All DJ Entries

Morning of September 11, 1979. Tuesday.



There were other versions of this dream but this is the most detailed version (not necessarily the longest) from September 1979. I had not seen Ann L (who I do not see in my dream much) for a few years. Ann L was the only familiar character (other than my “dream girl” of whom turned out to be real years later) from real life in most of my dream. She was a classmate for only a couple grades in middle school and high school. I did not really know her very well or interact with her that much. She was a mousy bookish type. This in fact, is one of my only dreams where she appeared and long after I had last seen her in waking life.

My dream’s plot vaguely resembles a Harvey comic book story of which I was familiar with (with Casper and Wendy as the main characters). It involves a ship that is similar to the Pacific Princess on “Love Boat” (which I have a false memory of having “seen” at a much earlier age which is likely associated with “Love American Style” from 1969 instead). However, there is also something about it that is also very military-like and the ship itself is greenish-gray, at least later on. Instead of moving normally across the ocean, it floats about three feet or so above the water’s surface (using some sort of advanced technology which America supposedly did not have in my dream), which seems slightly ominous (but still leaves a wake at times). The captain is Captain Badheart as in the comic story, which changes from Captain Goodheart.

There is something about Ann having a baby (not by me; possibly Barry R or the captain) as well as being locked in the captain’s cabin, but I do not follow her status that closely. It is almost like a secondary movie within my dream that is happening on the sidelines. I know the ship was designed to change after people boarded and kidnap them to keep them out at sea and serve the interests of a (fictional) small country or dictatorship. There is an original reference that I noted in which there is some association with “air ship”. There is a slight awareness of the “mystery girl” even from the beginning, but not quite as much as a much earlier dream of the liner. I now see a connection between “Pacific Princess”, “Love Boat”, and the fact that Australia is near the South Pacific.

The ship also has advanced weapons, some sort of multiple laser cannons in a series, something I might have associated with the original (1978-1979) Battlestar Galactica (especially as the ship seems to be called the Celestra at one point - the plot of that episode with that name is: “During a celebration honoring Commander Kronus, Starbuck recognizes an old flame of his, Aurora and breaks off a date with Cassiopeia to follow his lost love to the Celestra. On their arrival, Starbuck and Apollo find themselves in the midst of a mutiny” - IMDb), giving my dream a science-fiction-like atmosphere in the main scenes. There is a battle with the United States Air Force at one point. There is a precognitive layer (not quite as clear or multilayered as the liner dream of childhood) referencing my yet-to-experience journey to Australia and a loose connection to “The Man Without a Country”, which I saw in middle school. It has a similar mood.

The “mystery girl” still remains mostly in the background. I look for her during the troubles on board and I am frustrated at not finding her. Perhaps she has magic that will protect her from the foreign soldiers, but I still want us to get off the ship and back to civilization. At one point the ship is on the water when another ship is in the area so that no attention will be brought on to this strange ship that otherwise eerily floats above the ocean’s surface.

---

A singular ship in a dream is an autosymbolic extension of the physical body and linked to a specific level of unconsciousness. This is made clearer here by the additional vestibular system correlation - the fact the ship is floating. Additionally, this (the military association) augments RAS mediation in this case, making my dream into an interesting adventure, but ultimately unrelated to waking life other than the prescient thread relating to my “mystery girl” (Zsuzsanna).

---

Morning of September 6, 1969. Saturday.



I am floating through the jungle in my “orb” form but still seem fully in-dream regarding dimensionality and perspective even though much of the scenery reminds me of more detailed paintings from certain animated movies.

I move into a clearing and seem to be with a body at this point, but still hovering somewhat. I see the ruins of a large castle. (It is probably illogical to think of it as a castle deep in the jungle - as it could have been some other sort of ancient ruins, yet still of the kind typical of Tarzan movies - this is just how I “saw” it at the time).

