prison concert; 8:45 to 8:45

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

A documentary or TV show about a 1980s rock band that decided, in the tradition of Johnny Cash, to perform a concert at a prison. I thought the idea was a little silly: the rock band didn't have the hard edge that Johnny Cash had. Most of the band's songs were kind of artsy and mellow. I felt like a lot of the prisoners would probably hate the band.

There was a close up, from a low angle, on two or three band members. The band members all had mullet hairstyles and little mustaches and goatees. The backdrop of the stage was some screen with sea-green lighting. The song the band was playing actually wasn't bad. It had a good guitar riff, which I almost recognized. I imagined that people actually could dance to this music.

The view pulled back slowly to reveal the reactions of the people in the audience. I was surprised to see that a lot of the inmates (I could only see their heads at this point) were dancing around, really into the music.

The view focused on one tall, fat man with a short, square haircut, some thin sideburns leading down into a thin jawline beard. The man was dancing slowly, but really swaying and moving. The view pulled back even more, to reveal what seemed like a mostly empty high school gymnasium, at the front of which was the stage on which the band was playing.

As the view pulled back to show the man below his waist, I saw a woman kneeling down before the man. The woman was maybe in her late thirties or early forties. She was good-looking, she wore a nice, satiny dress, and her hair was arranged really well. But something about her seemed a little low class.

The woman was on her knees, "dancing" with the man, basically by rubbing her face against the man's crotch. I was a little shocked to see the woman doing this. I thought there had to be a rule against doing something like this at an event for general audiences. But once I got over the shock, it didn't seem like such a big deal.

The view now panned to the right. About thirty feet closer to the stage were two female inmates dressed in very fancy dresses, like wedding dresses. The women both looked young, maybe not even in their twenties. One of the women spun the other woman out, then spun her back in, embracing the woman.

The woman who'd been spun was exhilarated by the spinning. She relaxed in the first woman's arms and prepared for a kiss. I got the feeling that, before this, the woman who'd been spun had been reluctant to fall in love with the woman who'd spun her. But now she was willing to fall in love and be kissed.

Dream #2

I was somewhere with my new boss JE and one of my co-workers, SC. The place may have been like a bedroom. But it may also have been like a small shop, like the cluttered shops that sell all kinds of fancy Asian gifts, like scarves, wooden ornaments, incense sticks, and so forth. But a lot of the items seemed brighter, paler, and cheaper than the gifts in the Asian stores. And the place was really bright with natural light, which just glared into a place like it might glare in through a suburban teenager's bedroom.

JE was talking about how SC came into work at 8:45 AM and left at 8:45 PM. I knew I hadn't worked that many hours. I was kind of disappointed in myself for not having done so. I felt lazy.

big-eyed scorpion; old friends' concert; expensive water slide

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in an apartment, either in the late afternoon or early morning. The apartment was very dim, growing dark. I stood in some area like the living room, right on the edge of the small kitchen of the apartment.

I suddenly saw a scorpion run across the kitchen floor. The scorpion was huge, maybe 15cm long. It was pale yellow, and it looked really meaty. I couldn't tell what it was at first. And even after I concluded that it was a scorpion, I wasn't sure. Its tail seemed to be tucked really close to its body.

I tried to get a closer look at the scorpion. It was at the right side of the kitchen, about to hide under some of the cabinets. But it was fidgeting about, moving very slowly. I was worrying that it would panic if I got too close, that it would unfold its tail and sting me.

The scorpion did seem to get panicked. It moved out from under the cabinets and started to move toward me. I got worried and backed up, toeing my way back to the living room area. The scorpion seemed to follow me for a bit. But then it kind of seemed to forget about me.

I was sitting on a stool, keeping my feet up a couple rungs so that the scorpion couldn't reach me. But now I wasn't so sure the thing was a scorpion, especially since the light was so dim -- maybe getting dimmer.

I tried to look closely at the scorpion, but my eyes were really fuzzy and grainy. The scorpion now seemed to have big, buggy eyes popping out of its head. The eyes were like cartoon eyes. They were egg-shaped, and they seemed to be made out of a lot of little beads or eggs.

I decided that the best way for me to judge what this thing was would be for me to catch an image of it on my phone. But the thing seemed so far away that it was hard for me to get a good view of it on my phone.

