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Dream Journal

Congressional Envelopes, Long & Gold

After learning some purported factoid about Congressional envelopes, I actually get my hands on one. It’s hugely overlong, with a vertical gold band and a tasteful border for the address. A surprising design feature:  if you hold it a certain way, the flap closes itself! I get my wife to try it; it’s tricky and it takes a while to get her to correctly press the pads of her thumb and forefinger over the gold corners. Why would they spend money to develop this technology? Who is this for?


I’m riding a personal cart on a single-track railway line that serves as public transit for a small rural community. It feels empty and follows a long highway along the convoluted recesses of the town. The trackway is obscured down the slope of a hill or levee, so you can’t even see it, and the routes seem to follow a river that’s out of sight. It’s a strange gray autumn day. I can’t recall why I’m riding the train, but I may be transporting garbage — a railway just for trash disposal.

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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

Last Zipline with Mom

I have a saved memory with my late Mom that I didn’t know I had, that I’ve never seen. It’s comparable to a voicemail one has never reviewed. It’s a zipline experience (something I’ve never done), over an old gold mining area with hand-hewn wooden posts, and pines; looks something like Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. It’s long, with the cable suspended across several pillars, big circular pulleys, looping back in places. There are tasks to complete sometimes. It plays through and at the end my mom disappears — the file auto-deletes and that was the only time I’ll get to see it.

I have a moderately intense good cathartic cry then wake up. It’s still early. Usually I have a dilemma at this point, since this seemed like a unique and important dream, yet writing it down will probably wake me up for the day. But when asking myself if I would forget it completely should I fall back to sleep, the answer was… no, no I won’t. And so I didn’t.


I’m one of a privileged few able to attend a new archeological attraction in Afghanistan. The ground is dusty and broken out of shape. There’s a special feeling crisping the air, a feeling like this could be the same as it was thousands of years ago when the artifacts were buried.

While in Arizona for unrelated reasons, I rediscover a railroad museum I visited as a kid. I use the opportunity to pull around the narrow side road and into their back parking lot, which has quite a view. It’s on a gentle clear slope overlooking a valley. The lot itself is a rounded square which I have repeated difficulty pulling into with my big class field trip van. The museum is having an outdoor thrift sale day. Alone among the liminal grassy area of the museum’s backside I peruse stacks of colorful boxes on shelves. Occasionally I find one worthy of carrying around like a talisman, maybe to buy. There’s one odd steam engine which I locate in two pieces separately, clicking into place the oversized cabin. I’m rewarded for this with much interest from museum staff and other shoppers. Yet I find myself most comfortable around the shallow pond, with the distant view. I’m there when it begins to snow.

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Dream Journal

Reliving a Long-Ago Math Class

Peering out at the top layer of a canopy of skyscrapers. Observing an expensive-looking top floor patio garden so scary I wouldn’t want to be in, the reflections off other skyscrapers. A top floor passageway between two buildings permits bureaucratic workers to travel expediently between the two — something that strikes me as the result of having a good union.

Reliving an experience of trying to redo my fourth grade math class, not just to pass but to get it right this time. Sitting in the middle of a grid of outdoor desks on a lawn/sidewalk, sun shining on them in afternoon light. Can’t tell if I’m the only child, or quiet in a group of children. Maybe it was early as second grade? Trying to place it temporally; I sign my name “Orin” so I deduce it must be after seventh grade.

In the neighborhood nearby, a big old 70s sedan lumbers across the railroad track intersection. It selfishly blocks a train temporarily and causes the train (of all things) to divert.

Digging all the way to the white plaster at the bottom of a dirty firepit. Moving a sculpture of an old book into the heat, burning off it’s discoloration. Uncovering the name of a song and remembering the story of trauma involving the math class. It is finished, closed. I can wake up without problem.

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Dream Journal

Special Train, Bobsled Cousins

A bobsled track (like from the movie Cool Runnings, which I last saw when I was 8?!) with still pictures viewed overhead, relating a story. A process which helps my New York cousins Betty, Diana, and Miriam. We ask Miriam if she has that little vial we gave her, we think it may help with success. It’s noted that Diana has done well in love, though, more than the others.


I approach a rail crossing blocked by a train. My attempt to go between wheels underneath carriage is suddenly aborted when I realize the train is still slowly moving. From the train itself, a friend yells that they’ve brought it as a surprise — it’s actually the train I had as a kid: engine #5721 with two cars from the Pennsylvania Railroad. The caboose is there too, and I have an odd feeling that I’ve rode this train before without it being this particular set.


In a theater I receive an unanticipated blowjob during a parallel sex show on stage. Semi-acknowledgment from the stage when they’re done, so we play it off as nothing and I cover my erection with my forearm. Turning to talk to the girl — Lynae? Lauren? Someone else? — as it is announced that now we’re doing the mandatory switching-seats ritual. I have a bunch of my travel stuff under mine so have a difficult time moving to a new seat, and difficulty picking a new seat partner. I don’t feel like sitting next to Dayle Zimmer (whom I knew when I was 11?!). My wife has already delved into conversation with two people in the front row, is clearly having an easier time with the ritual.

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Dream Journal

Hidden Temple Stays Hidden

My father-in-law lives in a large aristocratic manor, in one wing he’s built a grand indoor railroad landscape. Parts are clearly medieval with tiny knights and exquisite sailboats behind glass cases. He presents gifts to his daughter, my wife, while they lounge in front of one such display case. His pricey gifts are even on theme.

The house is tall enough that when I come down from an upper floor, walking down a long stone spiral staircase, I can’t tell at all if I’ve reached my floor (counting in a dream is hard too, I suppose). Eventually I emerge in a massive overstocked kitchen abuzz with people moving about, then finally reach the ground floor. Outside in the gravel drive is a squat yet spacious school bus waiting to return students who came to see Beauty and the Beast.

While driving my car out in the country, I stumble upon a pristine pagan temple — a circle of upright stones embedded in lush, thick ground cover. Hidden, disused, but obviously well-kempt, possibly built by Loreon Vigne of Isis Oasis. I forgot my suitcase for this trip so return home, and when I try to find the temple again the location on my maps app is wrong. It leads instead to a graffitied-over stage at some dilapidated Renaissance Fair summer camp along a disused, cracked, conifer-lined highway. Someone has been clever enough to keep it hidden — I wish I’d written it down.


Returning my colorful Mayan hammock because the net body has split from the hook loop. Surprised to discover I still have 11 days to return it. However, it seems Amazon mostly carries a plain white version, and this was a problem before. In fact, on reflection, the white hammock resembles a cheap nylon-and-plastic one I bought at an Army surplus store, the one which once dropped me straight down from a height of six feet.


Testing forensic evidence by having sex — sex with two women, to see how the female body processes semen. I wasn’t going to leave this in, it seems extraneous and explicit, but I reckon I should err on the side of completionism.