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Dream Journal

First La Paz Dream

Dream of La Paz, Mexico. I’m looking into the night sky which has a purple cast. Appears to be overlaid on a camouflage pattern, representing war or conflict, which gives the light a strong and unusual green/purple filtered effect, like a photographic cross-process.

An old childhood friend whose family immigrated from Cambodia enters the dream. He contextualizes the representation of war, humanizing it but also bringing in an actual worst case scenario context. Seems not so bad, given how bad it could get.

This is the first dream I’ve had of La Paz…

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Dream Journal

Mini-Nations, School of Darkness

After a ritualized intellectual struggle, my Grand Wizard-King makes me the new king of a nation — a miniature, room-sized nation. It’s one of many, their near-microscopic humans living along various sub-scales, together in a quiet, darkened school building. My former gathered rivals don’t quite yet realize I’m the victor of our contest, but my first act is to free a rival agent (who looks like Odo from Deep Space 9). Walking away from this act, I deem that I will remember this all better if I can remember my full official title — yet I don’t know if ever got one, or the name of the place, which I find odd.

A group of similarly-sized Asian girls outside a Walmart in my hometown, part of some formal gathering. All with sharply cut dresses and fancy hairstyles. Their backs are turned to me and I try to locate my middle-school friend Jimil by her ponytail. The girl I find turns out to be an assassin and duelist, one from a rival tiny nation I’ve never heard of (down a set of stairs, called something like “the Lowlands Suzerainty”). I’m able to defeat her by luring her up a puzzle-like jungle gym climbing sculpture. A worthy opponent.

In the broader expanse of the nighttime school building, I explore what I suspect is the top floor. It houses a school admin office, the window overlooking to a flat dark roof. The space, even at normal scale, is smaller than I expect.

In a classroom nearby, rows of us sit in plastic chairs while a guest presenter lectures with slides on the nefarious points of being evil. I sit next to my homepie friend Mickey, and together we make excellent snark. Finally Mickey breaks in on the drone with a critical observation critiquing the talk’s contents. When he finishes I’m ready to put in my own take, reframing and reiterating his points. To my satisfaction and surprise my friend Chloe, sitting in another row, jumps in with a full accusation.

“Science in Action” is Chloe’s stated theory about this year (I at first incorrectly think she means 2016, but no, definitely 2020). From prior experience she’s familiar with how cults sometimes take over a classroom and perform fucked up experiments to prove their faith — ostensibly to prove it outsiders. She carries on, homing in on how the evil badassery this cult/school espouses is negated with their actions, epitomized by us being there to even listen to them. She absolutely nails it.


Music in my head on waking: Death Waltz, U.N. Owen Was Her, a midi version

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Dream Journal

Massive Handmade Map in Quiet-time Classroom

It’s third grade, and I’m starting a painting assignment in the last period of class — a massive mural-sized map. At first I paint on large paper at my desk, then moving to the walls of the classroom. Making the land using smooth strokes of light red against red. Switching to a dark purplish blue for the seas, and aged vintage yellow for other empires of the world beyond my knowledge. The border of the colors is arbitrary, artistic. I experiment, blending darker parts into the sea to make it look deeper. The recommendation was to use blots of red, but it blends terribly.

The teacher leaves through a side door to grab something. Since the door is in my row I have to move aside. As she comes back, I hand her a pair of sunglasses I found lying on the ground there, telling her she dropped them. She claims not to recognize them.

During quiet time at the end I survey my finished work, with the goal of convincing her to let me seal it. I only need to ask her the finish: matte, satin, or glossy. Her car is parked inside the classroom, and I circle around it, noting its make as a Capri, a “Capri Sun.” I look up the car on a website; it’s related to a ’94 Tirder, which is Scandinavian-style word for fending off collisions. She won’t let me ask about either, as it’s still quiet time.

A girl complains in the front row — which now appears opposite of where it was — and tries to impart how worldly she is; needing to tan, that she’s only slept with 10 people. Teacher proclaims “if you’re 9 and have already slept with 10 people, how do you feel about a visit to the school psychiatrist?” This elicits a sigh and shuts down the complaining. The girl acts as if she was talking about her dog sleeping with 10 other dogs.


I’m floating/wandering through a simulation of my neighborhood. It’s 4th of July, nighttime, and I have a special appreciation for its uniqueness — the colors of lights flashing everywhere as I pass through corridors, watching them reflect off windows of closed-up music shops and grocery stores. There’s one large simulated power station which draws energy from the physics engine (in the same way a real-world power generator would). I recognize it as a facility I’ve made a delivery to before. I witness as one of the explosions spawns inside the locked-up doors and begins an explosive chain reaction. I’m the only one right there, and I happen to know how to get inside, and mount rescue efforts even though it means I might be destroyed in the simulation.

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Dream Journal

Stalker’s Ridge, Tabernacle Airship

Driving in a rented sleeper van southward from San Francisco with my family group, a brother and sister. We pull off at twilight onto a barren peninsula jutting into ocean. While the campfire we make is pleasant enough, the van becomes trapped and our dark environs become distinctly spooky. We clamber up the side of a sharp rocky ridge. From the chipped line of its knife-edge peak, I spot the shadowed outlines of enemies stalking us, nearly surrounding us. I don’t have an end for this dream… sorry.


As a kid I famously broke into the Mormon Tabernacle Airship. Now, as circumstance would have it, I’m being asked to do so once again. I make my way through a side entrance, timing events so I blend into a large crowd just filing in for a special occasion. For a short while I wait in a winding line, then matter-of-factly jump the square barricade into a reliquary with the appearance of a backgammon arrangement. I deftly pluck a hollow pin hidden in a scepter which grants me the power to skip around short distances. Mischievously I hop from alcove to alcove in the labyrinthine line, confounding the sleepy crowds attending for flat religious duty.