Category: Dream Journal

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Dream Journal

Festive Solitude & the Razor Tree

Standing around in crowd of men, or more likely boys. It feels normal in this space, a mall, or a cafeteria, some other large enclosed space where access in controlled. My mind and personality is as I am now, but perhaps in a younger version of my body. At the other end from where I stand, some boy expresses interest how, since it some festive time, drugs might be procured. Not long after that someone shows up and begins negotiations — I, instead of being curious how it’s done here, straightforwardly leave through the rows of aisles. I think I pass right out the front door, in fact.

Nothing better to do, I settle in near a stage where Christmas songs are sang with a twist. Perhaps the lyrics are altered, or maybe the performer is a kid in a VR cartoon owl projection. There’s much going on today so it’s about as solitary as I’m likely to find. There are chairs set up facing the stage but I prefer to sit on the ground and be with my own self.

Later, I’m pointedly following Plarvolia, a girl who rejected me. I have a sense that I’m bugging her so she might consider what she did and perhaps one day even apologize. She’s ahead of me at a theater box office, where she buys the last two tickets (tickets can only be bought in pairs here). Despite the perfect opportunity to ditch me, she makes a show of leaving the other ticket on a ledge for me.

I find myself in possession of a strange gift. There is a tree which always grows back from its stump long, spindly tendrils, razor-sharp thorns all along them, like vicious squid tentacles. I see it growing on what might be a Greek/California seaside, which also abuts a prim English waterway. It hides another terror, which is that it keeps within itself every disease there is. A terrifying thing to exist, much less to have. But I only admire its strangeness.

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Dream Journal

Hardware Store Naps thru Greek Island Graphs

I’m enlightened and free. I’m also younger than I am currently in the waking world. Because I can, I take a nap in a hardware store. Something to do isn’t it? (I remember sleeping in dreams more often than I used to — perhaps a sign that I’m able to recall more of the story from a complete REM cycle.)

Wandering over to the Christmas discounts section, but I can’t get through because my cart blocks the aisle. I’m wearing my favorite fleece-lined burgundy winter hoodie (which I’ve only had since this October). I pass through a section at the back of the store, near the underground parking lot, which is special for today, similar to a craft fair: many vendors behind tables each sell individual items for model train sets. The sellers (all redheads) are arranged in a square-ish gradient by the shade of their hair, a peculiar effect I don’t think I’ve noticed anywhere before.

For a little while afterwards, I’m separating coffee beans from big chunks of salt mixed in. While my hands are busy I discuss something with my friend Sherilyn (who I’ve not seen in several years). We’re talking as though I had once had a crush on her. I wish I understood better what we were talking about.

My wife mentions hope of one day soon vacationing in Greek islands. I take it upon myself, with a new insight that moment, to plan this trip thoroughly based on transfers between islands — ie, if make it here by 4:00 we go here this day, otherwise stay at this hotel leave 10:00 tomorrow, etc. I can make priorities and possibilities completely that way, almost like graph theory upon reflection

My wife mentions her hope of one day vacationing in the Greek islands — perhaps soon. I take it upon myself, with spur-of-the-moment insight, to thoroughly plan a trip based on timed transfers between islands. For instance, if we made it to a certain island by 4pm we could visit a certain place — but if we missed our ETA, we’d stay at a particular hotel, then leave at 10 the next morning. There were fallbacks and chains of causality laid out quite clearly. Upon reflection, it felt like exploring graph theory to prioritize and plan the trip.

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Dream Journal

Dreamt above the Casitas Express, Los Barilles, BCS

Outside on a scaffold of our property i release a stray (non-pet) rat into our neighbor’s treehouse platform. It’s a caring gesture, but I don’t know if the neighbors would think so — it’s so high up I don’t they’d see. I realize that I had one of our younger pet rats on my shoulder (Jumby or maybe Fergus) and he must’ve leapt off somewhere along the way. I have to trespass onto the tall redwood treehouse platforms and jump down. I have to trace my steps back through a complicated series of cuboid spaces. This is a bit of a hackers domain: abandoned for it’s original industrial purpose then accessed and gradually claimed by a community of unaffiliated fringedwellers. I establish that little Jumby must’ve jumped off somewhere inside the safe zone of a complex of shipping containers; I don’t have to fear he is lost or in any real danger.

