shiho ochi's cellphone; breathless shopping mall

Dream 1

I was at a concert given by singer Shiho Ochi from the J-pop group Superfly. It was in a small area, like a basement cafeteria or recreational room in a university or high school. But the area was packed with people. Everybody must have been seated in stackable chairs. I sat off kind of near the stage, but more toward the right corner.

The room was almost completely dark, except for a spotlight that shined on Ochi. Ochi sat on a stool and played an acoustic guitar. She had long hair and probably wore some kind of wide-brimmed hat.

At one point, Ochi stopped singing right in the middle of a song. She pulled out her cellphone and started fumbling around with it. She may even have spoken directly to someone on the cellphone. She then probably apologized to everybody and started up the song again. I'd thought this was weird.

But now the situation happened all over again. Ochi started singing this song I'd never heard before. It may have had some Valentine's theme or some theme that made me think it would be really good on Valentine's Day.

But as soon as Ochi started in on a part I thought was really interesting, she pulled her cellphone out of her pocket. I hadn't heard the cellphone. So I thought that maybe the phone had buzzed instead of rang.

Ochi apologized to everybody in the crowd. She looked at her phone's screen. It was blazing pretty brightly. It looked like an old LCD screen, except that it seemed to be glowing yellow and purple instead of the standard green-yellow and black.

Ochi told everybody that her boyfriend had texted her, asking her how the concert was going. She asked everybody if they would like to know more. All the girls in the audience started screaming excitedly. So Ochi turned on her cellphone's speaker. Now everybody could hear Ochi's boyfriend's voice. The girls in the audience started screaming again.

I was really annoyed by all of this. I turned away from the stage. Ochi was asking questions of the audience. We were supposed to raise our hands if we agreed or if we wanted to hear more about what Ochi was saying. But I refused to raise my hand. I tried to even ignore the fact that Ochi was saying anything at all.

But then Ochi said something that made me think Ochi was really happy about her boyfriend and that this whole experience right now was somehow really important and validating for her. I realized I should probably stop being such a selfish jerk and start raising my hand whenever Ochi asked a question. So now I was frantically raising my hand, possibly not even sure what I was raising my hand for.

Now Ochi was asking everybody if we wanted her to pass around her cellphone so everybody could do something... maybe see her boyfriend's texts more closely or hear her boyfriend better or say hello to her boyfriend from closer up or something.

Now all the men in the crowd were raising their hands and cheering. They all wanted to hold Shiho Ochi's cellphone. So they were really excited.

I looked around the crowd. I noticed that there was one entire section of the crowd, directly off the right side of the stage, that was completely turned away from Ochi. Their seats were turned away entirely. It was like they had been seated that way the entire time. But they were fans of Ochi. And even though they still had their backs turned on her, they were wildly raising their hands, hoping to be able to pass around Ochi's cellphone soon.

Dream 2

I had probably just walked outside a shopping mall. I needed to get somewhere, to some place that wasn't a part of, but was spatially related to, the mall. I started walking, knowing that I needed to get myself off the mall property -- basically off of the mall's parking lot -- at some point. But I needed to get off the property wherever I would get a straight shot toward whatever place I was headed to.

I felt like wherever I was headed was close. But it felt like with all the walking I'd have to do, especially while on the mall's property, would make it feel like a really long distance.

I started walking in a counterclockwise direction around the mall. But I wasn't really sure this was what I should be doing. Outside a main entrance to the mall was some event, maybe a little arts and crafts or flea market kind of fair. There were a lot of people looking around. Everybody seemed to be happy.

I thought I might look around at the stuff on display. But instead I decided to walk into the mall through the nearby entrance. I thought I might be able to cut some time off my walk by going straight through the mall.

I wandered around in the mall for a few moments. The mall may have been slightly busy. There was orange tiling everywhere, it felt like. And there was probably a lot of vegetation everywhere.

At some point I may have felt hungry. I suddenly wanted some pizza. I may also have started to feel really short of breath, like walking was becoming harder and harder.

At some point I may have spotted a mall directory map. But it wasn't like the usual standalone kiosks with a mall map on one side. Instead, it was sort of like a bulletin board. It somehow stood over a little river sort of fixture. You had to walk onto a bridge over the river to get a good look at the map.

It was getting harder and harder for me to walk. My legs felt like heavy weights. They may actually have hurt, too. And with each step I took, I was more and more out of breath, until I felt like I couldn't even breathe anymore.

I walked up and over a small ramp and then onto the small bridge. I couldn't even get all the way onto the bridge. I had to stop and rest at a corner, because I couldn't breathe. Also, I was afraid of getting all the way onto the bridge. I felt like if one of the other shoppers saw me standing on the bridge they'd want to come up and hog up all my space to show me that I couldn't just stand anywhere I wanted.

I still couldn't get a direct look at the directory map. But I knew there was a pizza place in the mall. I probably saw an image of an entire pizza, maybe in my imagination, but related to an ad for the place, or maybe as part of an ad that was actually right on the directory map.

I knew that if I went to the pizza place, that would put me at the mall exit I needed to be at, so all I'd need to do would be head in a straight line toward whatever my destination off the mall property was. So I could get a slice of pizza, which I was still hungry for, and be a lot closer to my destination.

But it still felt like, even then, it would be such a long walk. It seemed like such a pain. And I wasn't quite sure I could even walk anymore. My legs hurt. And I was almost completely unable to breathe.

walking to school in the desert

Dream 1

I was probably out in the parking lot of a mall. It was night. I had probably met someone here to pick them up.

I met the person. The person was possibly a man. We may have been walking to my vehicle, which may have been a big, black SUV.

But along the way the person needed to pick up a bike. Apparently the person was going to ride part or all of the way to wherever they were going next. We stopped in front of a station where people could rent bikes. The person possibly paid a machine and then got to rent a bike.

But the bike the person got was really weird. All the bikes may have been weird. It was like the bikes were all hooked to poles like seesaw panels. The person got on the bike. That action, I think, pushed the seesaw pole down to the ground. The person could now pull the bike off the pole. It was like the bottom of the bike was a square tube that slid around the pole.

The person tried to pull the bike off the tube. But it was really hard for the person to do so. I may at this point have noticed that the bike had no wheels. Its "handlebars" were also a wheel-like object, like on a Sit 'n Spin toy.

The person may apologetically have said how hard it was to manage this bike. I could tell. The bike was heavy and awkward and had no wheels. But I also started to wonder how I was supposed to fit this bike into my car. I assumed I could put it in the back. But it was so big and clunky, I wasn't sure it would fit back there.

Now the person may have been my sister. We had driven out to some parking lot in a landscape of red sandstone. It may now have been morning or daytime. I was probably dropping my sister off at some school.

We got out of the car and walked away from the parking lot and down a road on a slope. At the bottom of the slope the sandstone went up on either side of the road in ten-meter-tall cliffs.

