the last paychecks in the world; chop hit stix; giant architecture books; not good enough for love

For a discussion of some of the images in this dream, visit this post of my blog preemie: my life's (a) dream.

Dream 1

I was in some crowded, frenetic place like the lobby of an office building. It was long and narrow, with kind of thin carpet. One wall was all windows. The light outside was dim blue, as if it were early morning or late evening.

In front of the other wall was something like a service counter, like a ticket counter or even a fast food counter, except that it was probably really low, like maybe 30 cm below waist height. People were crowded all around this counter, in front and in back. We were all workers, and we were all in some huge panic.

I may have been watching a TV screen or a set of TV screens that hung from the ceiling. They were like news screens, but they were also like fast food menu screens. The news may have announced some terrible thing that had happened, maybe in Israel. It was having repercussions all around the world. And things were getting really bad where we were.

It had gotten so bad at this point that we were being asked to stay in our buildings. It was like all business operations, even people being able to get food, were being shut down outside. Nobody knew how long we'd have to stay in here.

But paycheck day was today. And while everybody was worried about what was happening in the world, they were really frantic right now because they wanted their paychecks. Something had happened in our business. And the paychecks weren't being given out in their normal way. Instead, a sort of subgroup of management had to hand out the checks manually.

Everybody was crowded around the counters. Nobody wanted to wait in line or create any orderly system for getting their checks. Everybody wanted their check first. But somehow the managers got everybody's checks handed out. And soon the huge crowd dispersed.

But I still hadn't gotten my check. I was wondering what I should do about this. I was trying to figure out how much it would matter if I didn't get a paycheck. The world was either ending or on pause outside. So did I really even need money?

But I also knew that my rent was due. If I didn't have this particular paycheck, I wouldn't be able to pay my rent. I also knew that this was either my last or my second to last paycheck from this company. So I was going to need all the money I could get from the company.

I pondered this as I stood at the top of a stairway leading back down to the lobby. I may have figured I'd head out for the evening and bring up the topic at work the next day.

But one of the managers (a man or a woman or simultaneously a man and a woman?) was now sitting a few steps down on the stairway. The manager stopped me and said they had my check. The manager filed through a stack of papers, maybe saying something about how my check had accidentally gotten lost in the shuffle. Then the manager handed me my check.

I may have looked at the check. I saw that it wasn't enough money. I handed it back to the manager. The manager acknowledged the problem, shuffled through the papers, and handed me another check. The manager may then have said that another check, my final check, was coming, but that that was still on its way.

I looked at this new check. Some of the numbers around it were really confusing. It looked like my pay was correct -- maybe something like $2,600 or $2,500, or maybe $6,200. But there was a bunch of other stuff on the check. Something was going on with some $16,000 sum. I couldn't quite understand it. It looked like maybe that money had been added to my pay, then subtracted immediately. But it also looked like it had been added to my pay and kept there.

I thought I should tell the manager about this. Too much had been added to my pay. I didn't want to be penalized for getting too much money. But I also couldn't tell whether all that pay had been taken back already. I figured I'd really only know once I took my check to the bank to get cashed. And I figured I'd made enough trouble for the manager today. I didn't need to raise any more issues. So I just figured I'd leave things alone.

Dream 2

Something may have happened at first where there was some sort of action, maybe involving something on an airplane. The action may have finished, and then the scene may have replayed. The drama may have resolved itself.

I may now have considered my age. I thought to myself that I looked young for my age. I wondered how I would look when I was seventy years old. I thought to myself that I needed to plan out the things I'd do over the next decades.

In my forties, maybe I would do a lot of the stuff I should have done in my twenties. In my fifties, I'd probably look and act like I should have done in my thirties. By the time I was seventy, I'd probably act like a fifty-year-old. But the big thing, I told myself, was that I needed to make sure I was never fooling myself, or pulling the wool over my eyes. I didn't want to go through some midlife crisis and pretend I was a teenager again. And I didn't want to be seventy and think I was twenty.

At this point, I may have been my seventy-year-old self, walking through some small lobby, maybe like an elevator bank or a small, octagonal foyer, and then in through a small door, maybe a regular door or an elevator door. I had a head of bright white hair, and I wore a white polo shirt.

I was now my regular age (or maybe much younger) again. I sat on a couch in a busy room. My brother, or maybe my oldest nephew, sat to my left. There may have been a lot of kids and adults romping and playing around. The room may have been like a daycare room.

