss up again and crouched down beside a pool. I got voicemail and talked and talked until the voice message time limit ran out. I then hung up the phone and stood up again.

I was now walking on a concrete sidewalk, up a slight slope, on a street with tall skyscrapers. I knew I was heading into my office. I knew I had been away on some kind of a business trip for a long time. It was like I was a salesman and I had been out selling.

I could see the image of a comic strip clearly in my head. It was black and white, in a straight-edged, 1950s style of line drawing. In the first frame there was a man in a suit and a fedora, walking in the sunlight. The man said something like, "It's good to get back home, to see how the people (down stairs?) are doing. You get back in touch with what's actually happening in the company." In the second frame, the man was heading into a building very much like the building I was heading into.

I now headed into the building and downstairs. Downstairs was a cafeteria. Apparently the first thing I was going to do was grab some lunch. Everything seemed to be sterile and white in the cafeteria. The cafeteria had a Mexican food theme to it -- all the time, I think.

I headed to a steel-countered service area at the back end of the cafeteria. I was really looking for a burrito. The cafeteria was selling one main item that day. But I can't remember what it was. Maybe tacos? I may have grabbed a main item. But I didn't really want it, and I went looking along the counter for something else. It looked like, behind a glass window, they were also serving little single enchiladas and single tamales (the tamales actually looked like tiny burritos) in little, plastic dessert bowls.

A tallish, white man with long, brown hair in a ponytail and wearing a white food service apron came up behind the counter. He asked me if I would like him to get me anything. I asked the man if he had any burritos. The man said, "Oh, no, we aren't doing those today. But we have a lot of other really good stuff."

I now seemed so small that my head barely rose above the steel counter that had previously been waist-height. I looked up over the glass wall at the man and, in a kind of acquiescent way, asked for one of the food items I'd seen in one of the plastic dessert bowls. The man handed it to me.

It seemed like the man understood that he was now done serving me. I figured I'd better just take that as a cue that I shouldn't bother the man anymore by asking him to serve me anymore. But I realized that when I'd asked the man for the item I'd wanted, I'd asked for the wrong item. I'd wanted a tamale and an enchilada. But instead, I'd asked for a ----- (I don't know).

I was now back at the pools. I had walked a little way farther along the pools. But now I remembered that I needed to finish up the details I'd given to my boss. There were a few final things he needed to know. So I crouched down again beside a pool. I called the number and waited for the voicemail to turn on. I looked into the pool I crouched over, maybe even sticking my hand into the pool, in hopes of finding some of the animals I'd thought were here.

Dream #4

I was in a dark hallway in a hospital. I opened a door. My dad was in this room, laying in a hospital bed. The room seemed pretty dim, at least at first: like the room was only lit by a wall-mounted x-ray film illumination screen.

My dad was laying on his left side. He'd been through some kind of really tough situation, and he was only now arriving at a point of recovery. My little brother had also been in this hospital. But he'd recently died, only the night before, or possibly even this morning.

My dad now asked me about my brother. I was kind of surprised nobody had told my dad about my brother. My sister was here, too, like I was -- seeing to my brother and dad. And my sister had seen my dad on a number of occasions during the night and morning, after my brother had died. I had a feeling that my dad should have been told about my brother a lot earlier, and that he'd be a little annoyed when he found out he hadn't been told until so long afterwards.

But I looked at my dad. He looked so weak: pale, dried out, with his hair gone a brittle color of silvery-grey. I thought that the news of my brother's death would distress my dad so much that my dad might relapse into his illness, or even die himself. So I hesitated in telling my dad about my brother. Instead, I told him something like I didn't know exactly what was going on, but that I would tell him the news as soon as I could.

I closed the door and walked out into a lit, moderately busy, hospital hallway. I was trying to figure out who I should ask in order to know for sure whether it was or wasn't okay to tell my dad about my brother. I probably settled on discussing the matter with my sister. But I may also have had the vague, foggy images (as possibilities) in my mind's eye of my mother and of some nurse -- the nurse wearing a very fetish-style nurse costume.

