I’m suddenly awoken by my wife barging into the bedroom, asking if I’m asleep. My fight-or-flight is triggered and as I lay in bed calming down again I can recall much, but I fall back asleep and what I recall is: wooden pegs partially painted blue clatter noisily from a row of horizonal posts where they were attached. (I fall asleep around 10pm and this happens around midnight.)
Serving a crowd of fancy folks out on a balcony overlooking Las Vegas, maybe in the Luxor pyramid. Speaking slowly up to it then ingratiating myself as a servant; meeting people like Trump and Boris Johnson.
After talking with Trump he leaves via my living room. I come out afterwards and see the shocked faces of my unexpected guests, my old roommate Emily W. and her friend I don’t recognize, waiting on my couch. I briefly confer with a series of representatives from tribes of widely different people, including the a male/female pair of Rust people who pursue a specific variety of magic. The discussion concluded, the slightly scaled-down duo flip sideways down into the couch and vanish through a portal.
I spot a dedication sign at the entrance to a random town in Florida simply saying “books & my wife”. I infer this as a clear if esoteric reference to supporting Trump, something fake-ish he said in response to being asked what he’d want on a desert island. A little ways on there’s a homey sign on a cabin with a charming curse of “by Meatloaf’s Mother and the Queen Of Sheba”.
Right before I wake up I’m playing a GTA-like game with simple accelerate/brake controls. Driving as a little old black lady, I just try to round corners as normally as possible.
My wife is in the cab of our semitruck parked on 24th Street in our neighborhood, trying to start it up. It’s cargo is filled with furniture and things, could be a resale company or perhaps a home. As I watch from a distance safe to give directions, it quickly spins out of control, circling into stuff nearby and jumping the sidewalk.
Visiting a docked boat restaurant when I discover it’s owned by someone I know and watch on YouTube. His first name is Eduardo. In the adjoining walled sideyard, he raises livestock fowl. I count and observe groups of birds of various ages before I realize how many there are. The number I recall is 2000! He sets up to broadcast a YouTube video of eight hours of ducks marching in a huge circle — at which point I sneak out, to avoid explaining why I myself am not going to watch ducks marching that long.
On my way off the boat I encounter Chicken John, who is located behind me while I wait for the bathroom. I take the initiative and, in such a way that we don’t have to acknowledge how we know each other, I give him a hug. This cleverly avoids any possible awkwardness.
Some time later I’m in a long group cabin. Two rows of squares are taped on the floor to mark out individual sleeping areas. There’s a vibe similar to in the movie “Midsommar”, kind of culty, and the sun barely sets. Before bed my wife asks for me to fetch the teardrop-shaped blue shoes from the window ledge. Exasperated, I eventually find what she meant, though they’re neither shaped like teardrops or blue.
I awake feeling as if I’ve barely slept. A group gathering is about to begin up the hill from cabin, visible beyond an open wall. Everyone else has already left. There are vague instructions to “dress comfortably and nice” but they pointedly don’t tell us what the event will actually entail. Quickly, I feel overwhelmed –by the number of decisions so early, and the knowledge that everyone is already waiting for me to show up. It’s a feeling that I’ve failed before I’ve begun. Why would anyone force you into a situation like this as soon as you woke up? I wake up myself then, convulsing and dry-crying against one of the pillows in bed.
Soon after I go to sleep, I realize I’m still looking at memes… but am dreaming. I become lucid and remain that way for some time, without any effort to charge the experience.
A three-fold joke, a tweet in 3 parts with three images. The most important section of the nights dream’s — which my rat Roscoe woke me up and got me to remember — but which were lost to forgetfulness long before waking in the morning.
Carrying a book with a black and white cover over a coastal region, a giant lake or seaside with an edge like a swimming pool. While trying to show it to my dad, I find another book with a similar cover. Along the wide paved shoreline is a curvy section where I explore a sloping sand beach. Getting back on shore from the other side proves difficult, holding the book(s) aloft as waves crash over me, the sand eroding in great thick layers ahead of me. Finally back on land, someone points out the many squid temporarily stranded, though the appear exactly like small octopuses in large snail shells.
