Category: Dream Journal

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Dream Journal

Spaceship in Red Space

A spaceship rests inside a bubble of gauzy red fluidic space. Lines draw outward in all directions, tracing paths of movement and attack and probability and a thousand other vectors. It can, when needed, enter normal space to engage in combat but is terribly inefficient then — even boring.

While I imagine listening to a tight, slick, silly song by the band Tenacious D, I realize a sudden visual insight into the natural curve of the human face. I see it as a contoured path that our eyes follow on all people, but especially pretty faces, a shallow S-shape which I can perceive as line of small letter s’s. Odd, but I can’t tell if I fell asleep in the morning after the first dream or if I successfully remembered an earlier one.

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Dream Journal

Stranded, but with Friends, but without Sleep

dark water

While traveling between San Diego and San Francisco, I get stuck outside when service stops, at a warmly-lit pub, somewhere near a dark ocean. I have to figure out a second-fastest way to get back; it seems to be air travel. Unfortunately the airline books me with a 5-day stopover (!). I end up staying with my college girlfriend Jenna, and spend my time doing things like organizing colored markers in a cabinet.

I ask her about what it is she sleeps in, trying to get a read on whether it’s a good idea for me to sleep naked as usual. At some point (which I don’t notice until after waking), Jenna becomes my friend Mickey.

I stay with Mickey at a university. It’s getting on midnight and I want to sleep, but his bed is configured to be the size of a couch (this is similar to an actual story I just re-told yesterday). I navigate my way through stacks of books in this long hall full of students — surrounded by a focused studying energy only found in the early month of September in a school year — to an open triangular little storage room with a mirror screwed on the wall and the final 3/4 of a box spring, which will finally allow me to sleep on a full bed.

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Dream Journal

Dream of Ramona Flowers

Having just re-watched “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”, it should come as no surprise that I just dreamt of Ramona Flowers. I almost forgot that’s basically her whole thing for awhile there; skating through people’s dreams on subspace highways running though their heads. What’s maybe a bit unexpected is was my errant though that I would see her in my dreams tonight, and then actually seeing her. I can’t remember much else.

A huge flat wall of an image, a drawing of yellow red and purple swirls. I used an image like this recently in a project to illustrate stage 3 of Salvia divinorum ingestion.

Distinct imagery with eyes closed: fractal patterns, geometric or vine-like motifs, stable impressions of objects and designs, mostly all 2-dimensional. If visual effects are seen with eyes open, these are often vague and fleeting. Comparable to hypnagogic phenomena sometimes experienced at sleep onset. Open or closed eyes, visions are perceived as “eye candy”, not confused with reality.

Sitting round a table. My Homepie friend Mickey is there, and though I call him Mickey it’s been just so long since I’ve seen him. I obliquely mention cocaine in terms of it being “someone’s favorite”, and he brings out some (or at least what appears to be) on a beautiful hand-carved driftwood table.

Searching the garage in my childhood home, cleaning up my dad’s workbench with my mom — but it’s against the adjacent wall, where the books were. A tiny CFL bulbs roll off the table as we work. I’m exhausted and lay down on a couch on my stomach. A classmate of mine from elementary and middle school, Emily McIntosh, uses a tele-robotically-controlled rat to explore while I then rest peacefully on my back.

While hanging and swinging from a bar out the door to the backyard, I have a creative idea for my website: using vector outlines of patterns to fill with dynamic colors customized to the individual posts.

Fragments of dreams:
  • A table on a stage
  • Saving some friends for a demonstration
  • An object rising though the air and into the realm of gods
  • On the far wall, an inscribed poster
  • A StarCraft video game level of criss-crossing lines, where you start out as a character on the edge, and your objective is to lure the enemy into the lines away from safety
  • A broken lamp
  • Ramona Flowers
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Dream Journal

Diachromazita

Projecting movies on a TV screen. A big group, of freedom fighters or friends, or something else.

