Dream Log: June 3, 2001

As a result of the kind of depression sleeping that Robert Penn Warren describes, I've been doing a lot of dreaming lately.

Usually the same old stuff about interaction with my dead parents, imagined erotic encounters, etc.

One strange thing though: there's an experience of my early youth which I can't decide if it was dreaming converted to a recovered memory or what. I remember it as real experience and don't remember dreaming about it recently but for some reason have started thinking about it again.

I seem to remember that in my mid-twenties when I lived in Chicago, for a time I sought thrills by jumping off of mid-rise buildings.

I seem to remember seeking out the right kind of building, one I could get to the roof of and which wasn't too tall and doing this for a few weeks.

I think I must have used a jacket to sort of parachute or something.

I wrecked my father's car, only nothing changed about it except for the paint on the back bumper, which had been scratched off. Having done this made me a social outcast. I went to the city's public library with my boyfriend standing, looking for a book with someonething particular in it, which I don't remember. And I was kicked out of the library.

I was now at home, and this scientist was in my backyard and he had made this machine that allows you to travel back into all of your old dreams. The dreams were stored on small tape reels and placed inside the machine and projected into the house. A lot of people were there, and the scientist was going through many of my old dreams. He kept mentioning horrible and embarrassing incest dreams. Eventually he projected someone else's dream into the house, and I went in. Everyone told me to be careful, and I would respond, "But why? What could happen to me?" Then I saw it. The subject of the dream was charging towards me with a knife. I screamed and jumped out of the house.

I suddenly understood the nature of dreams. Dreams are often realistic because later technology enables us to intervene with the dream process, and what we are experiencing is real.

I got out of the dream, and I saw my dad and his girlfriend sitting in lawn chairs. The mail had just come, and inside were small books from colleges. One was my choice college. I recognized these to be books from the colleges telling me the total amount of scholarship money I had been awarded from them. From USC, I had collected $10,000. I was a senior in the dream, I guess. And I told my dad that this was the amount of money our class saluatorian had collected.

Now I was at school, and people in my German class were sneaking out and standing in front of this newly placed vending machine which sold German pornography. People from my academic team were there as well, Heather, Debra, and Ray. We were talking, and then Debra said they had to leave. I asked why and she told me the academic team was having some sort of lunch together. She asked me where Ben was, and I told her I don't know. So I ran back out of the building, and over to where I thought he might be, and he was inside the wrong building in the wrong class with his journalism teacher building those little puzzle cubes (Snafoozles or something) made of foam. And I was trying to get his attention, but his teacher yelled at me. And I said, "But it's his lunch break!" Even if it wasn't. She said she didn't care. Eventually I saw him, and he told me how he was going to the prom. He couldn't figure out who he would be going with. I'm guessing he had dumped me. He told me he was thinking of going with one of his friends from Columbia who we had seen at a concert. She had a really weird name. I had never met her. He kept using the pronoun "he" instead of "she."

We went into this alley which took us to this residential area for extremely obese people who had their legs suspended in slings. He said, "No these people are too fat. I'm going for the best-looking one I can get."

I walked away and woke up.

I held him in my hand, he was the size of a large marble, perhaps. A little cherubic baby, cloth diaper and all, minus the bow and quiver, but he had these weird wings, which looked like some kind of errant mushroom material, and he had the cutest little bowl-cut, with thick brown hair and those big hallmark precious moments puppy-dog eyes. Anyways, a certain female had entrusted me with his care; he was lovable, but a troublemaker.

I went on a journey with him, he wanted to go to the railroad tracks for something or other, just to walk along them, I guess. So I took him there and dropped him from my hand, he fell into the rocks with a barely audible grunt, but got up and was okay. So we walked along the railroad tracks for awhile, and he just kind of talked at me, I recall being surprised that for a baby, he sure was rather intellegent. But eventually, trouble came our way. I dont know how, but I know that the certain female had been harmed/kidnapped/killed or something? And the cherub character was like integral to her continued exsistance...he had aparently been harmed by this happening, but maybe some of his damage came from my rough handling of him? Anyways, his weird mushroom-stuff wings were gone, and he became like a ball of orange putty in my hands. I grasped tightly around him until he no longer moved. At that time, I had a vision of myself at the bottom of a lake, the water was green with algae and air were bubbles leaking from my mouth towards the beams of sunlight which washed across my face; I knew I had to get the cherub guy to water at this moment.