I looked over my shoulder, thinking of my car. I told my sister that I'd have to bring her her bike later. There was no way I could go back for it. We needed to get her to school. So I'd either drive it over to her while I was between errands or carry it and walk it over to her at some point during the day. But I still couldn't quite figure out how or when my sister would use the bike.

We walked along a desert highway. As we went up a slight slope, the shoulder of the road was blocked by a cliff of orange, powdery material on our right. We couldn't walk in the road because so many cars were coming down it. So we had to edge our way between the cliff and the white line at the road's edge, like we were toeing a ledge of a steep cliff.

I led the way. I kept trying to look back to my sister. But at this point my vision was really weird. I felt dizzy and disoriented. My head felt heavy. I could only look at the ground. And I couldn't even see the ground very well. I would force myself to turn my head back to look for my sister. But I couldn't see her anyway.

We got past the tight squeeze in the road and walked a ways up and over the rest of the slope. We were now back up on a concrete path, with a bit of lawn or wild grass separating us and the road.

We approached an intersection. The roads were really wide here -- maybe absurdly wide -- so that it felt like the intersection was 100 meters wide, going caddy corner. But caddy corner from us was a shopping center. This was the first sign of a city we'd seen since parking.

I knew that we had to keep on going straight along this road, the same direction we'd already been walking. We'd pass the shopping center. Then there would be more empty, desert space. And then there would be my sister's school. At this point I may have wondered why I couldn't have just driven my sister straight to the school.

dead mall jewelry commercial; bunk bed exercises; not here for the movie business

Dream 1

I walked down some wide, marble steps into a large, tall area, the floors and walls of which were like marble. The place was a shopping mall. The lighting in the space was dim. There were a few people milling around. In the back left corner were probably a few food shops, like for a food court.

I may have been with someone. I may have been speaking with them. But the person I was with, or just some person in the mall, interrupted me. They asked me whether I didn't know about the mall. They then pointed to a sign at the foot of the stairs.

I looked at the sign, which was like a metallic plaque placed at an angle at the top of a waist-high brass pole. I knew the sign said that the mall had closed down. But I couldn't quite read the sign. The words were all blurry, like they were covered over with a sheet of plastic.

I turned around and looked at the mall. People were still here. So the mall wasn't completely closed down. And the food court shops were open. The only thing I'd really wanted to do was get some food. So maybe I could still do that. But I felt like if I even tried to get over to the food court, I'd be offending the person who just told me the mall was closing down.

I turned back toward the steps. The steps may now have looked like they were loosely covered over by a big sheet of plastic. I looked up to the top of the steps. The steps seemed to open directly out into a beautiful, blue night.

My view shifted up to the top of another set of steps. I may have been remembering an old commercial for the mall, maybe from the 1980s. A glamorous couple, maybe in their late forties, walk-danced their way down the steps. The man was in a tuxedo, but I barely saw him. The woman was in a red gown.

The couple were famous for their ads for a jewelry store, which was in the mall. This walk down the steps they were taking may have been a commercial from the 1980s. But it was also their last walk down the steps for the mall.

As the couple progressed down the steps, the woman became older, shorter, and less glamorous. She was speaking rather bluntly and possibly smoking a really terrible cigarette. The man was still hardly visible. There was a second woman coming down the steps, something like a servant or assistant for the couple.

The woman was discussing, maybe with the man or assistant, but possibly also with some member of the media, what the couple would do now that they would receive no more money from the jewelry commercials.

The woman tried to remained poised and polite at first. But then she started talking about how maybe she should go to the mall later, even if they were closed. She then spoke about taking some sort of action against either the owners of the mall or the owners of the jewelry shop. Whatever she wanted to do, I knew, would cause a lot of trouble for people. And that's all the woman really wanted to do.

Dream 2

I was down in a small, stuffy basement, possibly at night. I was standing on the side of some structure like a bunk bed. It may have been a bunk bed, but with framing like cheap, thin, stainless steel for some sort of outdoor structure. I was trying to do some sort of exercise on the bed, like pull-ups on the frame. But it wasn't working out.

I went to another bunk bed. A middle-aged man was seated off the side of the bed. I grabbed onto the frame of this bed, also made of cheap metal, and started doing some exercises.

The man smiled up at me and said, "I'm sorry I wasn't at the other bed. I know you were trying to do your exercises."

I had a feeling, looking at the man's smile, that he had meant to stop me from doing my exercises by not being at the other bed. I knew that now, even though I was doing my exercises, he'd hope to annoy me by making it clear he had meant to stop me.

I simply said, "Oh, it doesn't matter. That bed had the wrong exercises, anyway. I wasn't supposed to do those exercises today. I was supposed to do these ones." This was probably true. But I probably didn't need to say it, really. I just wanted to, to let the man know that even though he'd tried to stop me, I'd still succeeded at getting my exercises in.

I was now laying on a regular bed, reading a huge book. There was some noise coming from somewhere. I went into the kitchen, where the noise was coming from. The room was small and cramped, filled with a bunch of furniture, random stuff, garbage, and possibly huge sheets of plastic. There may also have been some leaking or dripping somewhere in the room.

The man was there. He may have been quite a bit older now, with a bald head and huge, watery eyes. He towered over me and looked down close to my face, blocking out the light from the ceiling bulb.

The man told me we were supposed to go somewhere. But I knew that wasn't true. I also knew I was supposed to be doing something else here. The man was just trying to pull me away from what I was really supposed to be doing, and he knew it. But when I told him I wasn't going anywhere, I could tell he was simply going to take that as an indication of how lazy and unwilling to work I was.

I was in a bedroom, laying on a bed and reading a huge book. The book may have been about Winston Churchill or about Winston Churchill and some other historical figure. I was getting through the book at a surprising speed. I knew that this book was incredibly important to some work I was getting ready to do. I couldn't believe I was finishing the book so quickly. I was really happy.

The bedroom I was in had a door on my left side and a door on my right side. Both doors connected the room to a whole lot more space. The door to my right opened into a long hallway.

The man stood in the doorway on my right side. He said he'd gotten back from wherever he'd gone, and wasn't it too bad that I'd not felt like going with him.

I was really mad that the man had said that. He was implying again that I'd been too lazy to go. But I'd gotten a lot done while he'd been gone -- including reading this book. I just wanted the man to leave the room. I was so close to finishing the book. I didn't want to argue with the man right now and lose my train of thought.

I was in a different room now. I may have thought of it as being upstairs from the bedroom I'd been in. The room was long and wide, with somewhat high ceilings. The floor was likely of polished stone, maybe with some black and white patterning on it. The man was in the room as well, discussing something with another, younger man. There may have been one or two other people in the room, off in the distance.

The two men were discussing some items of business we three needed to take care of. I had to be here for the conversation. But I knew that I really wasn't invited to say anything. Anything I said would be thought of as stupid and worthless. But the two men weren't really talking about getting any sort of business done at all. So I started to get bored.

