I fell asleep after work yesterday and been taking weird short naps throughout the night as my sleep schedule is once again screwed but saved by having a day off today meaning I didn't have to set an alarm. I fell asleep shortly after messaging Adobe's customer care team who said I have to pay a cancellation fee but told me they could waive it once In my dream I'm in an industrial area which is apparently the headquarters of Adobe and I misread the message from the customer support saying they're gonna force me to have a vasectomy/castration and take one of my testicles in exchange for getting my Adobe subscription cancelled. I spent the entire dream running away from them and my fellow Dutch colleague from my job was also there for some reason. Second half of the dream consisted of standing in a large, acoustic, cardboard coloured box with a bunch of friends who resembled the travel buddies I made when stranded at the Bad Bentheim station in Germany. My high school friend was there as well and we made a song of which the drums consisted of my high school friend getting hit in the head by a bag of nuts. I woke up laughing, I recorded that drum loop in my voice notes and will open my music software later to recreate it hahahaha
I am in what looks like the back or side yard of a nice house. There is a pool and Makayla is here. There is something going on here?, or about to, and I ask Makayla about me going to it. She sarcastically says ‘no’ (in more words) and, in a moment of low self-esteem, feel bad, thinking there is truth behind the joking and that I’m not wanted. More people have shown up now and are in the pool, filling it to what looks like it’s capacity. I’m in the pool too (I think we’re all in our street clothes) and notice a three piece band at the other end. The drums are in yet slightly above the water - it must be shallow? He starts playing a fast jazz groove, which I think is Take 5 (it sounds different than in reality). The other two I think are some combination of guitar, keyboards, and vocals.
I’m at our apartment complex when I see three large, black dogs off leash outside one of the units. The layout here seems similar to our complex, but everything looks different. There are quite a few people in the unit (I think a door or window is open, enabling me to see inside at a glance) and someone is devoting some of their attention to playing fetch with the dogs. The dogs seem friendly from here and like they won’t really wander, but I don’t appreciate the disregard of the rules, especially because we live two buildings over and always have Stella on a leash. I’m by our unit now with Melissa and Stella. One of the dogs is over here, without an owner, but Stella is now being reactive to it. She actually climbs completely on top of the dog and begins humping it. I’m surprised that it, a larger male, doesn’t react. I’m in some fairly crowded building. I’m behind what seems to be a merch counter when I notice two girls, one of which is wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt. A man by her asks her who wrote Stairway to Heaven. She replies with something wildly wrong. The other girl chuckled and says “no, Jimmy Page”. I’m now walking through the building (it seems similar to the GSR), aware that I’m wearing a Grateful Dead shirt. I pass a man who I think is also wearing one. I see him see my shirt and then he asks ‘what year?’ He seems excited and not patronizing. We were walking in opposite directions, but I turn to walk with him. I tell him it’s just generic and not a certain year but that I’ve probably heard any given year. I continue talking to him and he looks like he didn’t expect me to. I tell him that Dead and Co shoreline ‘17 was my first live Dead music experience. “Completely sober - a minority, I know,” I say. He says he’d eat anything given to him. I describe the joy at the opening notes of St. Stephen, even though I realize it was actually Playing in the Band. This moment recalls the profundity of it, which I think he is sharing in now.
I can't even tell whether I was asleep at the first "dream" or just half asleep "daydreaming" just being relaxed enough to vividly see my thoughts as I was relaxed enough. First dream I was meeting up with an alt girl named Hotdogs and we went to my apartment. In the second dream, I dreamed about having apparently finished an entire song a recording a music video for it. The song in question was mainu sun 找路 by the Taiwanese artist ABAO. The music video in my dream was then uploaded to a YouTube channel, but they had credited the artist under a different name and featured a married artist duo whom had no idea that their song just got leaked. It wasn't my song after all, it was theirs. I then woke up. What I'm surprised about the most is that I was able to unconsciously remember the entire mainu sun 找路 song as a whole as it's performed in indigenous Taiwanese. https://youtube.com/watch?v=McJyHVT2hf0 I moved to a new apartment in Berlin that has a super comfy bed, but I have not yet found a comfortable sleeping position as well as a healthy sleep schedule in general which is why I haven't really had any interesting dreams yet but rather half asleep dream remnants. My alarm is set to go off in an hour, but I don't even know if I have any sleep left. On the bright side, my new full-time job starts today, which means I finally start to have a routine again after three years which will guarantee me going to bed earlier due to all contact and exhaustion, gotta love capitalism innit. idk why the girl's name was hotdogs either I should also mention that this dream was surprisingly in English with Dutch names and characters. I never mention language on here, but most of my dreams are usually in Dutch with some exceptions. But now that I'm in Berlin that might change to dreaming in English and German.
