Dream Log: October 26, 2000

I had one of those dreams where you go through your entire day not knowing that you're dreaming and then wake up, the dream didn't really have any insight either. Those dreams are the worst, you wake up thinking "I just went to school. I dunwanna go again!" but you have to anyways. So I rode a school bus, read stuff in english, slept through music lit, and on and on.

Last night I dreamt that, sitting in a room full of friends and people we know, she suddenly announced to everyone that I was her girlfriend and that she was about to dump her boyfriend.

My jaw dropped, and the rest of her words faded out as my brain blanked. I couldn't believe she was telling them... what was she doing? My heart was simultaneously filled with joy and saddened, as I knew how much dumping him would hurt her, and how difficult this decision must have been.

I sat frozen in place, reeling at what this meant. I wouldn't have to hold myself back, emotionally or physically, again.

Getting what you want most of all is pretty damn cool, even if it is just a dream.

• Head-cold marriage: A couple of friends of mine invited me to a wedding, which is odd, because I didn't know the person getting married. But first, I had a massive head-cold, and wanted to go home to get some DXM to deal with it. During the drive home, my friends kept sending in messages to the radio station that eventually got to me, saying things like, "The bride is walking down the isle" or "They just kissed, we're moving over to the reception." I got to the end of my driveway, and noticed a bunch of tables with stuff from my house on them, and a sign that said, "Free stuff." My mother is selling the house (in real life) and I guess she was having some kind of giveaway. Then I was driving on a different road, and for some reason there was a tree growing in the middle of it. This didn't strike me as odd; actually, it seemed quite normal. But I spent a lot of time looking at it, how it was poking through a hole in the pavement, or maybe the road had been put down around it. It wasn't quite in the middle of the road, it was a little ways into my lane. The DXM reference is probably due to the fact that I have some, and rather enjoy the drug. Although I also seemed to be looking for some kind of DayQuil, which I'd never take, anyway. The tree in the road might be a reference to the fact that I went off the road a little bit and smacked a fence with my car, but that seems a little far-fetched.
• Sleepy train from Wausau: I was fighting with my snooze button, but each time it went off, it was actually a stop on a subway I was on, that was headed towards Wausau. I tend to work my alarm into my dreams, which makes it really tough to get up; sometimes I think it's a bomb, sometimes it's part of a mathematical equation with the numbers being part of the solution, and sometimes it's an alien life form trying to talk to me.

A kleptomaniac's dream. I'm in a Barnes & Noble, and I've come to steal three books: two art books (Andy Goldsworthy), one on Python. Standing in the self-help aisle, searching for the metal strip. Finding it, pulling it out, and then walking out of the store carrying three metal strips instead of the books I wanted.

An observer shouts at me and throws a tomato.

I'm certain there was a great deal more detail, but it all went away too quickly upon waking.

• I have a collection of vintage issues of the Weekly World News, dating back to World War II. The cover of one of them, from September 1943, depicts a Japanese battleship. According to the headline:

  JAP BOAT SWALLOWED BY SEA MONSTER

Lucid Cityscape

• At the garden party of my mom's friend Judy with Allen and Judy's daughter Lindsay. I agree to give Lindsay a ride to her boyfriend's house, the older brother of my friend Jeremy. We all get in my car and I drive out into the street. We're in Santa Rosa but as we turn the corner it looks like Santa Cruz. I want to go right but it's a one-way street so I have to go left and I get caught on a freeway on-ramp. Things get surreal as the road slopes up like the beginning of a rollercoaster. We go higher and higher until we are far above the tops of what looks like the skyscrapers of San Francisco. As we rapidly reach the apex of the ramp my car floats off the road due to inertia and we tumble out the sides of the car. I look down and find myself falling quickly towards the urban center. I'm terrified for an instant then turn to Allen in freefall beside me: "Allen, this is a dream! Look at your hand," (a technique for not waking up when you realize you're dreaming).

  We glide gently to the ground and discover the city is deserted. It's of little concern to us, however, because we are only interested in playing with the lucid dream reality. We practice flying, leaping from roofs. I notice that I fail at it when Allen fails and vice versa. When I see him make an unsuccessful attempt, my own will power to succeed suffers. Doubt enters my mind that flying is even possible. We discuss the phenomenon and determine that the limits of dream reality are directly related to our belief in what is possible/impossible. If I believe I can fly, I can. We decide we'll try to apply this philosophy to waking reality when we return there.

  Soon we get bored with flying and Allen decides to completely destroy the city. He rips buildings apart with his bare hands. I join in the fun and soon we've leveled most of the area as if it had been built of playing cards. I start to wake up in my bed and warn Allen...

• I open my eyes for a moment, awake in bed, then close them and return to unconsciousness. I have a vision of a man dressed in baroque clothes, one foot tall, dancing in the air about a large man sitting in a theater. I hear the voice of my friend Thomas tell me that I'm watching The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

• I'm back in the city with Allen and he asks me where I went. I explain then he tells me we're not alone anymore. An evil man appears and attacks us violently. I'm not the least bit afraid and let him try to beat me up, then flick him over the horizon like a booger. We notice a strange, large building some distance away. I ask Allen, "Isn't that the sculpture you were talking about earlier?" He agrees and we begin to fly towards it: a huge white structure that reminds me of The Machine from the movie Contact.

• I wake next to my love on a beach in Iceland. I tell her all about my lucid dream. Then I wake up for real.

I often have lucid dreams, but this one felt particularly vivid. Possible causes from last night: re-reading my Dream Logs on E2; meditating right before sleep.