maboroshi

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was standing on a tall, grey rock. I must have been right at the edge of a residential area that bordered a mountain or forest area.

At first I was possibly looking up at the sky. The sun seemed to be so bright that I had to close my eyes. But at some point I heard my mom and another woman talking in my head. The two women were talking about a thunderstorm.

I looked at the sky. Some heavy, grey-black clouds loomed off to my right, taking up half the sky. I could tell they were thunderclouds. I was really afraid of getting struck by lightning.

I stood down on the ground now. I looked up at the sky again. I noticed that the left half of the sky was somewhat clear. It looked like the storm was getting pushed off to the right. I thought that if I walked more toward my left I could escape any impending lightning strikes.

I ran to my left -- really afraid of a thunderstorm. I ended up in the crevice of a mountain. The landscape all around me was of barren rock. The rock was gritty and dull, kind of like a tannish grey granite. The area sloped downward for a bit, then flattened out, but remained ridged, like a molar tooth.

There were a few other people in this area, mostly men. They seemed to be split up into pairs or threes, almost like fathers and sons. Each group seemed to be engaged in some task.

I eventually ended up at some contraption made out of old wood. The contraption was like a C-shaped frame. It came up about to my chest. There may have been a couple other guys around me.

I heard some people talking, either around me or in my head. The scene may have changed at some point. There had been some discussion of a guy. I asked what had happened to the guy. The person talking (in my head?) said some short phrase that led me to understand that the man had been convicted of murder and executed by hanging.

Good morning, everybody.

Sorry I haven't been around in a while. My waking life kind of toppled over for a bit. But I think I'm getting back to normal.

Dream #1

I was talking with my psychiatrist. She looked kind of weird, like her eyes were close together and really tiny, but wide open, like she was shocked. Her hair was also very pale, almost dirty blonde.

I was telling my psychiatrist about some experience I'd had, which had seemed to me to be bilocation. I may have remembered something about one version of myself standing near a missile that lay on the ground, while the other version of myself was somewhere else.

My psychiatrist told me that she remembered the events surrounding the date on which I'd had this experience. She said that we had been making good progress in our sessions. She said that on that particular day, she'd touched on something sensitive in my life.

So, my psychiatrist said, it was pretty natural that I'd have some kind of weird experience. It was a reaction, a resistance, against the sensitived issue that my psychiatrist had brought up. I'd probably also felt like my experience was bilocation for a reason -- something to do with the sensitive issue.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a classroom. I sat in a desk one or two rows back from the front and a little toward the left of the classroom. The classroom door was on the left side of the wall that the desks faced. The light of the classroom was a greenish fluorescent.

The classroom was probably full of people. Everybody may have seemed about my age. But the class felt almost like a high school class.

I sat twisted in my desk, the left side of my head propped up by my left hand. I was watching a woman or girl give a speech about something. The woman was giving the speech while seated at her desk.

I knew that the woman's speech wasn't popular. She had expressly decided to say something she knew other people wouldn't like. Plus, her speech may have been boring.

I was taking a little bit of a secret pleasure in knowing that the woman's speech was not well-received. She may have acted arrogant toward me in the past. So now I was happy to see people treating her indifferently.

Somehow (maybe because of a bell?) the people all knew that the class period was over. They all got up and left the class, even though the woman was still giving her speech. The woman continued, seeming only a little put-off by being ignored by everybody.

I now felt bad for the woman. I didn't think everybody would be so indifferent toward her. I thought she must feel horrible. So I listened harder to what she was saying, as if I were really interested in it.

At some point, the speech was done. The woman was still seated in her desk. There were a couple other people in the room. One of them was some male friend of mine. He seemed a little bit older and classier than I.

My friend made some criticism of the woman's speech while walking about on the left side of the classroom. He then addressed me as he walked out of the classroom.

I understood the criticism the man had given the woman, though he'd addressed it to me. I tried to respond by adding onto the criticism in some witty way, and by using an accent. I may have been trying to sound French. But my attempt was horrible.

My friend, standing just outside the classroom, told me, in a half-distracted way, that my accent was horrible. I stood up and walked out of the classroom. I told the man that I agreed with him. I told him I thought I sounded like --.

But I couldn't remember the name of the person I was thinking about. She was a cartoon character, from the Bullwinkle show. I might have kept saying "Badenov, Badenov," because I remembered she was Boris Badenov's partner in crime. But I couldn't remember the character's first name.

(Of course, it's Natasha.)

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was lost in "New York City." I was in some part of town full of vacant lots and stout, warehouse-like buildings. It was late afternoon, kind of dim and grey-blue. There were a decent amount of people around.

I wandered in some general direction, maybe following a group of people who seemed to know where they were going. But I think I was beginning to question whether I was even in New York at all.

Eventually I rounded some corner and found a subway stop. The sign of the subway station said something like "Riche St." I knew this stop. It was near Wall St., and it was on the line that ran near my apartment in Brooklyn. (IWL, there is no "Riche St." stop, as far as I know.)

I went down the stairs and into the subway station. The station was completely hollowed out. There were a bunch of mothers and children (probably mostly Latina) in the empty space. Something about the whole environment felt tan or brown, like there was brownish concrete for the floors and walls.

The environment also felt somewhat like a community meeting space, or some kind of preschool place. This may just been because of the mothers and children all gathered together. But it may also have felt a little like an almost revolutionary meeting, kind of like the Communist meeting in Vittorio de Sica's The Bicycle Thief.

A woman started speaking. A loose, random crowd of women and children had gathered around her. Some of the people may possibly have been sitting on the floor. I sat on the floor near the back of the crowd.

I had a good view of the woman, even sitting on the floor. I think the woman was Asian, kind of round-faced, with pale skin and shortish hair. The woman may actually have been giving a speech about anime. But the speech was intended to give the women and children a sense of empowerment, as well.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

A tall, white man, bald on top, with white hair around the sides of his head, and wearing a grey suit with a white shirt and, probably, a maroon tie, was sitting at a table with me in a drably fluorescent-lit room, talking about lucid dreaming.

I don't remember what the man said now, although I could hear it pretty well. One word in particular really struck me, although when I woke up I seemed to think that that word could have applied to any subject.

Dream #2

I was standing at the edge of a city park. The park felt small near me, though I had the idea that it was actually a rather large park. I stood on the inside of a black-painted iron fence. A sidewalk ran just outside the park. It was a nice, sunny day. There were a lot of people on the sidewalk.

Somehow I saw, off to my left, my old friend R walking around the corner. He was walking under the shade of some trees. I didn't really want to see him again. But if he was here, and if he saw me, I supposed I should be happy to talk to him.

The entrance to the park was on my side. And R was rounding the corner to reach my side. But for some reason, I started walking over to the side of the park where R was. It was like I wanted to meet him before he got to my side.

But, only a few steps away from where I'd been, I realized that I'd just left my backpack (??? -- don't wear one IWL) behind. I turned around to grab it. It might have been leaning against a tall headstone, like for a grave.