My brother/nephew and I were waiting here to be taken home. It was like we had been on some sort of military mission that was now accomplished and we were being shipped back home. But it was also like we'd been on some tourist experience, partly sight-seeing, partly themed adventure, and were now waiting for some sort of ride back home.

My brother/nephew had been eating something with chopsticks. He was now using the used chopsticks as drumsticks to play air drums. I found that sort of annoying but didn't say anything. But my brother/nephew, seeing he wasn't getting a reaction from me, started hitting the chopsticks against my shoulder.

I was a little annoyed, but I didn't want to show it. Instead, I giggled at my brother/nephew and said something about how he should get a set of the old Hit Stix toys, as he'd be really good with them.

My brother/nephew didn't respond to me. Instead he put the chopsticks down right by my left leg. He then picked up another set of used chopsticks and began playing the drums on my left shoulder again. At some point he may actually have had a set of Hit Stix, which he was playing in the air, of to his left, kind of twisting his body so he was playing them so I couldn't see them, while the speaker for the toy was kind of pointed at me.

Dream 3

I had come from some other situation, possibly involving my family, with my mom possibly playing a big role in whatever had happened.

I was now walking into some room with one of my close Denver acquaintances, AV, a person currently running for political office. The room was big, but also kind of enclosed-feeling. The room had a lot of bookshelves. But it wasn't just a library. There were some couches and furniture. The place had a sort of 1970s modern feel to it -- a lot of leather and wood and cold greys -- no earth tones, etc.

AV and I had been talking. I had probably been trying to justify myself to AV in some way -- to prove I was smart or motivated, or not a crook, or something. But I had also been doing this all in an innocent-sounding way, like I hadn't been suspecting at all that I'd needed to justify myself to AV and I was just making small talk with him like I'd make with anybody.

But I kind of stopped speaking when I saw a new stack of books on some table on the far end of the couches AV and I were going to sit at. The table the new books sat on was already piled with books. This new stack made the pile seem enormous and unwieldy.

There were probably four books in the new stack. The books were gigantic -- maybe 30 centimeters tall, 20 centimeters wide, and 6 centimeters thick. And each book was encased in some solid, cardboard box with a red and white marble design pasted onto it.

I groaned at the sight of so many heavy, new books in my collection. I went to the books. I opened one of the boxes and looked at the book. The book had a 1990s-style dust jacket -- red, with gold lettering, and probably a nice, color reproduction of some medieval painting under the gold lettering.

I saw that the book was about architecture. With relief I said to AV, "Oh... these books are my mom's. They must just have come to her because of the new architecture class she's taking."

I was relieved that I didn't have to worry about these books. And I couldn't wait to unload them on my mom. But I was also very intrigued by them. And I couldn't help but flip through the pages of the book I held as I sat down on the couch to start my conversation with AV.

AV said, "Or... maybe these books are meant for you. Don't try to sell yourself short. And don't be modest. If you're that interested in architecture, that's something you should be proud of."

I said, "Oh, no, no. These books really are for my mom. She's in school. She's studying. She has some new course on architecture she's taking. It's from the time period when these books were originally written."

I looked at the text of the book. The writing was really scrawly. I couldn't understand any of it. It was all in columns, too. So there was so much text packed onto one page. And beneath each black line of text was a line of red, as well. The red may also have been text. Or it may have been red dots of some kind, or some kind of code or symbolism.

Somehow I must have gotten the gist of whatever I was reading. I understood that I was looking at a lot of information. This single page was packed with a ton of information. I couldn't imagine getting through one of these books, let alone four! And it was even more staggering to imagine that these four books were just one requirement for just one class. That was just an unbelievable amount of work to get through!

But it was also amazing to me that whoever had written this book, four hundred years ago, had actually written so much. I told AV, "This book only deals with a small time period. And yet the person had so much to write about that time period. The person must have been so intelligent and disciplined."

Dream 4

An older woman who may have looked like Julia Child, except maybe a bit more regal or refined, was laughing at me. I'd somehow indicated my sexual attraction to her or to some woman her age or some woman around my age or some little girl or little boy. But I don't think I'd meant to indicate my attraction. And I hadn't said that I had been attracted. Nevertheless, the woman took it as given that I was attracted to this person.

The woman thought it was cute that I was attracted. But she also made it clear that I would never be good enough for the person I was attracted to. And that's why she found the whole situation funny.

a conspiracy of friends

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

daycare diaper potty

Good morning, everybody.