After a while I managed to meet up in the hospital with my sister and mother. But after talking with my sister and mother for a little bit, I realized that the only reason they hadn't told my dad anything about my brother's death was neglect. It wasn't that they wanted to spare my dad's feelings. They just, for some reason or another, neglected to tell my dad anything.

I was a little angry with my mother and sister for having been so neglectful. I may have expressed my anger. But I knew I had to hurry back to my dad and tell him about my brother as soon as I could. I knew there was a chance that my dad could die. And if my dad died before I told him that my brother had died, I could never forgive myself.

I walked into a hospital room. But the bed by the door was empty, the sheets still crumpled up on the bed, as if the person who had been occupying the bed had only recently been removed. I was certain that this meant my dad had died, and that his body had only recently been taken away. There was another bed in the room, which may have had somebody in it. There may also have been a medical staff person in the room with the person in the bed.

But somehow I came to understand that this room was actually not the room my dad had been in. A lot of the rooms looked an awful lot alike in this hospital. I was in a similar-looking room, but in a completely different area of the hospital. I needed to get to the right area of the hospital.

I knew the areas of the hospital were all divided into something like wards. But the wards were called something like "exhibits." The boundary for each exhibit had a plastic sign over it, like over a doorway or a threshold. I think the plastic sign could light up. On the sign were, in black, plastic, capital letters, the word "EXHIBIT" (?) and the exhibit letter.

I knew I needed to get to exhibit M. I knew that my dad's hospital room would be the corner room in a wall lined with rooms. I knew that once I found the correct room, I could just walk in and see my dad in his bed, right where I'd left him.

I walked through exhibits H, I, and J. Each successive exhibit I walked through looked less and less like a hospital and more and more like an old-style library. And the more I walked through these exhibits, the less welcome I felt. It was like I was heading into wealthier and wealthier areas. The people there wondered what I was doing there. They looked down on me and suspected me.

Finally I found exhibit M. I walked past the threshold and found myself in a big, nearly empty, wood-floored and wood-walled room. There were huge paintings on at least two of the walls: one of the side walls and the back wall. The paintings were landscapes or skyscapes. Each picture nearly took up the whole wall on which it was mounted.

I felt extremely unwanted in this exhibit. It seemed like the wealthiest exhibit I'd been to so far. There was a school group -- mostly high school boys -- standing near the back left corner of the room. Some of the boys were actually sitting on the edge of some long heavy marble- or wood-topped table.

At the back left corner of the room was a doorway. I knew I had to go through that doorway to find my dad. But that meant I'd have to go past the high school boys.

I assumed that the boys were all rich, since they were in exhibit M. They were all white, kind of pale-skinned. They wore clothes that were a little baggy and a little thuggy-looking. Some of them wore baseball caps tilted at weird angles. The boys' teacher was a tall, muscular, white man with a nice tan. He wore a nice shirt and slacks and thin-rimmed eyeglasses.

The boys all seemed cheerful enough with each other. But when I passed them I felt a definite change in mood. They all seemed to be focused, now, on how they could cause troubles for me. One of the boys threw a paper wad at me. Another boy actually threw a needle at me. The needle was intended to stick into me. But somehow I managed to spot its flight and catch it in a safe way.

The boys now all seemed to have forgotten about my existence. I was about to cross over the threshold into the next room. In fact, I think I crossed into the next room, which was another huge, empty, museum-like room. But it felt a bit dustier than the other room, and lit with much more harshly bright daylight.

But I quickly turned back toward the first room. Anger had built up in me. I realized that the boy who had thrown the needle at me had really meant to hurt me. What could have been on that needle? And yet the boy had completely ignored me after throwing it. I knew all the boys in the group were in on the needle-throwing. And I intended to make all of them feel some regret for what they'd done.