There is a large group of tigers inside a large, mostly featureless room of the ruins when I look through the window, which is rectangular but with a semi-circular top. These tigers do not see me at any point. They are sitting with their back legs down, like with the typical domestic cat position. Even though they are all tigers, I see or sense unique characteristics and subtle color differences in each. One tiger is sitting before the group (seemingly facing south in my in-dream perspective only) and lifting his right leg in the air as if to make a point. They are planning on taking over the world and I contemplate who I should tell about this “secret” plan. The tigers actually look friendly, though, with a sort of animated appearance. In some ways, there is a resemblance to certain art-like aspects of the Walt Disney movie “The Jungle Book” (from 1967), but I had not yet seen it all at this time, only shorter clips.

In real life around this time, there was something about curfews, the idea of which I do not think I fully grasped. There was also gunfire and arrests based on the “failure to disperse” (as well as “sit-ins” by another group). Even though I am not threatened in my dream, I do get the feeling I am “not supposed to be there” perhaps because of a curfew set by the very slightly anthropomorphic, animated tigers. The speaking “leader” is not necessarily Shere Khan - I get the impression he is friendlier.

When I wrote a story from this dream much later on, I used a fictional name - “Rufus Yohort”, which my brother Jim thought was hilarious.

Morning of August 31, 1969. Sunday.



I am possibly in an unknown region of southwest Florida near a smaller lake, though it could also be inclusive of partly distorted (memories of) areas of Chipmunk Coulee where I had moved from in Wisconsin (though I had lived in Florida before, prior to that first move as well, until around three years of age). There are not many events; mostly just shifts of mood regarding the vivid imagery over time. Regarding this dream, I had written a story (a few versions over several years, in fact), but the later utilized implications were not known at the time of my dream. Thus, my dream was seemingly sending a rather ambiguous message, or so it seemed at the time, if you consider I did not consciously “grasp” the main scenario of “surrender” vs. “stay away from my territory”.

As well as the somewhat familiar lake scenery, I am also on the outskirts of town and in a clearing near the perimeter of a dense forest. There is some sort of local legend of a witch living deep in the forest, likely near the center of it. A large shrub has a white flag tied to it seemingly to indicate that the witch claims the forest as hers. It is on the edge of the forest and to the right of a tree.

Later on, the meaning seems to be different and I then get the idea that the white flag means that the witch is “surrendering” to progress and encroaching property developers. (I never actually see the witch; I only hear friends speaking about her and her flag - and I assume her to be of the Halloween-associated “bad witch” type.) I probably had developed the idea of the white flag from movies, but perhaps I did not perceive it as meaning to surrender. In fact, again, in my dream, it seemed a bit ominous as a sort of “obvious” visual warning (and perimeter marker) to “keep away” at first - the opposite of the “real” meaning. I see the outcome as obviously incongruous, perhaps during a time of slower learning processes where dreams are often inherently wrong about real-life associations due to not yet knowing societal associations or certain word meanings. One possible association from years ago related to occultism and superstition “surrendering” to consensus or modern mainstream society.

Some of the imaginative detail seems to have come from the idea of playing golf, oddly enough. (I did not really watch golf on any regular basis, however.) The flag in my dream was, at one point, vaguely similar in appearance and orientation as in golf (though with no number and not a pennant as in some cases with golf). You also see people hit a ball into the woods (or just on the perimeter) in some golf games.

---

Update Wednesday, 20 January 2016: This dream is of the liminality type because the main theme is relative to a perimeter, or implied barrier on level ground (in contrast to lower or higher “barriers” or setting features). This is a lifelong but sparsely recurring dream design and type of setting. It seems to be relevant to metaphorical divisions of consciousness concerning the dream self’s level of access and other aspects of consciousness in the dream state. The forest here is the “Enchanted Forest” of the deepest imaginative state of the dream self (my most desired dream setting), where “magic still works” - “magic”, here, being analogous to apex lucidity. The white flag first implies “do not go in”, later to imply “I surrender”. It is almost as if the power of creativity and imagination, along with individuality (here presented as a form of isolation) is succumbing to consensus, or more specifically, the fully conscious self. On a much simpler level of possible meaning, it may represent the state between waking and sleeping (the clearing representing wakefulness and the forest representing the dream state).

---

Morning of August 12, 1979. Sunday.



