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Dream Journal

Forgot the Naked Pictures in my Wallet

On a university campus of a huge wide open green, I spot a parade of Cthulhu characters emerging. I race on an intercept course so I can start shooting a video and record the beginning of the column coming into frame. This seems like a unique tradition on this campus and I think it’d be a great idea to share it.

Following after the parade, I become like a student. Not bad academically in fact; I keep quiet and perform the class activities dutifully. The group arrives at an enclosed multi-purpose space where much occurs. I take initiative to remove the plastic cover of the room’s ring of string lights and jiggle them back into position as best I can. In one corner I notice “Gavid David”, supposedly George Lucas’ self-insert character from the new Star Wars, which is a broody chicken — his wavy hair is carefully coiffed and dyed rainbow colors.

In my wallet I discover some very cool photos of a clown girl I know, Sabrina W. She’s doing handstands and performing splits, looks like she’s naked and with body paint. I’m confused at first then they jog my memory, I took these myself not long ago when we had sex — sometime during the dream chronology, in fact.

On a street I attempt to find a relative of a deceased classmate from my youth, Stephanie Sukhram, to give $20 as a token of common mourning… enough at least to buy some flowers if they wish. (Perhaps it counts toward what I owe them for that stuffed teal-and-pink shark.)

I observe part of Finland in the wintertime, where bodies are being buried by the side of a road. A man jokingly announces “that’s what happens to Finns who don’t sign the new road adjustment form”.

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Dream Journal

Fossil Comes to Life

Finally invited over to home of acquaintance Colin F. and put to work draining oil from classic 1950s car. Not great at it, and I’ve attempted this job in the past. It’s cool checking out his space though. A plastic 3/4 profile relief head of my friend Autumn T. is attached high on a wall. It occurs to me that this angle, while unusual for a relief, looks better than the dead-on one of her I previously have seen.

In a shallow riverbed I stumble across a perfectly intact fossil skeleton of a raptor (or primitive human) embedded just under the water. I know I’m either very lucky or someone must’ve found this before and left it here. Ritualistically, my partner and I light a tall candle and the fossil comes to life, darting all over and wreaking havoc. I start filming on my phone as this terrifying moment has become a cautionary tale, for young people perhaps. I perform a secret move by cutting off the video to abruptly stop the experience.

While leaning against an L-shaped fence with a middle-school classmate, Amy Pollard, I impulsively tell her she’s pretty. But she calls my bluff and asks me to repeat it. I mangle and abstract my rephrasing into something barely relatable along a formula like “___ is she; ___ is he”. I then openly chide myself for phrasing both people as objects — objects of a sentence, thus objectifying them.

Artistic sequence of a herd of animals, the animal models doubling then all morphing into a different bigger animals. So a rat is stacked on rat which then blends into cat, those cats are then doubled and form dogs etc. I get excited to see what larger animal will be chosen next; the sequence gets to doubles of cows but the next animal is a bizarre model of a cow with two independent heads one on top of another.

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Dream Journal

First to Arrive in India, Drip Basket in Back Room

Travel to India. I’m the first to arrive and start figuring out the Airbnb, which is like a drained indoor pool with a shallow ceiling. The feeling of being outside, looking at the totally different architecture and streetscape, thinking about all the humans who made it (and it being a whole different society) is memorable. Trippy even. We are asked for our passports and realize we didn’t even have them on the packing list. Luckily, I find mine — and two more I didn’t intend to pack — in the sunglasses pocket of my wife’s backpack.

Laying in bed with my wife and suddenly get the urge to have sex. Somehow know what to do with the right timing to get it really nice.

I lay out a receipt for my friend Dara to sign. Some kind of reimbursement from 2017, in the period we were broken up and didn’t talk to each other. It’s next to another similar receipt for my neighbor friends the Goldies.

At the same time, the mother/daughter pair are sleeping in the back room of my apartment. Birds are playing outside the back window. A water dripper designed to be calming streams down into a wicker basket above their heads. It’s a bit too fast and I keep trying to figure how to slow it down, with no success.

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Dream Journal

No Rules Govern the Instant

Generational epic on an ocean liner evading a single alien xenomorph. Stories piled on, variations on a theme, successive generations remixed between earlier characters.