One boy stood on the threshold between the rooms. He may actually even have stood a little bit into the second room. His back was to me. So I stuck the needle as far into his back as I could. I thought I'd get a little bit of a reaction out of the boy. But he didn't even seem aware that I'd stuck the needle into his back.

I felt bad for sticking the needle into the boy's back. After all, what could have been on that needle? Did I just poison the boy? Did I just give him some kind of disease? Did I really need to be doing something like that to somebody, just because I was mad? I pulled the needle out of the boy's back.

But I was really angry that the boys still seemed not to be upset about having tried to hurt me. So I walked out in front of them all. Apparently the teacher had stepped away. Most of the boys were sitting on the edge of the long table.

I asked the boys if they had any idea that what they'd done to me was wrong. They hardly seemed to be registering my existence at all. So I flipped out on them. They didn't seem to move. I basically went down the line, doing something cruel to each boy. Each thing I did was a little bit different for each boy. I killed one of the boys, maybe even chopping off his head. But, for another boy -- the boy had something like orange juice and orange donuts. I spilled his juice all over the place and began smashing the donuts with the bottom of the cup.

As I was smashing the boy's donuts, the teacher came back into the room. I knew I was probably going to get in a lot of trouble for what I'd done to all the boys. I thought I would explain myself, but I don't know if I ever got started explaining myself. I seemed to be pretty intent on smashing the donuts into paste. I thought that if I could explain myself, I'd possibly get off free. But then I thought that couldn't be possible, considering that I'd killed at least one of the boys.

Dream #5

I was walking up a steep slope with an older man and a younger woman. It was a bright, sunny day. But the sky may have been yellow, rather than blue. We were walking up a sidewalk. But we may have been in a partially forest-like area. The whole environment may also have had some kind of cartoony feel to it, too.

The older man was in the lead. I followed the man, and the woman followed me. The older man was like some established, wealthy business man. He was taking us up to something business related, I believe, at the top of the hill. There may have been some tall, skyscraper-like building up there.

The younger woman had light brown skin. She wore something like a black corset with pink decorations on it. She may also have been wearing pink, feathery wings. Her hair was dyed pink, at least near the roots. The woman had been walking behind me for a ways. Then she walked beside me. I think while she was walking beside me, she'd been expecting me to make some sort of move on her, or at least show some sort of sexual interest in her. I was interested in her. But I was really shy.

According to the older man, this walk was supposed to be a really rigorous walk, and our attainment of the crest was supposed to be a symbol of how, if we put a really strong effort into it, we could achieve anything. Only people who could get to the top of the hill could go into the building at the top of the hill.

But I realized I wasn't walking too fast or trying too hard at all. I was staying a few meters behind the man, keeping pace with him. I even pumped my legs a little bit harder than needed, just so I could feel like I was making the effort the man had said we'd be making.

The woman must have felt the same as I did, because she now moved up ahead of me. As we neared the crest of the hill, the woman even moved up ahead of the man. I was shocked that the woman had gotten into the lead. I was a little ashamed of myself for not having taken the lead myself. And I was envious of the woman.

The woman, who was still attracted to me, sensed my envy. We were all turning to head back down the slope, as if we were now doing something like laps up and down the slope. As we crossed paths, the woman said something to me like, "We all take turns at the front. Whoever's in the back has to run up to the front, right? So now you're in the back. It'll be your turn to run up to the front next."

I kind of had the feeling that the woman was saying this only to soothe my envy. But I thought that, if she was right, I was well-positioned for running up to the front. We were heading downhill. So it would be easy for me to get up my speed.

picking up a photographer; disappointing a girl

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in some building like a nice community center. I could see down a staircase and into a rather large basement. There was some event, like an art show, being set up down there. I may have come here at this time thinking the event was already in progress.

I walked down into the basement. I feel now that the basement looked like a big conference room in a nice hotel. Most of the booths or tables were still getting set up. But one of the tables seemed mostly set up already.