I took my stool and walked around, through a small hallway made by the back end of the kitchen wall and the wall with the front door on it, to a second entrance to the kitchen. I set my stool up in that entrance. It seemed like the scorpion was coming that way. I would get a better view of the scorpion, I figured, once the scorpion got over here.

Dream #2

I was walking to "my job." I was apparently outside, on some street. But I felt like I was on a stage, maybe even down in some basement. On the left side of this stage-like street was "my job," some brick-walled, big-windowed building like a restaurant.

As I was about to head into my work, I saw my old best friend R and his wife L standing in the doorway with a few other people. I wanted to avoid meeting with them, as I didn't really want L to know I was working here. So I figured I might go into the shop on my right, the one across the street from my job.

But somehow I decided to go talk to my old friends instead. They asked me where I was going. I told them, "To work." Somehow I knew that my friends were putting on some kind of show on the first level of this building. I worked in the basement.

I knew that my friends wanted me to take some part in whatever they were doing, something like a concert. I didn't feel like doing it, and I was using work as an excuse. I knew I could probably get out of work, if I really wanted to. But I wouldn't try.

I started feeling bad. I knew my friends would think I was just being lazy, especially L. I told my friends that I could go to their next event. They told me their event was taking place at some other restaurant. I actually felt a lot better about going to that event. It seemed better to go to some other restaurant than to have to do the event in the building I worked in.

Dream #3

I was outside on a sunny day. I was in line for something like a waters slide. I was with a family: at least an attractive woman and her little girl.

We were all walking up a colorful-plastic-coated, metal walkway, up a few steps, and then up another small staircase to our left. From that point, we were led beyond a curtain, into an indoor area. An attractive woman was ushering us into this area.

As we were going up through the line, a woman (somewhere) was telling us about some really good vacation deal. The deal was $585 per person, and it was for a family of five. In addition, the vacation people were giving a $500 discount to people signing up for the vacation.

I had some idea that this whole water slide we were in line for was somehow a part of whatever this vacation deal was. I was thinking the vacation deal may have been for spending a number of days at a water park.

But I calculated in my head, as the woman ushered me beyond the curtain, the expense of the trip. Five time $600 would be $3000. Minus four (!!!) times $15, or $60, would be $2940. Minus $500 would be $25--.

I told the woman I was walking with, "We can't do that. It's too expensive. Especially for just water slides." I was talking to the woman like I was her husband. But I also felt like I was disappointing her, so that I could never be her husband. I wondered whether she'd try to go off and find some better man.

The water slide seemed like a regular water slide as I first approached it: a plasticky flume with water flowing down it. But as I got closer, it changed. It was more like a series of ramped conveyor belts. I'm not sure where the water was. I knew that a person would slide or walk down the ramp a ways, and that a brightly colored, plasticky, boat-like vessel would come up to meet the person and take him on the rest of his ride.

It was about to be my turn. Behind me in line were a bunch of young, very attractive women, like college girls. They all seemed to be talking kind of friendly, almost like they were trying to be friendly with me personally.

But now we somehow knew -- possibly because the ushering lady had told us -- that the water slide wasn't working for the moment. There was some problem with the little boats. They weren't being sent out. We had to wait until they were being sent out for the ride to start back up.

But the woman I had come here with had already gone down the slide. The first conveyor belt ramp went down about twenty meters. It was then intersected by a horizontal conveyor belt, which ran from right to left. The boats may have been supposed to meet people at this point. Then there was another conveyor belt down.

The woman stood on the horizontal conveyor belt. She looked up to me, kind of confused, wondering why I wasn't coming down and why she wasn't going anywhere. The woman may have been wearing a wedding dress.

Possibly because I didn't want to look ineffectual in front of the pretty girls, I yelled down to the woman that the ride was stopped because of the boats. I told her it should be starting again soon. But the woman still seemed to be uncomfortable in her situation. So I may have decided to walk down the conveyor belt to stand with the woman while we waited for the ride to restart.

a raise from my old boss; seinfeld paperwork

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in an office. I sat at a desk that had a huge shelf or barrier right beside it. The barrier felt more like the back end of a filing cabinet, topped with some small set of metal shelves. My desk was part of a narrow but pretty long area, like a number of tall filing cabinets had all been lined up near a wall, with desks set behind them.