On the last day of the long ship journey, about to pull into port, I share a very specific old sailor’s tale I learned. There’s a brief moment when the ship has come to rest at the dock, yet before the rope is tied fast to a mooring. You can do anything in that moment, the situation is a technical gap in maritime law. No rules officially govern that instant. One of my companions asks if that means someone could murder you and get away with it… I presented this as a fun curiosity so this isn’t the reaction I was hoping for.

Giving a presentation over a projector to an audience with a front row that includes my wife, her boyfriend, and his wife. Part of it involves signing up for new internet (or mobile) service. One reason for that is the signup sequence which has a classy pixel art retro vibe. It unexpectedly reminds me of something my former crush would really like. I get a bit sad when I remember we don’t speak anymore.

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Dream Journal

Strange Forms of Water in Coves

Observing shapes of water in a bay from cliffside above. A lighthouse or dock sits amidst what seems like turbulent waves, which coalesce into nearly vertical walls of water rising from the estuary floor. They form sophisticated mirrored patterns. An informational picture-in-picture appears in the corner and I scroll around a wider view, examining the next cove over — where the shapes are less grandiose but more distinct. The sharp outlines of the PIP really help discern the unusual forms, which are mesmerizing.

Riding in the backseat with my dad driving down a road in Palm Desert. A tiny bit on edge as I’d normally be driving myself, but I’m handling it ok. We round a slight curve and he has to brake hard and quickly merge out of the left lane as there’s a wicker bench in the road. Briefly I mention how lucky it is he was only going 22 mph, the same speed I choose to go on that particular stretch. I volunteer to get out and move the bench aside if he stops at next place to pull over. But that’s a country club, and instead of just stopping by the side of the road in the little turnout my dad drives around their big complicated parking lot for a bit till I tell him to just pause. I jog along under some lush overhanging foliage along the outside of the road, mindful of cars that could be coming. I realize I’m not fast like I used to be, and the turnout was pretty far from the bench. I finally round the bend and see it’s actually a parked car without even blinkers on. The task now changed, I dash across the road to see if I can find the driver. I do, on the second floor of a weird little ski slope store. Despite much patience on my part they seem disinterested in even listening. I realize, oh, this person just feels entitled — I can’t rationalize the problem to them because they don’t care about other people.

Running airline tubing in a long narrow kink club space where I work/volunteer. I remember the first time I went there, the entry corridor (made up of personal side rooms for storage/changing) seemed to take forever to walk down; now I barely notice. While fixing something in-between the gate and the front door I get locked out. I was half-expecting this so I’m not stressed, I just climb carefully over the old corrugated roof, taking my time. Spot landlord of the building down ina courtyard and pause, not wanting to meet him. Thereafter, examining the tank, I decide we can’t have a keyboard in the aquarium despite that it looks pretty cool.

Special event room with bunch of kids partying. It’s like a home movie night, with pull-out beds in a bleacher stand configuration, popcorn and snacks provided too. But it’s a small space finished in bamboo, smaller than 10′ x 10′, and I consider the COVID air problem. There’s a nitrous dispenser stocked on the bed, but I’m not going to point it out to the kids — one of them seems to know, and calls it a whippet.

Not long after, I’m cleaning up a couch in what is kinda the top floor flop pad of a hostel. It mirrors the previous space, but I can’t say if it’s the same. I manage to dislodge an old plate that’s been wedged into the cushions for a good long while, discovering in the process it was put there by someone I like. Although I’ve done a great job cleaning the couch, if I report this find I know my bearded and newsboy-capped friend might get in trouble.

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Dream Journal

Vacated House, Last School Day, Old Floppy Disks

Big empty house that I can move into with a group. The house is recently vacant — so recent there’s still laundry on a bathroom island, a teacup with Earl Gray mixed with gin & tonic made on a big pullout bed. The bed has a big frame headboard like my Nana’s bedroom.

It’s the final class on the last day of school. My history teacher Mr. Conklin is in the classroom of my English teacher Mrs. Snowden at my middle school. The room is rotated so it’s facing what would be the back wall. Students are excited and animated, gradually catching on that we have to stop participating in whatever activity there is before we get to go home. A kid at the end of the front row throws around a pistol carelessly, causing it to land on the ground.