I imagined some sort of game using the colors of the floor, like avoiding certain colors on the floor by jumping over them. I sort of regretted that the colors on the floor weren't in a nice checkerboard pattern, because that would make my game a lot more practical.

The men now discussed getting in touch with someone from the media. There was a local TV station, possibly a local PBS channel, that always had a really good news show on. The news show starred these two guys. And it was always a good idea to get interviewed on their show. But the guys couldn't remember the name of the show.

I couldn't quite remember the name of the show. But I had a vague idea. I called out, "It's something like The Ron Paul Show, isn't it?"

The two men laughed. One of them derisively said, "No. It is definitely not Ron Paul."

The two men may have walked off to the other side of the room. I knew that the men were wrong. I may not have been totally right about the name of the show. But I was pretty sure that if the guy's name wasn't Ron Paul, it was pretty close. That had always been one of the things that had been interesting to me about the show, was how close the two names sounded.

I knew the guys wouldn't listen to me. So I gave up. I knew that likely I'd be vindicated when the guys learned that the name of the show was something like what I'd said. But I was sure that, even then, they wouldn't admit that I'd been right, and that they'd likely still try to make me feel stupid for what I'd said.

Dream 3

I was in some place like a diner. I sat at the counter. The counter apparently surrounded the kitchen on three sides. The back side was a wall, possibly with doors into another kitchen. The walls of the place may have been a dull, green color. The kitchen was really busy, as was the dining area.

A woman behind the counter was quickly, briskly fiddling around with some of the kitchen machinery. She was talking with some guy near me. The two of them were talking about some kind of business -- probably making movies or something. They were talking logistics, and it all had to do with why the man, but also the woman, had come to this place (maybe Minneapolis or somewhere in Wisconsin).

I felt like I may have been wanted as a part of the conversation. Something suddenly occurred to me. So I said that this was actually a great city for making movies.

I may have started to give some examples or some pointers, which I'd also thought were wanted. But the woman looked at me and said something like, this wasn't a great city for making movies, and that wasn't the reason she or the man had come here. The woman acted like I'd rudely distracted her and the man from their main discussion, so that they'd now have to figure out all over again what they were supposed to be doing.

I stayed quiet. I knew now that I really wasn't wanted as part of this conversation. But I also knew that I was probably right about what I'd said.

I was now in some sort of room, like a huge lounge where parties were thrown. The place may have been nicely furnished. It was supposed to be a nice place. But the ceilings were really low. So the place felt uncomfortably closed in. And there was clutter all over, so that it felt like the place was just being moved into or being vacated because it was being closed down.

There was a small crowd of people, all probably rich and well-dressed, in the room, kind of off to one corner of the room. I was there, but maybe just by sight, or maybe just as someone who was supposed to be there only as an observer.

A man knelt on the ground before the crowd, like he was meditating. He then stood up and conducted some sort of fight sequence. He may have fought some of the rich people. Or he may have ran toward the other side of the room, through a doorway and into another room, where he'd fought some hidden martial artists, eventually bringing the fight out to this room.

Now the scene repeated itself. It may have been like the scene was all an act and the meditating man had decided that he would repeat the scene for the better enjoyment of the spectators.

The man was Asian now. He was probably dressed in a tuxedo. He knelt on the ground again and meditated. He finished meditating and stood up. He got really close to the woman at the front of the crowd of rich people. The woman was old, maybe in her seventies or eighties. She was dressed in a shimmery flapper-style dress and headband with a feather, and she probably wore a lot of diamonds, as well as a monocle or pince nez eyeglasses.

The man explained to the woman how he was going to redo the fight. The martial artists now all came out into this main room. They fought. But it was also possible that now a lot of the rich people were being fought against. Or it may have been that the rich people felt that this fight could get out of hand and eventually involve the rich people.

I now sat back up in the diner. It was like the scene between the man, the woman, and me was being repeated. But it was also like we'd still had our previous discussion.

The man and woman were still trying to figure out why they were in this town. They knew it was good for getting into the movie business. But they were sure that wasn't why. The woman had a piece of paper, which she may have called a deed. And she wasn't even sure why she had it.

I called out again to the woman, asking her if she really wasn't here because of the movie business. I said everything she and the man kept talking about really made it sound like she was here because of the movie business.

The woman and the man were now pretty annoyed with me. They both kind of ganged up on me, told me that they were absolutely not here because of the movie business, and basically made it clear they both thought I knew nothing. The woman and the man went back to talking.

A woman seated to my right, maybe a friend of mine, asked for my attention. She then asked me to pay attention to the deed the woman was talking about. The woman behind the counter, even though she was still fiddling around with all the kitchen machinery (not really making any food), was holding the deed in her hand.

The deed now appeared before me, maybe as if the woman seated to my right were now holding it. The paper wasn't whole. It was like rectangles of it had been cut out. And the words on it were either vanishing or had already vanished.

I knew the deed said something specifically related to this place (maybe now Minnesota, or just "MN," instead of Minneapolis or Wisconsin). But the words were either too hard to read or were already gone. So I couldn't figure it out.

So now I knew that the deed was the reason the woman was really here. But I didn't know what the deed led to. And I felt like I still wanted to help the woman and man figure out the answer to their mystery. But I also felt like I was simply not wanted by them. They didn't think I knew anything. And they didn't want my help. In fact, I even started to wonder whether the woman seated to my right hadn't been nice to me only so she could shut me up and stop me from annoying the woman and man, who were actually her friends, maybe even her employers.

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.

the vanishing pleasure dome

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was with a group of friends in some place like a theme restaurant mixed with an indoor amusement park. The place was enormous. It was divided into a number of small sections. Each section was like a different theme restaurant or theme area for amusement park rides. The sections were mostly connected by a mall-like hallway, although some of the sections also just blended directly into other sections. A lot of the sections were dark, with little gleams of light, like reflections from a mirror ball, floating around the room.

I had broken off from my friends at some point. We'd all been in a restaurant section. I had stood up and walked away. Now I was trying to get back to them. But nothing around me looked familiar anymore. I didn't know what section my friends were in.

I was in the mall-like hallway section for a moment. I knelt or sat down to tie my shoes. When I stood up, I was even more lost than before.

I wandered through some of the interconnected sections, mainly walking through restaurants that seemed like bars, too -- like a lot of people were drunk and partying, or sitting around in booth seats with drinks and talking really loudly. I kept thinking I had happened upon my group of friends. But I never did, and I only felt more and more lost, like I was constantly working my way away from, instead of toward, my friends.

It now seemed like this place was closing down for the day. The sections were all emptying out. Wait staff, dressed like workers at a movie theater, were coming in and cleaning up the sections. Dim lights had come on in most of the sections.

I walked up to one of the wait staff and asked him where my friends were (as if he'd know who and where my friends were?...). The man seemed to know what section my friends had been in, though he probably wasn't sure they were still there. He pointed off to my right, toward a section of mall-like hallway. One of the other waiters confirmed the directions the first waiter had given.