My old boss, CR, walked up in front of my desk from an aisle made between two of the filing cabinets. He seemed to be thinking I was planning to leave this job. He didn't want me to leave, and he was thinking of ways to keep me.

Finally he told me something like, "You know, things are finally going to be okay. We're going to start making money. I'll be making more money. And I'm going to see to it that you get a raise."

Somehow in all of this it may have been implied that my boss was going to leave his job for another job, and that he was going to take me with him. Or it might have been that we had already gone to another job, and that things were going to be better here than my boss had first thought.

My boss walked away, and I watched after him. I then sat down, thinking about my raise.

Dream #2

Something like an episode of Seinfeld. The main characters all sat against some run down wall, on a bench that was either part of the wall or built onto the wall. They all sat kind of slouched and lazy.

The guys were all somehow annoying Elaine. Some of them may have been making annoying sounds. But what they were really doing that was really annoying Elaine had to do with some kind of work they were either not doing or doing in some kind of really annoying way.

The view now focused on Jerry, who sat at the far right (my right, as I viewed it) end of the bench. Jerry now called attention to the fact that all this time he hadn't been half as annoying as the other guys, and that he had quietly been doing his work. He continued his work. This may have inspired everybody else to do their work.

Now one of the guys had some kind of paperwork to fill out. This was like a tax form, except it had more to do with getting employment. There were two columns of questions, with an answer column beside each question column.

Two questions toward the bottom of the page, maybe the last and the third to last questions, were in boxes filled in with a blue background. At least one of these questions was an eliminating question. It may have had something to do with Texas.

It was now like I was filling out this form for the person who needed the process related to this form taken care of. The answer box next to the very important question may already have been a lot of small writing, maybe typing. But I had to write in a zero. I crossed through the circle of the zero to clarify that it was a zero and not an "o."

Something about the process of filling out this box may have repeated. It may have been like the first time I'd done the filling out I hadn't known what I was doing, and that, as I learned what the box really meant, I'd have to re-do and re-do the box.

sabbath; netflix; a friend in need is a friend on hold

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in either a bedroom or a bathroom. It was night, and there was incandescent light on in the room. I was standing up near a niche in a wall. I was facing the wall as if I were standing and urinating into a toilet. But I don't think I was really going to the bathroom. On the walls before me and on my right were bookshelves and possibly a couple of small posters. On the wall to my left was a window with its curtains drawn, exposing the black night.

The thought came into my head that I was supposed to be observing the sabbath. I was supposed to be taking a time of rest. It seemed like it was something that had just come up, something like a holiday, but an emergency holiday.

I knew it was probably true that I needed to observe the sabbath -- possibly even for physical reasons. But I didn't really want to. I felt like I had too much to do already. I couldn't take a break now. And others would think I was lazy.

But I now heard a woman's voice, probably the voice of a female preacher, Marilyn Hickey, telling me to observe the sabbath, from today through Tuesday. I knew that this demand was actually written into an old book of teachings, which the preacher had often used as a source for lessons in her own books. It wasn't the Bible, but it was an old book of wisdom. Knowing that the command had come from this book, I understood I probably couldn't argue with it.

Dream #2

I had probably gotten a bag of mail, maybe from my mother. The bag may have been like a small bookbag. I had to shuffle through some of the mail. I may have been looking for something in particular. But, by accident, I found two red mailers for Netflix disks. I had two Netflix CDs I wanted to return, but I hadn't had any mailers to send them in. I was really happy to have these mailers.

Dream #3

I was by myself in a big, nice apartment. I was in some side room that seemed partly like a kitchen and dining room, but that also seemed to edge out into something like a sunroom or a patio. I sat at a smallish, round, wooden dining table, with my chair's back turned to the table, so that I faced out to see the kitchen counters.

The space off to my right was airy and open, like there were a lot of big, wide windows. Off to my left was a doorway that led into a big, open space, like a huge living room. It was probably late afternoon. The sky was dark grey, like it was getting ready to storm.

I was on the phone with one of my old bosses, whom I now think of as a good friend, EB. I was talking to EB about my current job. I told him that I was actually having a lot of fun with the job, and that I found the work really exciting. But, I told him, I wasn't getting enough money to live on. I told him I figured that for the time being I'd be okay. I'd never been too terribly worried about money.