I return to my personally programmed spaceship, which some disbelieve I truly have. In this sterile, futuristic, yet homey space I proceed to fill my complex aquarium setup: interlocking glass, rectangular brushed metal. I plant my “fish seeds” I’ve been saving and in only a moment they re-grow; I have a healthy and filled tank. However, someone inadvertently reminds me that I forget about the fish tank competition happening soon — I won’t be able to dismantle this setup to move it, I can’t disassemble it without ending the life of the fish early, and I won’t have any new fish seeds if I do. I’ve taken myself out of the competition without realizing.
extracted cut-out collage artwork from album cover
Donald Trump’s existence suggests an axiom: the higher the getting, the bigger the dark side.
Being hosted at some guy’s elaborately-decorated stylish apartment, white walls and expensive décor, a congenial upper-middle class bougie gay dude. He gives up his bedroom per my request. In the middle of the night I’m awoken and think I’m being visited by a group of raccoons, but it turns out to just be a few of his cats.
Later, I think it’s happening again so I stay asleep. Yet slowly I realize that in the bedroom with me are a whole menagerie of apes, macaques, zebra, even a giraffe maybe. This is his personal zoo, something he acts like I should be impressed with, while he himself acts nonchalant. It is (I admit) bizarre and impressive. Doubly so with the apartment’s trendy Instagrammable Pinterest-y surroundings.
(This is midpoint of my night’s dreams, which I remember when I wake up earlier in the night — for real — with some insight into my own progressed technique into the writing of dreams. Yet I still don’t wake up to take notes on it, worried I might not get back to sleep…)
In the classroom of a middle school, which feels near the coastal location of my University. I’m my current age, hanging out in bookshelves behind the rows of desks observing class, but I pop in occasionally, keeping tabs on the teacher and mingling with students.
A class lesson: “what’s wrong with this cream cheese recipe?” I personally think they added lemon juice, or didn’t use real cheese. Moving past, the teacher calls on me, somewhat jokingly. Nose in a textbook, I respond mispronouncing ‘book’ like ‘boooook’. She responds in the same joking tone that we’ll name our next lesson’s monster “Orin”.
I abruptly notice that a green starfish kid in the front row has suddenly developed injuries consistent with exposure to a contagion we studied in class. Teacher has also noticed but is playing it off so as not to alarm the students; I don’t do so well hiding it. We help get the student out. Afterwards I take time reflecting on it in the bookshelves.
I return just a bit later, but class appears to be over for that year. Instead, the room is occupied by a choral group of young kids, 4-6 years old, in flowing robes with hoods, singing what could be a Buddhist funeral dirge. Their parents wait behind them to take them home, some breaking down crying. It’s obvious the starfish kid didn’t make it.
Jolted, reminded of life’s brevity, I set aside time to enjoy hanging out with one particular girl I like who reminds me of a fun redhead I knew in high school — Sam Promenchenkel. She’s quite taller than me; my head reaches just under her armpit. With a group we stroll along a stepped boardwalk away from the school. On the way I’m goaded into doing a scooter trick up some stairs, and manage to leap all the way to the second-to-last step, where I do a little bounce and make it all the way up.
My cousin Betty is with our group, skipping away ahead of us toward her wife. She seems so happy and excited, I’m very happy for her, though I watch her get further and further away.
We get to the ocean and do tricks leaping into the surf on scooters. Someone brings up how left-brain-focused people will typically veer to the left and miss their mark on the waves. We practice crossing our eyes, water streams squirting from our pupils, trying to get the streams to meet where we want.
A custom-designed webpage prototype with four alternate positive opinions for any submitted negative. Creates URLs for its suggestions. Created by a short girl wizard, who’s becoming a bit famous for it. (I’d guess this was Plarvolia, whom I just re-discovered via her online activity after meeting her at a party in March this year.)
My family’s got a new fridge, so big you swing open the door and have to walk up to the inside. I lean over the front shelf and discover rows of of wheeled container stacks that roll, and beyond that a half-size kitchen. Remember that I have PBR in my crappy tiny dorm-size fridge that I could now bring. While inside, a corner with twin stoves, I knock loose one electrical clip plugged into the counter wall outlet. I then try to figure how to let my dad know.