I am somewhere like a dorm room, which I seem to share with around three other people. The beds are really low, maybe just mattresses on the floor, and we’re sitting on them, listening to a woman in some kind of position of authority who’s speaking to us. She takes a feather comforter from somewhere and hands it to me to replace my current one. My bedding is all extremely tangled and twisted - I’ve slept badly. I tell her that it wouldn’t be that difficult to untangle it, but she still wants to give me the new one, so I take it and set the old one at the front of the bed. She then leaves. My old friend Ona, who seems to be one of my roommates, is trying to tell me something now, but she’s wearing something over her mouth sort of like an underwater breathing apparatus, so I have trouble understanding her at first. Eventually, with the help of one of the others, I understand that she’s saying something about a concert she saw me play in yesterday – also something about how she had previously been familiar with only one of the composers whose pieces were played there. This next part may or may not be part of the same dream – there were definitely parts after that one that I forgot, anyway. But I’m in a restaurant now. It’s a large, bright space, lit mainly by daylight streaming through full-length glass windows, but a little crowded – all the tables seem to be filled, and there isn’t much space to move between them. Saimi passes by the table where I’m sitting and makes some kind of signal to me with her hand. This somehow clues me into the fact that I’m dreaming. I get up and follow her out to the balcony to talk. As I pass through the glass window, I can feel some sensations from it, especially the dividing metal bars, which is unusual and a little surprising – possibly it has something to do with the overall level of realism seeming especially high this time. Saimi watches, pauses for a second, and then opens a glass door and walks out. I jokingly say that I haven’t used a door in a dream for years now. We jump down from the balcony and walk around while we decide what to do. It’s now clear that the restaurant is located on a college campus – one that’s dream-familiar to me from at least one dream I know I’ve recorded. Saimi says that before meeting up with me, she was waiting for my Aunt O so that they could see something together. She seems to want me to guess, so I do. A play? No. A movie? Also no. Apparently, it’s something like episodes from a TV series being screened somewhere on campus. She still wants to do this now, while lucid. I don’t think this sounds like a very good idea – looking at a screen for any considerable length of time seems like a pretty good way of losing lucidity to me. It could be interesting to see if my aunt shows up, though, and to talk with her, so I agree to wait with her. Since they agreed to meet in the restaurant, we head back there, flying back up to the balcony and going back where we started. I figure I should probably do something to keep engaged with the dream. This doesn’t strike me as a very interesting situation to work with initially. I wonder, though: what if I try to read these people’s minds? I look around the room, getting a read of the atmosphere – just in a way one might in waking life. How should I do this? I focus on one woman sitting at a table near me, trying to access her mindstate. What happens is that the dream imagery itself seems to transform so that now I’m seeing her in something like a large version of a baby’s high chair, chewing a mouthful of food with evident displeasure. So the form of the dream changed to reflect my intention, rather than my experiencing her thoughts as some kind of verbal overlay – fascinating. I wake up soon after, but quickly fall asleep again and find myself in the same setting, this time with my cat Ronnie. I’m trying to tie something around one of his paws, but soon I remember that I’m dreaming. I wake up again before I can do much of anything. -16.12.22
The earliest parts of the dream I can still remember involve going around a house at night so that I can listen to different pieces of music being played on various radios and other equipment. All the rooms are dark, and I think I’m trying to avoid being seen by somebody. There’s a deliberate quality to what I’m doing, like it’s some task I’ve got to complete. Then, walking through a large room, possibly some kind of storage space, I remember that I’m dreaming, and so I can just do what I want. I walk further. Up ahead are two large windows set at an angle. I can see scenes playing out on the other side – it alternates between a bird’s-eye view of a large herd of dinosaurs of various kinds that looks a little unrealistic and something else I can no longer remember. (This was circa 4-5 am, not long after I’d finally managed to fall asleep, which would explain the relatively fluid, early-dream quality to some of the imagery.) I decide I want to get a closer look at the dinosaurs, so I jump through the glass when they’re visible. I start somewhere above them and to one side, but flying seems unusually difficult. I just feel too exhausted for it and float down towards the ground. But once I land, there’s suddenly someone there – I think at first that he’s my father, but it’s immediately obvious that he isn’t – the thought was probably a lingering remnant of the nonlucid dream that preceded this one. I ask him who he is. He seems a little sad at the question and, in fact, never actually answers it – he only says something that implies my not knowing already indicates some unfortunate