EB told me, "Really? If I had to eat, if I had to have food, I'd do whatever I needed to get it. Having enough money is really important to me." I could tell EB was partly saying this because he admired my ability to do without a lot of money. But I could also tell that he was worried I wasn't doing enough to go for what I needed.

So I told EB, "Well, I've actually been thinking about applying for positions at some funds out here. You know, something like what I was doing before. There are a few good ones out here. I'm wondering if you know anybody you could put in a good word for me for at ----- or -----?" (I named two specific firms.)

EB had managed to put me on hold right as I asked him to help me. I couldn't tell whether he'd done it on accident. But I assumed he had. I thought he'd pull me right back off hold. While I was on hold, I heard a couple of contemporary R&B type songs, which I found really annoying.

I stood up, a little impatient, and walked out toward the sun room-like area. I only walked up to the threshold (? - if there was one) of that area, then turned to my left, turned around, and walked back toward the dining table I'd been sitting at.

For this entire time, I'd been on hold. It now occurred to me that EB had put me on hold on purpose, not by accident. But I still justified his having put me on hold. I told myself that EB had probably suddenly had to take care of some business, so that he'd had to put me on hold suddenly. As soon as his business was taken care of, he'd talk with me again. Then I could ask him for help.

But now, as I approached the table to sit down again, I could start to hear EB's voice. It was less like he had put me on hold and more like he had just sat the phone down near some speaker playing really loud, crappy, contemporary R&B. Now I heard EB talking with some other guy about me, very faintly, in the background. EB was saying something about me that wasn't flattering at all. But I can't remember what it was.

college dropout, college registration

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in some kind of room, possibly an area like a convention hall. It was probably dim or dark where I stood, like a specific booth in this hall had been set off from everything else and all the lights turned off in it, but with some light coming in from other places in the hall.

A young woman stood to my left. She may have stood at the edge of the dark booth, so that a bit more of the rest of the light of the convention hall was hitting her. The woman stood resting her arms atop some waist-high pedestal. There may have been a line of pedestals, with a pedestal near me as well.

The woman began complaining about her boyfriend. Her boyfriend had been going to college. He had probably gone back to school after having done a little bit of a career. But now he either had dropped out or was on his way to dropping out. He had been losing focus in school and was most likely through with it all.

The woman was disappointed. She said the man didn't even think anything was wrong with him. But the woman could see it. The woman could see how her boyfriend was mentally trailing off, slacking off in everything. But the man thought he was fine. In fact, he thought he was getting more and more in shape mentally all the time.

As the woman told me this, I looked off to my right. A big video screen (or projection screen with a video projected onto it) was playing some sort of black and white art video. At first the video showed a string of Chinese characters, all moving downwards along the screen kind of quickly. These images were interspersed with other objects, giving the feeling of something like strings of stars being pulled downward through the sky.

As I saw all this I thought that perhaps the man had been studying Chinese, at least as a part of his courses. But he was slowly losing focus, and was taking less and less care with his studies. The woman, I assumed, was really disappointed about this. The man, I supposed, was of Chinese descent. So the woman found it important that the man knew Chinese. But now the man was totally neglecting his Chinese studies.

I continued to watch the screen. The strings of characters and symbols were now all trailing downward, drifting into a few strings of dots of light. Eventually there was just one string of dots trailing downward. I knew, regarding the man, that this was probably a bad sign.

Dream #2

I was in a big room, like a cafeteria or a communal room in a university. The place was packed with students. A lot of the students seemed old. Some of them were kind of fat, not dressed very well, kind of messy. The whole place seemed very chaotic. I stood near a line of folding tables. There were workers behind the tables, probably helping the people in front of the table get registered for certain classes, or possibly advertising certain classes to the people in front of the tables.

I may now have been in or near a school bus. I may have been hearing a conversation in my head between a young woman and myself. The young woman seemed to be pushing me to go back to college. But I really didn't want to do that.

The bus was out in a dirt lot. Propped up on the ground near the bus was an LED sign with red lettering streaming from right to left. The LED part of the sign was just a small strip. The rest of the sign may have been white with blue lettering and a blue border. The LED strip kept saying something about $100,000. I knew that if I went back to college, I'd end up owing that much money.