Outside, on a street underneath the highway & close to the doorway, I watch a long car pull up (against advice). From it emerge a color-coordinated pimp-styled group, orange and gold and white everything. I continue off without gawking, heading the direction of a town my wife texted me from, hoping to surprise her — Plum Falls (a semi-inversion of my hometown, Palm Springs). I pass unexpectedly through an underpopulated corner of San Francisco, near the wharf, somewhere called like “Southeast Neighborhood” I’ve visited in dreams before. I cross the street at an oddly shaped intersection at Winston Way downslope of a curvy hill, jogging across as a car abruptly pulls around the bend.
I reach the quaint rural community of Plum Falls, a tiny 3-or-4 street grid town from out of my past in Oregon and/or Australia, cast in foliage of bright autumnal orange. Reminiscent of many other dream locations. I amble into a garage sale inside the house of an elderly, thoroughly-countrified man. But I wear no pants or underwear, shuffling side-to-side hiding my naked lower half. An excuse I use is that I just woke up from dreaming (what!?). As I’m behind the man’s table, I take my chance and finally wrap a black t-shirt to cover myself. The man has a only a few items laid out sparely, each clearly special and treasured, and the one he’s pitching to me is an old hand-bound bible. It’s beautifully crafted, raw-edge leather, highly textured and deckled paper, embossed gold lettering (some of it in Ge’ez script)… but unfortunately the font gives away that it’s much newer than it might seem, especially with its deep modern-styled embossing. I find a way to turn him down gently, especially considering his high asking price, but I’m immediately distracted by another book sitting on the corner of his table. A stubby thick hardcover with glossy dustjacket, I remember thinking I’d glimpsed someone casually drop it there while we spoke. It’s a book by none other than Chicken John. I’m forced to improvise an explanation for how I know him, going into how we “collaborated” and why we “fell out with each other”. The experience is terrible: alienating, frustrating, embarrassing, and ultimately useless. I unwisely make the open claim that he must’ve put that book there himself, just recently. All rapport is gone now, and the countrified old man has lost interest in me.
The next day I’m idling along near (but not on) one of the few sidewalks in the dusky town. I spot a familiar figure from behind, and approach him from the side. Turning his shoulder, I stare into the face of Chicken John, who looks more ginger-haired and solidly mustached (almost like my 4th-grade teacher Roy Suggett — if you’re out there, Mr. Suggett, you’re still my favorite). I lead Chicken back to the house where I was yesterday and allow him to believe there’s no one there. He unlatches a small window and reaches in, only for the old man from the garage sale to poke his head out saying “Excuse me. Hello?” I gesture meaningfully, demonstrating that what I said yesterday was true, and exposing Chicken for whatever scheming he planned against me.
I’m getting woken up for a dentist appointment, by a guy I barely know, who’s been asked to do it as a favor. I tell him I’ve got to write my dreams down first and I’ll be 15 minutes. (Coincidentally, I’m actually woken about 15 minutes later by a loud, stinky truck outside my bedroom window.)
I speak with a therapist in a little room pod, in preparation for the procedure. I feel the need rather quickly to break professional courtesy to actually talk philosophy with her as an individual. She seems visibly exhausted to be forced to engage as vulnerable and human, and to delve into her personal views.
Thereafter, a big black girl helps walk me to (or from) the seaside in the evening — where the dentist procedure will be. I expect it’ll be really nice to watch the sunset during the course of it. I notice that she has the same limp as I do at this moment, in her left leg, and I offer to massage it once we find a stopping point to take a break. She forgoes a chair for whatever reason, lying down, and I start at her still shoe-clad feet and move around to her stiff calves and thighs. I tell her to let me know if she wants more or less pressure. She keeps asking for lighter and lighter touches, as if the massage is making her more sensitive and tense, but she never expresses any desire for me to stop.
I gather shoes I’ll need during and after the procedure. One pair is green and yellow, like a thrift store pair from Brazil I had long ago. I spot an old classic iPod of mine on the ground, wrapped in earbuds. While picking up my mail, I notice that a postbox near the top (for the group hostel/school I’m associated with) has been overstuffed, too full to close. I inspect the economy size bag of incense inside, labelled “Frogge & Kastom”, pilfering a few sticks, feeling that they won’t be missed. I try not to feel too guilty about it.
Bang! The truck outside my window loudly backfires. I’m irredeemably awake.