I was now walking around in the mall-like hallway. But the building seemed to be vanishing with each step I took. I suddenly found myself outside, on a slope of almost barren soil. The building still seemed to be vanishing piece by piece, until it was nothing more than a run-down, dirty-boarded house at the top of the slope. An Hispanic woman stood on the porch of the house.

I looked down at the ground. There was a pair of old, white sneakers. I picked up the sneakers. The house had now also disappeared. The only thing, apparently, that was left from the building was the pair of sneakers. And it was like something, some aspect of the building, had concentrated itself into the sneakers.

space mall; battery spider; threatening a bad decision; upskirt exposure; buenos aires road sign; les galans

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was riding in a car, on the passenger side, either in the front or back seat. I was looking out the window and up at the sky. The sky was deep blue. In my mind's eye (I think) I saw a pink, buzzing image superimposed over the sky. I also heard, like in narration, a woman's voice telling me that, at the place where I was going, all my needs and desires were anticipated and provided for.

I was now watching myself head down a long escalator inside a mall. I saw everything from a very high angle, as if part of me were outside my body, watching my body from some high up floor in the building.

Once I reached the bottom of the escalator (which was blocked off by a set of pylons and poles, like the escalator was under construction), a robot greeted me. The robot had a basic human shape, but it was featureless. All the components of its body were like bubbles or capsules. It had a dull gold color. The robot led me away. Somehow I knew this place was called the "space mall," that it was a mall in outer space, and that it had everything I needed.

Dream #2

I was in "my bedroom." I apparently had a big, brown blanket that I lay down on whenever I would do my drawings, like the drawings I do as illustrations for my dreams. The blanket was folded up. I unfolded it. The surface of the blanket was covered with junk, garbage, and grainy stuff, probably sand. I was disgusted and a little ashamed. How could I have let my drawing blanket become like this?

I tried to clean it off. But now I saw what I thought was a bug. I had to look at it more carefully. It was actually a Duracell AA battery. It seemed to be moving about on its own. But each time it would move, the copper-top part of it would distort a little, like it was malleable and there was a spider inside, trying to poke out of it.

I was convinced that the battery was a bug. I tried to smash it. That's when I saw that there was actually a spider behind the battery. It looked like a normal house spider. But apparently it took batteries and stacked them up to create a little home for itself. It was trying to push the battery away right now.

I watched the spider push the battery again. Whenever the battery moved, its top would distort, as if the spider were inside it. There were a number of batteries on the blanket. I'm not sure whether there were other spiders. I think there may have been.

Dream #3

I was in front of some house with my mom and possibly my sister and a couple other family members. The house may have been my great aunt's house. There were some tall, well-trimmed shrubs in front of the porch to the house. My mom and I stood in a little space between two shrubs.

We'd been having some kind of argument. I was floating in the air. My mom may also have been floating. Either I or my mom was holding an empty kraft paper box in our hands, like a box the old blocks of food-assistance cheese would come in. We both may have been carrying a box.

My mom was now really angry with me. To spite me, she told me that she knew I'd made bad stock market decisions in my life, so I shouldn't think I was so smart. My mom's statement had shocked and shamed me, just like my mom had wanted. So now she walked away.

I was descending very slowly while thinking about what my mom had said. Of course I'd made bad stock choices in my life. But my mom was talking about one particular decision, and that had made me upset. But I suddenly found a way to make myself feel less bad about that decision. I told myself that G, one of my old clients, had either made the exact same mistake or had suggested that I make the decision I'd made. And he was a smart guy. So why should I feel stupid about my mistake?

I had finally descended to the ground. I charged away, trying to find my mother so that I could respond to her with what I'd remembered. All this time I had the image of my old boss BB in the back of my head.

I was now in a grocery store. I was in the far back, far right corner of the store (as one would face the front of the store). Or -- I may have been in the far back, toward the center of the store. The grocery store was huge, like a Walmart. But it felt old and worn-out. There was barely anybody in the store. And all the lights may have been off, so that there was only a dimmish, yellow-grey light coming from the window walls at the front of the store.

I now told myself that my mom always used to do stuff like this to me when I was young. When she did something I thought I should criticize, I would. Then she'd get angry at me and shout out mean things about me personally to make me ashamed of myself. (I don't think this is necessarily true in waking life.) She was doing the same thing to me now. I told myself to guard myself against this and not to let it bother me.

But I now had an idea. I'd say something to my mom that would really hurt her! I was standing in the laundry detergent aisle of the store, still holding the empty cheese box in my hands, probably cuddling it up to my chest. I knew my mom was sitting at some little dining area right at the front of the store. I ran to the front of the store and found my mom sitting at a booth table with red seats and a white table top.

I jumped into the booth seat across from her. I then leaned over the table and whispered in my mom's ear, "I'm either going to move back to New York or I'm going to kill myself." I backed down into my seat and laughed a little.

But suddenly I felt stupid for what I'd said. Of course, I hadn't meant any of it. And, how was it supposed to hurt my mom? There was no way I could get back to New York, even though I missed the place terribly. And by threatening my own life in front of somebody, I risked getting thrown into a hospital.

Dream #4

I was in a bedroom with my ex-girlfriend H. H was wearing a long skirt. The bedroom was really small and tight, and I was sitting on the bed. Suddenly H lay, stomach down, over my lap, like she was expecting to get a spanking.

Just as suddenly, the bedroom door flew open, and a gust of wind blew H's skirt all the way up. H wasn't wearing any underwear, and her bottom (which was kind of huge) was in full view. A few small boys wearing baseball caps stood looking into the room. I was either trying to think of a way to close the door on them or hoping that they'd just go away and forget what they'd seen.

Dream #5

It was a grey day. My brother and I were standing out on a huge street that was a part of an enormous crossing of highways. We stood on one of the ground-level roads. But there were three or four levels of roads on winding, twisting bridges above us. The streets were all either empty or else so quiet that we weren't worried about standing out in the middle of the road.

My brother and I were down in South America. We were actually citizens of some South American country. But somehow we'd gotten our location all confused. We were now trying to get back home. I, in particular, was a bit upset. We were in one country (Venezuela?) when we were trying to get to another country (Argentina?), and I was mad at the first country, like it was the entire country's fault that I was inside of it.

So, in spite, I started throwing black pebbles at a street sign. The street sign was just one long, horizontal green strip with white writing on it (like a United States street sign). It said "Buenos Aires - 3," even though I'm pretty sure we weren't in Argentina.

I started to have the idea that if I could throw the black pebbles hard enough at the sign, they'd actually pierce the sign. This would create a dimensional hole. I could then travel through the dimensional hole to get back to my correct country. I think my brother caught onto this idea. He started throwing pebbles, too.