state of affairs. We fly together – it is much easier now, with him. He wants to head back into the building I originally came out of, which is quite tall, almost like an office building. I ‘recognize’ various rooms I see through the glass. Among our surroundings out here, though, I can now see a place that strikes me as familiar among the array of them surrounding us in a rather physics-defying way. It’s hard to describe my impression of it – it’s like I’m looking into a realm that is the night sky, filled with colorful ballooning shapes, a little like kites, which I know to be sentient beings. I have good memories of that place. It isn’t just familiar: it feels as if, in some way, I belong there. I’m reluctant to go back inside when it is once again right here in front of me. But I follow my companion back through the glass, somewhat higher up than the level I exited from. We walk through a close, dark space which I know to be a puppet theater and into the room beyond, at which point I awaken. 3.12.22
I’m driving home, I think from downtown, though it mostly looks unfamiliar. I’m at a Y type intersection, waiting to turn to the left. I pull out slightly, waiting for the cars coming from the other fork. The light turns yellow while I’m still waiting and red as I finally make it through. I’m not trying to pick out a Furthur show on my phone; I think I have a lot of time, so I’m looking for a long one. I find one with a long timestamp, but clicking into it it looks more like studio material. Now, I’m parking at a 45 degree angle on some dirt shoulder. A cop car parks right next to me, which is weird with all the space around. The cop then gets out and sits in my passenger seat. She’s taken off her uniform (there are street clothes under - I think leggings and a pink tank top) and stuffed it to the right side of her. She says something like ‘you look flushed, so I’m just waiting [to get me for something].’ I take a quick video of her from head to toe. She is a large female with an intense, childish face. I sit in complete silence.
I’m walking Stella somewhere outside, a fairly wide dirt path, when I pass an older man with his dog, what looks like a retriever. Stella does well with being able to pass the dog without meeting it. There is a culvert off to the side, maybe 8+ feet long. It’s almost filled completely with running water and Stella decides to get into it. In an instant, she’s completely submerged and I can only feel by the pull of the long leash how far into it she is. I initially remain calm, hoping I’ll be able to remain calm, hoping I’ll be able to hold onto the leash until I can just run and grab her on the other side. This then does not feel possible, so I call for help from Dad who is now here. Stella is somehow still being swept down this stream that only seems a few inches deep. It is rocky as well and feels like it’s underground, as I run to catch up with her. With all of my might, I eventually do. I’m going into a Dead and Company concert with Melissa. The indoor venue seems like something comparable in size to the Reno Events Center. There’s a simple white folding table in the foyer and some hassle with the middle aged white man in getting our tickets. I succeed in getting them and we go in. It’s close to empty, so we hurry toward the front. There’s no GA, only seats. When I ask, Melissa says she doesn’t care where we sit, which kind of irritates me. At first we go up too high, so we try lower. There are now some people here and we have to squeeze by them in their seats. The band is on the stage now, all unfamiliar except for Bob Weir, the rest seeming much younger. I notice the drummer playing but don’t hear any music. Bob is wearing a black cloth face mask which he removes and gives to one of the younger band members to wear. This makes no sense to me but I try to let it go.
I’m at a concert venue. It is full of people but I don’t think I currently hear any music. I seem to be off to the side of the stage in what feels like a dugout. The crowd starts a circle pit with the inner group moving in one direction and the outer group in the other. At this point, I know it’s a Grateful Dead concert, so this feels very out of place. I see the rest of the crowd sitting on the grass facing the stage and I end up over there. It’s a sea of faded tie dye and friendly faces. I end up next to a girl near my age with two others. We start talking and I mention that it’s my first show. She gleefully exclaims this to those around. In my mind, the year is 1981 and the show is more than halfway over (though it’s fully light out). Thinking of songs I’d like to hear, Morning Dew and Black Muddy River come to mind. *A movie came on at Blind Dog last night and my guess was that it was filmed around ‘81 due to the hair and clothes styles. I’m at an empty park with a large play structure. Mark approaches, so I say something like ‘You have something in, I take it.’ He says yes as I walk up to a section of the equipment to grab it for him (I don’t notice anywhere with books or even a shelf). Now we are in what looks like an almost empty living room. Zoe and Nicola are here, each at a computer. Mark is going to order some more; I pull up Amazon on a computer as he sits behind me. The first one comes out to more than $40, to which he gruffly says no. He seems a little less friendly than usual and is wearing darker clothes and a ballcap. I notice and get frustrated with how dim it is in here, so I go to open these blinds just like the ones in our apartment. I twist the rod and every blind looks like it’s starting to split.