So i ran through a nightmare re-interpretation of my childhood neighborhood until I ended up at the local park: It was about four blocks square, smack dab in the middle of a residential ghetto, with a fenced off concrete pool in the middle. As I ran through the park, I saw the trouble...It was like some mob of evil, gimped out leather biker dudes. The leader was a huge giant with a white beard, who had a slightly smaller giant on a leash, the slightly smaller giant had some kind of leather mask on, and upon my noticing of them, the gang leader sicc'ed the leashed gimp upon me, aparently I was the object of their envy. So I did the typical "running away" in a dream thing, where you can never run fast enough, and I saw that they were closing in on me, so in desperation I cast the cherub/putty thing into the water of the fenced off pool, in hopes that it would be satisfactory for his rejuvenation, and therefore the certain female's well-being, which greatly concerned me at the time. So I ran off until I came to one of the corner boundaries of the park, where I met a car-full of trusted compadres, a weather-beaten old man behind the wheel. We exchanged greetings and I told him everything was going well...he seemed concerned that I accomplish a specific task, and I assured him everything was going well, although I myself was unsure if it was being accomplished satisfactorally. In the back of the car (it must'be been a late 80's tan cadillac or something), was the certain female who i was so concerned with, she looked well, but her hair was gray, perhaps she was recovering from that which had ailed her?...she blew me a kiss and I returned a "peace sign" at her with my hands, she returned the gesture, perhaps I thought I'd never see her again..?

So I continued down a street which followed one of the borders of the park, until I came across two cars, parked perpendicular to each other, on each side of the ride. One was a white monte carlo, and the other was black. The white car was occupied by a Al Jourgenson-looking character; That is, he had dreaklocks, a goatee and a black cowboy hat. He urged me to steal the car across from him, only after donning the white cowboy-hat which was seated upon the driver's side-mirror of the black monto carlo. I was unsure of what to do, but obliged him nonetheless...somewhat. I took the white hat and put it on, but was immediately possessed by something, I do not know. Anyways, I opened the door of the unnoccupied car, with the intent of ripping off the door, which i did successfully, I then proceeded to demolish the car with the dreadlocked cowboy in it, then pulled him out of the car and beat him to death with the car door which I had so eloquently removed. Let me offer a correction about the idea of being possessed by the white hat. It wasnt exactly that, it was more like when i put on the hat, I became like some kind of Avatar for the purposes/intentions of the hat, it didn't control me exactly, more like it gave me some ideas, a gentle nudge in the right direction. After beating him to death I cast the car door away from me, and it hurtled towards the skyline...I was immediately assailed by a horde of teen trendy goth/punker folk: They were all decked out in black and collars and face paint and shit like that. The ring-leader of sorts was a somewhat attractive female who demanded an explanation as to why I had just beaten her man to death with a car door. I proceeded to kind of just be a general dickhead to them, not ever really justifying my actions, but taking no resposibilty for it nonetheless. They seemed impotent to stop me, no matter what I did and I got the impression that they were like young groupies of the evil biker leather dudes, but almost innocent to the biker dude's true intentions: which were obviously killing off myself, the little cherub guy and the certain female. They were like Hitler Youth, in the process of indoctrination, but they just didnt really understand the big bad world of adults going on all around them. It was a war-zone.

At this point I woke up.

I am in a dark place. It is vast, and very dimly lit. I can just make out the edges of the walls, and they seem to curve off towards infinity. The whole thing is one huge chamber, and I am standing on a ledge looking down into and over it. There is a slight wind, coming from the right. I can feel my mind talking to someone, I am bargaining over something, this being is dark and huge, and in the darkness, I can't see them. I don't know who or what it is, but it wan't something from me, and I can hear myself considering it's offer before refusing. There is menacing hatred from it, but my refusal seems to hold. I realize that there is no way out of the darkness, and that I am trapped there with this thing, I could give it what it wants and then I would escape, but I have a feeling that what it wants isn't mine to give. There is no sense of fear, just a cold sense of despondency. A knowledge that I am in a dark place, with no way out, and that I will have to get used to it. Then I realize that there are no light sources in the huge chamber.

Where is the light coming from?

For the first time I move, and the dark thing moves as well, I turn around and I see a doorway with a corridor leading to a light. I realize that the cavern is empty and I have been speaking to my own shadow. I walk into the light, and the dream ends.

I dreamt that there was a credible third political party in the USA, and that it's leader, a social-democrat fellow of perhaps 50, distinguished and reasonable, had travelled to Australia to find a team of advisors from outside of the American political machine, to assist in his election.

I was picked after having a meal with this fellow, in the company of perhaps 12 others. I answered some question about high-tech policy and he printed a name sticker which he stuck to my upper left breast, which meant I had been selected.

I felt enormously proud and happy for this validation. I was to travel with the rest of the party to the US for three months, which was the time allocated for campaigning.

I felt that it was good to help a reasonable and enlightened politician into government, and especially good that it was only a three month commitment before returning to my real life.

Oddly, the soundtrack for the whole dream was "Cupid", that old '50's lovesong, by (I think) Frankie Valli. Weird.

I am at Food Lion, buying boxes and boxes of Ramen noodle products. Beef flavor, in the red package. I take them back to my house, which, oddly enough, is my old old house that I lived in when I attended elementary school and middle school. My fifth grade history teacher is there, as is Cher's father from the film Clueless. As I was cooking the numerous servings of noodles, I somehow knew that I was to die at 1:00 PM that day.

Cher's dad and Mrs. Thaxton kept telling me that I was not really going to die then. Their interruptions were affecting my cooking skills. I kept spilling the pots of boiling water everywhere.

As it got around to 1:00 PM, I laid down on the floor, preparing myself for death.

Nothing happened.