I walked over there. The artist running the booth was a pretty girl, maybe in her mid-twenties. She was sat back in a chair, probably stretching her legs out on another chair.

The booth mostly displayed works of photography. I looked closely at the photographs. They were in black and white, though some of the black and white my have been painted over (?) in one solid color for each photo. Some pieces had really small photos bordered by huge pieces of solid colored paper. In particular I remember one pink photo surrounded by a dullish pink paper border.

I asked the woman about the photographs. It became apparent the woman thought I was cute (???). I felt like she wanted me to hit on her. But I didn't seem able to work the conversation around to doing it at all.

Somehow the woman and I got talking about the source of these photos. It turned out that a lot, if not all, of these photos had been made by the woman's mother and father. Both the woman's mother and father had died. At first I thought only one of the parents had died. But I eventually come to a somewhat certain understanding that they'd both died.

I knew I was really screwing up, if I was planning to hit on this girl, by bringing up the deaths of her parents. But we seemed to keep talking about it now.

I turned around and looked at some frames on the opposite side of the booth. The frames were all wooden, with solid backs, so they looked like wooden tea trays tipped up onto their sides. Some of them looked very unfinished. Others were finished and had nice, little, ornamental paintings in a kind of folk art style.

I could see that around the corner from where I was was a much larger exhibition area. It actually looked like a big convention hall. It seemed to be above ground, and some high-up windows let in a bright, greyish light. The big area was all set up, and it seemed pretty busy.

Dream #2

I was in some kind of room. A little girl was sat down somewhere, possibly on a single step at the edge of the room. The room was small and square and mostly empty. But on all the walls of the room were pieces of paper, kind of like different colored (mostly girly colored) construction paper, with writing on it.

All of the writings were things explaining some situation in my life to me. It was like a breakup or some other kind of disappointing change in my life. The writings were all there to explain things to me in a way that wouldn't hurt my feelings.

One of the writings came to have something to do with the little girl. It was like the little girl had been my girlfriend. But now she had run off with some other little girl, and the two little girls were lesbian lovers. My little girlfriend's decision to leave me probably had something to do with my making less money nowadays.

But some other people, possibly on behalf of the little girl, were standing behind me, explaining what I'd just read. What I'd read had already been written in a very kind and gentle style. But the people behind me, sensing my disappointment, we re-explaining things to me in a way, they hoped, would make me feel less like my little girlfriend had run off on me.

I may now have felt like I needed to explain the writings to the little girl. I had a feeling, though, that when I told her what I'd read, she'd be very disappointed in me. So I was trying to find a really gentle way of breaking it to her.

mom is claiming me; kurt cobain's sculpture garden

Dream #1

I was at some house, possibly my family's house. My mom seemed to be getting her taxes in order so she could file them. I had apparently been getting my taxes in order, too.

But now my mom asked me to give her one of my W2s. She said she needed it for her forms, as she was claiming me on her taxes. I realized I had been spending time living with her over the past year. But it had been less than three months. I didn't think that was enough time for her to be able to claim me on her tax form.

But my mom insisted. She showed me her tax forms. They were like long, green pieces of construction paper with writing on them in purple crayon. The crayon showed simple mathematical calculations. But a lot of them had to do with me. Many of them were trying to prove that I had lived with my mom since 2006.

I was shocked. I knew that if I had to give my mom information for her taxes, that would mess up what I needed to do for my taxes. That's why I didn't want her to claim me as a dependent. But if she had been claiming me since 2006, it would really end up coming back to me in a really bad way! How could my mom have done this to me!

I yelled and screamed at my mom. But she didn't think she'd done anything wrong. She said I was being really ungrateful to her by acting this way. I knew there was no point in yelling at my mom. So I went into the basement, apparently where my bedroom was.

I was getting all my tax documentation together. I was going to file my own taxes right away, the way I'd planned to do them before. But now I got angry at my mom all over again. I began yelling and screaming all kinds of nasty things about her.

