Dream Log: July 4, 2001

B hasn't shown up to class for days. My bleeding heart is missing him, and wondering where he is, again taking too much responsibility for problems that are not mine. Is he ok will he graduate what about his final project will he will he will he how?

Prof. S turns back our final papers (final papers for an art class?) and has traced my split infinitive back for every single sentence I have written. The page is almost red and I must keep better track of my words.

Together we look for B's contact information on the personal info sheets we were made to turn in at the beginning of the semester. Bizarre personal info sheets that demand a 36-inch figure, and some kind of reckoning on what the figure as a concept means to us. Sculpture II: The Figure in Context. Page after page whips by and no sign. We find one by a someone who's name starts with B but I know it is not his for the terseness and the cramped, barely legible handwriting. There is none of the flair for art that I know B would have to render.

Prof. S is convinced I will be able to find it. You know him. You know him you know him you know you know.

We find at the bottom of the stack the crinkled red sheet, sheerly tinted with a soft crimson, a looming figure slowly peering through the veil of color, rushing in and out and around and inside our plane of view.

This is him this is him this is him.

There is a phone number but it's the one we already lost. There is no finding him. Only studying his moves.

We carry art downstairs, and I am constantly catching flashing images of his truck in the corner of my eye, as I am always prone to do, but he is never actually a character in this dream. He never even makes an appearance. Only a shadow, still haunting this life, ever beautiful, never understood, missed and resented, his image is still lingering on my burned-out retinas, replacing question after question after question with yet another after another after another.

I've been using Opera as my main browser now for a couple of weeks (getting tired of Microsoft's increasingly cynical attempts to abuse the ignorance of the average computer user for their corporate greed), and, quite frankly, it rules.

I love its features, like being able to quickly open up an entire folder of bookmarks, to load up URLs in the background with a shift-ctrl-click, and too zoom in and out of pages.

But last night I dreamed it had an even cooler feature: by using the mousewheel, I could move into and out of images. Then, by moving the mouse from side to side, I could change my point of view. It was just like moving about in a first-person shooter game like Quake. Amazingly cool! And I could do this with any photo on any web page!

The one I chose to experiment with was a picture of some kind of primitive village, with colourful mud huts shaped like enormous doocots. I zoomed in behind the one in the foreground, and looked left. There I found a corral holding strange mythical beasts. One looked like a cross between a pig and a horse, low-slung belly with a proud head and mane. There was also an enormous black cow.

I knew I had to fight these creatures, but I didn't know how. As they were released upon me, I ran away and climbed up a tall wall radiator, and broke it loose from its top mountings. I toppled it over onto the beasts, then jumped down on it and crushed them. I felt terribly guilty about doing this, because they were beautiful animals, and I didn't want to harm them.

As they writhed in agony underfoot, their wailing turned into the (real-life) cries of B (our baby), who was just waking up (06:00). He was very, very hungry, and quite unhappy about this condition.

I fell asleep today around 2:00 pm.

I dreamed that I woke up face down, facing to the right. I sat up, but I couldn't turn my head foward. My head was very heavy; my arms were very heavy, etc. I couldn't get my bearings or wake up properly. Against great resistance from my neck I managed to turn my head, but it went all the way over to the left. I couldn't turn it back. I couldn't move. I dreamed that I woke up. Whew, it was just a dream.

When I woke up, the sheets had a pattern on them that didn't make sense. I managed to stand up somehow, but I couldn't move, and I fell face-down on the floor. The carpet was one that I threw away years ago when I moved out of a "bad neighborhood" in a decaying city. I again felt half-awake and disoriented. I wanted to look around but again, I couldn't turn my head. I had things to do: They were urgent. I had to get up. The cat needed to be fed and I had work to do. I couldn't get up.

I woke up again. Thank god that was just a dream, eh? I was on my bed. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I was threatened by something, but I couldn't move.

Yeah, then I really did wake up.