I grabbed my backpack. But by this time, R had already rounded the corner. He was now walking past where I stood. He may have said something to me. We may even have been talking to each other -- in my head. R was already about to reach the next corner.

Somehow I came to understand that I would be meeting R at some other place, like we'd arranged to meet each other for dinner or at R's house or something. I now walked away from the park gates and down toward the opposite end of the park.

The park, I'm pretty sure, had a lot of gravestones in it. It might actually have been a cemetery. I walked across a lawn full of gravestones, under the thick shade of trees.

At some point I saw -- as if I were walking there, but not quite -- the street on the other side of the park. It was an empty street, with a big, residential apartment building. The building was kind of old and run down. It was made of stone or concrete, and it was painted white. It glared in the sunlight.

I was thinking something to myself. But I can't remember what. I was probably still continuing my in-head conversation with R.

Dream #3

I was sitting on a couch with my brother. My brother sat to my right. To my left was another couch, on which sat two or three women. The women weren't my family members, though maybe they were supposed to have been.

I was either drawing or looking at drawings and humming or singing a tune to myself. I remember sensing the tune -- hearing it and feeling it in my throat. But I don't remember the tune at all.

The first drawing I was looking at was kind of tall and narrow. It was of some human-like figure. The figure was all green, with a masculine, slender, but muscular body, and a featureless face. The figure had smallish wings, kind of butterfly-shaped, but clear, like fly-wings.

The figure stood before a background, like a sky fading upward, from the horizon, from yellowish to greenish-yellow, to olive-green.

The second drawing was of a sky and a landscape below. The landscape was very small as I remember, and the sky was very vast. A whole lot of demon-like entities were being released from the sky. They may have come from some ship, but I can't remember.

The demons were little, black, scraggly shadows. In the center of these scraggly shadows there were single, pink orbs, almost like eyes.

The sky faded very quickly from a dark band of blue at the top, to a paler blue, and finally to a white, which took up most of the vast sky. For some reason, the whole thing reminded me of something out of Neon Genesis Evangelion, and I might even have started making up a story about Shinji Ikari attacking these demons.

I was still humming or singing. At some point the women started singing or humming along with my tune. Finally my brother made some smart-ass comment to me about how stupid my song was. He also asked me something like, couldn't I quit making so much noise while he was around?

I stopped. I was really offended and angry. The women stopped as well. But they took more of an attitude of being scared by the sudden change in tone in the environment.

I turned to my brother and said a lot of really bad stuff to him. I remember sensing each thing I said to him -- but I can't remember what I said. All I know is that I was calculating everything I said to hurt him and make him feel as terrible and worthless as possible.

Finally I said that I only tolerated being around him, and nothing more -- that I didn't like being around him.

I then did some strange move where I lifted my hands, bent my arms, grabbed onto the back of the couch, and flipped myself over to the backside of the couch. When I did this, I was in another room.

As soon as I had said everything I felt really terrible. I could tell that my brother had taken everything I'd said to heart. I knew that he'd probably lose faith in himself and go off and get into some kind of trouble. It really upset me that I'd started off that whole chain of events -- even though, while I'd said everything, it was exactly what I'd meant to do.

I didn't seriously mean anything I'd said, though, and now I wanted to apologize to my brother for everything.

My brother was standing right next to me. I figured this would be the best time for me to apologize to him and get things back in order between us.

We were staring at a table full of arts and crafts supplies. The main thing I remember is yellow, plastic canisters of powdered paint. The canisters looked like label-less Crayola products. We had to pour the powdered paint into white, styrofome bowls and add water. I may have called this paint "tempera."

I was looking at the table and apologizing to my brother. My brother was telling me something like, It's okay, it's okay, I'm okay, don't worry about it. But I still felt awful, and I wanted my brother to know I was sorry.

Dream #4

A girl, probably an Asian girl, maybe in her early or mid teens, was wearing a strange helmet. The helmet was made out of brightly polished chrome.

The skull of the helmet held pretty close to the woman's head. But the jaw of the helmet extended straight forward, on both sides, forming something like two stylized, trapezoidal tusks. There may -- possibly, I'm not sure -- also have been ear-like or wing-like shapes coming off the top of the head.

I wondered why the woman would need to wear something like this. It didn't make sense, for daily life.

But somehow I got the understanding that the woman had been attacked, either physically or spiritually, in her life. She was still healing from the attack. And she was still vulnerable to future attacks. So, to protect the healing areas, the woman had to wear this helmet. The helmet may also have helped her fight, in the case of any future attacks.

Dream #5

I was at my old friend R's apartment. But, for some reason, it was now my family's house. My mom and my mom's best friend were at the house. My sister was also there. Other people may also have been there. But I'm not sure who they were.

We were in somebody's bedroom, which was at one end of the apartment. I was sitting on the edge of a big, fluffy bed.

My mom and my mom's friend were secretly worrying over me. They didn't say anything to me. But they were discussing the fact that I was seeing demons, and that I might, therefore, be suffering from schizophrenia. My sister may also have been involved in the conversation.

I got up, not quite feeling like myself, but still trying to prove that I was sane. I'm pretty sure the fact was that I was seeing demons. But I think I was trying to prove to somebody that they were real. But if I couldn't prove they were real, I could, at least, in the meantime, prove that I had a decent grip on the rest of reality.

I walked into the next room, adjacent to the bedroom. I'm not sure what it was. For some reason, I saw the door on the left wall of the room. I wanted to jump from where I was, through the doorway, into the hallway.

I jumped, and I made it. But instead of landing, I decided I just wanted to keep flying. I knew that one could hover 12cm or so above the ground if one had jumped, and that one could move about a bit more quickly than walking by floating around at this height.

I floated off to my left, up the hallway, into the kitchen, where my mom and her friend were. They may still have been talking about how crazy I was. I thought they'd especially think I was crazy, now that I was flying around. I think they'd even think I was crazy for thinking I could fly.

But I wanted to keep flying, and I wanted to prove to somebody that I was flying. So I turned around and headed down the hallway. My sister was walking up the hallway. I figured if she saw me flying she'd know I was flying and that I wasn't crazy.

But as I passed the front door of the apartment, right before I saw my sister, I passed a pair of high heels. The high heels were very strange. The toes and sides of them were covered in a red fabric with white designs. The heels were covered with something like blue denim and white designs. The shoes were then -- somehow -- fringed with white lace.

For some reason, these monstrosities really caught my fancy. I said, "Ooh!" And even turned back to look at them as I passed them. My sister saw how I paid attention to the shoes. I thought, Oh great. Now she'll think I like the shoes because I like wearing women's shoes. And she'll think that since I "like wearing women's shoes," I'm crazy.

My sister was already heading back up the hallway, toward the bathroom, which was near the kitchen. I turned around to follow her, hoping I could say something to her which would make her think I wasn't crazy.