Boat on a Stormy Sea I’m at an event taking place in a large, white tent, with people sitting at long tables in rows. I can’t remember the earlier part of the dream any longer, but at some point, a man on some sort of machine, kind of like a large tractor/open tank, bursts in and starts threatening people while riding up and down the aisles. He doesn’t actually seem to be trying to hurt anyone – yet – but it’s clearly a dangerous situation, so I head off to prepare properly before taking care of it. I go some distance away to a much smaller tent, where my own things are, and start by tying my hair back since that thing has exposed moving parts on it, and I want to be able to get close to it without having my neck snapped. While I’m getting ready, I plan, although I don’t think this will be very complicated. I figure I’ll just jump on and start messing with levers. But I’ll want to take out his grapply thingies first so he can’t just move them back. When I’m done, I go back a different way, past some fairly large buildings. The area is reminiscent of a university campus, and life seems to be going on normally here. A woman holding a number of small cards approaches me, wanting me to draw one. I do, knowing that she’s trying to help in some way. The cards are made of cardboard and are of varying sizes, as if they’re from multiple decks. I draw one which turns out to have a picture showing a boat on a stormy sea.* There’s accompanying text – I’m aware of having to focus more than usual in order to not instantly forget it (although, unfortunately, I did forget it between then and awakening). I take this as a positive sign. It also somehow suggests to me that it might be a good idea to see if I can get some of the other people in the tent to help out regarding the grapply things. * Note: this is the symbol for chords with dominant function in the app I use to practice improvising, which is something I was doing the night before this dream. 13.5.22 Cemetery Campsite I seem to be camping in a cemetery. Another tent is staked a few plots down – a mother and a young boy, who's three-ish, are staying there. I wonder whether I should tell them they’re camped on one of the graves that’s supposed to be haunted. We eventually do meet up somehow, and I show them the way to a local bank at her request. She meets with a couple of her relatives there, including an older woman who reminds me of somebody I know, who is looking after the child (who I now know is called Eliot) while she does something there. Eliot suddenly runs out of the building, and the woman follows, chasing him. I think she may need some help though, and so I wait around the opposite corner of the building and catch Eliot as he rounds it. He immediately starts crying. Sometime after that – back at the campsite – the woman has given me a bone with some meat on it to cook over a small fire. However, as I hold it over the flame, I notice there’s hardly any meat there at all – just a couple little scraps. Upon awakening, I also remembered a piano ostinato playing – not as a background of the dream, but as if it had somehow been going through my mind at the same time, apart from it. I didn’t check the pitches soon enough after the dream to be able to put it in a definite key, but this is what it sounded like: -15.5.22 Lots of interesting dreams lately. I'm not going to copy them all here, but highlights include: -Preparing for a chess match against a guy who likes to send his bishop in for a sacrifice on the f-pawn early in the game. I find this annoying and intend to make sure, through my own choice of moves, that this is not going to be an appealing option for him. -Lots of hostels and hotels. -Attending a concert on a campus but leaving after my rowdy friends got kicked out since it’s not really worth being there without them. -A lucid dream mostly consisting of talking to people and exploring.
I’m at work, though it also seems like I’m at home (the setting is definitely the conference room at work, but it feels like I was just home or the rest of the space is the house, Dad’s house more specifically). Sitting in front of the computer but behind a baker’s rack, as it’s still cluttered in here, I pull up a Grateful Dead concert clip on Youtube. It’s something like ‘longest/best Dark Star’, with a timestamp of 20 minutes and some odd seconds. The scene is dark but I can tell from how the band members look that it’s sometime in the 80s. I feel like it’s going to be good. Now, I am inside the scene, onstage with the band. Phil and then Jerry are in my line of sight to the left. I watch them play and watch Phil play a huge and heavy note with a grin. There is communication, verbal or otherwise, about how he plays the bass like a guitar. I’m also playing a bass or guitar, briefly cognizant of how it’s probably unnecessary. I look to Jerry to get his attention and mouth ‘dew’ when he looks, conveying my intent to segue into Morning Dew. He lights up slightly, so I think it’s well received. I get chills thinking about it.