In my dream, I am walking southward in a grassy area near a large stream with very high banks. I seem to be in Veteran’s Memorial Park in West Salem, Wisconsin. Floating in the stream in the same direction I am walking is a large grayish and mossy-green alligator with unnaturally large yellowish-orange eyes which are also somewhat dome-like. Eventually, a laser beam slowly emerges from its left eye and starts moving towards me, but also slowly sweeping the area. Several unfamiliar people who were in different areas along the edge of the bank are now either running or cautiously walking from the area. This “laser” seems to be the only way that the alligator is able to find people, though it does not swim or attempt to leave the stream yet or attack at any point. It seems threatening but it is not a direct threat. It remains slowly moving from behind me to my right. As I eventually wake I see a beautifully rendered image of sunrise.

---

Resupplemented on Thursday, 31 August 2017.

Hypnagogic foundation: I do not really feel like waking up and getting out of bed yet. As with many of my dreams, the essence of water is focused upon due to the fact that water symbolizes sleep (partly based on the fact that the first nine months of life are spent sleeping in the water of the womb) and the real-time dynamics of sleep while in the dream state (possibly due to subliminal awareness of the flow of glymphatic fluid increasing during sleep). I had focused on the Beatles song “Tomorrow Never Knows”: “Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream, it is not dying.”

Hypnopompic resolution: Sunrise is inevitable. Waking is a necessity.

A similar but shorter version of this dream (with a fatter alligator and a head of a more surreal appearance) occurred on August 8th. Apparently, “Tomorrow Never Knows” was released on August 8th in America in 1966 (which is not possible to confirm as either postcognition or a typical unconscious marker though it is more likely I saw the date somewhere years ago).

The unusual detail of the overly large eyes symbolizes the subliminal awareness of being in REM sleep.

The alligator does not emerge from the stream due to my subliminal attention to being in the dream state. The alligator floating downstream represents my emergent consciousness precursor remaining asleep.

Additionally, the alligator is also based on potentially aggressive coalescence waking symbolism, where a dream character, including the dream self, is swallowed or perceived as being swallowed back into whole consciousness as neural energy increases in the waking transition.

The laser from the alligator’s eye is a distorted rendering of daylight being perceived through my eyelids while slowly waking. The sunrise imagery in the final scene confirms this.

Waking symbolism is often oriented to the right, which is the case with this dream. There are many possible reasons for this, which are too numerous to get into here.

---

Morning of August 7, 1969. Thursday.



I am in the backyard of my Cubitis home at some time during late morning. The sun is shining and the weather seems fine overhead. However, to the east, beyond the railroad tracks and the expansive farmland, is a tornado, heading straight towards my home. In the area farther out towards the tracks and where we usually burn rubbish in real life, is what looks like an old worn plaid blanket (which is dirty and with a few holes) within the unburnt trash and ashes. There are at least six or seven recently born kittens on the blanket squirming around, a few noticeably calico. I do not know where they came from, but they seem to be my responsibility. There is an ambiguous awareness of being indoors looking down at a bed, even though I am also aware of being outside in a different location at the same time.

“You can’t die,” I say fairly softly and mournfully (though without any perceived personal worry), hearing my own young voice very clearly and vividly. I plan to take them from the area with no thought of anything else. I am almost lucid, but slowly wake.

---

Understanding the dream state and the biological nature of RAS mediation will help in understanding a dream’s real meaning to rise above the erroneous concept of “interpretation” in the popular misuse of the term. There are obvious clues here.

Firstly, a tornado is a common dream feature for me, not always threatening, and was validated in childhood to be, at the mundane level (though there is also the spiritual association regarding the Merkaba), autosymbolism based on the naturally ambiguous dynamics of the vestibular system loosely associated with the dizziness of spinning even when this is not a direct factor, though of course avoiding a tornado is related to avoiding the faux vertigo of liminal space. This means that my dream self has a subliminal awareness of being in the dream state. What are some other clues? The kittens in the blanket are another clue. A blanket being rendered means I am probably subliminally aware I am asleep (without my conscious self identity being within the dream state itself).