But my sister was talking to me about some kind of fashion show, which the shoes had been a part of. My sister was talking about one dress in particular from the show. My sister either liked the dress or the model for the dress.

The model may have looked like an ultra-thin version of Scarlet Johanssen (I probably spelled that wrong). She had pale skin, and her hair was in a very 1930s-style, triangular kind of cut, not quite shoulder length, full of tight, blonde curls.

The model wore a red dress with white designs. The fabric of the dress was kind of thick and practical, not thin, sheer, or soft. The collar-line of the dress was very low and had a wide v-cut. The sleeves were kind off poofy, in an angular way.

The model also wore a blue hat, the fabric seemed to be like denim. The had basically just sat, tiltled kind of rakishly, atop the curls of the model's hair. It didn't really fit over the whole skull.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a big room, kind of like a meeting room in a church building. It had a lot of school desks in it. But the desks were all scattered about the room. There were a few standing closets or cabinets againts the walls. The room was lit with a kind of drab, greenish, fluorescent light.

A few people were in the room, kind of shuffling about. It was like something had just ended, possibly the rehearsal for some kind of sketch comedy team. At least a couple of people were famous. One of them looked like Pam from The Office. The other one may have looked like Jim.

The woman was standing at one of the closets, maybe rifling through a bunch of coats, looking for her own coat. The man was sitting at a desk, possibly writing on a sheet of paper.

The man and the woman were still in character, and they were improvising some lines back and forth with each other. They were kind of insulting each other in a flirting way.

At some point the man said something to defend himself or build himself up instead of insulting the woman. He somehow compared something he was doing to something a famous person (maybe Napoleon?) had done.

The woman answered with some kind of rhyme that was almost a song, and used history in a very precise way to shoot down what the man had just tried to make sound like a good thing. Everybody in the room started laughing, including the man.

(To bad I can't remember the joke! Ugh...)

There was another man standing at a closet that stood against the wall to the left of the woman, as she was facing her closet.

This other man was talking to somebody -- possibly me, but I'm not sure. He was saying how good the woman was at taking really slight cues at just a moment's notice and turning them into something really clever and hilarious.

Dream #2

I was probably in a bedroom. I was laying, or sitting in some really slouched position, on the floor. My back may have been against a wall. My legs felt crowded, as if I were right up against a bed or a TV stand that had a quilt over it. The light in the room was a nice, warm incandescent. The carpet may have been brown and kind of thick.

I looked down at my body. I was skinnier than usual -- probably too skinny. I was wearing a diaper, probably a Pull-Ups diaper with Dora the Explorer on it. The diaper was completely broken. So I wasn't really wearing it. It was mostly just laying on my crotch. I wore underwear over the diaper -- I'm not sure if they were boxer briefs, like I wear, or some kind of panties.

I had an erection, and I needed to pee. I may have thought at first that I should just pee in the diaper. But I knew that would be a dumb idea. The diaper was totally broken. My pee would probably just go all over the place.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a classroom, sitting at a desk or a table. The desks, I think, were all joined together for each row, so each row of desks was like a long table. I sat at about the middle of the classroom, and just a bit to the right of the center of the row. The room was lit with a dim, drab, greenish fluorescent light.

I was probably myself, at my age. But I was sitting among a bunch of kids in about sixth grade. Everybody around me was probably Latino.

I turned around to my left and faced the back row. Everybody in the classroom was getting ready to take a multiple choice test. I was telling everybody in the row behind me how important this test was, but how everybody would do well in the test, because everybody was really smart.

The test had now begun. I noticed that one of the kids, a boy sitting more toward the left of the center in the row behind me, was doing his test in a weird way. The boy was kind of overweight. He wore a black heavy metal t-shirt. He had his hair shaved into a style a bit wider than a mohawk.

I remarked to somebody in the row behind me -- either a woman my age or a girl the boy's age -- that the boy was answering all his multiple choice questions with only one letter -- either "c" or "d." I laughed at this, hoping to share the laugh with the woman or girl. I probably implied that only a stupid person would answer all his questions with the same letter.

But now the test was over. I realized what I'd done. After I'd given such a nice speech, telling everybody how smart they all were, I'd singled out one boy as being stupid. I may have caused that boy to lose faith in himself. And I may have made myself look like a cruel kind of idiot to everybody else.

So now, to make up for what I'd said, I started giving some weird speech to some group of kids (and an adult?) near me. It was intended for everybody to hear, especially the boy. But I was acting as if I were just saying it spontaneously, and like I didn't think the boy was going to hear it.

I basically said something about how everybody makes their own choices on a multiple choice test, and how everybody determines the choices that they make based on their bodily rhythms. So whatever patterns a person makes out of the choices on the test, those patterns are good, because they match the person's bodily rhythms.

The boy stood up from his desk. He walked toward the right side of the room, then up to the door of the classroom. I could tell he felt bad about my having made fun of him. And I could tell he thought the speech I'd given in an attempt to make him feel better only made him think I was an idiot.

I called out to the boy before he left the room. I said something to him, but I don't remember what. The boy turned around a little bit, not facing me, really, and said something to me, kind of mocking the way I'd made fun of him.

Dream #2

I was in some building. I had headed away from the first floor atrium of the building, and was now headed up a stairway. The stairway was wide and went up to a second floor or mezzanine area.

Another stairway, a bit narrower, went off to the right, from the second floor to some higher floors. This second stairway looked out onto the first floor atrium area.

As I was reaching the top of the first stairway, a guy stood at the foot of the second stairway, looking down to the atrium area and talking to a woman who stood there. The building was really quiet, even though it was really big, and the woman was the only one down there.

As I approached the staircase, I thought I'd just edge past the guy and let him keep talking. But the guy saw me, so he started walking up the staircase, in an attempt, I guess, to keep moving ahead of me. But he kept talking to the woman.

The staircase had two sides, divided by a railing. At some point, I tried to get onto the other side. But somehow the guy was blocking my way from doing that as well.

At first I kind of liked the guy. He was a white guy with pale skin, a kind of round face, a red beard, and read hair. He wore squarish, thickish eyeglasses, a cap, and a plaid, button-up shirt. He reminded me of a really nice guy I knew in New York, who now lives in Chicago.

But the more I looked at this guy, and had to listen to all the crap he was saying to the woman, the more I realized I didn't like him at all. He even seemed to be getting fatter and more annoying-looking. I wasn't going to be patient with him. If he kept blocking my way, I was just going to push past him.

But as soon as I pushed past the guy and started walking more quickly up the stairs, the guy started walking more quickly up the stairs himself, as if he had to keep up with me, or keep one step ahead of me. The whole time he was doing this, he was still trying to keep up a conversation with the girl down on the first floor.

The staircase got narrower and steeper. Also, somehow, it got twisty, like a helix. I had kept going faster and faster, to get past the guy. But he kept going faster and faster, to match me. At some point, he finally stopped talking to the woman. The guy and I were just in an all-out race.