I am either at a concert or watching a recording of one. I seem to be extremely close to the small stage, with a point of view a bit taller than I really am. I think it’s the Jerry Garcia Band playing, though I can only see Jerry on the dim stage. He looks like an early 70s Jerry right now and in the next moment he looks like a 90s Jerry. This makes me wonder if this is a recording or some kind of psychedelic experience (i.e. me just hallucinating his earlier appearance). He sings and fumbles with some lyrics but returns to the right words with a grin. He’s now singing Friend of the Devil and does the same thing. Someone in the crowd starts singing the wrong verse - Jerry confidently sings the correct one and then says “nice try.” I am in an airport or other large, public place. I need to find a bathroom and end up walking into one (there are no walls or signs or anything). This space is slightly raised and features a dozen or more circular booth tables. Walking closer, I see that they are not tables but an almost full circle or urinals. There are so many of them and it’s so empty in here that it's almost both peaceful and overwhelming. I pick one that seems to be slightly off to the side in case someone else shows up. I am getting on a bus. The driver, a lady with a perfectly relaxed and peaceful energy, stops me on the way in to give me what looks like a stamp or a blotter. She has a small stack of them and picks one out for me. It features a tiny psychedelic design, what looks like space or just a stellar design. This bus is smaller and has been converted. Melissa is with me and we sit on its floor, against some pillows. The energy here is also incredibly peaceful and relaxed.
I’m in an unfamiliar house with my mother, showing her some pieces of music I’ve written using a playback program on a computer. As the dream goes on, the physical setting apparently vanishes in favor of the scores scrolling before my eyes. Unfortunately, I can no longer remember any of the music except for the clarinet part in one. The clarinet is holding a single note, and as several measures go by without it stopping, I make a mental note to modify the part as soon as we’re done listening. The computer may be able to play it back as written, but a clarinettist does actually have to take a breath at some point. -27.4.22
I am walking from somewhere to somewhere else to use the bathroom. I think I come from a school and it looks like I’m heading to a construction site/new apartments or other buildings. It crosses my mind that I’ve actually passed a bathroom, but I continue on anyway. This area looks like it’s near the marina. I’m on the side of an uncrowded highway. I walk through a red light and it doesn’t cause any problems but still I feel a little guilty. I have my blue headphones on, listening to some music. I’m also walking at a good pace, and it feels like. I round a corner and start stepping high, flexing my eyes at each rise. I now notice that I can get multiple flexes in each step. Pretty soon I am completely off the ground at each step for a time longer than possible. I enjoy the sensation and continue it and soon I am levitating up into the air. I rise to 50+ feet and then the thought crosses my mind that this would only be possible in a dream. My mind writes off this happening with some explanation. *Though it sounds like it, I never actually realize this is a dream in the dream. I also wake up right after.
Reflect Part of a longer series of events involving travel from one place to another. The only part I remember well was towards the end, where I’m being chased by a young woman in a rather video game-ish setting. As I run, a handful of parallel memories arise, showing various outcomes to this event, which are all variations on her catching up. Looks like this is a mandatory fight. I also notice that something is different from the memories, something important: I know who she really is. I make sure she doesn’t catch up until an open area up ahead, and then we’re both standing there, facing one another. She initially has brown skin and straight, dark, shoulder-length hair, but the image dissolves, and she changes to a shorter figure with grayish skin, rather like Zimmy from Gunnerkrigg Court. There’s a short conversation here, which I can no longer remember, and then she attacks, throwing some sort of enormous summoning spell at me. I raise an arm and deflect it back at her with a gesture. What happens next is rather like a lengthy animation playing out, temporarily turning both of us into passive observers as it takes over the screen/dream and practically defeats my opponent all on its own. Moreover, at the end of it, the nature of the encounter seems to have changed, so that now I just have to complete three small, easy puzzles to win. My opponent actually contributes to solving one, in sort of a “yeah, yeah, let’s get this over with” way. Poke Another vaguely video game-ish one of which I can only remember the later part. In this one, I’m with a small group of people in a town, and there is a man there we have to fight, although it isn’t clear why, and he doesn’t actually seem to be an enemy. I can’t remember his appearance (or, really, the specific visuals of the dream in general), but something about him was reminiscent of Zorro somehow. A woman in the group demonstrates to me how to attack via a menu. There’s a list of attacks, most of which seem to be elementally based, but the woman indicates the one that he is apparently weak to, which is color-coded purple and labeled “Quiet”. Oddly, all the attacks just seem to be summoning various ensembles of musicians, who then play music. I select the most powerful option, which summons three of them. I then poke him in the back, which takes a small chunk out of his remaining HP. He’s just standing there and not responding in any way, so I poke him a few more times until he is defeated – or maybe just until I’ve got his attention, which seems as if it might be what this whole thing is actually about.
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