But now we were in the living room of my current apartment (or some place pretty close to it). The Buenos Aires sign was still in front of us, and we were still throwing pebbles at it, still trying to break through into another dimension. But we'd run out of black pebbles. I looked at the floor. There were a lot of big rocks. I may have been uncertain of whether rocks would work. Then I thought, Well, they must work. They're bigger than the pebbles. They'll burst right through the sign!

Dream #6

I was sitting on a couch in a living room. The living room was actually like two living rooms set side by side. I sat in the living room that was farther back from the front door. Other than the couch, there was little or no furniture in this room.

A few kids started playing around in the room. There may have been an older girl or a young woman playing with a little girl. But somehow I got the responsibility of taking care of the little girl. I didn't mind this -- in fact, I thought I was better at taking care of the little girl than anyone else could have been.

The little girl sat down beside me on the couch. We were watching another set of little kids playing. Most of the kids were boys, but there may have been one girl. The girl seemed to be really delicate. But somehow I managed to do something to make the little girl feel good about herself.

The boys had run off to play something else. The little girl was either there or not there. It may have been like -- somehow -- she'd joined together with the little girl who was sitting on the couch. The little girl on the couch was maybe three years old. But now she complimented me on the way I dealt with children. She spoke like an adult. Even her vocal intonations were mature.

I wasn't amazed. I think I was seeing the little girl as a little girl but reacting to her as if she were an adult, like a high-up business woman whom I was trying to impress. I told the little girl, "Well, you know, it' no big deal. What my philosophy is, is treat kids like adults. Assume that they can understand everything an adult can understand. And they'll be thankful to you for it. They'll feel better about themselves because they'll feel like they're more in control of their own lives."

The little girl and I were both sitting on one of the short ends of the couch, as if the couch no longer had any arms! My knees were almost touching a small table with a lamp on it. The little girl and I both seemed to be geared up for an interesting conversation. But now my mom walked up from the other living room. She'd said something to the little girl which kind of reinforced the fact that my mom, and not I, was taking care of the little girl.

The little girl (whom I now may occasionally have seen as a young woman, attractive, with copper-colored skin and raven-black hair) tried to compromise with my mom by trying to combine my conversation with the conversation my mom had started. The little girl said, "That makes me think, maybe we should go to the video store and check out that French film, Les Galans, and that other film, -----."

My mom was still in the other living room. On the right wall (my right) was an entertainment center. On the left wall were a couch and some other pieces of furniture. My mom stood at an end table near us and rifled through a big pile of clutter. She said, "Nope. We can't do that. We can't go to the video store anymore. We still have a video of theirs."

My mom pulled a video cassette case out of the pile of clutter and held it before our faces. The case looked like it was from Blockbuster Video. But the front of it was a design for the front of the original case for a video cassette. The movie the case was for was some kind of anime. A pretty, blonde girl stood in front of some city scene. The girl may also have been standing by her car, a sleek, red sports car.

The little girl/young woman asked, "Can't we just take that video back and pick up a new one?"

My mom said, "No. This video was checked out by ---- (some young woman who was apparently a friend of the family). But she left today. She ----- (either moved away permanently or went away for a few days?) just this morning."

The little girl/young woman said, "Oh... So we can't do anything with that card without ----- being here. I see."

***

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


UPDATE 2: Added drawings to dream #5 and dream #6, August 1, 2012, 2:43 PM, Mountain Standard Time.

stalker and sniper; david bowie in pandora's box; la derniere 3

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was riding in a big, white, 1970s style car with some other person. I'm not sure, but I think the driver was a man. I was mainly in the backseat, on the passenger side, though I think I was also sometimes in the front seat on the passenger side. We were driving through some area that was like the outskirts of a town, with hills and forested areas. But there was also a huge parking lot for some shopping center. It was probably late afternoon, and the day may have felt a little cold.

Somehow the person who was driving had figured out that another car in front of us was actually stalking us. The driver of the car may have been a woman in her fifties or sixties, still in pretty good shape, but a little worn-out looking, with shaggy, pale blonde hair that was black at the roots. The woman was driving a more modern car than our car. It may have been more of a 1990s style, with a roundish, but long, body. But I think it was also white.

I knew (I don't think the driver told me) that the driver had figured out that this woman had been keeping a steady pace in front of us the whole time, always gauging where we were going to turn and then turning in that direction. I may also have known that this woman was working for a man who was about her age, and that the two people were working for some larger group of people who assigned people to stalk other people.

We were nearing the parking lot to the shopping center (or a Walmart?). The driver told me we were going to make it look like we were heading into the shopping center. As soon as the woman had gotten fully pulled into the shopping center, we were just going to drive away. This way, even if we didn't lose the woman, we could still know for sure that she was stalking us when she started following us from behind.

So we lost the woman in the parking lot. The parking lot was on a slope. We drove up the slope, then turned right. On our left side was forested area. On our right was the slope leading down to the shopping center. We drove a ways farther, then turned right again. We headed back down the slope, still driving alongside the shopping center.

At the bottom of the slope we continued forward. I think we had been planning to go somewhere in particular. But we'd had to throw the stalker off our trail first. Even though we seemed to have done that, the driver still thought it was a good idea for us to drive around in a diverted path before we'd headed to the place we had to head to, just to make sure nobody else was following us and would be led to wherever we were trying to go.

So we drove straight forward, into a neighborhood that the driver said was really bad. A couple blocks into the neighborhood we turned left. We drove through a neighborhood of two- or three-story apartment complexes. The sun had gone down over the horizon, and everything in the neighborhood looked grey-blue. But some of the apartments actually were a worn-out, faded shaded of turquoise, which looked even worse in the evening dimness. The trees were possibly barren, like it was late autumn.

The driver told me there were snipers in the neighborhood. I don't remember how the driver knew this. The driver may have seen a sniper in one of the buildings, or we may actually have gotten shot at. I think I could see a sniper in my mind's eye. The driver may have told me to keep cover as well as I could. I crouched down low onto the floor of the backseat, though still keeping my head peeped just a little above the backseat. I was really scared.

Dream #2

I was part of a play. The play may have been just a two-person play. At first, I may have thought that I was part of a rehearsal. For some reason, as part of this rehearsal, I had to be under a dark green sheet. The stage was small, and not elevated too high from the ground. I lay crouched on all fours under this sheet. The other actor sat beside me, addressing the crowd.

The other actor had some long monologue. I knew that I also had lines. But I'm not sure when I was supposed to say them. But as the other actor continued his monologue, he somehow gave me signs that I was supposed to emerge slowly from under the sheet. At this point I saw that the actor beside me was David  Bowie. He looked kind of young. He was pale, and he had red-dyed hair.

I think that as I slowly emerged from the sheet I'd come to understand that I hadn't really been under the sheet as part of the play. David Bowie/the actor had actually kept me under the sheet as some kind of protection for me. It was like he didn't think I could stand to see the audience or something.