By this point the staircase was so steep, it almost felt like it was inclining backwards. I had to hold onto the railing just to keep my balance. I didn't even know if I'd make it to the top of the staircase. For the final few steps, I had to close my eyes. The very last step was incredibly difficult.

The top of the staircase was some kind of small area, like an administrative area in a university library. I walked past the balcony that was around a staircase, then through a small hallway, then into a little kind of hallway-like alcove off to the right.

The man who had raced me to the top of the staircase was following me. We both sat down on a bench in the little alcove area. The guy sat to my right. He slumped over on his right side as we sat.

The guy started complaining to me. He was upset that I'd beaten him. (I'd only beaten him by half a step -- if that much.) But he was making it sound like I'd purposely pushed him really hard. Because I'd pushed him hard, I'd injured him somehow. So he was going to get me in trouble for injuring him.

I had stood up at this point, probably because I didn't want to listen to the guy anymore. I might have thought I was going to walk away.

But now the guy stood up in my face. He wasn't wearing a shirt. And he looked a lot different. He was clean-shaven, with a square, close-haircut and brown hair. He had a wide body, like good muscle slowly going flabby. His eyes were, at first, kind of pale blue.

The guy shouted at me that I shouldn't have pushed him so hard, because he had diabetes, and now his body was messed up in all kinds of ways.

The guy's appearance changed a little again. His irises now had a pale, reddish tint to them. I even thought to myself, Is this guy an albino?

And now, on the guy's chest, there was a tattoo. It was like a double-headed "triangle," or an abstract mountain with two peaks. But the left peak was slightly highter than the right peak. And in the body of this "triangle" was a vertical rectangle, solid black, with a wide, diagonal strip of white running across its center.

I felt bad for the guy. I didn't mean to get his diabetes all messed up. Plus -- for some reason, the guy now reminded me of a female-to-male transsexual. Something about this was turning me on, like I was attracted to the part of the man that was still female.

So I decided to be gentle with the guy. I tapped either the guy's chest or back with the back of my hand. The guy's body was still sweaty. We both sat down on the bench. I started saying something nice to the guy.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

A voice saying, "Up from the depths." A view of a woman in some kind of white robes and head covering, carrying something and walking up a dark stairwell, up toward a lit doorway.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in some kind of volunteer group. We were getting ready to go to some event. I must have been with the leader of the group. We must have been going around, picking people up.

There were two girls with copper-colored skin and reddish hair. They were both pretty. But one was a lot prettier than the other. They both had a kind of spoiled-girl attitude.

Both girls had been planning to come with us on the event. But something about the details of the event had changed. So it seemed like the event may possibly not happen. So the girls decided that they didn't want to come along with us and risk not doing anything.

The volunteer leader and I got to the event. We stood outside some small building, in an area like a parking lot. It was a grey day, probably like a cool summer day.

There were a lot of other girls with us now -- all either brown or copper-skinned. We all wore black shirts. The event was about to start, and we were getting ready for it somehow.

Suddenly the other two girls showed up, after all. They said that they decided they would attend the event. I was really happy to see them. But both the girls had such a removed attitude, I was afraid to let them know too much that I was happy to see them.

Dream #2

A topless young woman in gold, mesh-like panties was sitting on some kind of pedestal, kind of straddling the pedestal, so that her legs were spread pretty wide. The girl was cupping her big breasts with her hands. The girl had tan skin, brown hair, and green-blue eyes.

Dream #3

I was in a shoe store with my mother. For some reason I was laying on the ground, face down, looking at the women as they walked in the shoes they were trying on. Most of the shoes the women were trying on were high heels.

At some point, a girl walked past me wearing track shoes. The shoes had weird soles. They were like plastic, like just a frame. But the sides of the frame were apparently really elastic. They were supposed to provide some kind of extra spring in your step.

I knew that only really serious runners wore these kind of shoes. So I looked up to see what kind of girl this was. She was maybe in her mid- to late-teens. She was really skinny, pale, with long, straight, blonde hair. She wore a kind of baggy, white t-shirt and blue jeans.

I started to ask the girl what kind of running she did. For some reason, the girl sat up in a high seat, like a shoe-shining seat. The woman looked at me as if she were annoyed -- like I was yet another guy trying to hit on her. I was attracted to her. But I was really more interested in hearing about what she ran.

The girl gave me some kind of half-attentive answer, as if she were trying to blow me off, but not be impolite. Somehow we were now outside. Most of the shoe store was gone. But the chair was still there. We were out in some lawny field. It was a grey day, and it was raining.

I had been laying or sitting under some kind of table umbrella, which had been planted into the ground instead of into the center of a tabletop. I stood up. I think I was holding onto the pole. But it also felt like I was standing at the edge of the umbrella.

My mom pulled up in some car, just off to my right. She walked out of the car and stood just outside the umbrella, as if she wanted to say something to me.

The girl had pretty much disregarded me by this time. I thought the rain might be getting her wet. I knew I had an umbrella, and that I could go get it for her. I wondered if the girl wanted it.

I must have been looking down at the ground. It was really hard for me to turn my eyes upward. It felt like I was pulling against gravity. But I finally looked up to see the girl sitting in the chair. She had an umbrella over her chair, and she was dry. So she was fine.

But I still wanted to go grab my umbrella, so I could give it to somebody, just to prove to the girl that I had an umbrella and that I was generous enough to give it to somebody. I ran out into the rain, thinking, I'll probably give the umbrella to my mom. That should impress the girl.

I knew that the umbrella was in my tent. (???) I saw my tent about fifty meters or so away. Beyond the tent there was a little more stuff going on. There were some RVs and things like that. It was like this was some sort of camping event that I was a part of.

I was still running toward the tent. I imagined having given the girl my umbrella. I imagined her asking me how she should return it. I imagined telling her, "Oh, just put it in my tent when you're through with it."

But I knew that I kept my tent locked shut sometimes. So I imagined myself saying, "Oh, just throw it on the ground outside my tent if I'm not there. Nobody'll bother it."

I imagined my umbrella lying on the ground in front of the tent. I was actually worried that somebody would come by and pick it up. But I imagined myself as not showing the girl that I would be worried by something like that.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in an office. The office was like a hallway of big, heavy desks, rather than a big floor full of cubicles. There was some kind of dull, greenish, fluorescent light. But daylight flowed in through windows, giving the atmosphere more of a gold-white feel.

I stood before some desk. I had probably been given some task by "my boss," who then walked away. There was a stack of papers on the desk. I picked it up and turned away from the desk, as if I were going to walk to my own workspace.

But the hallway was now blocked all the way across by the desk of one of my old senior co-workers, RW. RW sat at his desk. In the usual mild manner he took with me, he asked me if I was happy with my new position. Apparently I was doing research on semiconductors.

I bashfully giggled and told RW it was okay. RW said, "Well, I certainly don't think I could do something like what you're doing. It would be too much for me, just picking up on semis like that. That's really hard."