In front, ambling out on the sidewalk, I spot my homeslice friends Lauren and Mickey about to surprise me on my return trip from Australia. I approach from behind them (which unintentionally seems to interrupt their plans) and show them a few spots nearby that I now know. One place is off the street is a courtyard with a big tree. It’s much like the large unusual fig at Santa Rita Hot springs which I visited yesterday, but also like a picture I have of Lauren looking into a small green alley in San Francisco (from her 21st birthday trip, when I first arrived).

Riding a favorite bicycle in urban back alleys, somewhat Melbourne-ian. Magical tools are carried in the panniers but I don’t need to use them. My wife turns into a possum-rat and hides in a few of the lively clubs in this part of town. The vibe is an unlikely combination of Australia, Europe, New York, and cities in Baja Sur, Mexico. I locate my wife in a trendy wood-paneled place that could be a country whiskey bar. She has cartoonified herself flat inside a book, her back backed up to the spine.

By chance I run into my friend Dara, who’s very happy to see me. She’s completely dolled up in colorful goth makeup (looks a little more girlish than usual, not quite the Dara I know) and an all-black Victorian / Gothic Lolita outfit. She asks about my travels; I mention that no one asked about it when I posted about going to South America — it’s been long enough that I can’t remember if I really went, out if it was some prank that didn’t work out. In the course of talking we discover the country of the Bahamas is a place she, my wife, and I all have a connection to (partially true IRL). We express an enthusiasm for maybe one day visiting together.

I’m introduced to a nervous single woman who lives at a monument usually guarded by fog, in the center of a roundabout near a scenic vista. I happen to previously have found it myself, not knowing it was hidden on purpose. She has recently had a fence put up, as the fog patterns have changed. She reminds me of many people I might typically know through Facebook. My impression is she mainly just works on the monument while she lives there as an artist residency, and only socializes online.

I’m passing through a ritzy suburb (possibly military officers) when I chance upon a home I visited long ago. It’s an idiosyncratic burrow home dug into the desert sand, partially open, by an artist who made it for himself as an experiment in minimal living space. My Uncle John toured it as a possible place to live and I got to tag along, years back when I was probably a kid. (This seems like a real event as far as I thought in the dream.) I get invited in by the current owners and I point out the things I notice changed. It’s an astonishing use of space for somewhere that should only be enough room for 3-4 next to each other, especially the clever kitchen. The earthen dwelling seems to expand the longer I’m inside — I comment asking about this to the retired woman who lives there. But I think she starts hitting on me, which presents it’s own problems. I have to politely let her down once I notice her eyes, which have been rendered in low-poly texture like on a PlayStation One. I remember the name of this dusty house, or perhaps the (real) community it was built in: Kayenta.

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Dream Journal

Australia is My Backyard

Where I live, we have a large and expansive backyard. It’s shaped like Australia, split into sections much like the various states, with the back of the house where the Great Australian Bight would be. But also: the backyard is Australia. It has the same features, because it’s the same place — if perhaps not in an explainable way.

A good example is when my family (including my dad and sister) visit. The travel time and distance is great so it’s very kind of them to come all this way. As we’re walking along and I’m showing them around, we all make the same mistake. We get east and west backwards, and soon figure out that’s because the midday sun is actually in the north here, not the south — this is the southern hemisphere after all.

There are portions of the dream where I replay and recall things I already know. The feeling is consistently nostalgic, comfortable, only occasionally bittersweet. I’m fondly reflecting, replaying things I already know. Australia — the island continent — formed 100s of millions of years ago from the agglomeration of several ancient island groups drifting together. They each have their own vibe and color (the memory here almost veering into another dream remembered from long back, navigating the isolated Pacific isles to the north, as if I’m on a catamaran on the colored surface of an old paper map). You can just barely perceive the seams where the land was sintered together. Those sections roughly correspond to the states, in fact.

One large area we have is a mud pond in the east, around where Queensland and New South Wales might be. It’s like a big swimming pool, which I keep accessible for my neighbors. Incidentally, that’s one thing I really like about living here, is that I can keep the space an asset for the whole neighborhood. I’m crossing the mud pond to say hello to some folks on the far side (Great Barrier Reef) when I spot a stuck turtle. I lift it over to the nearest edge and leave it there to recover, but it seems it didn’t need to be rescued. It scrambles away and dives back into the mud. I just live here; I don’t know everything.

Meanwhile I still am renting. I live on the ground floor, and the previously unused space now sometimes has the landlord’s relatives. Could be the above floor, could be an attached building behind ours. They’re having a gathering so it’s a curious time to explore. It’s not exactly sneaking around, but I just blend into their party guests. No one interacts with me. By happenstance, I find my wife’s coffee cup forgotten at a dark corner of their smooth granite bar. She does this sometimes. I know I’ll be reminding my wife to try not to leave it places like that; there’s little chance we would’ve found it otherwise.