I got control of my emotions and walked out of the bedroom. There was a big main area in the basement. I walked through that area into another area, which was my mom's bedroom. My brother stood right on the threshold of that area.

The bedroom was very big, but very dim, like it was lit with only a few candles or a few very small lights. My mom sat at a computer. She was surrounded by a few young men. The men were all looking at whatever she was doing on the computer with a sense of hope.

My brother said my mom was going to let him have a turn on the computer next. I realized that my mom was controlling computer usage, as well as other aspects of life, for my brother and the other men in her room.

I got angry again and yelled and screamed that my mom had managed to get my brother into a position where she had complete control over him.

I now had a view of something like a forest or a jungle. Some George of the Jungle kind of guy was swinging through the jungle. But I could barely see him. Somehow I was comparing my mom to the George of the Jungle guy.

Dream #2

I was outside a house at night. It was a cool, dewy night, and the moon was full in the sky. The house was gently lit. But it was almost like it was lit by stage light, like in a movie.

I was standing outside with a couple young adults. I was just near the foot of the staircase leading up to the covered porch of the house. The others sat on a little ledge on the covered porch. One or two of the people had left. A couple women remained.

We were somehow passing a book back and and forth to each other. It was a big, kind of thin, photography book. The book was about people whose lives had been ruined by meth usage. It had some specific angle to it. All the photos were either by or of famou artists who had been meth addicts, I think.

Somehow we got really interested in a section on Kurt Cobain (? - I don't think he was on meth). The first photograph in his section was of some kind of Buddhist sculpture, like of a fat, grinning, shirtless man wearing some kind of flowing skirt or pants.

I was now standing out on the grounds of what was apparently Kurt Cobain's estate. It was like a college campus, but it was all his house. The buildings were all red brick, with grey-white concrete or stone trim and grey-white concrete or stone columns.

It was a grey, dewy morning. There were a few young people all around the buildings. These people were all here kind of like they were at a party. Everybody was really calm. But I also had the feeling that these people were all drug addicts as well, and that they stood a chance of getting really rowdy.

Somehow I got really transfixed by the sculpture all over the place. Something about the sculpture had a very Buddhist look. But all the sculpture seemed to be defaced.

I may have been walking with one or two other people. They may have led me into one of the buildings. This building was set up like a small sculpture museum. There was really lovely sculpture all over the place. It all had a look like very old, stone, Buddhist sculpture. But it seemed to be made out of white marble, like 18th century French sculpture. And it was also all defaced. It was like the surfaces had been smashed and then rubbed smooth, or just rubbed smooth.

I walked back outside. There was another really fascinating sculpture near a light fixture on a column. This at first looked to me like a fat, bald man sitting and grinning widely.

I wondered, as I looked at the sculpture, why Kurt Cobain had been so into Buddhist sculpture. But as I wondered this, the sculpture changed into the sculpture of a snake's head. The snake's head then became defaced, like the others -- like it had been smashed and then rubbed smooth.

I turned to my right and walked into some small garden between buildings. There were a few young adults hanging around there, lithely relaxing. I was a little afraid of them. They seemed so calm right now. But I was afraid they'd become really rowdy really soon.

I noticed, right at the edge of the covered porch for the next building, a sculpture of a young girl lying on her back. The sculpture was really beautiful and erotic. The girl seemed to be in some kind of death throws. But her hair was all tossed out, and her back was all arched, so that she looked really sexual.

There were other sculptures, all kind of similar, forming a trail along the corner of the covered porch. Some of the sculptures were bigger, and some were of mature women, rather than girls. But they were all of females laying stretched out in some kind of death ecstasy.

I looked past the covered porch, where this trail of women seemed to lead. Just beyond the porch were some dewy evergreen trees and shrubs. Beyond them was a big lawn under a grey sky.

I could only partly see the lawn. But it appeared that the trail of women led to a sculpture of what appeared to be a pile of dead or dying people. The sculpture seemed to be in tact. It was big, possibly of marble. But it was weathered so that it had black and grey colors added to it.