A child is born in an unusual store. I view a gigantic turtle in a swim tank, bigger than Archelon, alongside its human trainers/companions.

“Diachromazita” — a name/term out of a dream the night before, the only surviving fragment of it, and interesting enough to be worthy of naming something after.

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Dream Journal

Forgetting the Unforgotten

Flirting with a friend, Naomi Most, asking if she still loves on Blatrero — a silly pet name for her residence. She raises a Puck camping trailer from the ground floor on a circular platform with a spiral winch.

I happen to later visit her while she’s not there to drop off some keys. The door, which is locked, has an open wall right next to it so I just reach around and place them just inside, still feeling oddly like I’ve broke in.

A few crony political leaders are in a pool. They need to plot, but lack a secluded spot to do it. Reminds me of old Chinese court ministers, who had to wear long bars on the back of their hats so they couldn’t whisper in meetings. The only possible place these guys now have is on the top of the hill, where the pool snakes upwards (in defiance of gravity). One scolds the other feebly.

A long sequence intricately weaving around the song “Unforgotten” by Canadian indigenous singer Iskwé occurs, and I wake up with it my head, but ironically I forgot most of the dream.

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Dream Journal

A Cozy Compound in the Woods, and Famous Guests

Lazing around in some open vacation courtyard, an asymmetric rhomboid. Tired, I order Carl’s Jr., instead of pizza which my wife later reminds me she asked me to. I switch on the Weather Channel for light background noise… but apparently now it has ads?

I catch sight of a man I know, his balls exposed, but it’s just another fashion choice somehow. For a moment it strikes me how oddly it’s much less obscene than showing just a dick or the whole package, but I’m surprised to admit, it totally is.

I find myself idly wondering: when do surgeons learn how to bring someone back from the dead? Is there a day where they talk about the rules, the records, joke about being necromancers? Strange job.

I’m soon walking around a swimming pool while my friends and I are all skinny dipping, but then it seems a new group of grungy beer-drinking hipsters has showed up to the compound/courtyard — private party over. My wife and I start packing clothes and arguing about how long it will take, how much exactly we still have to pack.

Take a break briefly to shop at a grocery store, but I’m sad from the arguing and the mis-ordering and the leaving. On the ground I find a strangely-shaped oblong orange fruit (mango? squash?). I discover among the produce its other half, the banality of the explanation causing me to sigh and set it back on the ground instead.

While visiting my high school creative writing teacher Ms. Fitz’ classroom, I perch on the edge of a blackboard. But Lauren joins me, and us both sitting on it causes it to crash off the wall. Taking responsibility, I construct a replacement of a homemade paper version covered in art selections. The piece on the back, which I think clever (and which won’t normally be seen), is of a hand-drawn skeleton: an oblique downward view of the spine, scapula, and pelvic ridge. This is apparently a too-creative stretch for Lauren, who pans it and has me explain what she’s looking at.

On a creaky wooden staircase out the back, becoming woods, I encounter a weird deer with moss growing over the side of one eye. It’s friendly — almost spirit-guide friendly — so I go to get it carrots. I bring out an ice chest with two bags. As I re-emerge outside I gaze down the neighborhood hill, a single puff of steam popping out the rustic chimney of a tall squarish cabin house down the hill. The morning silence and fog is impressive, encompassing. I have a brief chat with a random neighbor guy and tell him what I’m doing. He asks for one of the bags. A bit selfish, but I offer to give him as much as will fit in his hands. A few animals immediately show up, at least one anteater (which I don’t think eat carrots, “but oh well” I say as I offer some) and a deer with teeth that look like it should definitely be carnivorous. I hand-feed that angular animal with great caution, but it seems not so much dangerous as derpy.

Up in our personal quarters, the musician Amanda Palmer is visiting. Hanging out with friends and band-mates, mostly naked. She’s very easy to host, quite self-possessed. and independent. Hangs out with her crew and chats/chills, taking breaks to talk with me or other family.