Hanging around former crush in a space that’s hers. Been long enough since she was a jerk to me that I realize she should I’ve already trusted me by now. I consider asking to take one of the floppy disks she has sitting in a pile, the ones she was saving for an art project. Despite that, it occurs to me that if it’s a floppy disk it most likely contains ancient financial documents from her parents or something equally benal yet private.

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Dream Journal

Train Got Problems

I’m trying to get off a passenger train (a tram, really) with an unwieldy bag slung over my shoulder. Heedless of my struggle, the train starts along again quickly — the cowcatcher in front scoops me right back on board, like a set of stairs lunging at me.

In the station a giant diesel locomotive idles noisily, producing an overpowering mechanical smell. There’s no indication what it’s here for. Maybe I climb around on it.

I become angry that they spent a bunch of time and effort renovating and rearranging rooms on the next train. They all seem patently inferior to me. I storm off after hearing again of the coveted exercise classes for adult men.

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Dream Journal

A Spillway of Colonnades

Sliding down a long wide slope of water, riding a boogie board attached by rope to a remote-controlled motor. Meet my brother at the bottom of this spillway and we talk about how fun yet frightening it is. The water is startlingly deep and dark for a pool despite civilized touches, like the pleasant collonade at water’s edge.

I’m with a subby girl who might be a satanist. She has a distinct, plump shape and is usually seen intently talking with her boyfriend (also a satanist). It’s clear she has a keen interest in murder, perhaps even a fetish for being murdered. (Probably derived from the Silicon Valley characters Gilfoyle and his girlfriend Tara, who I just learned were also satanists.) There is an acknowledged creepiness to this, and I do worry about being drawn into it or even blamed somehow.

Off to the side of the vast slide area is an anteroom, part of a museum. The cases have a display of California coins you can leaf through. I knew that before the Federal Reserve Bank, states used to mint their own currency. But I never thought to check before.

My tenth grade English teacher Mrs. Roos assigns homework: the paperwork they give you to fill out when checking in to the mental ward. The forms are oversized to be able to read it, copied from real materials but structured like every other generic homework assignment. Supposedly this is too help us understand what a character in our book I going through when she goes to the mental ward. I approach Mrs. Roos in what can only be described as a sanctum; darkened archways, candles, burnt offerings. I explain playfully but confidingly that I might skip the exercise, even deserve extra credit — you see, I once filled out these forms myself at the mental ward. How better to relate to the character than to have had to same experience?

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Dream Journal

Frozen Offices, Freezing Time

Ambling along a boring straight street of an office park. Boring isn’t the right word — faceless, eerie, liminal are better. With my every step the foam façade exteriors creak, with age, even with just the wind. Like the entire place has been ignored since the 1980s. Starting to feel like I’m sneaking around. I stop to read the plaque next to a door; it’s a video game company that hasn’t made anything since 1989 yet claims to be releasing a new game in a week. And there it is, on a plaque of all things.

In their offices I start zooming around, teleporting and phasing through rooms. I use an ability to freeze or slow down time. People really do work in these identical offices, and there are many of them. Cheerier than I’d expect. Unexplainably like New Orleans in the winter. Bland, predictable, the same old conference rooms, but in good condition. I inspect the structure from inside the walls and it’s sound.

In the middle of the office space I begin operating on pair of dogs (or maybe donkeys), male and female.

Brushing my friend Tracy’s arm with a smooth flat hair brush. Her husband Don watches me carefully but with calm apathy.

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Dream Journal

Aiae Spotted, Interesting Map

Rocky front walk from my childhood home. A mixed gender band, maybe from the 80s, enthusiastic but outdated. I might have a lip plate stretching on my right side.

I spot Aiae on a map, a modern spelling of the island of Circe. A floating jiggling landscape, I flip the on/off switch to lock it in place. Once the map is done baking/rendering/uplifting it looks like an impressive mashup of video game assets, an intricate road network connecting meso-American pyramids mixed with Middle Eastern. A few disparate cultures jumbled together from files already at hand. A giant Alladin asset pops through the floor of a Greek parthenon temple.