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Dream Journal

Mayan Revival Mall in Berlin

In a six-story mall in Berlin. Exotic, asymmetrical, grand Mayan revival architecture, with tall vertical metal pylons repeated in a semicircle over an open courtyard. Comfortable walking spaces outside stores with benches and landscape detailing — almost a zen garden feel. The bottom-most floor has a moat-like pool environment with fantastical fossils embedded in the wall, giving an impression of the underworld. A restaurant with glass windows sits at that level, affording views both above and below water. Watching a promotional 3D documentary that zooms through the space excitingly as if from the perspective of a quadcopter, lurching so dramatically it’s regarded as an accomplishment to finish watching. It would’ve been so much simpler to see a human dive instead.

I’m wandering by myself on the ground floor of the atrium courtyard, trying to navigate by learning about the place in the past. I’m able to spot escalators that are closed, blocked off and partially demolished, with a meager sign at the top. I travel some distance riding a smooth-bottomed sledge across an almost too quiet expanse of open mall, at one point skidding noisily over the grating around a single tree planter. The Germans around me politely pretend not to notice.

Just up a single fight of stairs, I come across an isolated second floor balcony where I can appreciate the gauzy indoor sunlight illuminating the large space. Available there is a specialty video service which I peruse, almost all documentaries. I scroll through the acting credits, looking to confirm someone’s claim from an earlier conversation — that even in an ego-centric milieu like Hollywood there’s always going to be one ego that sticks out for every project. On this list I find an elaborate headshot of William Shatner posed with his dogs, which seems to prove the adage.

There’s also an organized section with global syndicated newspapers, even one from Sacramento in fact. I open up the interface and the very first story is about North San Juan (a small town I visited in June to look at a house). The District Attorney’s office is being refurbished in anticipation of a new DA, and someone is writing to complain. Apparently, although the office is the size of a shack, it has a large flat yard where someone has been scraping out valuable ashes for agriculture. Tragedy of the commons type thing, but with the twist that the DA that would prosecute isn’t there yet. It kind of blows my mind that I immediately find such a local story in such a faraway place.

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Dream Journal

Dord: Abbreviation of Density

An unusually intimate experience with density, by melding inside layers of a substance. Understanding the thickness of a substrate, then coming up a less dense surface layer. Watching how a new member of SNL is playing a person good at darts, or temperature. Understanding how this can replicate the circumstances from a famous murder mystery case.

Dord, a notable accidental word added to the dictionary during the 20th century, is my odd gateway to finding this experience. It was meant to be a reference to an abbreviation for density, D or d.

A camping trip up a hill. A tram takes you up in a loop, with the station dropping you off along the length of a tree-dotted ridgetop in a long cycle — if you miss your timing you could be waiting for it to come back for a long while. It’s scenic and sparse up there, reminding me of some places in Arizona. I’ve just completed an outdoor class I was assigned as part of my work (this isn’t entirely a vacation) and now have the unforeseen opportunity to take the next class. The professor, who I know, is going to share an in-depth presentation on love. I have a short time to decide and I’m very tempted…

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Dream Journal

Cabooses on the Next Hill Over

Wearing an elaborate bird-themed costume in my uncle’s basement (it was his birthday the other day), I take a break from a footrace. There’s a panel near my knee with a USB cord. It snakes out robotically, but gets stuck between me and my wife. We’re spooning each other, as we are in bed as I drift out of sleep then back into it.

In a crowded urban landscape with small hand-built homes. In a conversation with several friends from grade school (Robby, Christy) I interrupt when I spot a caboose made into a house on the next hill over. No one seems as excited as me though, but I interrupt again a few moments later when I spot two more.

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Dream Journal

Fragment: Redwoods Spiderman

On the exam on the last day of school I have a series of very intense reactions, and very intense answers to the provocative questions.

Swinging from redwood tree to tree like Spiderman, I chase after two items being carried by Latino families. These are the last two remaining, perhaps from an earlier dream. I see the families on HUD and can track them with ease.

During a quiet moment in mid-swing, I observe a hawk flying past.