The dream is capped off when we throw a crafting party one nice sunny weekend. There are stations all over the large backyard for making arts and crafts, our community socializing together. I squat on the flat, dry Northern Territory assembling a thematic decorative hanging with native materials like wood, arranging it into a naturalistic design that reminds me of some aboriginal styles.

There’s a memory that’s sparked, from when we first moved in more than a decade ago. When we moved in, the landlord (same landlord as in waking life, actually) asked me to break down the former tenant’s greenhouse on the western side of the backyard. (Western Australia is a big and wild place.) It was just some corrugated green plastic balanced on cheap wooden pillars, nothing that ought to be lamented. But it was so much space for plants, plants we would’ve loved. Someone worked to make that space useful and we didn’t even consider that we might’ve used it too. I was in my early 20s and had more energy than forethought. I remember having a nice day working outside, chopping down the supports posts.

There was something else that I hadn’t thought about at all till now, the neighborhood hardware store that the old tenants hosted. Stacks of tires, bins of tools and equipment that you could pop in and borrow. I don’t even know what happened to it, but I know at some point people stopped visiting for it. And there was this badger that visited every week. Big flat docile waddling creature named Mitch. We never set food out and I guess at some point he stopped visiting too.

So there’s this lament, as I realize the my artwork is becoming what I’ll call finished. Seeing how we’ve lost these nice things in the past because we didn’t even know they were things we were losing. But the artwork is done, and it’s actually quite nice.

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Dream Journal

With Dara in Bed at McD’s

Spending night in McDonald’s restaurant which contains a hotel. The bed is in part of the restaurant, off to one side. Sleeping next to Dara all night after coming down from psychedelic. Walking up, I need to unlock her phone and fail. She admits her phone unlock pattern (4×4 grid) is too complicated for her also, then she just resignedly unlocks it with her thumb.

It feels nice to be close and trusted. With the lock pattern, the physical closeness. Weird place to wake up but unique and novel.

Bay leaf cannon. Dara admits to overusing it during certain periods. She says jokingly “You can crack a nerd.” Using it as in fire a bay leaf spritz spray outside of restaurant. Use David Barzelay as an example, painting food products with it outside — rotating the food and firing blast after blast.

We plan our route for the day when she wakes up.

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Dream Journal

Alien Sarcophagus in Space Smells like Mulberries

A puzzle occuring at the end of a story, the long story which took up most of the night. The trick is how to trap a malicious woman (the villain, like Debbie in Addams Family Values perhaps, perhaps one of the Fox News blondes). There’s an extra-dimensional storeroom, with bars on the windows triggered by levers. And within is the prize we are both after: a replacement kid. So trap the woman, get the kid. We have set up many layers of causailty and physics-bending to get to this point — the kid is a version a purple-haired enby kid in my neighborhood that I help out with, extracted from a different universe. Something happened to ours; maybe they died, or gell into a black hole, maybe were abducted by some yet another universe.

I reflect how this is one of my favorite movies, but like Lifeforce it’s critically hated and mostly forgotten. And just as I’m beginning to wake I discover the order of latching, and locking, and I successfully get the kid. Leaving, back for my world.

Alien sarcophagus found in deep space smells like mulberries, bears inscription stating it has no idea who Kelly Kardashian is. This clearly sounds like an AI art prompt, and if I’m honest that’s probably why I thought of it in my hypnopompic ascent.

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Dream Journal

Mayan Motif, Feelings of Early Winter

A racing game set on a semi-oval course laid out in an office store. Speeding above the aisles, like a trainset hung from the ceiling of a dentist’s office. Tall narrow windows flood in color like a sunset. The brown tones and amber light give it a nostalgic mid-century aura.

I descend from the track after I am intrigued to notice a seated Drew Carey. I thank him for his show I enjoyed as a teenager, and he mentions another Drew Carey Show actor — I’m embarrassed I can’t continue the conversation, as I don’t know if that’s the blond or the brunet guy, as I don’t remember their names.

I take it upon myself to advance the next part of the game, headed up to a sunny Mayan temple level on the outdoor mezzanine. There, power-ups transform the player/POV character into a multi-legged mythical beast, a praying mantis centaur that rampages across the chessboard-like lawn outside the gates. Mayan revival architecture is a motif running through all these dreams.