I looked out at the audience. This wasn't a rehearsal. It was an actual performance, and there was a full audience. The audience sat about five meters away from the stage. The stage was just a small, black square set against a black wall, on a platform maybe 25cm tall. Between the stage and the audience was just bare, black floor. The audience sat in folding chairs in somewhat steeply tiered rows of bleachers. The spotlights on the stage reflected out on the audience, so I could dimly see the people out there.

I stopped uncovering myself when I had the sheet just below my shoulders. I was in some awkward half-laying, half-crouching position, leaned sideways, with my head pointed toward David Bowie. There may have been more dark green sheets nearby.

Bowie continued with his monologue. I knew I had lines. But I didn't know when Bowie would actually cue me to say them. In fact, I was getting the feeling he was expressly not having me say my lines. My old friend R was in the audience. (When I thought of R I saw a balding, heavyset man in the audience.) If I spoke, R would know I was the character beside Bowie. He would then be jealous of me and try to ruin the show to spite me. So Bowie kept me quiet. In fear of being discovered, I had actually started chewing on the green sheet. But I still wanted to say my lines.

But now the play was over. Bowie asked everybody in the audience to give a critique of the play. One man, an older, balding white man, kind of wealthy looking, with a thin, slightly leathery and wrinkly face, and wearing a blazer, cardigan, and tie, was the only person to speak. As he spoke, I got a closer and closer view of his face. It was like his chair was right in front of the stage. But then it was like I saw his face in full closeup. At that point, all the wrinkles of his face were highlighted by something like black pencil or marker.

The man said something like, "You know, after all, this is 'Pandora's Box.' And there's a theme to this story. You should at least keep to the theme. There are things that happen in the story, and there are characters involved in the story. But you didn't have any of that.

"And... I know, maybe it's just the Hollywood style, but... you made the whole thing about sex. If you just took out the focus on sex and you just made the story fit with what the real story of Pandora's Box is all about, it might make a lot more sense to people."

I felt vindicated that the man had criticized the play. I was still bitter about not having been able to speak my lines. Any criticism of Bowie seemed like a blow in favor of the idea that I should have been allowed to speak my lines. But the man hadn't really mentioned me, or the fact that I should have been allowed to speak. I had to admit that. I also had an idea that the man would have criticized us no matter what. He just seemed to enjoy tearing people down.

We were now standing backstage. I stood off by myself, staring down at a dancer's balance pole, one of the horizontal bars fastened to a wall, usually accompanied by a wall-length mirror, so a dancer can watch their movements and balance herself as she practices. But as I looked at the pole, it became a long, green object, like a huge leaf, elongated to the size of a balance bar. The leaf was curled up in half. Along the bottom, inner side of the leaf things were written in pen. The one thing I remember was the year "1825."

I now turned to look at the rest of the room. It was a kind of big room. Off to my left, along the same wall with the balance bar, was a door leading outside. A lot of performers were walking out that door -- as if our play had actually used a whole lot of performers, some of them young females in black leotards and tight hairdos, like dancers. Across the way from that door was a dim doorway into some other room, like a seldom used prop-room.

David Bowie walked out of that room. He now stood before the man who'd criticized our performance. But now Bowie was short, maybe coming up only to the man's shoulders. He was kind of muscly and stocky, too. And his skin was all painted a greasy dark blue! His hair, a wiry, dusty-tan color, was done in a spiky flat-top on top. But the back of his hair was done in a thin braid that reached all the way down his back. Bowie wore no shirt, only a pair of shorts.

Bowie walked up to the man. He explained something to the man about the year 1825. In that year, Bowie explained, a very influential artist (someone specific, maybe a pre-Raphaelite, but I can't remember who) had decided that all artists should strip themselves of past influences. In doing so, artists would find ways to express themselves truly and purely, without bogging themselves down with cultural references.

Bowie explained how he came directly from that school. He said the title of his show, "Pandora's Box," was simply meant as an inspiration to the drama of his show. The drama wasn't supposed to coincide with Pandora's Box at all. And the show was supposed to be sexual, because Bowie felt that sexuality was true expression.

Bowie was saying all of this in a matter-of-fact, but apologetic, manner. The man was listening patiently and indifferently, as if he were by this time rather used to listening to artists justify themselves.

Dream #3

I was walking down a hallway in a movie theater. The hallway had orange or yellow walls and orange carpet. I headed down into a smaller hallway, just outside the theater where the movie I had come to see was playing.

A man and woman stood outside the theater. The man asked the woman about whether she'd seen certain movie. The woman said no. The man kind of bragged about how good the movie was (to make the woman feel bad she hadn't seen it). The man then said, "But what's crazy about it, is that the movie was so good, and already they're on the third movie of the series. In fact, that's what's playing in this theater. La Derniere 3."

I don't think I'd known -- or questioned! -- what movie I was heading to. But now that I heard that this theater was playing a film called La Derniere 3, I wondered whether I'd wanted to come to see it. It sounded like an action film. In fact, just over the door was a strip with the movie's title and an image from the movie poster. The image showed a contemporary woman riding on the back of a man who was shooting a big handgun as he swung on a rope away from a big explosion.

I decided to head into the movie anyway. I don't think I knew where else I could have gone. My view then shifted to a different movie. A young, blonde man with tan skin and shaggy hair walked into his family's house. His mother was in the house. The man and his mother were in a kitchen or a sun room. Either way, the room was very airy and filled with natural light, like there were windows all over the place, and there seemed to be plants everywhere.

The young man somehow let his mother know that he had been attacked and drugged by a group of people. He seemed to be afraid of the consequences of having been drugged. Either he was afraid he'd been drugged with something really addictive, so he'd have to go through a painful withdrawal, or else he was going to take some kind of drug test, and he was worried that the results of the test would be bad. The young man was ashamed to talk to his mom about all this, but he knew he had to.

The mom said the best way to tell if the young man would be alright would be to look at the young man's eyes. The young man's eyes were all scratchy and yellow. At first this didn't seem like a good sign. The man was really worried. I was worried, too. But on second glance, I think the mother decided that everything would likely be okay.

***

UPDATE: Added drawing to dream #2, July 30, 2012, 2:12 PM, Mountain Standard Time.

the city in a mall

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was on a subway train with "my family." The family sometimes appeared to be my family and other times appeared to be a wealthy family, with a father, a mother, and at least a pretty, blonde daughter. There may have been other people with this other family, like extended family members coming along on vacation. I'm not sure whether I saw from my height or the height of a child. But I was my current age, at least mentally.

The train we were on seemed a bit more like an airport train than a subway train. It seemed like the cars were really small and clean, and like everybody was standing up.

The train either stopped or slowed down. An announcer, probably a computer voice, came on and told us that the train would be detoured. This was a big inconvenience for my family. We decided that we would get off the train as soon as possible and take some other form of transportation to our destination. But this seemed inconvenient to me. The other transportation would be biking or walking, which would take a long time, or driving, which would cost a lot of money.