I just giggled and smiled. I couldn't do anything else. RW, who does research on diagnostic equipment and PBMs, had a reputation for being extremely witty, incisive, and self-assured. He could cut anybody down. But he'd always been gentle with me. Even now, I didn't want to spoil my unique relationship with RW by getting over-confident.

But RW said, "Now, come on! You have to admit that what you're doing is pretty good!"

I didn't know what to say. I think I might have started to talk about how I thought RW's research was really cool. But before I could say that, I think RW started talking about how his reseach wasn't so difficult.

Dream #2

I was in an auditorium full of high schoolers or college kids. There was a group of high-level officials on the stage. The stage was really high up, compared to the seats. I was in the third or fourth row. But I often saw as if I were a video camera, closed right up on the group.

The group all stood in a kind of random fashion. There weren't any podiums. I'm pretty sure there weren't even any mics. There was no decoration on the stage, either. It was just a bare stage.

The people on stage were from all over the world. There was some kind of major announcement being made. It had to do with some decision of President Obama's.

But the main person, who was to make the bulk of the announcement, was alternately Obama and some tall, bald, white, slightly overweight man. But even when the man was Obama, he spoke of Obama in the third person.

The man first asked a woman to leave the room. The woman's name was something like Piti or Peetee. She looked (to my reflection now) Iranian. She had short hair in a kind of Jackie-O cut. She had pale, olive-colored skin, and a healthy, round figure. Her dress was pale blue-grey. But the fabric was really strange, like a mix between terry cloth and cashmere.

Piti left through a door to a stairwell, on the right (my right) of the stage. After she left, the man said that Piti had already determined that if Obama's decision was unfavorable to her, she would take some kind of action against him. Apparently Obama had already done something to Piti, basically barring her from making any appearances in the United States.

But Obama's decision was going to go against Piti's desires. The man explained to all of us that Piti basically had control over all of Southeast Asia. She could bar (I think the man called it "sanction" in the dream) Obama from Southeast Asia, just as he'd barred her from the United States.

It was pretty obvious (I don't know why) that it was a lot worse for Obama being "sanctioned" from Southeast Asia than it was for Piti to be barred from the United States. But it seemed pretty obvious, as well, that Obama wouldn't tolerate this sanction. So we were all basically told to prepare for a conflict.

The man had now, apparently, handed out paper presentations to all of us. The presentation was, I think, an argument for why we should aim for some kind of compromise, rather than heading into a conflict. But the presentations were all in Chinese.

A boy asked the man (who may now have been alone on the stage) if he could give an English translation of the presentation. I turned around so I could see the boy. The auditorium was huge! And it was packed -- full of high school or college students!

The boy sat at a folding chair along the right wall. He was an Asian boy with a squarish, shortish haircut, squarish glasses, and a dark blue winter jacket.

The man may have voiced a little disappointment that the boy needed translation. But there was a girl, also Asian, sitting with a female friend. This girl actually yelled back to the boy, "Why do you need a translation? Didn't you study your own language, like everybody else does?"

The boy said something like, "Well, yeah, I studied. But I just thought if we got a little translation here and there, it could help us get through the rest of the text faster on our own."

The girl sighed at the boy, like she couldn't believe what a lazy excuse-maker he was. I turned back forward and looked at my text as the girl said, "It basically says that China believes, if the whole world cooperated, we could reach the ends of the universe, with the energy we have right now."

I looked at the presentation in the hands of the girl to my left. There was a screenshot printed on the page. The shot was of some YouTube video, showing some view of the universe. The sky was mostly black, with just a few faint dots of stars.

For some reason I was now running to the bathroom. I was somehow involved with some meeting with President Obama. But it also had to do with some branch of Satanism. The branch was named something like Gen Schele. But "Gen" may have been "Glen." And "Schele" may have been "Shell" or "Schnell."

Obama had possibly already explained something to me about the government, this cult, and some decision being made in international affairs. I really disapproved of it. I thought it would end with a lot of people dying. But I thought it would be weak to voice my disapproval. And I acted like it was perfectly natural.

But now I needed to go to the bathroom so bad! I was running toward a restroom. I was wearing khaki shorts for some reason (great way to meet the President, right?). And now I couldn't hold my pee anymore. The inner thighs of my shorts were all soaked.

I didn't think it was so bad. If I got to the bathroom and to a urinal, I could pee the rest of the way in there. Then my shorts would likely dry quickly.

I was in a bathroom now, peeing in a urinal. But my pee was coming out so much, so forcibly, that I was still spraying all over my shorts, making them even more and more soaked. Plus, I just wasn't stopping! I had peed so much that the urinal was completely full. A huge puddle was already forming on the floor.

At some point Obama saw me. He asked me, with a bit of disappointment and disdain, what was bothering me so much. I didn't want to tell him what was bothering me. I didn't want him to think I was weak. But I'm pretty sure he knew what was bothering me.

I just wanted, really badly, to finish peeing, so I could go into one of the stalls, crouch into a fetal position, and just lie there until my shorts finally dried.

(When I woke up, I seriously expected to find that I'd wet the bed, my dream was so vivid. But, thankfully, I did not. Also -- just as a side note, the "Gen Schele" might be a mix-up of the name of the artist Egon Schiele, and also of the name Rothschild. I've been reading about the Rothschilds lately.)

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

It was daytime. I was with my mom, out in the middle of the street in what looked like a suburban block of houses. The houses were about average sized, or maybe even smaller than average. But this was apparently one of the blocks (in Hollywood?) famous for the movie stars who resided here.

A male celebrity had just moved in here. There were a whole bunch of people, all gathered on the sidewalk around the man's house -- which was kind of small. The people were all taking pictures of the house. I think they expected the man to come out of the house soon.

But I knew that the houses on both sides of the man were empty. To the right of the man's house, there may actually have been two empty houses.

I knew that a lot of movie stars were out of employment, and that many had had to give up their houses. This neighborhood was becoming desolate. I even wondered why the people in front of the man's house had come here, if all they really had to photograph today was this one man's house.

I started thinking that if these houses were so small, and if the neighborhood was so empty, perhaps the house prices were a lot lower. I thought that maybe if I got a job here, even if it wasn't a good job, I could afford the rent on one of these houses.

I walked down toward one of the houses on the right of the man's house. I must have been trying to see if I could get into the house. I then walked up to one of the houses on the left. I think I actually tried the doorknob on that house.

But my mom -- I think -- got my attention. I think I was trying, in front of my mom, not to look like I was thinking of moving into one of these places. My mom called me across the street, to a house we had been here to visit in the first place.

I crossed the street and walked into the house. As I did, the sky may have been getting really grey. I walked into the house, possibly with my mom.

The house was now my mom's house. I had come into the house with one of my friends. I was in the living room, by myself. My friend and my mom may have been in the dining room or the kitchen, which was separated from the living room by a dividing wall.