Past this sculpture of the mound of dead or dying stood a sculpture of a crucifix. The crucifix may have been seven or eight meters tall. The style of the crucifix was kind of minimalist and modern. But the sculpture of Christ himself was of an older, more realistic style.

shot in the face; thunderclouds; independence days; being pissy

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a room, probably a living room, with my nephews and maybe some of my other family members. My nephews were all running around wildly, mostly around one structure in the room that seemed like a child-sized chair with a couple boxes piled on or around it.

Things were getting really out of hand. I may have been getting ready to try and deal with the situation. But my youngest nephew, in defiance of whatever anger I was showing, pulled up a gun and shot me in the face.

I didn't hear the gunshot. All I sensed was a quick pop of light, like when a light bulb suddenly goes out, accompanied by an almost electronic, bird-warbling sound. Then all my vision was just a blank, dull brown-red. I couldn't hear, see, or feel anything. I figured I was probably dead.

But then I could tell I was near my mom or sister. I was either being held while standing up or lying in the arms of my mother or sister. I hadn't heard anybody ask me anything. But I just crossed may arms back and forth in front of me a couple of times, as if to say, "No, thanks. Don't do anything for me. I'm already dead. Don't worry about it."

I had made the arm motions because I couldn't talk. But now I could. I must have heard somebody ask me a question, because I now said, " Oh, no, I can't see anything. But I'd rather not see right now. I really don't want to know what I look like."

Dream #2

I was driving or running along somewhere during the afternoon. I was probably in some suburban part of town, flat, with a wide, cloudy sky overhead. I suddenly began to pass under an even cloudier section of sky. The clouds were low, thick, and grey-black. They looked like they could send down spikes of lightning at any second.

I was really afraid. I began to move faster, hoping I could get out from under these clouds or into whatever building I was headed for before the lightning started to get really bad. But I also realized that it was a kind of cold day. It was too cold, I thought, for lightning actually to strike -- despite my ominous tactile sensations, which always seem to surface on my skin before thunderstorms. I was less worried, but not quite convinced the lightning wouldn't strike. But I probably slowed down my running or driving a bit.

Dream #3

I was in some room like a living room. I was listening to some device which may sometimes have looked like a cassettee Walkman, a CD Walkman, and an iPod. I was listening, apparently, to a compilation of versions of the song "Independence Day," by Elliott Smith. Every version was apparently done by Smith.

Each song seemed to be a bit more and more distracted or corrupted versus the original version. I was getting a little frustrated, hoping I could eventually get back to the original version. I wanted to sing it, but I couldn't quite remember how it went.

One of the final versions I heard was actually some dramatic theme from one of the Star Trek series. I was reading some horizontally scrolling text on my device that said this theme had been influenced by "Independence Day." The theme was orchestral and electronic, I think. But the melody sounded a lot like the beginning guitar playing for "Independence Day." After that, some of the progressions sounded the same, though the actual melody became something of its own.

The final song I heard was probably Smith's "Waltz #2" song.

Dream #4

I was possibly using a laptop in some living room. My third oldest nephew came up to me and started acting annoying. I got all pissy. I stood up and stomped away into the kitchen, then used the laptop in the kitchen. I probably felt bad for having gotten so pissy.

charming the guard; hanging of prisoners

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was on a bus with a group of people. The bus was some kind of prison bus or bus to a concentration camp. But it wasn't overly packed or crowded. The seats went all along the sides of the bus. They were upholstered with some light brown, fake crushed velvet material. It must have been late afternoon: golden yellow light filled the bus.

A guard walked up and down the aisle of the bus. He was Asian and kind of short and stocky. He had a squarish haircut and squarish eyeglasses. He wore some kind of brownish uniform.

I believe there were other guards toward the back of the bus. This guard, I believe, enjoyed being mean and bullying to the other people on the bus. But the guards at the back were even more severe. They enforced a stronger level of bullying than even the guard himself would have used while he was alone.