Additionally, saying “You can’t die” is another dream state indicator from “If I die before I wake”, from a “prayer” that I never even considered uttering at any point in my childhood (even though some children supposedly utter this “prayer” prior to sleep, but what kind of a parent would allow this, I cannot even imagine it), though I had heard about it around the time of this dream. Thank goodness I was born into a family that did not practice such a grim ritual.

---

Morning of July 19, 1969. Saturday.



This dream, looking over notes and doing a bit more research, seems to have been influenced by the following real-life events and associations:

1. “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (original movie from 1951).

2. Visits to a parking lot near a store at an early age (not sure where, somewhere near Port Charlotte, I think) where an elephant would perform tricks near our car. It terrified me when I was much younger, but as I got a older, the fear subsided. My mother had said that I had yelled for them (my parents) to roll up the windows of the car when we first went there when I was really young. An older sister still has photographs of these events.

3. Movies in the earlier grades in school about Pompeii and volcanoes in general. My wife said she had dream influences from such movies as well. I dreamed of volcanoes fairly often during my early years and once in real life, was startled by a sudden hailstorm which I thought was lava and volcanic rocks pouring down on our roof (this was a few years after this entry’s dream) and so I ran and hid in the closet until I realized what it was. Due to the fact that there was a large rutted metal section as the roof over most of our carport, it was really loud.

4. The “Uhny Uftz” episode of “The Dick Van Dyke Show”, first seen September 29, 1965.

Contrary to what my dreams sometimes presented, I was never alone in a car at an early age.

My dream begins with my becoming aware of being in the middle of my backyard and assuming it is Sunday, late morning, perhaps around ten. A shadow appears on the ground, which is perfectly round, moving southward over our neighbor’s house. Perhaps it is a cloud, but perhaps not, so I go inside. I get a very vague sense of a “poisonous cloud”. Inside, in the living room, a man on a news report is talking rather unemotionally about a flying saucer having been sighted.

I am slightly lucid, so I decide that I will take control for a time and visit Brenda W, a female classmate who lives north of me. We go back to my house and I notice the news reader is still talking about the flying saucer and some sort of (I think) toxic gas or some such. Brenda is laughing because when the man is speaking on the television, certain things he is saying seem to be going on outside in the backyard at the same time as each spoken reference (round shadow, flashing light, strange hum…).

Later, Brenda seems to have gone home and I am seriously annoyed at this, as I want to spend the day playing with her (more like “playing house” even though I was quite young at the time). I decide to go back to her house. Soon, though, the round shadow appears on the ground, but I do not really look up. I start walking faster and faster, first trying to hide under trees, but eventually I start running and turn to go south towards town where there may be bigger and safer buildings and more people - and I have a vague idea that Brenda may also have gone there instead of going home.

Amazingly, I run so fast and “perfectly” that I manage to run straight down the wall of a gulley, then turning about at fully ninety degrees upright again, treading effortlessly and swiftly over the surface of the deeper stream - only lightly splashing the surface, and turning my entire body again at ninety degrees and going straight up the wall on the other side - and then continue on as if nothing strange had happened, my only concern being that I had wasted a few seconds by not running in a straight, horizontal path!

Eventually I am in town (Arcadia) and I do not notice any people around. Even though it seems to be the weekend, I notice a few cars in the elementary school’s parking lot and think it may be a meeting of the teachers - or perhaps a few alarmed people did not know where else to go for safety.

I notice that the flying saucer seems to be landing, so I go to duck down near a car (but do not yet get into the car). It lands and looks just like the spacecraft from “The Day the Earth Stood Still”. The “door” of the flying saucer opens and…as I start to climb into the front seat of the car to hide…

Out walks a large elephant…

The elephant lifts its trunk straight into the air and out sprays a massive amount of lava and volcanic rocks. I jump into the car, but I notice the volcanic rocks quickly stacking up over the front window of the car (almost in “fast motion” animation) and so…it is the end of everything.

Morning of July 5, 1969. Saturday.