The living room was dim, unlit, only lit with the light coming from the dining room or kitchen. The living room may also have been really empty.

But there was an entertainment center on the wall to my right. And on that entertainment center there may have been a small pile of mail. I think I took two pieces of mail and hid them under my shirt.

I could hear my mom and my friend talking. At some point I went into the kitchen while my mom and my friend. I thought I'd join the conversation. But they'd left without my seeing them. They were now either in the living room, or standing up in a stairwell up to the second floor. The stairwell was near the entertainment center.

The dining area was kind of L-shaped. The "base" of the L had a dining table. The "side" of the L had a sofa and a kind of long coffee table. The L-shape surrounded the kitchen, which was walled off, I think, from my view.

As I sat on the couch, I could hear my mom and my friend talking. They were actually talking about what a lazy person I was. I sat, curled up on the couch, kind of feeling terrible about myself.

But, for some reason, I thought that my mom would be really impressed by this magic trick I had to show her. I pulled the two pieces of mail out from under my shirt. One envelope was white. The other was black. I thought my trick of the "magically appearing" mail would be pretty cool.

But then I realized, almost as if my friend were telling me this in my head, that my mom would be far from impressed if I pulled her stolen mail out from under my shirt. I was here -- we were both here -- to prove that we were good enough for something or other.

I sat the two pieces of mail on the coffee table, hoping that my mom wouldn't miss them on the entertainment center and would just think she'd sat them on the coffee table. I'd have sat them back on the entertainment center, except that my mom was somewhere near it right then.

Dream #2

It was night. I was standing out in front of a house in a suburban neighborhood. The front yards for these houses were huge, even though the houses themselves were of about average size or smaller.

My mom and I had just arrived, and were walking out of a pickup truck. The house we'd arrived at was set weird, like the front door was on the "right" side of the house, instead of on the "front" side, which would have faced the street. The porch light for the house was on, lighting up a really good portion of the yard with raspy, white, incandescent light.

My mom was getting me set up on the project of trimming a tree or shrub that was in "front" of the house (the side facing the street). She gave me some kind of instructions, and told me why it would be difficult for me to do this.

But before we got to work trimming the tree, my mom built -- almost instantaneously, and all by herself -- a plaster-like dome coming off of the "front-right" corner of the house. She encased us in it as she built it.

It was now built. My mom led me around a kind of dividing wall in the structure. We went through a doorway and were back in the yard. Somehow this dome separated us from the truck. My mom told me something like once I started my job, I couldn't go back, or once I started my job I couldn't go back until I'd finished the job.

I must have grabbed a pair of clippers and got to work clipping the tree. The tree was possibly a weeping cherry. It had drooping, kind of maroon-colored branches. Berries seemed to be growing off of it, more like hawthorn-berries than cherries. They were bright and red.



Hawthorn berries



Weeping cherry

But for some reason, I got distracted from this work and began to fly in the front yard. My flying was controlled by my arms, mostly by the movement of my hands. So if I lifted my hands (clenched in fists) up to my shoulders, I'd lift from the ground. If I stretched my arms way over my head, I'd fly really high. If I shifted my hands to the left or right, I'd move that way as well.

But at some point, I saw my great-grandmother (who IWL passed away a little over two years ago) sitting up really high in something like an oak tree that had no limbs until the high-up limbs in which my grandma sat.

I landed at the base of the tree and looked up to my grandma. My grandma said if I was ----- (something in reference to the cherry tree I'd been cutting), that my real concern should, then, be to trim the -----berry tree.

My grandma pointed across the street, to another tree in the front yard with the cherry tree. This tree was a lot like the tree my grandma sat in. It had bark like a pin-oak tree. But it was really tall, and it didn't have any limbs until way up high on the tree. But I knew that the branches of this tree also bore bright red, hawthorn-like berries.

I was now at the base of that tree. I may have started flying in the front yard again. But now I realized that my mom was no longer here. I may have remembered her saying that she was going to get some more tools, so she could help me trim the trees. But she hadn't come back. I decided to look for her.

I went into the house. It now turned out that I wasn't looking for my mom because she had gone missing after looking for tools. I was now looking for her because she had just come back from getting food for the family from some fast food joint, and she had forgotten to tell me and give me my food.

I saw the bags of fast food on a dining table on the right wall as I entered the house. I may also have seen some other person there, like a childhood version of my little sister. And I probably heard or saw a television blaring somewhere. Something about the atmosphere felt very frenetic.

Just to the left of the table was a door, which I knew was the door to my mother's room. I just thought I'd poke my head in there and ask if it was okay for me to get my food before I grabbed into the bags of food.

But when I opened the door, I saw some young Latino guy making out with some young woman. The guy seemed kind of upset. So I closed the door.

My mindset totally changed. It was like my mom wasn't even around anymore. I was now in this guy's house. This guy had gotten the food. I was working on this guy's trees. And he was in his room, making out with this woman. I felt ashamed for having intruded.

The man called to me from inside the room. I opened the door. The guy was still laying there, half-naked, on this woman, on a couch. He looked up toward me. He had a kind of chubby face and chubby arms. His hair was shaved pretty short. He wore black, Oakley-style sunglasses.

I asked the guy about the food. He told me, sure, just grab my stuff and some fries out of the bag, don't worry about it. After I closed the door and was grabbing my food, I heard the man say to his giggling girlfriend, "Geez. He sure works hard in asking for his food. But he doesn't work hard at any of the work I give him."

I felt bad about what the man had said. I think I felt so bad that I decided not to take any food after all.

I walked around in a room off from the living room. This room also basically looked just like a living room. But the ceilings were really high. There were family pictures dotting the walls, all the way up to the ceiling.

For some reason, I decided to start flying again. I think I had really good control over my flight now. I practiced going up and down and left and right a lot. But then I tried doing some flips. When I'd reach the ceiling, I'd flip or somersault really close to it.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

Something about the future. All I see now is a blur of images -- like a 1980s music video montage of photos going in really fast step-animation -- or like old laserdisc images when you'd speed them up too fast.

There were two men who looked alike and had a very similar name, possibly something like Elkanah or Keele. One of the men would help me. The other one basically couldn't do anything for me, but would act like he was important to my life, so that I'd think he was the one to help me, and I'd miss the other one. I was already talking to one of the men.

The men both looked kind of like W.C. Fields -- the old style suit, top-hat, and kind of heavy, chubby, white face. They probably even spoke like W.C. Fields -- with the sing-songy, but gruff, salesman-like pitch.



Dream #2

I was standing in some space like an art gallery or a really nice cafe. There were a lot of people there, all really well-off, all dressed really nice.

I stood in a group of four or five people. I'm pretty sure I was myself. But the people all around me were older. We all apparently worked for some company that did movie reviews. A couple of women remarked mockingly about the reviews done by one of my old co-workers, DE.