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Dream Journal

A Mess of a House, Yet Still Fancy

Palatial house owned by my family but poorly maintained. Notable is that the layout on the first and second level are the same, both with very tall ceilings. Refrigerators happen to be in the same locations above and below. I notice this after I must deal with the one on the lower level being dark. My dad has put some bulk food on the edge of spoiling in there, and there are few shelves to work with. This isn’t much different from the state of the rest of the house, though I’m not bothered so much as coming to recognize and accept it.

In an alcove of an all-white, blank-walled mall space (still perhaps within the large poorly-kept house), while animatedly chatting on a couch with my partner, we invite a friendly stranger to talk with us. They accept and futz around with the jumble of white upholstery on the couch. All of us simultaneously realize we’ve neglected to tell them about a roommate asleep underneath us, laying still on his side in the blanket pile. Somehow, the prospect of having to explain it seems more inconvenient than the odd situation itself. Across from us is a sunglasses store, seemingly highlighting the uncoolness of the situation.

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Dream Journal

Deep Dark Aquarium, Safe Again

Doing maintenance on a giant aquarium tank of mine, as tall as a two story building. I’ve nurtured it over years into a careful ecosystem. All the animals are fairly small for the size of the tank, nothing larger than the size of my hand perhaps. Most of them seem like they could be Paleozoic types, including some lateral swimming worms like Pikaia. The tank stays very dark and dim, making things intensely immersive when I dive to the bottom. I immediately notice there are fewer critters to be seen than usual. I’ve had it long enough that this has happened before and bounced back fine, but it is something worthy of concern.

On the way back down another time I notice and investigate my ability to breathe underwater. I realize it’s something I normally should only be able to do in dreams — it occurs to me that I could be dreaming of my tank, which isn’t exactly correct. Regardless, the realization does not increase lucidity.

Something about a jar for my friend Spanky with a yellow top. I recently did some home renovation for him.

Last part of the dream is about a thin yellow beetle that is accidentally released into my vulnerable aquarium biome. I’m greatly concerned, as it could tip off the kind of invasion that’d be devastating (especially to the creepy-crawly detrivores and roots in the dirt) especially now in it’s fragile state. I’m methodical though, and several people are enlisted to help. It’s caught with a bit of fanfare and exasperated relief.

[The event reminds me of a real story I heard of hundreds of oil company personnel paid to catch a single mouse on Barrow Island off the coast of Australia.]

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Dream Journal

Autonomous Secondary Pants & Australian Electoral Waste

I observed the numerous Australian election supplies which are distributed for each election. Too many in my opinion, it’s wasteful and doesn’t actually help democracy — like, who really needs a government-issued sponge roller to help seal your paper envelope? While examining one of these rollers, I poke a hole all the way through the cylinder with a screw. It’s not even cheaply made!

While underneath a wooden structure, I’m informed that the city of Perth is somehow not the capitol of Western Australia, as I thought it was. A YouTuber I enjoy, Ozzie Man, demonstrates how (if one so chooses) one could transmogrify oneself into a depressed puddle.

Someone walking away wearing pants with an extra pair of stuffed legs on the back. A nosy old lady sneaks up behind him then gets kicked by the pants. Which I think is fair given what her intentions seems to be. I wonder if it would turn out fair in court, if it ever came to that.

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Dream Journal

Retiring Rich in a Communist State

Climbing a metal tree I’m older, almost retired. Might be moving to India soon. I climb twice as high as I have before; the metal tree has two identical levels. In my living will are plans to donate all my possessions to the state (a communist state), for official commemoration and redistribution — on reflection though, I need more conditions in case I still need to use it.

In a bit I’m dropping off thousands of dollars (or perhaps picking up) from a locked room. It’s one in a long public hallway, stuffy 1970s construction (but not without its charm) a residence of my friend Dara Vinne. I’m one of the very few rich in this society, and so I worry about the risk of stepping out the door. So many people could know I’m here by now.