I go to Waikiki in Hawaii, or so it seems (I had not been there in real life). However, it is seemingly called “Waikikiki” in my dream (unless that came from a musical repetition of the last syllable) and is more like an island on its own (perhaps it is a play on “Waikiki Key” as with the Florida Keys). As my dream is ending, mostly seemingly in hypnopompia, a slower fictional song comes into play as I wake (though came back in a later “reset” version of my dream), which seems to be a warning for tourists not to cause problems for the local wildlife, though more as self-advice rather than receiving the message from elsewhere. It is sung (by a group of men and women, though in my own young voice in one version) as “Neh-ver go…to the EYE-eye-land…of Wah-ka-KEE-kee again!” The tune is fairly simple and I have included the sheet music here. Curiously, this totally fictional song replayed in my head every now and then for years after (even more than actual commercial music) and I can still imagine it now fairly accurately.

My dream is quite long but mostly involves just exploring the landscape, such as riding in an open train car (that reminds me of a roller coaster car though it does not have challenging events during the trip) and seeing a pterodactyl and nonthreatening volcano. Parts of the region I visit are seemingly “still” prehistoric, or it may be related to the train itself that goes through certain areas and goes through time. The Smothers Brothers are there planning to kill or knock out a triceratops for posterity (or perhaps because they feel threatened by it). However, the triceratops charges at them near boxes of dynamite near a cave and everything blows up as they gawk in fear, side by side, prior to their end…I wake just prior to the implied moment of impact but also get an impression of a cartoon-like jagged “ka-boom” balloon.

I now think that it is likely that this last scene was influenced from a “Road Runner” cartoon (where Wile E. Coyote is hit by a train) though I cannot be certain if that was the sole influence here. I did not really much care for the Smothers Brothers routines (and did not like Rowan and Martin either) so this is probably a form of wish fulfillment at one level. (I only watched their shows because of the guests they had on.)

Morning of June 2, 1979. Saturday.



This is a much longer, almost movie-like dream in some ways. The main idea is that I have two very friendly and faithful pet wolves. They are both males (perhaps twin males), I assume, and their names are Lupus and Lee. They save me from problematic events a few times, sometimes from just standing around, based on how potentially trouble-making people react to their presence. At one point, I am in the hospital, which seems like some sort of “replay” of when I had the surgery on my right hand back in 1976. They somehow end up in my room in the hospital and I eventually leave with them a bit earlier than I am supposed to, I think, but I am very healthy later on, and for some reason, apparently had recovered more quickly from being out of the hospital sooner.

They save me from drowning when higher waves rush in when I “fall asleep” on an isolated beach. They are even allowed to be on a city bus and travel with me at one point. Their presence is very vivid and “realistic” and even though I feel like my “true self”, the unlikelihood of having two pet wolves never dawns on me.

There is a seemingly unrelated scene with my best friend making a response of why he supposedly does not have to listen to the teacher. This is the ninth grade class we actually went to (northwest corner of the main high school building), and my last full year of public school. His reply to her is “Because my father is Lucas Taylor, that’s why”. (This was actually not his father’s name in real life.)

This is a time period where I had first begun to find it curious that dogs had usually been more threatening in dreams than wolves and coyotes. In this particular dream, it seems that Lupus and Lee will be my companions and helpers for life - the idea seems very clear and almost like a long-term false memory (even for a brief time after waking).

Morning of May 19, 1969. Monday.



My best friend Toby T and I rescue Brenda W (a female friend and classmate) from a burning building in Arcadia. (There does not seem to be any back story - my dream seems to start as we are already grabbing Brenda and fleeing the scene without the otherwise extensive fire being very close to us.)

As we are running, the scene becomes very vivid (about as vivid as a dream can get - but it is then as if I am seeing myself from in front of the scene, I on her right, Toby on her left - we both have a strange look of surprise on our faces when kissed, though my expression seems happier than Toby’s, his being more of a confused nature). She kisses us both on the cheek as we are running and holding her arms, saying “You boys are wonderful!” (the sound being very clear and vivid here) I clearly see both her left and right profiles during this time as my dream becomes lucid but only upon awakening. (Fire has a tendency to increase both vividness and sometimes lucidity - its glow actually “lighting up” the dream in most cases.)