Dream #1


I was in some place like a school or daycare for young children. I'm pretty sure I was an adult assigned to supervising the children.


We all stood out in some kind of concrete yard. The yard was huge, like a few basketball courts all put together. On one side of the concrete yard was a huge, brick or concrete building, which was the school or day care building. On the other side of the yard was a huge fence.


I may actually have come through this fence, entering the yard, as I spoke with a woman who was already inside with the children. The woman was taller than me and she seemed mature more mature, although not much older than I am IWL. She probably had tan skin and short, black hair. She probably wore a jacket-like, red blouse and a red skirt that went down to just below her knees.


I seemed to have to wind my way through a few layers of fence before I actually got inside. Once inside I stood near a dense cluster of kids who stood at tables, possibly even foosball tables. I also saw into a room in the day care building. There were a few rooms in a row with their doors open. But I think I only looked into one of the rooms.


All this time, I had been asking the woman something. It was part of a favor for my friend, who was another woman. At first I think my "asking" was more like thinking in my head. But then I could really hear my voice clearly as I asked the question.


I said, "A friend of mine is going to be in this part of town. She's going to be bringing a girl with her. The girl is just a kid. My friend is the girl's mentor. But they're looking for something to do. I was wondering if... I know we're not supposed to allow any other adults into this center... But I was wondering if my friend could bring the girl in here, and they could play on our raquetball courts for a little while."


The woman and I were walking out onto a wide, open area in the concrete yard. The foosball players were behind us. I could imagine the raquetball courts just behind the area where the foosball players were playing. 


I knew that the rules didn't allow any adults to come into the daycare center. But I thought (and I may have said to the woman) that perhaps my friend and the girl she was helping could come in here when all the kids were in class. This didn't seem quite plausible to me. I thought that there were always at least a few kids out here all the time, since the timing of different classes were staggered. But I thought that maybe my friend could come here when the fewest children were here, and so do the least damage.


Up at the end of the concrete yard was something like a covered walkway, a tunnel-like hallway through the day care building. I saw my old friend Y coming up through the walkway, out onto the concrete yard. She was stumbling and holding onto the right (my right) wall, as if she were drunk. Her shirt was hanging off, exposing a blue, satiny bra with lace trim. She had long, long hair. Mascara smears trailed down from her eyes.


The daycare teacher, walking at my right side, spoke to me. (She now seemed a lot taller than I.) She told me I couldn't bring my friend into the daycare because there were no adults allowed. I already felt ashamed for even having asked. But the daycare teacher told me that, instead of worrying about my friend, maybe I could occupy myself by taking care of one of my other friends. 


Just like I may have been a child supervisor, this other friend of mine may also have been a child supervisor. But she was in a wheelchair and she needed a lot of assistance in taking care of herself.


My wheelchair friend was suddenly before my teacher and I. My wheelchair friend was blonde, maybe about my age or a little older, though her face may have been a little round and chubby, like a baby's. 


The daycare teacher had kept walking forward, possibly saying that she had to go take care of some other kids. I took hold of my friend's wheelchair and turned it in a beeline, heading back toward some place, possibly toward some room where I could take care of my friend.


I was now in some big room. It was like a library in a mansion, with heavy, dark wood walls. But it seemed to be almost completely empty of furniture. 


Some time had probably passed. I was laying on the top bunk of some extremely tall bunk bed. I knew my wheelchair friend was somewhere down below me, maybe sleeping on the bottom bunk. We had both either slept or had gotten ready to go to sleep for the night. But now I felt the need to make sure that something was okay for my friend.


So I (flew? floated?) down to the floor of this enormous, heavy-wood-walled room. I landed on some gigantic Persian rug. I could tell that my friend had left the room. The door to the room was probably cracked open. 


I knew my friend would come back. She'd just had to take care of something for herself. But I was a little disappointed to know that she had gone off to take care of something for herself, when I was supposed to be the one caring for her.


I looked down at myself to see that I was wearing nothing but a huge diaper. I was surprised to be wearing a diaper, even though I think I liked it. I think I was excited to show my friend that I was wearing a diaper. I think my friend was also wearing a diaper. I felt like both of us wearing diapers would make us both adult babies. So we'd have something in common!


I started to pee in my diaper. I kept peeing and peeing. I didn't know whether this diaper would hold as much pee as I seemed to be giving out. But I just kept going and going, hoping I could stop myself if I started to leak.


