Month: January 2026

Categories
Dream Journal

Metal Action Movie Bullshit

I’m in an enclosed all-metal structure, reminiscent of a labyrinth. As I proceed through, around the corner some Marvel movie bullshit starts happening in the next room — lasers firing, superhuman karate, epic scale fighting (way above my pay grade). Reasonably, I’m skeptical that a normal human like me should be anywhere at all nearby. I take a left and crawl down a long sloped metal corridor, a blind curve down a ramp. I start to get scared/worried, actually. For awhile there it’s pretty uncertain whether I’ll be able to make myself go all the way down the ramp. It doesn’t help that I see flashing blue and red lights from the end of the tunnel, indicating there’s some heavy police presence outside for whatever nonsense is going down inside.

I manage to make it out, playing it cool for the gaggle of bored-looking cops standing around at the tunnel exit, on a pleasant terrace adjacent to the structure. Quite soon after me a female friend emerges from the tunnel — she must’ve been right behind me. She asks what the holdup was, if I got frightened or something. Ummm… I try to play it off once again, but consider going on a rant about whatever the fuck superhero garbage we had to deal with. The person I’m speaking to is one of my friends, Reecy or Jessica from La Paz, maybe both in one form. I don’t know the significance of either.

It’s time to take it easy for the moment. I sit at a bench with my father-in-law at the edge of an unused race track, chilling in the sun on a slow afternoon in Sacramento. I’m waiting for something , so now we’re waiting together. As we sit, I watch a massive metal bird made of spare parts loft a monster truck into the air in it’s janky mechanical claws. Oh, right, there’s a destruction derby going on in the stadium next to the track. We both glance at each other, sharing the same thought — it’s highly entertaining to watch, but since my wife is away it would only disappoint her to describe the cool shit she missed. But it’s here for us to enjoy, now, and we might as well.

Later, a single scene dream. My wife walks in the room and informs me with apparent gravitas and regret, yeah, “Fox and Mongreen closed last week”. Sounds like the kind of hipster restaurant place in the neighborhood that we’d typically be sad to see close. But wait… Mondegreen? Did I hear that right? Weirdly clever, upon reflection. This is the dream that woke me up — I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.

Categories
Dream Journal

Ferry Boat Findings

Just got back from a long journey home. After a while, I realize I forgot my bags on the multi-level ferry that dropped me off. Unexpectedly, I have to swim all over the delta looking for it… lots of houseboats and channels to get lost in, and weirdly, Israeli spies.

Following up on leads, I’m getting closer and I know it. I’m the neighborhood of Chicken’s boat (Chicken did actually have a boat in a Delta that I worked on, but this isn’t it). The boat is a scrappy mastless pirate-ship-looking thing sloppily painted light blue. A young man approaches in a barrel-craft and I negotiate with him for information. The ferry is hard to find for good reason, so it seems. It’s been parked for some time on a disused secondary level of a channel. Once I have that hint, I can find the local address and bootstrap my way into going there.

When I finally find it, it’s suspiciously gone downhill, fewer passengers, maintenance neglected. The crew seems nervous, too. I discover what’s been going on: trapped onboard is an unkillable giant cell, a non-sentient entity like the astral spikes in Control. They’ve been keeping it in the boat’s hold, or basement as I think of it, for some time. When I encounter it, it’s recently drugged by the crew. I help by wrapping it with duct tape. It’s immortal, so this is only a temporary fix, but I think it might actually work.

I’m given surgery to help my heart. Confusingly, it was placed a little too high. Maybe I have two now? My heart is excited to wake up, so I do. It’s an odd feeling, and I’m not sure whether to be worried… but I wonder what it means.

Categories
Dream Journal

Moto Journeys Meeting People, Helping a Runner

On some epic journey on my motorcycle, somewhere in central California headed north. While riding uphill out of town, I see that my phone at 1%. I try to quickly memorize the squiggly rural highway route up into the dry grassy hills, following the freeway just a few streets away down the hill. Maybe this is somewhere near Grapevine.

Along the way, I happen to meet three different important members of the extended highway community by chance. I often stop at nice places along the road, and it just happens. I’m usually busy packing or unpacking my motorcycle case, or tinkering with my tent, and this gives curious older people living nearby time to take an interest in me.