Although it seems to be a wooden house and slightly like Brenda’s, it also seems we are in the southwest area of the West Elementary school grounds, the house being farther northwest as we flee towards the southeast where the playground is in reality. (The actual area is not that open or expansive.) This is the original dream journal title from age eight (which was never changed when copying to newer journal pages).

In real life, Brenda lived north of me on Highway Seventeen in Cubitis; not in Arcadia as here in-dream. This time period had me more closely thinking of the different types of dream perspectives, such as the unusual differences between dream sections where you are fully in-body (such as how this started out) to either where you see yourself (as if disembodied) or not directly “in” the dream at all. This dream was possibly influenced by the fact that there was a very large house fire just north of my home, though not near Brenda’s house. Brenda was later validated as a common stand-in archetype for the (precise precognitive) “mystery girl” (wife-to-be), also included in “mystery girl” three-way composites. Here, however, there is nothing significant to indicate or validate her status as such. This dream also occurred before she ever kissed me in real life (she never kissed Toby as far as I know), though I certainly would not call that precognitive.

Morning of April 9, 1969. Wednesday.



This is one of many recurring vivid and more defined dream types that “introduced” me to my soulmate long before it dawned on me that the majority of my dreams (the ones that were not immediately precognitive or remote-viewing composites or of certain other types and layers) were related intricately to my distant future. Although certain facets were established even before my wife-to-be was born, this was one of the clearest at this time. I suppose some would think it strange to dream of someone all their life, eventually discover that the person and all prior in-dream nuances and parallels were real, then actually “live the dream”. I have never cared what other people think of this reality of mine, especially as I have only seen deceit and distraction and “cop-out” mentality regarding the unexplained.

This dream scene always took place in one of two areas of the West Elementary School playground. One area was near the north edge of the playground, about the middle section, and just west of the large banyan tree. The other area was more near the south end of the playground, just north of the seesaws.

Other than I, the only other in-dream character was a mysterious dark-haired gypsy girl (seemingly of about seventeen to eighteen or so, no older than twenty) of an olive complexion who spoke with a very unusual accent, which was mixed ethnic (Romani) Hungarian and Australian - something I had never even actually heard in real life. Although she wore black she sometimes also wore pink. Her name was usually Susannah or sometimes Savannah (although that may be a perceived distortion). Later, I came to learn of the Hathor patterns and her actual maiden name and various seeming “codes” throughout history, one set related to the Vaudois, where at least one non-native ancestor was linked to.

These dreams were different in that it often felt as if I was going to sleep within my dream itself (a rather odd awareness). I would be lying on the ground (as a child) and she would be stroking my hair and intoning “sleep…sleep”. She would usually be seated and facing west, my head (to the east) in her lap. She would “confide” in me and say that it would be a long time but that I would eventually live with her (she even said how she was only a baby at the time - which proved to be literal). Of course, I had different associations because I was not sure what this could mean, mostly due to her somewhat motherly nature at times (though she was not like my actual mother). I had been aware of this “mystery girl” before and her first presence was as the large green “animated” eyes only - the earlier Rose Street dreams (which I wrote of in older entries on one site). Also, a classmate and friend, Brenda W, became part of a composite archetype that also represented her in numerous dreams and parallel associations.

The birthplace of this “mystery girl” (Port Kembla) was also directly inverted to my birthplace across the ocean in America. Event after event and “coincidence” after “coincidence”; even though I was aware of certain patterns, I was not aware of the more extreme Pascal-Triangle-like layers until after 1991.

Morning of April 2, 1979. Monday.



I am seemingly back in Florida, somewhere near Lakeland (possibly the front central area of Southgate Shopping Center), with no memory of having moved back to Wisconsin. There is some sort of ability I have to give trees the ability to grab people or even grow larger and stretch horizontally to capture someone (briefly recurring event during this year). This is related to trying to escape from several unknown males; either gangsters or the authorities (uncertain of which). I know that I have done nothing wrong, but there is a vague association with someone I knew who became a killer. This in turn, with only partial memory, places me in a “maze” of trailers in a large trailer park. The “maze” is probably only about three (trailers) by six or seven, though.