But I finally stopped peeing. My diaper hadn't leaked, though it was really, really full. I couldn't see my diaper, for some reason. But I knew it was probably huge and soggy. I could feel it really huge between my legs as I waddle-walked around in it.


I couldn't wait to show my friend how much I'd pottied in my diaper! I thought she'd be really turned on, or at least impressed, by how full my diaper was.


But then I suddenly wondered: did I mess something up? Did I somehow turn the tables around through some incompetence of mine? It seemed like I was now thinking of my friend as my caretaker, instead of as myself as my friend's caretaker. I was definitely looking forward to my friend changing my diaper, for instance. But I was also disappointed in myself for making myself so I was the one in need of care. I hoped my friend wouldn't also be disappointed in me.


I imagined my friend coming back into the room as a tall, blonde, beautiful business woman in her early to mid forties. I imagined her wearing a cream-colored, button-up blouse and a long, thick-fabric, brown skirt.

dancing missile complex; texas cather library; citibank semi-lucid

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I "woke up" dancing in a dark room. There may have been music playing, some kind of deep, throbbing music. The room was mostly dark, with maybe a dim, red light. A strobe light may have flashed behind me occasionally, showing my shadow on the wall. As I first woke, a couple of people may also have walked behind me.

I didn't know why I was dancing. My moves were all really aggressive and angry. I thought I may have been preparing for some kind of fight.

At one point my shadows looked like coiled up snakes, like they were all somehow slithering down for the wall. I tried to change this appearance in some way, to make my shadow look more rigid and human. But I didn't like something about the new moves. So I went back to the snakelike moves.

I remembered the people who walked behind me. I felt like I needed some kind of approval for them. Maybe they'd laughed at me when they'd seen me dancing. But I felt like I needed to follow them, to get some kind of approval from them.

They'd walked up some steps along the right wall. I walked up those steps as well. The staircase was wooden and narrow. It was hard to see through the railing, up to the next floor. I barely saw a light in a bedroom. I went up to that bedroom.

In the bedroom it was now day. There were two women, both possibly Hispanic, in the room. One of the women was supposed to be my mother. But neither woman looked like my mother. They both looked alike. They were a bit short, kind of skinny, maybe in their mid-forties, and kind of worn-out looking. They had long, straight, pale hair, and they wore big eyeglasses.

The women may have been talking about me being Hispanic. But my mom was saying that I was actually half Native American. I didn't think my mom could prove that, even though I seemed to wish it was true. I wondered if I'd ever be able to track down my dad and findo out whether I actually was Native American.

I expressed something like this to the women while I was looking out the bedroom windows, which seemed to be close together, near the corner of the room.

I was now out in a car with my mom. My mom was driving. It was daytime. We were driving through some mountainy area that seemed to be developing into a suburban area. We drove up a road on a steep, grassy slope.

Along the slope were little fixtures in the ground, almost like ceiling-hung security cameras, except planted upside-down. The fixtures now started firing little missiles out of them, with bright, papery flashes. The frequency of the flashes became more and more intense.

We drove into an area full of apartment complexes. The apartment complexes were all relatively new. But the missile launchers were even here, too.

I figured that somehow this place we were driving through had gotten into a nuclear war, and that the place was just going into an all-out attack before it got attacked. But it was also like my mom and I had been sent to find these missiles, like we were somehow supposed to stop their production. The apartment complex was new. It may have been built just as a cover-up for the missile complex.

My mom and I, as well as my sister, now pulled in through a huge parking complex at night. It was like an airport parking complex. But we found ourselves in a hotel parking lot that seemed to be on the edge of the woods. The hotel was a Meridien. We went into the restaurant.

We were supposed to be meeting someone here. But I didn't have a job. I was really poor. I didn't know how I could afford any food in this place. I may also have been wearing really terrible clothes.

The decor of the restaurant was really nice and modern. It all somehow seemed familiar to me. I wondered how this could be. Then I remembered that I had actually applied for a job here, as a waiter.

One of the waiters walked past me. I recognized him from my interview. I wanted to acknowledge him. But I didn't want him to think I was some crazy guy, just here to stalk him because I still thought I stood a chance of getting a job here.

Dream #2

I was in a car, probably. I was driving somewhere. But I was also in a conversation with somebody -- maybe my mom, or maybe some women from work -- about Texas. There was a location we were trying to get to, on the west side of Texas. Or we may have been tracking someone like a criminal, and we may have suspected that the criminal was going there.