As she was making the comments, DE walked up from behind me, then past me on my left. He walked to the front of the room and stood in the doorway, talking with another crowd of people. This crowd of people may have been more like young people -- maybe mostly young women.

I kind of agreed with the women in my circle who said that DE made some bad reviews. I didn't think he was very good. But I also liked DE, so I wanted to stand up for him. Plus, I felt bad that he'd overheard the women talking bad about him as he walked past. And he'd seen me listening. So I had to vindicate myself.

I made some kind of mild assertion to the women, kind of incorporating whatever arguments they'd used against DE, and accepting them, but also adding something that I liked about DE.

I was now in a hotel room. The hotel room was pretty big, but kind of dingy. There was more than enough space for two big beds.

There might have been a desk on the wall past the foot of the beds, in the space between the two beds. I also think there were two windows on the same wall. The windows had -- I think -- wood-slatted blinds. The light in the room was incandescent, but horrendously bright, making everything seem even cheaper and dingier.

There was a small, almost cubicle-like space just in front of the bathroom. It was like an L-bracket of a wall, that went up about two and a half meters, so, about one and a half meters short of the ceiling. There was a little desk there, too, with a phone on it.

I was standing back in this space, on the phone. Some co-worker of mine was going back and forth into and out of the bathroom. He was white, with curly, black hair and a little bit of stubble on his face. He may have been arranging his tie.

I don't know what I was waiting on the phone for. But it may have had something to do with my co-worker DE. My other co-worker, while rushing into and out of the bathroom, may have been complaining, in a kind of prissy way, about DE always doing stuff like this.

Now I was in the bathroom, and DE was on the phone. He was talking either to his brother or one of his really close fraternity brothers. He said something like, "Yeah, and you were right about this hotel. We got it really close to that restaurant you were talking about."

I knew that DE's friend had told DE some sort of outrageous story about this restaurant. DE's friend had, at this restaurant, either seen all kinds of really hot girls, or had some monstrosity of a meal combination, or had done something really unbelievable and gotten in trouble. DE was now hoping to have the same experience.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in some large building, like a museum or a student union kind of area. I was on the second floor. To my left was a balcony-like railing that looked out over the first floor. To my right was possibly a dining area.

My old friend Y was standing, leaning against the railing. I hadn't seen her in some time. I was happy to see her. And I was acting (and feeling) like I hadn't expected to see her. But I'm pretty sure I had been expecting to see her, like we'd made plans to meet here.

I walked up to Y and stood beside her, maybe kind of leaning against the railing like she'd been doing. All this time, I felt my mother's presence behind me. I may have heard her voice, too, as if she had somehow planned this meeting between me and Y and was now directing it.

Y was watching a movie that was being projected against the wall opposite the railing. The wall was maybe three stories tall. The projection was hitting the third-floor section of the wall. So we had to kind of look up to see it.

I'm not sure how we saw the movie: the wall was red brick; but the movie showed up just fine, anyway. I think it was a movie that we both liked.

Y and I had had some sort of small conversation. Just the sound of Y's voice made me so happy. I put my right arm around Y, not out of romantic feelings, but just because I was happy to see her again.

But Y was really put-off. She grunted something cold and nasty, even implying that she had some kind of sickness that I'd get by touching her.

She'd done this to me in the past. I knew she was just trying to freeze me out or gross me out so I'd leave her alone. I took my hands off her and watched the movie. We may also have continued talking about something.

Eventually we were planning to "meet for dinner." We walked away from the railing and over to the section of the floor that had dining tables.

But now Y changed into my friend H. H and I sat down at the table to eat. The table was a regular, round dining table, about 125cm in diameter, possibly covered over with a white tablecloth. But it was also crammed, both the table and the chairs, with all kinds of things, like household and personal items.

H and I were trying to sit down so we could eat. All this time I felt my mom's presence behind me. I may also have felt the presence of my old friend R. R's presence seemed particularly bitter.

Eventually I got sat down on a seat. But I was only halfway sat in the seat -- the rest of the seat being cluttered with stuff. I guess that H couldn't find any other place to sit. So she tried to sit on my lap. But something about my lap was making it really awkward for her to sit.

H was wearing a grey mini-skirt and a black shirt. But the mini-skirt kept riding up, almost revealing H's panties, as H tried to sit on my lap.

But now it seemed like H was getting into what I thought of then as a "slutty" mindset. She was really getting turned on by the way her skirt was riding up on my lap. Now she started to do it on purpose. She may even have been pulling it up with her hands and then putting it back down.

I might have started getting turned on. And I may have tried to make a move for H. But at this point, she may have gotten up and walked away. I may have been a little bitter about this. But I think I told myself that when H got back, she and I would just forget about it and have a nice dinner.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a big, empty room. The room had a grey, concrete floor. There was natural light coming in through a window somewhere.

A brown blanket lay in the center of the room, on the floor. The blanket was made up of small squares. For some reason, I was now cutting the lower squares off the blanket. But I was leaving a couple of the central squares in one of the lower rows attached to the upper rows. So now the blanket looked like a square with a bit of a lip at the bottom.

As this was going on, a movie was playing against the back wall. It was black and white. The film was old and scratchy. There were also four or five straight lines that ran vertically, up through the center of the frame.

The movie looked like an Abbott and Costello movie. But Costello was a kind of serious character, and the other guy was a young, kind of bright, but shy guy.

The Costello character was telling the man something like, "I don't think your idea for using the edges of the film-frame and putting sound on them is such a great idea. I don't think people will like it. It's too bothersome."

I now realized that the lines running up the center of the frame were the soundtrack lines that Costello was referring too. I thought that they were bothersome -- if they had to be right in the center of the frame like that!

But then I realized that those were the lines for this film. The film the man had made had the lines on the outside of the frame, where they weren't visible.

I understood that Costello's criticism of the man's use of a soundtrack in his films wasn't valid. But I somehow knew that Costello knew this as well. In fact, I knew, Costello even thought the use of soundtracks in film was a good idea.

But Costello didn't want to let the young man know he thought it was a good idea. He didn't want to support the young man's development. Costello felt that the young man was smart enough as it was, and that the young man would be so successful eventually, that he shouldn't have to support him in his efforts.

I thought that this was a terrible sentiment on Costello's part, and that the young man was probably in dire need of help.

Dream #2

I lay in bed, on my back, in an otherwise almost empty room. It was almost completely dark in the room. The bed was set next to a wall, which was to my right. The bed itself was rather narrow.

I looked out to my left, across the room. On the wall at the head of my bed was a window. It was pretty heavily curtained, but it let in, at the far end, a tiny corner of orange streetlamp light.

I noticed, in the corner of the room that was dimly lit by the streetlamp light, three statues. The statues were all Egyptian busts. They were all set on square pedestals, but they were arranged in a really haphazard way.

I knew somehow -- maybe from some narration in my head? -- that the busts were all supposed to be of the boy Pharaoh Tutankhamen. But all the busts were wearing the ubiquitous headdress of Nefertiti. And one of the busts, the lowest one, facing me most directly, was of a really chubby boy or man!