At one point, I have this strange “realization” that I should lead them into a television - and inside of it - to trap them within the television. This may work when used in combination with the trees blocking them or grabbing them and throwing them elsewhere.

After a time, everything becomes less problematic. I find myself in a field, though I am aware there are still people around. I eventually notice strange “lines” (about nine feet long) floating in the air horizontally and seeming like lines on a television. There is a vague association with snow on a television (relative to static) in a possible link with Winter Haven (and even an odd uncomfortable link to “Heaven”).

I am trying to gather my thoughts but something is not quite right. Static and horizontal distortions cannot exist in a real environment - only on television (or in the case of static, a radio as well). I become semi-lucid. I realize that I must somehow be “inside” a television that is on. I even hear more short bursts of static from an undefined direction and more lines in the air to confirm my suspicions. I am somewhat wary of remaining where I am - thinking that if someone turns off the television I may cease to exist. There is a “reset” and a false awakening, but I eventually “escape”.

It seems to be that anyone (even a figure of authority) who spends too much time looking at a screen (without a real-life passionate relationship to ground them) will face a future of “static” and little else. Life is vision. Love is life. An older person without a meaningful relationship is like a mirror without a reflection. Plus, the horizontal hold is wack.

Morning of March 8, 1969. Saturday.



Sgt Carter (played by Frank Sutton on “Gomer Pyle”, the television series) is aboard a small airplane (though unrealistically implied to be a jumbo jet) which looks more like the inside of a school bus (which is very typical of my dreams, even years later after I have actually been on airplanes). He is on the right side of my perspective (from the front of the “airplane” as I am “standing” and looking toward the back of the “airplane”) and perhaps on the second row back form the front. I seem to be disembodied or at least not interacting with the situation in any way, though it is not really like watching television because I am “there”.

Frank is suspicious and nervous of a person behind him on the row to my left, probably the very last row. Apparently, the people on the airplane have just escaped the devastation caused by the blob (though the town was not really devastated in the real movie from 1958) and down below are big shadows and small fires, though the other people seem cheerful including an unknown businessman in glasses on the first row to my left. The blob has the ability to change into different things (also unlike the movie where it remained a gelatinous mass). What is first seen as a person reading a newspaper is possibly the blob…that is, the “newspaper” ready to devour that person. For a time he sits in his seat covered by the “newspaper” (which now seems more like a cloth blanket with a newspaper design printed on it), seeming somewhat like a “ghost” wearing a “sheet”, unmoving. Frank does not directly look at any point yet somehow seems aware of what is going on behind him.

The scene is not resolved. Frank (as Sgt Carter) disappears but no explanation is given. The blanket/blob/newspaper, assuming it is “real”, may still be hungry, though it is quite small. For a time, it seems more like seats in a movie theater (though somehow ridiculously a “flying” movie theater - that is, the building with no implied wings) rather than on an airplane - then the “movie theater”/“airplane”/“school bus” is empty. Everything is quiet, though the newspaper is on the floor, fluttering, sticking out slightly to the right of the seat of the original “blanket man” (from my perspective). (From here, things go “frozen” for a time, then abstract hypnopompia.)



Probable influences:

“Peanuts” comic strips where Linus’s blanket is “alive” and attacks Lucy (cutout from 1965 and taped in a notepaper binder collected and owned by my mother)

plus

“Newspaper Blanket” by the Cowsills (I owned the 45 of; flip side of “Indian Lake”)

plus

the episode of “Gomer Pyle” where Sgt Carter acts this way on an airplane (heading towards a nervous breakdown, supposedly)

plus

the movie “The Blob” (1958 version)

equals true weirdness via pop culture overkill perhaps. Being cruelly and surreptitiously dominated by entertainment has never really been my goal; just endless meticulous self-examination. It is good to discover the synthetic sources of your own imagination, or make that, the dream self’s “mind”, which does not even know an airplane from a bus.

Morning of March 8, 1969. Saturday.



Curiously, this was a bit like one of those modern reality shows long before they existed, but I do not consider it precognitive. The in-dream fictional television game show (which is apparently titled “Are They Dead or Are They Alive?”) has a seemingly very gruesome premise yet also seems to relate to a genuine news story as well (possibly due to a dream “reset” or partial replay). In one version, there was eventually a newspaper that proclaimed the “victims” (Brenda W and I) being found alive (near the front of the castle).