I waited. Cher's dad and Mrs. Thaxton were laughing at me. At 1:15 PM, I started feeling something tugging on me. Not on my clothes or even my body, but on my mind. The tugs got progressively stronger and stronger. "This is it," I thought. "I am about to die." But before I am really "pulled out of myself," everything went black.

Then I was in Heaven. It looked like a messy office building circa 1965. File folders scattered everywhere, etc. Lots of grey and olive green decor.

One of the Sex Pistols is there. Some people are trying to take his leather jacket from him, and he will have none of it.

I see God, and rush up to meet him. I do not know how I knew this was God. He has a clipboard in his hand, and I figure out that it has the reason I died in it. So I ask him.

It turns out that my name in the dream is Dennis, and that my official cause of death is listed as "Lack of Dennis." I am confused.

So I go to this waiting room to get it all sorted out. To my right is a blind, albino, black photographer. He has this big pearl-colored photo album that he presumably keeps his work in. I ask if i can see it.

He opens it and I begin to look at his photographs. They are mostly pictures of paintings. One painting is of a rabbit in 17th Century clothing. He is in a big canopy bed with a bear or something.

I do not know what happens after that because I woke up.

I was a guy/girl in my dream I don't know I think I was a chameleon like person or something, but I knew I was grown up. Well in my dream I'm looking for this job, so I find one at a bar that has it's own brewery and secret ingredients. The actual bar is really nice, everything is made out of oak or rose wood. Some dark type of wood that has been finished off with a nice smooth shine.

Well anyway the owner of the giant company is this old man and he looks at my experience sheet. At first he doesn't give me the job but I promise him many wonderful things, right now I'm a guy, I think oen of it was to be his beautiful gay lover and he gives me the job with a high position. A vice president or executive position. He tells me that I can start working tomorrow but gives me the keys to practically everything immediately.

This is when I begin my plan to sabatoge the company, somehow they had wronged me, but I don't remember. Our plan was to steal a certain amount of beer of theirs, the best selling one and then use the recipe to become some common drink so the company will lose all its money. I immediately call my guy friend and go over the plans with him. He was surprisingly Jeremy Northam, the sexy British movie actor. Well apparently he's my lover too.

The day that we were going to execute the plan everything went rather smoothly except for running into a woman on the elevator, we had to charm our way through that one. Just for a future notice, from behind me and Jeremy look exactly the same and there's a camera in the elevator. Keep this in mind, it is only Jeremy in the elevator I am waiting for him in the bar, he is the one that has to get in and out while I just have the keys to let him get through easily.

We're in the bar and Jeremy's carrying these two large jugs, we fill one with the Lager which tastes like licorice for some reason, and we fill the other one with Pale Ale, which tastes like apples for some odd reason too. Really good, they tasted really good, and I was thinking, beer shouldn't taste like this I hate beer but I like this stuff. He gets away without running into security officers but I think the camera caught him in several places.

So the next day in work my boss confronts me and asks me who I really am so I tell him. He's shocked and he's all accusing me, while there's this other girl there, I think Jeremy's sister or someone that knows me very well. Well the old guy is all heart broken or something and I'm like, ha, serves you right you pervert and I was hoping he would have a heart attack and die, but that didn't happen. Oh, and like the villain I am I explain why I'm doing things after my boss asks why. The girl sighs and says it happened so long ago, why can't I just let it go, revenge isn't the answer to everything. Jeremy Northam is there and he's behind me all the way, I don't tell them that it was him in the elevator.

The dream ended when we were having a heated argument, well when me and my boss were, he was all broken hearted because he saw me in the elevator, not knowing it was Jeremy Northam making out with the chick. Sigh everyone was being so melodramatic I wanted to puke. The phone started ringing plus my dog was barking I had to get up some time.

It made me unsure of myself and I went to find a new part of me in its infancy.

We (I did not know any of the other people) were attending a garden party on an early summer afternoon. Lots of the women were wearing wide-rimmed straw sun hats while the others had hairdos frozen into one mold. Adirondack chairs were on the manicured lawn. The men wore khakis and short sleeve polos. They too had Perfectly Styled Hair and artificially tanned skin. There were no children around. It seemed to be an upper class affair.

Why was I there? I was, along with another girl I did not know. Neither of us were in proper attire for the event. Behind the party was a 50s or 60s type institution. I never saw anyone who lived there. The halls were empty and squeaked with all the vigorus buffing it had received over the years. There were no lights inside, only sun light from the windows. It was sterile and reclusive and phobia-inducing.

Outside, the girl must have started talking about how she wanted to get a tattoo. I was telling her about my experience with my tattoo. She asked me to show her my tattoo, which is on my back. I eagerly pulled my shirt up (for reasons I don't know, I was not wearing a bra) and she stood behind me. I asked her what she thought of it.

"Where is it?"

"What do you mean 'where is it'? It's large and in the middle of my back!"

I looked at it via mirror. She was right. My tattoo was not there. It was as if it had peeled off in search of a new body. What was left was the negative, a patch of very light skin in the shape of the tattoo. She pointed this out to me as the edges of the negative began to blur.