The first thing I know is that I've absolutely got to find someone, and fast. And finding them seems to involve driving very, very fast to get to them. However, I suddenly realize that I'm very old, and driving this fast has given me a heart attack, so I pull into a conveniently nearby hospital, which oddly enough was very isolated on a country road in the middle of nowhere.

In the dream, I wake up, presumably after having my life saved. There is some old woman there also, presumably either a wife or a friend. A doctor tells me that I'm ok, but not to drive that fast again.

After the doctor tells me I'm ok, I resume my quest to find whomever it is I'm looking for. By this time, it's very, very late at night (in the dream). I think it was around 4 or 4:30 am. I start driving very fast down Interstate 30, going west, when I realize that the person I'm looking for is probably in Arlington, so I turn back around and go east. However (and this is where the dream gets weird), after I've driven a bit I realize that traffic is at a standstill. This is because apparently, at this time of night, I-30 turns into some sort of futuristic casino. I start playing some automated game which seems to involve snatching gold coins (actually, those Golden Dollar coins) from some sort of box with a moving bottom.

Someone at the casino is shocked to see me there, because apparently I am no longer an old man, but now I am simply a little boy, far too young to be out that late, or at a casino. After that, I wake up.

My dreamlife is suddenly much more exciting than my real life!

July 4
Matt and I are at my grandparents' house with my extended family. Gigantic roaches are crawling all over the walls. They aren't roaches, they're trilobites. Except they aren't trilobites. Their antennae are too long. Their antennae are dancing! They are the bugs from the Matrix.
The fact that my grandparents' house is full of vermin embrasses me. I grab Matt's hand and we leave.
Twilight. We are on my front porch. The sky is a lovely bruised smoky purple. The haze parts. Strange lights fill the northwest sky! We walk down the porch and onto the street, following it and trying to see better.
We are staring at nebula soup. There are three pink comets chasing each other's tails. Little white lights dance around them. Everything behind this is blue. All shades of blue. We are looking at every shade of blue that has ever existed.
Other people come out of their houses to look at the sky too. We are all filled with a peace and familiarity with each other that we have never felt before. I turn around to hug Matt. He isn't Matt. He is my sister Erin. She and I stand close, shoulders touching, smiling at the sky. A white rocket flies over the crowd. The world is about to end. I know that this is okay. I am not afraid.
I wake up.

July 5
I am coming home from a date. I go up the back staircase. The walls in front of my bedroom door are covered with Gary's distinct geometric handwriting. I am afraid. He has been in my home when I was not there. I know that he is not there anymore. I know that the house is empty and silent and dead. It bothers me that he left me a message and left without seeing me. I begin to read.
The more I read, the more words appear. This seems normal.
The beginning of the message is angry. I am a bitch. I am not his mom. I think I am better than him.
The middle part of the message says that he misses me. He is unhappy. He wants to see me, but is he ashamed of himself. So he hides.
The end of the message is vague. Maybe he will see me again. Maybe he won't. But he misses me. He cares about me.
It is a suicide note, maybe.
I wake up right before I find out.

July 6

Matt and I are camping out in a cave with a cellphone. His father is a treasure hunter. He just found two gigantic chests full of what might be the find of the century. Hundreds of miles away, scientists are are prying them open. We are waiting for his mother to call us and tell us if the treasure is in there or not.
It isn't a cave, it is his bedroom. He is lying on the floor in a sleeping bag. I am sitting in chair about 6 feet away. He is tense. He doesn't want me to be there. He takes deep breath.
"I think I am going to fall in love with Carolyn. Is that okay with you?"
I feel like he just punched me. My skin is cold and numb and hypersensitive. I can tell by the steely edge in his voice and his rigid body that it doesn't matter if it is okay with me or not. He just has to get me out of the way. I do not want to cry.
"I need to be held."
He parts the blankets and opens his arms and I slide in beside him. His arms are dead logs around me. He is stiff and he doesn't want me there. I know that he is only holding me because it will help scoot me out the door quicker.
I wake up.
Interesting note: Neither he nor I know anyone named Carolyn.