Meanwhile my wife tells me Kevin McAllister (Macaulay Culkin) a.k.a Kevin Pill is staying in another room in the complex. I want to thank him for his recent funny tweet and say how glad I am to have him, but I peek in and he’s doing some private conference. I don’t mind, but it could’ve been a sex thing? Masturbating? I don’t know.

I ask Amanda Palmer if they’d like to meet. I’m like “oh wait you already know each other”, and we together recall a time where they got into a debate and she surprised him with a detailed rebuttal, concluding at his shock “that’s right, I went to formal school too”. Listening to her voice is mesmerizing… deep and gravelly and calming. I remember that I should be recording it, and regret not doing so already.

A group of jock-ish “Lost Boys”-looking kids fly onto the room’s balcony. I block the view of my naked celebrity guests while he asks some random probing question, hoping to see them. Gauging my guests’ reaction, I deflect and gently let them down with whatever it is they wanted to ask. Part of being a good host, I guess.

Writing this all down, I realize we never finally departed to courtyard complex after all.

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Dream Journal

Remembering “Say the Thing”, Parking My Truck in Mexico

An island of scrubby brush and dry dirt. Camp Tipsy-like event of a gathering of friends goofing off in the water on junky boats. Twice someone locates a submerged set of “black eyes”, two large stones one can stand on in deep water off the pier. As he does it the second time, I’m clambering up the pier ladder, thinking about what Chicken yelled at me during a performance, “say the thing!” (reminds me of Varrick in Legend of Korra.) Back then I thought I wasn’t remembering something, but I think I realized it may have been a cue to just say something funny or catchphrase-y. I scoop out three tiny googly eyes floating in the dark water. The sun is dim, sky is twilight, and we’re leaving the pier. Debris of a wooden shelf is sticking out of the dirt near the end of the pier, it’s sharp little carpentry hooks ready to snag. I shove back and forth to dislodge it and one or two friends pause to help.

I go to retrieve my truck from where I parked it. This is Mexico, on a pleasant tree-lined urban residential street running down a diagonal hill. Sliding down the side toward it, I look downhill and notice the name “Billy” written on the slope. The drainage channel there has gone a bit crooked. I scoop out the dirt and straighten it out, but I immediately notice the water now flowing much too fast. I try to correct it, then absentmindedly return to my truck. With the keys in my hand at the door, I notice this is NOT my truck. I turn around and notice that (since I parked) a car has been parked behind and to the side of this truck, unnecessarily blocking any traffic on the street. Indignant, I scoop up a bunch of dirt and spread it all over the hood of the car. I then turn around to get my truck, the only other car on the street, only to find this truck isn’t mine either. I instantly know it’s been towed and I’m in for hours of bullshit, equally instantly am I infallibly certain that I parked it legally. Something has gone very wrong where I parked, and I don’t know where to start with figuring out what.

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Dream Journal

Hidden Object, Artifact Stash

Yeoman and secret alley. Hands carved from rock. Housing from my former mentor, who may return. Moving to a closet. Trying to put stuff back in drawers like it was, even though we’ve consumed the stuff in them. Old battery in half on counter. Hiding in the top shelf of a back closet. Feels like the place gets evacuated. In a front closet drawer, I act as dull as dead. I become like a kind of intelligent object. Get sent to the artifact stash, where there are cutaway model railroad tracks.

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Dream Journal

Destination: Cozy Nostalgic Coffee Shop

A “destination” coffee shop with various odds and ends, tasteful lighting and wood panels, a relaxed atmosphere, comforting smells. It’s run by Eileen (but with nobody else I know). I say hi to her, tell her I finally saw her in that documentary “Caffeinated”, but it was silly how they only used one clip — she’s already turned away though, either doesn’t hear me or pretends not to. Haven’t seen her in a long time, so it might be fair.