Brenda (a female classmate) and I are a part of I believe the first or one of the first episodes. A male announcer (or narrator) dramatically and slowly asks the viewing (television) audience…“Are they dead…or are they alive?” Brenda and I are held in a castle and there is some sort of vague awareness in the background relating to the “Dark Shadows” television series. Vaguely, there is an awareness of some sort of connection with Collinwood and D Hollingsworth, a male classmate whose name is only vaguely similar. Mostly, we are inside caskets (in two different faraway areas of the large halls) which cannot be opened from the inside, but oddly enough there is not the slightest nightmarish or threatening aspect, just the sense of annoyingly having to wait for someone or something. The “castle” seems at least partly modeled after our school (West Elementary).

Brenda actually seems cheerful throughout (considering the circumstances of the setting), though there is not much interaction or eventful purpose to my dream, it seems. I seem to perceive myself from my own supposed perspective as a dream character as well as from another (camera view?) location at times. I am the one that somehow gets out and rescues Brenda, but we still seem to wander about in the halls, supposedly for days.

---

Morning of February 20, 1969. Thursday.

Dream #: 794-05. Reading time: 52 sec.



I am at West Elementary as an unseen incorporeal presence as my schoolmates do not acknowledge me. They sit on their knees near the east entrance of the school before dawn.

The students are Robert G. in profile on the left, Brenda on the right, and Tina beyond (but facing me). They are looking at the ground, central to their perimeter. There is a hole that has grown as a small mound and is possibly the beginning of a volcano. Orange light flickers below. They are performing a strange ritual that I do not understand. I think they have herbs and smaller totems or ritualistic objects. They seem involved in a type of prayer, almost like they are worshipping it or waiting for it to grow by way of their attention to it.

I wonder if their ritual will cause the potential volcano to become larger and more active (though I feel no fear). I also consider if it is something that students do once a year. It seems mysterious and vaguely spiritual.

---

My dream’s scenario partly comes from the story of Dionisio Pulido and the Paricutin volcano (which coincidentally began on the same date in 1943).

---

The causation of this dream correlates with emerging from a deep sleep, occurring near the middle of my sleep cycle.

---

Morning of February 15, 1969. Saturday.

Dream #: 789-06. Reading time: 1 min 22 sec. Readability score: 54.



In semi-lucidity at age eight, I find myself sitting on an upright wooden rain barrel next to an old wooden fence in late morning. Beyond the other side is a unique new version of a relative’s farm that exists in real life, but where I have not visited since age four.

Brenda (schoolmate, neighbor, and friend) is also sitting atop the barrel. We are facing each other, cheerfully giggling. I feel the inspiration to kiss her. Our faces move closer, but I am distracted by my awareness of someone beyond the other side of the fence.

Earl (an older half-brother on my mother’s side) walks over to the fence, approaching from my right. I feel very annoyed by his sudden interest in what Brenda and I are doing. I feel imposed upon and so kissing Brenda does not occur. I partially awake in readiness, though still in liminal space, to throw my pillow at the imagined intrusion.

---

It is likely that I was liminally discerning whether Earl was on our carport, to the right of my bed. Additionally, as I sleep on my left side, it is also natural for the waking process to originate from my right as it exposed openly to my environment. The error here is that the setting was the farm in Wisconsin (though Brenda had never been to Wisconsin) and even so, I had to have been liminally aware of where I was. At the time, my bed blocked the door to the carport, and I am sometimes aware of the location of doorways (in my real environment) even in subliminal (non-lucid) dream settings.

Waking process autosymbolism was inclusive as the fence feature, a liminal space divider that represents RAS mediation as the separation between the imaginary dream self and conscious self perception. The rain barrel was a residual factor of water induction, water (melatonin mediation) being my most common autosymbolism for dream state induction, occurring at least once per sleep cycle. The personified preconscious, in this case, Earl, is typically intrusive as the waking alert factor.

---