My household spends a long time trying to leave our house to start a weeks-long cross-country journey. It’s winter and we’re packing a boxy car, maybe an SUV. We eventually get out the door, but by then it’s so late that we have to turn back — there’s not enough time to reach a safe stopping point. So we leave the house the next day, too.

Back in an office workplace, an unexpected meeting is called at the of end of day. It’s an unusually chummy workplace, and as part of the culture I snuggle my coworkers in a big dumpster/dent in the white floor. At first I’m warmly pressed against a girl I like, but a shuffle later I’m left with either a single other guy or no one. It’s simply the flip side of this arrangement, so I kill time standing near a fence and fiddling with a drawer.

Back in our apartment again. Asking our neighbors Dolly and Candida for to-go container (I say “greenbean box”) as they’re rushing out the door. They’re actually former neighbors but in the dream they still live next to us. I peek inside — their apartment is a mirror of ours, having the same long narrow hallway which unfortunately consumes so much space. In the dream it slopes upward and is supported by thin columns, and I’ve decorated ours with hanging art. Since I realize both neighbors are gone I’m tempted to visit the hidden upper levels of the building; I’ve discovered a blocked-off stairway passage in our kitchen, which leads to a forgotten door (technically part of the neighbors place). Even though supposedly we live on the top floor, I’ve previously accessed a roof level where there is a park-like garden and commercial vendors. I’ve been to it in a dream before, and I find myself gazing up at the obfuscated structures wondering if they survived the pandemic.

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Dream Journal

Dental Office / Photo Box Date

In two days, I have two dates at a dental office. It’s with my friend Dara (whom I used to go out with). I’m obviously more touchy-feely compared to the other patients — it’s a strange situation as I wouldn’t announce we were dating (Dara never thought of it like that anyway) and who goes on a date with a dentist multiple occasions to work on one’s teeth? I can’t remember if we made out at all, what with all the work being done on mouths there. Weird thought.

Inside a white office drawer under a counter, I find a drawer full of photos. I make it my task to clean them out. Unclaimed property and all that. I almost disrespect the person by default for leaving all their memories for someone else to deal with — then again, I don’t know the circumstances of how they were left.

I’ve been dealing with photos for awhile when I find one taken by Dara, one that was mentioned. It was taken at a seashore with craggy spikes, flamingoes, a 1950s wood-sided family car. Different areas of the photo are shown as I turn it in the colored lights — the flamingoes in the corner only show with the pink, for example. This is how I know it was the one mentioned, taken by Dara.

After doing the work with the photos I come into possession of an old blue suitcase. Not by my own choice, in fact — it was practically thrown at me. There’s a small group who are plainly coordinating with one another, trying to pull a scam of some kind. With feigned nonchalance, I’m asked to read aloud the address handwritten on the inside of the suitcase. It’s in Chicago with a zip code that someone insists “checks out”. Though I’ve been aware of there’s some scam, I’m starting to suspect it’s an actual curse — something that has to be passed on to an unwitting host.

I perceive, beyond just the curse-related suitcase, that the layer of fabric lining a nearby fence is named Malcolm (a very human name for fabric, isn’t it…).

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House of Ukraine

Escaping a house which represents Ukraine, as besieged by the Russians. I was a journalist and accidentally became stuck there, making the most of it going from room to room. Noticing near the end they finally changed everything and cleaned up all the rooms, and are dragging away my big metal box. Yank it away and flee through the front hayloft door. I manage to warn incoming friends about a girl with a vagina between her digits (middle and ring finger), that she secretly works for the Russians. The paper topper for my box detaches and blows across street — I walk to retrieve it, thinking about the image of the Angelic Sword of Michael.

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Old Man Spills My Plants

An old man has been taking care of my plants while I’ve been on a journey abroad. He’s a Swiss scientist, and perhaps also my friend Autumn’s dad. When I come to retrieve my plants, he releases a linchpin connecting the corner of an L-shaped wall which was constructed to hold them. They spill out across the ground, destroying several that are fruiting and could’ve been food. I want to be angry, to complain, asking why he did such a thing, but he took care of my plants the whole time I was gone — only to do this. I’m flabbergasted and I reason it would be too embarrassing in front of my friends to get mad, and still probably not get a decent answer.

As I leave I pass my Aunt Carol, who I see is the only one awake on the second floor of a roofless house. “Tell my story…”, I jokingly implore. But I have to repeat it and get up close to the house because I insist on saying it in a funny voice. Also, perhaps for nostalgia toward some of the peppers I lost when they spilled on the ground, “remember to pepper your food…”

“Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” — I manage to remember to say this, just as I step out of bed for what I know will be a long day.