None of the prisoners were supposed to talk with each other. But at one point, one of the prisoners did talk. He was an average, young, white man, kind of tall and thin, with curly hair. He wore a slightly baggy white t-shirt. The guard did something to the man to make him stop talking.

Later on, a young woman and I started talking. I was showing the woman a book of papers I had. The papers were possibly in a small steno book or note pad. A lot of the pages were blank. A lot of the pages had been torn out, folded up, crumpled up, and shoved into the book at odd angles. Some of these pages may have had lyrics to songs in different languages on them.

I showed the young woman, who may possibly have been Hispanic, a sheet of lyrics I had, probably for a Malaysian song, probably for a song by the singer Monoloque. I started going through the lyrics with the woman. I may have explained to the woman how I like singing songs in all different languages.

The guard eventually walked up to us. He wasn't trying to make us stop talking. He was interested in the fact that I sang Malaysian songs.

The guard started talking to me about his own life. He had an interest in something scientific. He may even have been pursuing these interests for a while. He got excited while he spoke about it. And I got excited listening to him. It seemed like he had some really good scientific ideas.

But then something happened, and the guard was made to stop talking to me. I understood that he wouldn't interrupt the speaking between me and the woman. He liked us now, and he'd leave us alone. But he couldn't talk to us or share his interests. The higher-ranking guards at the back of the bus prevented it.

Dream #2

A view like footage on old black and white film. Four men were hanging in nooses in the open space of what looked like the back of an old military truck, the kind with the tarp-like canopy over the back. The film was actually tinged a bluish color.

The men had just been dropped into their hanging positions. The drop must have been mild, because the men were in pretty good control of their bodies, still: their necks hadn't snapped. But after the men were dropped, something else had been done to them, adding an injury that would ensure their deaths.

All four men were shirtless and wore tattered, baggy pants. They were all extremely emaciated, and they all had scraggly beards. The man on the far left, feeling that he was going to die presently, crossed himself weakly. I was interested in the man. He seemed so resigned to his death.

My view closed in on the man. His body, though emaciated, still looked big, as if, before the men had been put through whatever they'd been put through, he would have been the biggest and strongest of them by far. His chest was hairy with curly, pale hair.

My view now closed in on the man's face. His face looked all dried out, almost like salted meat. The man twisted his face a few times in mild pain. Then the man's face relaxed, and the man's head bowed down, as if the man were sleeping. I knew the man was dead.

nuclear bomb talk

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was walking across a street intersection. It was a grey and dim day. The streets may possibly have been wet, as if it had been raining. A car pulled in front of me and then turned off to the left. I looked off to my left to see that a few cars were parked in a line, as if this area were a parking lot, not an intersection.

I was now on a grassy hillside with a young woman. We were near the crest of the hill, but not quite to it. A wide, leafy tree stood off to my right. I knelt on the ground, looking at the short grass. The woman stood higher up on the hill, looking down toward me.

I told the woman how when the nuclear bomb attack came -- I think we were expecting one rather soon -- the first thing that would happen would be a bomber plane would fly over us and drop whole plane-loads of babies.

After the babies were dropped, we would see the nuclear bomb blasts. I believe the thought was that the nuclear bombs would be released at a far distance from the sites where the babies had been dropped. But the nuclear bombs would be so powerful that we'd see them as distant, red glows from far away.

Still, something about the babies being dropped didn't make sense to me. The babies, I knew, would be from the attacking country. So why would the country want to attack all its babies?

I told the woman how if you were far enough away from a nuclear bomb, you didn't have to worry. But you had to be pretty far away to be safe. And if you weren't far enough away, you wouldn't have time to escape. You'd be hit before you knew it.

I told the woman how almost as soon as the bomb hits, the mushroom cloud expands. This, apparently, was the effective range of the nuclear bomb. But I told the woman how the cloud is miles and miles wide, and how it expands to that width almost instantaneously.