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Dream Journal

Collaborative Art Experience, Door 42

Invited to the opening of a large collaborative art project, something like Meow Wolf. The tall Victorian facade of a house is embedded in the wall of an enclosed chamber (reminds me of Petra, Jordan). We’re let in all at once. Wanting to dissipate from the crowd I quickly find a door marked 42 which leads to what feels like a back area for staff. Inside there’s a room with stalls and toilets, some working some not. They obviously didn’t think anyone would want to explore here. Nevertheless one of the rules of the event is that you take what you want — it’s supposedly essential to collectively solving the “mystery” of the experience of the place.

Later, down a narrow greenway from the toilets room, I recreate on a pleasant lawn with friends Miah & Jessica (who don’t live nearby anymore, irl). In the background we listen to Trevor Noah’s Daily Show. I fixate on building a tower in a tree, a spiral of overlapping flat metal square plates arranged around the central post. I’m almost done bending the plates into place over the rim when I wake up.

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Dream Journal

Time Travel Gift, Footrace with Borrowed Kid

Meeting my late twenties friend Jimmy near an empty triangular lot. A lone fancy metal fence is all that remains of whatever was here before. Almost like a neighborhood in my town of San Francisco I don’t go to very often, maybe North Beach. Worn in, familiar, yet strange and novel. Jimmy proceeds to explain an unusual offer — him volunteering to travel back in time to when I was in college in 2004, leaving a very specific object for me to find. It’s a set of skinny and colorful tarot cards (that I didn’t consider much at the time but that proved important over the years since). This is an exciting possibility and explains so much — I gave those cards to myself! I relive my younger experience on a back road, taking an officially closed rural roadway, livestock paddocks on both sides, unfolding a beat-up cardboard box and scavenging the stuff inside. Holding up one of the special holographic cards in the pack. This act will pass it on to my past self, forming a causal loop.

In the dream this is a real history and I feel it is prophetic… perhaps prophetic in reverse, in that it reveals the past. I bolt awake at 6 am, knowing the details are important and this is a valuable dream to remember. But I managed to get back to sleep and continue some of the narrative, the feeling, the aesthetic.

In a partially outdoor auditorium walking amidst a large audience. Talking with my wife about Star wars in a quiet way but I still get shushed by a single person. Chagrined that anyone thinks it’s inappropriate, but also angry at the single complainer, I loudly announce I’ll be quiet if whoever shushed me shows themselves. A slightly older man on the balcony (perhaps a long-ago punk in his, reminds me of a few Gen Xers I know) seems to acknowledge me by being extra grumpy. I rise up to his balcony level seat and confront his crossed arms with a challenging look. It ends in a stalemate; the rest of the auditorium seems to ignore us.

While seated in the auditorium watching whatever performance or presentation is happening, someone’s young toddler sits decides (unannounced) to sit just below my knees. There’s a feeling of being in the 1980s, though it’s difficult to pin down why, perhaps the moment reminding me inexplicably of my own childhood — as if I could have done the same thing. Though at first I’m hesitant on account of whatever the parents could think, once I make known that I don’t mind, the kid turns out to be pretty fun. The parents seem happy to have her off their hands for a bit, but none of us have an idea why she picked me to hang out with. I end up participating with her (on behalf of a parent) in a footrace/obstacle course down a mountainside. Sometimes I carry her on my shoulders but I also manage the tight rocky turns with a stroller.

I decide near the end of the race to give up. Jenn Alex, an artist friend I know, nearest the finish line of this skating/skiing race, soon wins. Reflecting on how the race has changed things, my home seems emptier now; I can imagine leaving and not minding much. I idly discuss a certain brand of hardware store and how it’s different at every location, stocked with different items at different locations for a personal touch. I like it but the person I’m talking to is frustrated they can’t just go anywhere and find what they expect. No one is around as I return back through a window in standalone wall, this part of obstacle course having been passed already and now empty of other competitors.

I’m proceeding in reverse through the course as if to undo the entire thread. It’s now treated more like a video game, with levels and challenges I’m supposed to complete. I peek from underneath a table to examine a distinct checkered cap, at this point expecting and wishing to avoid another challenge. Sure enough there are new enemies to defeat, ones I recognize as the palette-swapped game assets from an earlier class of undead enemies. Now
they are supposedly flying Hogwarts wizards, with the unique trait of being named individuals. They disappear as they’re defeated just the same. The name that sticks with me: Peter Tarn.