I help a endurance runner cross south toward Central America. I’m his route escort and encouragement, his spotter. At some point it’s interrupted when he’s arrested for something — I never figure out what. Later on, he and I are preparing for another leg. He’s relaxing, sitting with his girlfriend (my cousin Betty) on my living room couch in the Fartpartment. I’m leafing through records looking for stuff to play for him on the route; his only feedback is that he “jogs better when he doesn’t have to listen to music in French”. I give a good-natured tease about revisiting some records I already listened to, ones he missed because he was in jail. He’s teases right back when he points out that most of my box is upside-down, except the records I’ve been putting back in. Boooo. Oh well, I deserved the dumb luck.

Categories
Dream Journal

Decaying Mansion, Full of Falls

I’m staying over at the big fancy house of my friend Tracy in Richmond. This isn’t her real house, but a cavernous, fading, historic mansion with at least six stories. I find myself sleeping on a bed at the edge of one of the high atria. I catch myself at the edge of the bed one night, about to fall over the edge (luckily I put my travel bag next to me).

I learn of the forgotten story of a three-year-old boy who once fell from a height in that same atrium. The kid had become trapped in a decorative curved alcove, something looking like a luxurious conch shell ornament from the 1920s. This oddly dangerous decision was built along the smooth, carpeted ramp on the floor just below where I had been sleeping. He was saved by many firefighters who held a very wide sheet across the entire floor. The boy did fall, finally, into the rescue sheet, still asleep. Of course he wouldn’t remember it — despite the high drama. Yet one reason it was forgotten.

I like to explore the structure since I can’t move back to San Francisco, where I actually have stuff to do. I sometimes find little wooden square vents high on the walls and climb through them, just to have something interesting to do. Certainly no one else is bothering to explore the structure.

One day I find a gold mine. I discover a large unused space, dreaming of what I can do with it: a cafe, a clubhouse, a performance venue. Tucked away in the back corner, I discover a deliberately manufactured scary animated doll puppet, specifically designed to artificially frighten others into avoiding the space. It’s immediately obvious to me that this is a deliberate act of deception, and I quickly realize that I’ll need to persuade others to understand that the situation isn’t what it appears to be. However, it’s also the reason why the space remains freely available. Despite this, it’s also just another forgotten thing in the mansion.

When I first woke up, I remembered different dreams, the dreams I had just before waking. But when I found this one again, I stayed stuck on it. It was more enjoyable and interesting, I suppose. The others were totally forgotten in the process.

Categories
Dream Journal

Heard the Noon Siren, Many Years Later

Without much input, I’ve been reassigned to a previously occupied 2nd-story corner apartment. It’s not bad actually, though adjusting is a little odd. It’s so unlike anywhere I’ve lived, yet oddly so close — just a building over and a floor down.

I explore how it feels by walking around the chain of rooms, as the place is laid out on a loop. Some of the rooms are still set up with generic prop housewares as if for a real estate listing. I get a strong feeling of fondness here, unexpected acceptence of the new situation. It’s in things like discovering the single long, high bookshelf running across the series of front rooms, already stocked (by whoever lived here last) with good and interesting bond. I feel the same way when I gaze up to the highest part of the ceiling, a peaked triangular glass double window showing gauzy windows to an upper floor mezzanine and abundant houseplants.

The front door is inset from the 90° wraparound walkway outside, so people frequently cut through my little doorway alcove — I sometimes open the door and startle someone walking past. The view is just different enough to be mildly disorienting, almost refreshing at the same time.

Yet, while I look, I see workers from the city chopping parts of a tall tree in the street. There’s some new ordinance or decision, and public lighting can no longer use natural supports — either a lawsuit or some natural preservation thing. So the tree on the sidewalk just outside, the one that the community rigged up themselves, is now having many branches cut out because it’s the fastest way to meet the ordinance. It’s regrettable.

I hear the San Francisco noon siren for the first time in many years. It’s instantly recognizable, but there’s some kind of muffled announcement afterwards. I take it there’s some kind of provocative race angle in it? Something about “the Chinese”? So I’m a bit disappointed, obviously. But I should mention, for the record, that today actually is Tuesday, and I actually was asleep around noon when this would’ve happened.

I find out about a term Google has for a category of tool, from a “lake of hammers”, a colorful metaphor. The manager I’m talking to claims it isn’t fun to say, which I happen to disagree with. Lake of Hammers.

I am surprised to see that the Amanitas mushrooms I forgot about have actually ripened over time. They’re a pleasantly shiny smooth purple on each end, both cap and root.

