Category: Dream Journal

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Dream Journal

Special Train, Bobsled Cousins

A bobsled track (like from the movie Cool Runnings, which I last saw when I was 8?!) with still pictures viewed overhead, relating a story. A process which helps my New York cousins Betty, Diana, and Miriam. We ask Miriam if she has that little vial we gave her, we think it may help with success. It’s noted that Diana has done well in love, though, more than the others.

I approach a rail crossing blocked by a train. My attempt to go between wheels underneath carriage is suddenly aborted when I realize the train is still slowly moving. From the train itself, a friend yells that they’ve brought it as a surprise — it’s actually the train I had as a kid: engine #5721 with two cars from the Pennsylvania Railroad. The caboose is there too, and I have an odd feeling that I’ve rode this train before without it being this particular set.

In a theater I receive an unanticipated blowjob during a parallel sex show on stage. Semi-acknowledgment from the stage when they’re done, so we play it off as nothing and I cover my erection with my forearm. Turning to talk to the girl — Lynae? Lauren? Someone else? — as it is announced that now we’re doing the mandatory switching-seats ritual. I have a bunch of my travel stuff under mine so have a difficult time moving to a new seat, and difficulty picking a new seat partner. I don’t feel like sitting next to Dayle Zimmer (whom I knew when I was 11?!). My wife has already delved into conversation with two people in the front row, is clearly having an easier time with the ritual.

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Dream Journal

Canal Islands of the Geode Gate

A rocky natural canal dotted with crystal islands. The canal has recently been updated, slightly moved over to the side at great expense by a wife — to the frustration of the French house-husband whose daughter’s perspective I see through. Every island has its own little story and shop.

A quiz, centered around a long acronym (printed in neat capital letters), taught to a class while I was gone. Talking to a Mongolian princess in some position of authority (perhaps the instructor) as I step through a gate made of geodes on one of the islands, putting the acronym backward and actually applying it.

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Dream Journal

Departure Prep, Rejected Arrival, Fabulous? Absolutely

Prepping for a departure to another year of an event I attended previously (which my wife organized), Reverie. My friend Reecy is there, near a craft booth like at one of the many craft fairs I’ve been to. Her pose is perhaps like in a photo from the year past.

There’s a moody infotainment style-ride in this complex where we’re prepping; feels like something from the video game “Control” set in a blue atmosphere. I do a run in the water feature circling a dark rocky island, spotting three out-of-place witticisms inscribed on the tank floor — which I realize must be Easter Eggs I can now post on the game/ride’s subreddit. During some seasons I know this watercourse is drained so I wonder why they haven’t been posted before, as they’re specific and easily searchable. Still floating around the ride circuit I try to remember the other things I want to take to the Reverie event this year, particularly my phone’s waterproof case. How can I use my Bluetooth earbuds in the water though? (note: lately I’ve been using my Bluetooth earbuds more often.)

Later a friend’s non-binary kid, Charlie, appears at the edge of a tiled area behind where we’ve been prepping to depart, dimly-lit in preparation for leaving. They ask me timidly to use one of the two bathrooms. I respond “sure!” then offer them a chocolate from a tin I’m carrying, which they awkwardly accept. A nosy woman soon attempts to chastise me for this, saying “it’s hard enough for a kid working on their gender identity to ask for anything related to public bathroom use… they certainly shouldn’t also be offered candy by strange men”. In fact I’ve known Charlie since they were a baby, but I try to good-naturedly engage her opinion without seeming outright skeptical or dismissive. But the few listeners nearby make it known they find this woman’s remark ludicrous.

I read of  an account of an Australian Aboriginal reservation turning away a shipload of refugee Americans. The ship’s crew goes to the trouble of digging out a blockage in the channel leading to the reservation called Rhode Island Sandbank. The aboriginal leadership announces they’ve changed their minds at the last minute, a loss to all sides — the refugees needing a new home, the country of Australia which would benefit from their presence, the mother countries America and Britain which suffer brain drain too. Though after learning of it, I can’t be entirely sure if it’s true to the history or if it’s a biased, racially-motivated screed.

“Fabulous? Absolutely” is an American TV movie recut from the British show Absolutely Fabulous. This version has an older pair of main characters Eddy and Pats. Typical of National Geographic vs. BBC Attenborough documentary. Predictably disappointing but still novel in that strange way that foreign perspectives are.

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Dream Journal

Siftka, & a Dress of a Decayed Drum

“Siftka”, an evocative name with no meaning I can recall. After I’ve been awake a while a box has been left on my front doorstep filled with this, being shoved out bit by bit.

Being shown a small portable dishwasher operated by syringe injection of water. I’m cleaning the fireplace while my dad yells at my brother Patrick in the other room, a daily ritual now. I idly wonder if this is part of him processing being a social worker (his real-life job).

Examining a big metal drum that is suffering from degradation, an appearance like my middle-eastern doumbek but sized like my big Portland djembe. It’s walls are starting to tear and it’s not holding it’s shape. I’m actually inside the thing searching for how to repair it when my wife comes upon me in the kitchen entryway, and we have a moment’s laugh as essentially I’m now wearing it like a tight dress.

Another object is a jacket made of four jackets. I have to find the right zipper to unzip turn off the drum’s automatic drumming.

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Dream Journal

Tragic Little Octopus Friend

A group of us is invited to dine underwater with the creatures of an aquarium. One particularly lively critter is a plump round little octopus that circles the tank excitedly, farting over our heads.

A long bit later I notice that I haven’t seen any recent updates on our local remake of Deep Space 9 lately. On top of a plastic bin under a little tarp, I find our dried-out octopus friend. This is so sad, as he was producing DS9, and he would have survived if anyone had remembered to spray him with just a bit of water occasionally.