(Dreamt in the cabin in Weed, California, before I was woken up from tooth pain)
A line of houses at the edge of a sloping mountain forest, separated by a field, or golf course, recently redeveloped with simple white windmills. In the course of trying to navigate past, I come to a stony circular outdoor temple which is shaped from the trees themselves. There I encounter a bro dude (probably a golfer) who directs me further into the city.
I re-enter a dusty large warehouse space, somewhere I’ve stayed not long ago. Gazing on aged timbers, gauzy light, and empty wooden alcoves, I consider how this would be a bad place to get sick. Outside I come across a kid, a nerdy boy who I recognize as having some sort of eye disability. No one has taken the time to get him to a safer place, this one obviously being abandoned. I gather a group of such disabled children — thick cute eyeglasses on their tiny young heads — and make for the most difficult passage. A group of at least two other caring adults joins me; we cross a tight gap with a folding trap bridge, inside a small tricky mechanical gate. I remember my friend Sarah Bliss there using a bicycle to hold down a rotating semicircular apparatus. We safely get the kids across, thanking each other for a job well done. One girl has her name listed as “[personal attribute] one”, which when asked about she smiles and dismisses congenially.
(Right now, writing this, I feel as though she’s dismissing and accepting my attempts to remember her name, in fact.)
I’m then within what must be a casino complex, a large enclosed circular courtyard somewhere like Nevada or Florida. This is quite different from the peaceful sparsely-populated forest. Trying to get around there, I bump into a bar in the middle of the road/path, the name is a pun on Peyton Place, somehow incorporating “payday” and also being released from “parole”. I’m baffled there are so many people out during the Corona pandemic. I duck into an employee area, a curved restaurant kitchen similar to a rail car. I tactfully ask someone working intently inside how we normally get out, as if I were a recent hire. I managed to exit out that back door, only to soon step onto a multi-car people-mover, some airport tram thing that ferries guests around this circular temple of gambling. I get caught with a ton of Florida types, none of whom seem to know about wearing a mask, and I burst out after only one stop. I try to get far away from anyone else, and end up gravitating to the middle with rows of benches around me. This place is insane. Far more likely to kill me than the dusty warehouse. Where did I bring these kids?
Kid is happy to eat replicated (irradiated) mammoth meat. There’s a feather in a shotgun, the kid mistakes it to mean it’s for him to control and change things. It’s just a gift! Next stage in this game is little stars or circles in a form that get bubbled in.
In an unfinished wood building, I live with four other adults in a 20 x 20 room split four ways lengthwise. Aislinn is there. We mostly pretend we have our own spaces, but one day I blurt out how absurd and frustrating it is that the landlord has split it like this. Outside in the hall there’s a poster framed in plastic mounted to the floor. I’m usually complaining about it because I think it’s dumb since it routinely gets slippery when it rains.
A hotel / food counter up a winding hill. Strangely Victorian and Modern. Go there with friends (Ais, Reecy) but I remember it from long in my past. I order a big plate of various fried food served in styrofoam to-go container. Before I leave I return a distinctive flat clock I took from a stairway when I was very small — back then I didn’t understand it probably broke off from something. But I immediately recognize things when I came up the grand entry stairway which, Victorian/Modern again, had an odd ’70s green shag carpet paired with Golden Age woodwork. This is an odd reason, but I think this dream happened because I smelled a bizarrely familiar apple body cleanser at a Korean beauty store — like something I played with when I was very small.
Awoken suddenly by an unusual growl… unusual because it was clearly one cat warning another, but the only cats supposedly in the house are total BFFs Aloysius and Katie. Jumping from the living room couch, I catch a glimpse of a gray furry mass speeding out the back door like a ghost. In the bright sun of the dawn, I manage to visually confirm a well-built cat with dust-bunny appearance escaping the backyard, into the neighborhood garden (just like a raccoon, too). It’s at this moment of passing danger that I realize I must have been surrounded by cats all through the night… not just Wishus and Katie, but up on the shelf, inside a wooden box, by my dear departed Flop as well. And that for a long while I’d been dreaming of him — playing youthfully and with vigor, tumbling in the pile of blankets behind that couch, watching me with curious attention. There are mere coincidences, and then there are uncannily meaningful and timely coincidences. Come visit again soon, little buddy.