My wife and I are walking down Market St, and as we cross the crosswalk aggressive sports cars cut close around us. Later we’re riding scooter together up Market when the bike falls over at an intersection. I take a shortcut through a college campus. Only halfway down, where I thought there were ramps, instead there are concrete stairs. Bullshit non accessible bullshit. Instead I exit out through a side door, passing by a plaque memorializing and praising an Italian design course or academy.

Categories
Dream Journal

this should be about rats (but isn’t)

For better or worse, I forgot my dream. I really feel like I could have tried harder, like I almost got it several times. I’m sure that it had something to do with rats. I kept seeing rat images and getting cued up, but nothing came.

It’s odd, because I just fixed this damn dreamkeeper page to work again (you know that’s how I write these dreams everyday, right?) And usually, when I put that much effort in, I’m much better at tuning in. Honestly, it’s part of the practice at this point. Fix the website; use the website more. Not today though.

To be fair, I discovered the thing was broken in new and different ways right after getting up. Seems my fix overwrote a lot of work I had already done. Figures.

Categories
Dream Journal

Orange Bike, Moving Mess, Missed Workshop

Cleaning the orange parts of an orange-accented bike with hydrogen peroxide. It’s very orange, with lovely yellow really grips, and I’m surprised how many scuffs actually come off well. I’m reminded of all the orange Nickelodeon bumpers I watched as a kid.

I ride the bike as I prepare to take a trip to the University Center, parking it outside the garage real quick to run upstairs. It’s like four flights up, unlike the childhood bedroom I had when I was seven, which it resembles.It only feels dangerous to leave the bike outside like that while I’m briefly delayed moving things around on top of a mini-fridge — which is silly of course. The way I’ve lived, I’m constantly on courts and cul-de-sacs and other safe places. That’s what I think in the dream anyway. Before I go, I ask my brother Patrick if he wants anything from the school cafeteria.

I moved into a new, smaller place with my family weeks ago, but all the appliances and boxes are still stacked everywhere. It’s strange looking into the kitchen and seeing the blank, high white walls, knowing that’s where the stuff should really go.The space should be full with shelves and organizers, but instead all that stuff is stacked high in front of it, blocking pathways. Eventually, we forced the unpacking issue a little, asking about a specific oven box. That guy isn’t going to be here for months still, so we just moved it.

I’m sad that I won’t get to see the house with a big basement again. I realized that since it belongs to my landlord, he won’t allow me to buy or rent it at this point. We don’t get along. This was actually another dream that I had, one with a house that had lots of kitchens — there was one specific one with a big island in the center, a few fridges, which I fantasized about turning into my workshop.

Categories
Dream Journal

A Whole Community Summer

Woke up from dreams… a dream of a whole summer of community…

My wife surprised me with a gift. I walk up to the open car door cuz there’s a whole crowd there, marching band even. They’re gathered around the car, and presented on the couch is an elaborately embroidered pair of pants — Chinese or maybe Tibetan patterns, zippers on both sides of the legs and snaps at the bottom so you can take them off quickly.. I found out later there’s snaps at the top so they can be taken off completely like that. There’s a tag reading $1,000… I can’t accept a pair of pants for $1,000, that’s too much responsibility for an item that I’ll actually wear. Looking closer, it seems to have been overwritten with a little orange sticker at… 64 cents!? I actually think this is a bit of joke-y marketing, and the real tag says $40 (which is an incredible price for a pair of pants like this). I don’t think I can stress enough: they’re simply gorgeous.

My cousin Kelly is begging me to tell him how to convince me to let him play a new PS2 game I have, some popular zeitgeist video game moment. But I explained the only thing I want is for him to not play it because I played it and I can tell it wouldn’t be good for him. I had to explain that, since my only goal was for him *not* to play it, there wasn’t any argument he could make to change my mind.

I have a big bag of metal cut-out letters, vintage cookie cutters I think. It’s my personal collection. I’m using it it an project, making text art on an inset wall of shelves. It’s several lines I can’t recall, but the message ends with “luv you cuz”. I end up having to monitor it because it’s super tempting for people to steal the little die cuts. I follow a shrugging gangster-looking guy who I see slip a little heart symbol in his back pocket, stomping his ass when I get him alone, crushing the little stolen heart in his back pocket and bruising his poor thieving ass. Reckon it left a heart-print that wouldn’t seem to jibe with the story of how he got it. I ask him why he would steal something like that… though oddly, I’m not mad, I just want to teach him a lesson.