I realize, also, this was accurately predicted by a fortune cookie, which is perfectly clear in retrospect.

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Dream Journal

Eggshell Gym, a Snippet

Sleeping under the curved wooden rafters of a roof like an eggshell. Reminiscent of my middle school gym.

All else lost, no further notes were made this night.

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Dream Journal

An Instrument Case Full of Instruments

I carry around a huge case shaped like an upright base, but it’s filled with all manner of instruments in different compartments. For whatever reason right now, the only one I want to play is banjo.

I merge onto a pandemic-stricken 24th Street, the commercial corridor near my home here in the Mission District. Empty businesses line the far side. Posters advertising kratom have taken place of the storefronts.

Gazing at the face of an old acquaintance, Katie Petro, and remembering we dated once. Her identity was later lost and rediscovered.

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Dream Journal

Heromum on the Seashore

A high wall, like a seawall, and behind it people I went to high school, walking. Reminds me of a gigantic pool I’ve been to in many dreams over the years.

Dropped into an alcove/alley with a plaque, a weird little oddly sided polygonal space. Behind a disused door I gain access to the 2nd-story of an RV house. My key fits in the ignition of the complicated control panel. A quick jump in narrative to the aftermath of driving/flying/crashing it into a burned-out tree (which is practically charcoal).

As I awake I have a fantasy of a place called Heromum: on the seashore, a hot spring on the edge of the ocean in the Greek province of Laystatia.

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Dream Journal

Belle Delphine’s Tiny Skull Machine Concert

Belle Delphine invites me to her concert, from a corner balcony at the edge of the venue. She seems really nice and I’m even considering joining her Patreon/Onlyfans for $5. Held inside walled-in park grounds that usually hosts metal shows, once I’m inside I’m not surprised the crowd is mostly guys. It’s a pretty good concert for someone not otherwise known as a singer/musician.

Random piles of cool little toy skulls can be found in stacks, many different shapes & colors. I collect as many kinds as I can. In a confined screened-off space I come across a squat bulky machine totally covered in controls and meters, like Dalek steampunk art or fused-together antique medical devices. But my boating friend Marc Roper comments that to him it “doesn’t look like they’re just kludges” (a.k.a. greeblies, that is to say not just for show). Chicken John does an explanatory bit in the middle of the show for Belle in order to explain the machine: we are to drop the skulls into the top of the device to collect a variety of corresponding prizes. I’m happy that I’m set to collect a lot.

It’s now very crowded with fans behind the machine, among some open-air shelves. Crouched in a small ball near a top shelf, I try to cheer up a sad withdrawn little Triceratops (like Sarah from The Land Before Time).

Part of the show involves an experiment where the crowd is allowed to feel Belle’s outstretched leg. This seems to go well; perhaps something of the peer pressure of not wanting to be the guy that caused the fun to stop. She’s really engaged with her audience and seems to interact on the same level. Soon she is milling among the crowd after the performance and personally thanks me, using my name. I question aloud how she could’ve known my name, and my friends parrot back, perhaps mockingly, “I dunno Orin, how did she know your name?”

Driving a junker car through dusty parts of my hometown. As I drive along, alone, I chuck my signature ping-pong balls with skulls melted into them in the backseat. I’m listening to the radio (AM 1205?) because I don’t have my usual phone transmitter. Only just make a yellow light at a large intersection against a long line of cars going the perpendicular direction — while crossing, I maintain my eyeline on the tall tamarisk trees on the opposite corner.

From memory, I park in the driveway of the address I think I’m headed — 1284 — next to a woman parked in a car there already (it’s a long driveway so there’s room for me to pull right beside her, then back up). If this is the wrong address, I figure she’ll just have a close encounter and nothing will come of it.

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Dream Journal

Civic-Minded Unusual Dilemmas

A voting station is located at a sunny plant-lined street corner in my neighborhood, near the Five Markets grocery. A older mom is setting a bad example by parking herself in her camping chair too close to where voting is happening, advocating her causes, believing she’s not breaking the law because as an experienced mom she only has good intentions.

I’m volunteered/recruited to serve in an official capacity on a committee fulfilling the protocols of French justice. We’re brought into a long narrow indoor space with all manner of investigatory equipment stowed away in compartments. One such instrument activates a reenactment of the perpetrator’s statement. It’s a gray-haired Jewish lady, older but not elderly, who appears very evidently happier locked away and isolated in her own boxed-in world. Inconveniently, the transgression she is accused of committing seems both 1) intended to have gotten her locked away, and 2) not serious enough to merit such “punishment”. An ethical conundrum thus results for we judicial volunteers.

Inhabiting an odd communal outdoor space comprised of a large wave pool interspersed with metal tool lockers as tall as a man. Periodically other men and I rummage around in the wire-walled lockers to fetch tools for one job or another. I’m less experienced than most of them and might be doing an apprenticeship. One of the friendlier and artier guys demonstrates his solution to moving audio between distant parts of the wave pool, crossfading between top speakers and bottom speakers, creating an illusion of living sound.

I’m assigned a certain one of the locker-tops close to the wave machine, where sea creatures like starfish and barnacles crust heaviest. I am to use the roof for lounging and my home base. A teenage girl named Megan is randomly paired with me to share it. She’s lanky and skimpily dressed, stylishly suntanned, with a breathy unpolished voice. On first meeting she’s immediately suspicious of my maleness, giving a speech about how we’ll never sleep together and don’t get any ideas, et cetera. She says this to me while laying on her stomach in a bikini, sunglasses pushed down her nose, gazing at my shirtless torso. We’ll be sharing this intimate little room-sized island for several months… and this is the first thing she says to me. Whether Megan realizes it or not, the two of us having sex has become an immediately apparent eventuality. I respond to her haughty pronouncements with only a wolfish grin.