I’m here because I spent most of my day postponing putting on my motorcycle riding gear to get to my Russian school, not admitting to myself that I just don’t want to go. Eileen’s shop has rows of merchandise, uncrowded during the pandemic. I find a few items that make me nostalgic for earlier times in San Francisco. One, a cardboard tube with a signature affirming it’s been packed by my old friend Kelly Gallamore. (Perhaps the store is instead run by Noona Nolan?)

Someone I talk with there shares a personal difficulty. In what is a typical response for me, I share a tangential factoid I happen to know… some incident that happened to Queen Elizabeth II (then, viewing a flashback with Prince Philip as a colorful robot, playful geometric designs on all his clothes, colored plates covering his face). Later, I discover my old moto jacket and pants stuffed in a garbage can and fish them out.

The shop has a long row of machines (perhaps for copying or the like). Mine gets a very long piece of paper stuck in it, just as an employee unknowingly points me out to someone as a veteran user/customer who might help them. Down further the row become a trough of water, with a long flat rail down the middle. Several objects I need are floating in it.

Home now. Looking down from our apartment’s back room. To do that, we peer around a large rusty statue of a chicken that our landlord’s had mounted on the corner of the building forever. I think “huh, so odd but I’ve never had that thing remind me of Chicken John.” There are a few massive beasts getting aggressive with each other in the backyard. One looks like a bodybuilding panda with eyeliner, the other a stairway-bumping basilisk. They’ve wandered in, though could choose to fight anywhere. Up closer, I try to consider what to, but there’s not much else except watch.

Spiderwebs encrusting the middle of trees, trees all in a row, as I travel past at high speed. The only way to see them is to line their row and look through several at once. I crack that code, but can’t guess if anyone else has seen this strange metaphor. A metaphor for what though, I can’t say.

I remember: looking up at a dusk-time sky, thinking as if I’m outside my own life, that I was born here and now because I picked this lifetime so I could see humanity’s transition. In this case, the transition to digital.

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Dream Journal

Suit of Armor of Precious Nacre

Heavily secretive exclusive museum of pandemics, owned by the Catholic Church (or somebody associated with it). I’m one of a pair of journalists granted brief precious access. It’s a little storefront-like space inside a larger building, perhaps a European-style pedestrian mall. The walls are covered with tiny writing (data) paired with genuine artifacts — floor to ceiling. In the forefront of our minds is trying to remember as much as possible in our short time inside. To me, the most beautiful object is articulated shell nacre armor, a full cowl top.

After: in the last century rich people built trendy castle houses — regarded for their ostentatious aesthetics, but lacking any credentials as a fortification. The one I spot, displayed off to the left side on a table like a school diorama, was called “the height of progress in castle tower building.” I notice angular zigzagging stairways between the indefensible stone towers. Curiously, the stairs leading up to them have occasional big vertical rises. Up to the top of the hill, secluded from public scrutiny, I visit the village of lower-class workers who mind the castle grounds. Descended from the first minders, they strike me as amiable and humble people, who I could imagine happily spending a great deal of time with.

On a 1940s-ish city street I pop into a heavily-frequented doorway atrium. I’ve been waiting to see when it’ll open, checking often. It’s been graffitied and painted over so many dozens of times… a place with an everyman vibe. But a place where I never realized (until it’s pointed out to me) I shouldn’t store my electronics, two of which have been incautiously stored under flimsy cardboard for some time. Despite this, they’re still there and I understand the likelihood of people finding it, thinking of stealing it, but giving me the grace of my ignorance — almost as an act of charity. I just never put together how rough and tumble this fondly-regarded neighborhood actually is.

In a small upstairs apartment where I’m staying, while my friend group is gone, I discover a small furry animal (perhaps a baby rat). I present it to them when they return, including, for some humorous reason, a small rock for comparison. I put the tiny rat into a hamster cage next to the big rat cages, which are stacked precariously five terrariums tall. At the small vibration of shutting the small “hamster cage” door, those glass terraria fall down and I immediately recognized their center of balance is far higher than their middle. I resolved to fix it next time, cursing.