Walking down a long slope to a beach like some place in Southern California, I see that Nautilus here are able to walk on their thin little tentacles like dogs, cavorting with people’s leashed dogs along the sandy sloped pathway down. I backtrack after I reach the beach wanting to get photo or video of these things, realizing they’re basically only found on that one path for now. They’re very playful, like little dogs, much more fascinating to watch than I can describe.

I’m going to hitch a ride with an expert Captain who pilots her own houseboat, getting to somewhere further away than where I want to go and backtracking closer to where I want to be. She has dramatic trouble turning out of the narrow waterway that is the port, having to perform hard turns a couple times. Something in the boat’s shaky mechanics, or maybe her captaining, is causing the massive and unwieldy houseboat to move unpredictably. After a few hard turns and close calls close (enough to get heckled by a group of vacationing Canadians drinking in lawn chairs) the boat grounds on a tiny gap of sand beach right next to the dock where it started.

Sitting in a crowd. Dara V. is about to depart, but before she does the medical guy she had hired to serve nitrous via a plastic tube (it’s tip covered with a snipped-off condom for improvised protection). He kind of beckons her, gesturing as if to say “I mean you already paid for it”. She kind of goes “ehhhh I mean… I could”. As she’s standing there I have time to study her face, and unexpectedly notice some of the subtle hints of how it’s aging, trying to imagine what it might look like when she’s even older. There’s weirdly nothing as specific as lines around the eyes or something… but I can kind of see it? There’s some distortion too, as I consider how Mar-a-Lago Face impacts visual expectations of age. I’ve been surprised before that she looked older at all — there’s always been a kind of an immortal or ethereal quality to her. Also… I didn’t even know she was into nitrous.

The tube get passed around and, comically, one of the brash younger gay guys in the crowd has a moment choking trying to deep-throat the tube. It’s unclear if this is a prank involving an actual dildo, or whether he intentionally used part of the apparatus *as a dildo* as a reference to not being able to deep-throat.

Two people have been in competition with each other all summer: a portly hip Black guy with a thick beard, and an effusive heavy-set blonde girl barfly-type. They’re dramatically playful, but still honestly trying to beat each other. He’s been trouncing her though, by a long way. He’s regularly working on stuff and has basically been making projects all summer, while she keeps dropping the ball either unluckily or sheer misjudgment. Sitting in a crowd he jokingly confronts her to do a final evaluation of their mutual efforts, which of course she laughs heartily about. He’s the winner and he seems to be bragging, but it’s the nicest way to go about winning for such a situation. She’s failed even on her own terms regardless of luck or anything else.

How does the dream end? I can’t remember. I heard a snippet of landlord outside. Nevertheless, I wrote it down. Tried a new journal app on my phone because the Oneirographer PWA was broken, again. I know these are the kind of life details that you, my dear reader, appreciate so you have proper context for all these. You’re welcome. You’re… you’re me in the future, aren’t you?

Categories
Dream Journal

Bank Visit and Cold Pelo, Cards Console Error

I’m somewhere inside a single story building with different compartments or stores. It’s kind of feels 1970s with the many odd 45° walls and it’s unusually tall, flat ceiling. I enter the wide double doors of a bank, where I need to do some research or perhaps fetch something.

A couple of miscreant bank workers near the front (the room is mostly rows of desks) spot me and try to invalidate my fresh papers — before I’ve even started. I understand this is because they assume whatever I’m reporting will negatively affect one of the bank’s performance metrics. They underhandedly want to game the statistics.

I store the bankers boxes which will be mine, including a smaller one that’s an art kit, under a built-in desk in a corner wall (like the one where I lived in La Paz). I pass by again later and the corner is weirdly cold, as if it were underwater and was recently flooded with a frigid, sluggish injection of water. As I investigate, I find a jar containing a small black-and-yellow gecko-like creature, a type of amphibian called a pelo. It’s been sealed and is motionless surrounded by the front of cold water. My wife says she sealed it up because it was misbehaving, and I’ll have to explain to her that you can’t seal something like that up as it can’t breathe like that.

I’m testing my app in-person on a console. It misidentifies one of my cards as having a syntax problem — there’s text on it containing “cards Cards Cards cArds” etc, which maybe can flex with the name of the cards database? But that shouldn’t be so. I’m reading the actual error message from the console and that’s what wakes me up!

The surprising thing is, I don’t think this incident followed standard rules for text in dreams. I feel like I was actually holding and evaluating a block of text instead of it being rewritten whenever I looked away. The “buffer” was large enough that it was like reading real text. Real enough that it overloaded… something, and woke me up I suppose.