I felt bad about the train getting detoured. I thought it was my fault somehow. I think it had been my suggestion to take the train. I'd thought it was the most convenient way to go. I think I even (at this point I'm pretty sure my view was from a child's height) tried to justify our having taken the train to everybody -- even though nobody seemed to think badly about my having suggested the train.

But when we got off the train, it was like we were almost to our destination, anyway. We walked out onto a huge concrete plaza, which felt bleached white by the sunlight. Off to our right was another train. We may have headed over to catch that train. At this point, my family was a lot more like my waking life family -- or, at least my mom was a lot more like my waking life mom.

The train took us a short distance, still along this giant concrete walkway, to a set of escalators that went inside a building. This was our destination. I knew that our plan was to check into our hotel and then go to the Museum of Natural History. I may even have called it Denver Museum of Natural History, like we were in Denver, on vacation. (Denver is where I live in waking life.)

We went up the escalators. Somehow I lost my family. I was completely by myself. I was in some gigantic shopping mall. I had no idea how I was going to find my family. But I knew where we were going. We were heading to the hotel and to the museum. I knew that everything in the city was in this mall, or was at least connected to this mall. You could reach every place in the city through the mall. So all I'd have to do is find the hotel and the museum. Then I'd be able to find my family.

I went to some huge sign that listed some of the major areas of the mall. I looked for the listings for the hotel and the museum. I may have known that the mall was divided into different sections, each section being denoted by a different color. I knew that the museum and hotel were in the red section of the mall. So I looked for the hotel and museum in the red section listings.

I apparently found out where the hotel and museum were. I began rushing toward the hotel, down through a hallway that I believed was a part of the red section of the mall. But for some reason I either forgot where the hotel and museum were, or else I became uncertain about whether I was travelling in the right direction. So I had to stop and look for directions again.

I found a directions sign hanging over an escalator bank that was coming up from a lower level. Some young man seemed to be headed toward either the escalators or a place where he could get a good view of the directions sign. I was in a big hurry to get to the sign as well, and I think I cut the guy off. I apologized to him. But he said it wasn't a big deal.

I thought that I found the hotel on the directions sign. But what I actually found was a hotel belonging to the same chain, but at a different location. Right underneath that hotel was another hotel belonging to the same chain. The location name for that specific hotel may have been "Quemada." I looked at a different spot on the directions sign and found the hotel I was looking for, which now may have been named "Denver West."

I rushed toward the hotel again. But I may have stopped again. I may have wondered whether I should be meeting my family at the museum instead of at the hotel.

But I think I ended up at the hotel. I think I stood in front of the entrance to the hotel. It looked like the entrance to any other shop in a shopping mall: square, wide, and kind of short. I didn't walk in or head up to the hotel room yet.

But I knew -- like I could hear my mom talking to me from somewhere -- saying that everybody else had decided they were just going to end their day here in the hotel. Nobody was planning on going to the museum. I thought this would obviously include me. If nobody else was going to the museum, I wouldn't be allowed to go, either. But I think I started to think of a way that I could go even if nobody else was going.

***

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

shopping for lingerie; north of italy

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in either a women's clothing store or a lingerie store. The store was part of a shopping mall, and I could see the shopping mall's hallway just outside the window-front of the store. The store was grey, lit with a very drab, fluorescent light. The store may also have felt a little empty of racks of clothes. Some women were shopping in a couple different places. I may have felt like I knew the women, even though I wasn't with them.


I found a rack of lingerie that I thought I might like to wear. It was mostly cami and panty sets, made out of some soft, cotton-like fabric. I saw one set that was cream colored and another set that was lavender. There may have been other sets as well. The price of these sets was only something like $2.99. I thought I should get one. But then I thought that $2.99 would be too much money to spend.


A woman who worked at the store walked up and asked me if she could help me find anything. I didn't know what to tell her. I had the feeling the woman was kind of attracted to me. She was young, kind of pretty, with black hair and pale skin. I was afraid to tell her that I was looking for lingerie for myself to wear. I didn't want her to be disappointed in her attraction to me.


I was also starting to worry because I noticed that the people in the shopping mall hallway could easily see me. There weren't many people in the hallway. But what if one of them knew me and saw me buying lingerie? I decided to get away from the lingerie and get out of the store as quickly as possible.

Dream #2


I was with a friend, probably a female friend. We were meeting for a meal. We were in some upstairs area of a shop. But we had to head downstairs to get to the restaurant area.


As we headed down the stairs, we were talking about travelling. I mentioned something that I really liked about travelling. It may have been something about rich, cheesy foods. But that may just have been symbolic of something about the intellectual climate of, or the level of respect in, certain countries.


We walked all the way to the back of the small restaurant as I continued talking to the woman. I followed the woman almost all the way to the ladies' restroom, which was on the back wall of the restaurant. All the way, I was talking about travelling. Finally, as the woman walked into the bathroom, I said something like, "The best place for what I'm talking about is in the North of Italy."


The woman closed the bathroom door. The restroom door was green. I noticed two women sitting at a small table just to the right (my right) of the restroom door. The woman closer to the door looked like Isabella Rossellini in the movie Blue Velvet. She looked at me with anxiety. Apparently I'd said something she didn't like. I had an idea it was my mention of the North of Italy.


I was standing just to the right of some sort of small service counter, like an area where wait staff could quickly fix beverages for customers. My view was partly obstructed by an espresso machine with a pale green-painted body. Behind the espresso machine stood another woman, maybe in her mid to late thirties. She was tan and had short, brown hair in a spiky, but rounded cut combed down around her head.


The woman mentioned something to me about "Svetlana," the panicked girl who was seated by the restroom door. She said that any mention of the North of Italy would make Svetlana look like she was fraternizing with the customers. This was not allowed by the manager of this store, a woman in maybe her fifties. The woman believed Svetlana had recently been fraternizing too much with the customers, and that her work performance had fallen off as a result.


I knew this meant I should stop mentioning the North of Italy. But I thought this was stupid. I hadn't even been talking to Svetlana. So how could she get in trouble for what I'd been saying? And I wasn't going to stop talking about stuff that I'd come in here talking about, just because a manager was getting stuffy about it. So I kept on talking about the rich foods in the North of Italy.


Just behind the service area was a small stairwell up to the ground level. The stairwell was across a small hallway from the bathroom door my friend had gone into. The manager now walked down the stairwell. The manager was tan, with red hair and kind of wrinkly skin. She was short and a little stout, but more in a way that made her look tough rather than out of shape. She did seem to be tough. But she also seemed to have a friendly, natural personality.


The manager had heard me talking about rich foods from the North of Italy. She jumped into the conversation easily and naturally, telling me a few things about the foods. The manager mentioned that the restaurant was actually planning on serving foods from the North of Italy on this day.


The woman had a few samples sat atop the espresso machine. The manager and I were eating these samples. I had a piece of ham that I was dipping into some kind of white sauce that was in a tiny, crystal bowl. Just to the left of that bowl there was another tiny, crystal bowl of Parmesan cheese. The manger was also eating something: I saw her putting something small into her mouth with all the fingers of her right (?) hand.