I was now in some place like a library. I had been talking with somebody about an art show I'd been wanting to see. But I'd been avoiding it for some reason, maybe because it was at my old university or run by somebody from there, and I didn't want to bother anybody from my old school.

I was walking away, trying to get out of the building, I think. I saw into a kind of dim room. The room seemed like some kind of narrow amphitheatre. There were a bunch of professional people inside, talking with each other like they had just finished the meeting.

Among those people I saw the old head of my theatre department. But the person was a woman instead of a man. I tried to remember the person's name. But I could only think of a man's name. I wanted to avoid the person. So I left the building. I figured I might go to that art show after all.

I was walking outside for a little while, out on a concrete path on a college campus. But I found myself not too long afterward in a big library, like the Rose Reading Room at the Schwarzmann branch of the NYPL.

Instead of having long tables through the room, the library had either short tables or individual desks. The room was mostly empty, except for three young, black women who were studying under the watch of an older, black, female teacher.

The young women were all spaced well apart from each other. As I walked into the library, one of the women was speaking out something to the teacher, who stood behind her left shoulder. The girl had a really nice voice. But what she was reading sounded really simple, almost silly. I couldn't figure why the girl, who seemed really smart, was reading such a simple text.

But the girl was really pretty. So I wanted to impress her. I began walking around the library with my chest all puffed out, like I was really smart. The young woman wore a dress of almost pastel colors -- yellow and green.

As I walked around the library I noticed that the other two young women also wore pastel colored clothes. The clothes seemed to me very well suited to the desert, which was apparently where we were. The colors also reminded me of something that the characters in the novels of Willa Cather might wear.

I walked toward the left side of the library. I was looking for books for myself. But I was also getting a bit nervous. I felt like sooner or later another guy would come into the library. When he saw how I was alone in this room with four women, he'd get jealous of me and start doing all kinds of things to annoy me.

Dream #3

I was in "the Citibank building," a huge skyscraper that was apparently located in Manhattan. I was here for an interview. I was on a high up floor, maybe even a floor that was still under construction.

I was really poorly prepared for the interview. I looked terrible, and I didn't exactly have any talking points prepared. Plus, I may have been interviewing for some position for which I had no experience.

I sat in big conference room for a bit with a tall, white, skinny man who looked young, even though he was probably in his mid thirties. The room was full of windows and filled with dim gold of late afternoon sunlight. But I felt really low in my seat, much shorter than the man, and it seemed really hard to see up and out of the windows.

The man eventually told me that he didn't think this job was a good fit for me. He may have told me he hadn't thought this job was a good fit for me, even before I came to the interview. He may have wondered why I'd come here at all. But he said this all in a really gentle way, like he was concerned for me, like I was a special child that he wanted to help.

The interview was over, and I was walking around the building. I was up on a floor where construction workers were still working. The floor had walls, but a lot of the floors and ceilings were still in a raw state.

I knew I was really high up over the city. I really wanted to look out the windows, to see the city below. But I suddenly realized that this was a dream, and that I could just fly out the window. I ran as fast as I could. I started flying, even before I got to the window.

As I saw the cityscape outside the window I told myself to focus. I knew that in the past I'd panicked with moving into outside environments in lucid dreams. I told myself to stay calm and just believe I could get outside.

I got through the window, but the enviroment changed. The building was much lower than it had been. And the landscape below was just trees and lawn, like I was in some kind of office park, rather than in the middle of Manhattan.

I stopped flying, for some reason -- maybe because I'd wanted to fall, to see what it was like to jump out of a building. I slammed down on the lawn on my stomach. I pulled my head up to look at the building. It looked like a pretty tall building, and it gleamed in the afternoon light.

I tried to stand myself up so I could look around and explore this dreamworld. But as I did, it changed from day to night. I thought I must haved woken up. But it scared me to think I'd woken up out on a lawn in the middle of the night. I had no idea how I'd gotten here. Had I been sleepwalking? Was I going crazy?

I could hear my labored breathing, like I was breathing inside a spacesuit. I walked or stumbled a little ways in the darkness. I thought that maybe I was still dreaming. But I couldn't be lucid, I told myself, because this world was so close to the world of my bedroom (???). I told myself I must be right on the edge of waking. I heard my breathing get louder and louder, until I woke up.