Dream #3

I was out on a beach. It was a nice, sunny day. There were a decent amount of people out on the beach, but not too many.

For some reason, I suddenly felt like I had to leave. I turned to my right and began heading away.

But as I left the beach, people began giving me troubles. I'm not sure what these troubles were now. But I think people just constantly kept getting in my way, even though there weren't a whole lot of people on the beach.

I may finally have thought I'd counter the problem by flying. I may have started flying a couple meters above the ground.

Now I was moving through an area of the beach with orange sand. Two enormous, black guys now came charging down the beach. It looked like they were just trying to start trouble. They had huge, long dredds and black, Oakley-style sunglasses, with silver rims on the tops.

I may possibly have stopped flying. I may possibly have thought if these guys saw me flying, they'd just pull me down and pummel me. But once these guys passed me, I knew that I had to get out of here once and for all. Soon there wouldn't be anything here but trouble.

I may possibly have gotten onto a bike like the bike I rode in junior high school. Or I may still just have been walking.

I ended up on a concrete path in a park. I took this park to be a park from my high school years IWL. It was kind of like a trail on a small greenbelt running through a suburban residential area. It seemed like the path descended from here and went under a bridge.

Either on foot or on bike, I descended under the bridge. Once I got beyond the bridge, I was in a much more forest-like, tree covered area. The path may now have been dirt, rather than concrete. There was a river on my right side. Trees also seemed to be growing up out of the river.

I suddenly noticed a gigantic bullfrog sitting on the stump of one of the river trees. The bullfrog must have been 60cm tall! It looked pretty intelligent, too. It seemed to register my presence and be a bit worried about whether I wanted to hurt it.

I acted calm and walked forward, trying not to regard the frog at all, so it would feel less worried. But now, up the way only twenty or thirty more meters, I saw another one of these huge frogs!

I decided to get off this trail. I think I was afraid of the frogs. But I also think that I thought that if I kept having to act like I didn't see or care about every frog that worried as I passed it, I'd get bored as hell pretty quick.

But also -- the trail itself may also simply have just ended: being cut off by the merging of a small creek on my left with the river on my right.

I saw that if I jumped across the small creek on my left, I could land on the opposite bank. The bank was steep, but short, dry, and grassy. I could easily climb up it and out of this park altogether.

But as I turned left to face the opposite bank, I noticed another huge frog! This one was also kind of worried about me. I was now in between two huge frogs that were all shifty and nervous. And I was afraid that if I jumped, my motions would be so fast and scary to them that they'd have heart attacks!

I wondered how I could jump without scaring the frogs. The only thing I could think to do was close my eyes and jump. This way, the frogs would see that I wasn't looking at anything at all, and so I couldn't be jumping because I was trying to attack them.

I closed my eyes. But I couldn't remember what the bank looked like. I didn't want to hit something bad. I tried to open my eyes again to get a good memory of the bank. But when I opened them, they were all groggy and grainy. It was really hard for me to focus on anything.

Finally, the frog off to my right said, in something like a female voice, "There's actually a good patch right up around here."

I looked up to the frog. I went to where the frog directed me. I jumped across the little creek and landed on the bank. I started climbing up the bank.

All this time, the frog was still talking to me, in that kind of female voice. She was kind of friendly, like a really smart scientist, or a librarian. But I had the idea that the frogs really weren't comfortable with my presence here.

At the top of the bank, I turned around to look back down at the river. The river wasn't there anymore. I was just facing a red brick building, which seemed to be set a meter or so down into a sandy trench. I was out on a road, it seemed, on the outskirts of a very small town in the desert.

But this didn't even register with me. Down at the base of the building I saw a rectangular slat of an opening in the wall. Two sets of female eyes looked back out at me. I knew these two women were the frogs I had just jumped past on the river.

I felt bad for not having spoken to them. So I did want to say something to them. But I also felt a little shy, like somehow these frogs were of a higher station than I was, and would thus be put off by my acting too familiar with them. So I wanted to keep whatever I said short.

I said, "Yeah, I'm sure I'll come back here. So if I do, I'll talk to you guys again. I used to ride my bike up through this park all the time when I was a kid."

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was with a big group of people. We were in an area that looked like the large reading room of the New York Public Library. But it was also something like a high school gymnasium. The group I was with was probably a church group, though it may have been part of a church-school.

I was up on a balcony level, crouched down or sitting down near the floor. There were a few other people up here with me, including a teacher, who sat behind me.

We looked down on the main area, where a lot of other people were. That area may have been floored with brownish gym mats. There may have been an occasional school desk. There were a decent amount of students down there. Everything felt kind of cluttered.

We had all been given a lesson by somebody who was probably speaking into a microphone from some pulpit at the other end of the room from those of us on the balcony. It was some lesson about Christian history.

We now had to do an in-class exercise based on the lesson. The exercise was some kind of role-playing game. I think we all had to imagine ourselves as some saint, who had been the subject of the lesson. We then had to imagine ourselves into the environment of the saint.

A classmate of mine, a boy maybe eleven or twelve years old, wanted me to come with him on the role-playing game. I was probably going to go along with him.

But my teacher, a pretty, blonde woman, yanked me back from the boy. She told me the boy was distracting me. The teacher told me I was going to come with her.

I looked behind the teacher to the area I knew we were going to: some kind of stage-like area on the left wall of the room, where there were other kids sat out on the floor with papers, studying or doing their lesson exercise.

I was now in some kind of hallway-like space with my teacher. The hallway was like an old, narrow, seldom-visited corridor in a natural history museum.

We sat on the floor -- actually, I think my teacher was laying on her stomach. My teacher had a book, some kind of history of poetry. She may have read some of it to me. She may then have asked me either to read some to her, or to give her a reaction to what she'd read. She handed me the book.

I could see that the text was about the seventeenth century British poet Abraham Cowley. But the pages looked like they were from some kind of illustrated Bible for kids. There was a drawing, almost coloring-book-style, of biblical mountains running across the top half of one set of pages.

I told my teacher a little bit of my own thoughts about Abraham Cowley. I liked him, and I thought it was unfair that he'd fallen into obscurity.

I then read the bottom lines of the left-hand page of the book. It mentioned how somebody in the eighteenth century had "single-handedly" rescued Cowley from oblivion. It took me a long time to read this. But I finally got the idea that the person referenced was Samuel Johnson.

My teacher was now slightly around the corner from me, and up on a very small platform, elevated about 20cm above the floor. I lay on my stomach and stared at a beautiful, Gothic-style, wood wall as I gave my teacher some of my own thoughts on Cowley.

It was hard for me to speak -- my brain was really groggy. But I said, "Well, you know, now that Cowley's rescued from oblivion, everybody thinks he's just great. But I don't think he's free from faults. I love his Mistress poem cycle. But his Odes are kind of flat, in my opinion."