***


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


UPDATE 2: Added drawing for dream #1, July 9th, 2012, 3:30 PM, Mountain Standard Time.

dace joke; humped by zappa lookalike

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a big bedroom with one or two women. Both the women were very beautiful and very made up, almost like 1940s actresses -- or fetish models! They were actually college girls. They either had just graduated or were just about to graduate. There was some issue with one of the girls being just about to meet some other girl, possibly so they could engage in some creative endeavor together.

I turned around and walked toward the door. It now seemed like it was exactly one year later than the time it had been before I'd turned around. There was another woman sitting near some small dresser with a lamp. The woman seemed somehow to be using the dresser as a desk.

There was some discussion about how the first woman and the woman that she had been going to meet were now good friends. The seated woman told me this as if to say "didn't you know this already?" as if I'd asked some question about it.

I walked out into the living room, which was also really large. The room was really messy. It was like there had been some kind of party earlier on -- it was still dark outside -- and nothing had gotten picked up yet.

I was about to walk through the living room and into another room. This whole time I'd been talking with some young woman somewhere about her college graduation, which was just about to take place.

I stopped on the threshold between the living room and some dark room. I stood halfway in both rooms. I could see the woman I'd been talking to in the dark room, standing before a dresser and pulling on some clothes.

In the living room, one of my old friends, M, began making some kind of joke about the graduation party the girl was going to throw. Apparently she was going to throw the party here. Some amount of thought had gone into decorating the place for the party. But M was downplaying all the effort.

The main thing M was doing was playing out the scenario of some dopey, scratchy-voiced, bum-like guy saying all the things you'd need to make a party really classy. M, as the character, would list off one or two normal pieces of furniture, like a coffee table or a dresser. But then he'd veer off and start mentioning all kinds of weird, sometimes trashy, sometimes drug-related, items. One of these things was something called a "dace."

I was really amused by M's antics, even though I felt a little bad, thinking that the girl was probably a little annoyed and insulted by M downplaying her efforts to put together a nice party.

I joined in with M in the antics. The weird exchange M and I had -- both of us acting as the bum-like guy -- was so vivid that I could hear it. But I can't remember anything I said now.

Dream #2

I was in a mall with some guy. I was supposed to keep the guy with me: either making sure I followed him closely or making sure he followed me closely.

The guy was probably in his early forties. He was maybe 190cm or 195cm tall, a little heavy. He had worn out skin and a kind of baggy face. His hair was short, slightly feathery, and blonde, but going grey quickly. The guy wore a blue shirt with a mild, business-casual plaid-like crisscrossing of darker blue lines and a pair of khaki slacks.

The mall was somewhat busy. We had walked out of one store and were now walking to a point where two wide corridors joined into a staircase which led up to one wide corridor.

It had been difficult to keep track of the guy in the corridors, though I'd managed to do it. He'd be up in front of me, then back behind me, then up in front of me all over again. But I think we'd been talking with each other, which had helped me keep some orientation regarding the man.

But the stairwell leading up to the next corridor was extremely busy, if only for a moment. It was like a huge rush of people were all coming down the stairs while I was trying to go up the stairs. I had been having troubles, I think, keeping my own orientation, not to mention keeping track of the man. But now my own orientation was completely obliterated.

I got control of myself. I was only three steps up the staircase. I looked down to the foot of the staircase. I assumed that was the last place I'd seen the man. But the man wasn't there.

The staircase was relatively empty now. I looked past the bottom of the staircase, down the corridor adjacent to the corridor the man and I had come from. I didn't see him among any of the people in the corridor. But I thought he might have gone into one of the shops in the corridor. I thought I should probably walk past all the shops, looking in to see if I could find the man.

But something, either my own thoughts or the voice of some person a couple steps up from and behind me, who seemed to have seen the man, told me that I should actually go up the steps to look for the man.

That made sense. The man, if separated from me, would, I assumed, have kept going in the direction we'd been going in together before we'd gotten separated. After all, our common goal, it seemed to me, was more his goal than mine, even though I'd had to be the one to stick with him to make certain we got to the goal. I could even imagine the man standing on the left side of the corridor, near a shop one or two shops away from the top of the staircase.

I went up the staircase. Time became a little bit jumbled.

For a little while I was in some store like a department store or a drug store, near the makeup sectiong. I may have been talking to a woman behind the counter, standing on a high up platform. I may have been ashamed while I was talking to the woman, like I'd really wanted to wear the makeup she sold, but like I really didn't want her to know that and think I wasn't a boy she could be sexually interested in.

I was then in some big room -- not like a bedroom, but some brick walled room that felt like some kind of art studio, or even an old record store that had been hollowed out. But something about it still felt like a bedroom.

I was in the room with some guy. There may have been another person, possibly also a man, in the room. But he seemed only to be observing, not acting in any way. And he may have disappeared at some point.

The first guy and I went through some scenario together. It was like the guy was trying to figure out something about a girl: maybe why his girlfriend had left him or why he wasn't able to get a specific girl to like him or how to tell a specific girl he liked her. But I had something to do with the woman. It was like I was at fault for the woman not being in love with the man. I didn't know if the man knew this. I suspected he did. But I wasn't going to mention it unless he did.

Now the scenario changed a little bit. So did the guy. The guy had at first been kind of sloppy, wearing a white t-shirt with some black-printed rock band art on it and some kind of khaki jacket. Both the shirt and jacket were in terrible disarray. The guy had been a little round-bellied and round faced, with pretty short hair done in a tightish, square style.

Now the guy was wearing basically the same clothes. But he was really tall and really skinny. He had long, frizzy, black hair, a linty-looking mustache and goatee, and lots of stubble. He had dark, deep-set eyes and bushy eyebrows. He kind of looked like Frank Zappa, with a little bit of Joey Ramone's look, too.

The two of us were still going through some scenario related to the girl who was the guy's love interest. But now there was also some Smashing Pumpkins song playing in the background. Somehow the scenario got mixed up with a discussion about the song -- as if we were actually writing this song together as we heard it, or as if we were trying to figure out how to write a song like this together.

I'm not sure how, but the scenario had worked its way to where the guy had me on the ground, on my back. He was beginning to hump me. He may even have unzipped my pants to reveal that instead of underwear I was wearing a baby's diaper.

I wasn't attracted to the guy. He was pretty dirty looking. But it felt good when he humped me, especially when I could feel the diaper I was wearing pressing against me. I was worried that enjoying this stiuation probably made me gay. But I somehow got myself to believe that even though I was enjoying this guy dry humping me right now, I wouldn't normally enjoy having sex with guys.

I was probably about to climax. I could feel my erection pushing against my diaper. The Smashing Pumpkins song got louder and louder. The man and I may have been singing the song together. I may still have been trying to figure out if we were making this song or only listening to it.