S____ and I are walking around the warehouse-filled parts of Boston, off of Comm Ave, near the B.U. campus. We meet a woman who says she is waiting for her family to leave a concert that is taking place in one of the large buildings that surround us. It is either nighttime, or the buildings are blocking most of the light.

The woman comments that both of our names come from families long associated with bookmaking and/or accountancy. We discuss the similarities of the two, and I mention something about reading a mystery/police procedural novel where the gutsy woman protagonist gets involved with some deadly bookmaking operation. Meanwhile we are walking away from the warehouses.

A helicopter flies past, low, overhead. A second, battered helicopter has just landed and tipped over in a swampy open lot across the street from us.

My macho brother, C_____, who was not with us before, appears out of nowhere and goes off to help the people in the downed helicopter. As he is doing this we hear the pilot of the chopper in the swamp directing the passengers to shift their weight somehow in a way that allows the chopper to right itself. I keep thinking the thing is going to explode and they should just get out as fast as they can. We watch nervously.

The passengers and pilot leave the chopper and head towards C_____. C____ is crossing a fallen log that bridges a small stream within the swampy lot and falls in. For some reason the people from the chopper are also in the water now, and all are slogging towards the sidewalk, with C_____ in the lead. Someone alerts C______ to the fact that a large snake is swimming up behind him.

C_____ manages to grab the snake and simultaneously leave the stream and cross the road to a park, where we join them and try to help but mostly are just looking on, trying not to get in the way. C_____ declares that the snake is a venomous copperhead, and tries to tell the others how to deal with it.

In trying to kill it, several of the chopper people manage to get bitten. One is bitten on the eyebrow.

C_____ takes the snake back and places it on the ground. I give someone a paperback book to put over its head, and hand someone a hatchet to chop off the head. C____, or someone else reminds everyone not to try to handle the head after it is chopped off, as this is how most snakebite cases happen (never mind we've already got at least two snakebites to deal with among those present).

I awake, creeped out by all this snake business.

fragment 1

I am rooting through my locker, looking for a pair of socks I can wear. Most pairs--there are several--are rather damp, and generally unwearable. They seem, some of them, to be hanging up to dry. Finally, I find one pair I can wear.

I seem to make the point in my mind that I am leaving my weapon in the locker. None of us now have our weapons.

Next scene seems to be another part of the locker room. A group of us off-duty police officers, I think, men and women, are siting around shooting the breeze after shift.

In comes a man with some kind of automatic weapon. He says, "My father came before me, and now I am here."

We are understandable surprised, and unable to do anything, caught offguard, and unarmed.

He makes a reference to the women, saying, "They will be the last to survive."

fragment 2

I am talking about something horrible. I am saying, "I was in the hospital in Maryland before they turned the lights on."

fragment 3

I am looking out a large window at veterans of some kind of war. My feeling is that I was one of those people in a fragment I have lost. I am inside this window feeling ashamed I did not fight.

They are a motley crew, riding horses, walking, men, women, carrying things they might have used in the fight.

fragment 4

The same window is prominent in this fragment. This time, I am a youth in service to some ganglord in ths post-war world. I am sent off to some kind of unpleasant duty.


A Note on my dreaming:

I am entering a period when I am dreaming again. When I dream, and can remember, I have always dreamt in what I call tetrologies--longer and more complex than trilogies. This log just happens to be in 4 fragments.

The last three seem to be part of the same world, after some war, or catastrophe. The first one, is some cop television show. And that is the way I feel about most of my dreaming. I experience the dream as a program: shots, characters, action, dialogue. But to remember it, I must tell it to myself as a story--the way I tell it to you. That is why the first fragment is the most complete. Trying to remember it--repeatedly telling it to myself all night--interfered with remember the others.

At various times in my life, I have tried to keep logs, with varying success. I don’t know how long I can sustain it this time. But I will try.

I don't normally keep a dream log; I think this may only be the second time I've done this. But the one I just had contained a scene that was so Alice in Wonderlandish, that I want to remember it.

I know there was more to the beginning, because I had to go a hotel (in my town, but quite a ways from my house) and rent a room for four people. Why? I'm sure it was four guys, too. I think it had something to do with having car problems. For some reason, I now think that this whole dream was a product of reading a node about being thrown out of a car yesterday.

* * * *

I'm in the lobby of this big hotel. There are perhaps 10 people working a relatively small desk. I'm dressed rather casually, golf shirt and shorts and no socks with loafers. (This is important because I'm beginning to feel guilty about not getting "dressed up" more these hot summer days.) I can tell that the help at the desk is "looking me over" and is not quite happy with my attire.

There's this other thing, too. I have to not only get a room, but I need a new browser that the hotel provides. It's some upgrade to my current browser, and I've got to have it to send a couple of important e-mails. (About what?) The clerk tells me to give him the e-mails and my debit card and he'll handle it. He walks to the back of the work area, and comes back with a white package containing my new browser (software?). I learn that this will cost me $29.95 for the browser. While he's getting me my room assignment, I am getting pissed off about the money for the browser. He hands me my debit card back along with a room key, which is the same size and shaped just like my debit card. It's even gold, but it's about half as heavy. "Why do I have to pay for a browser that I could get off the internet for free?" I ask him.

"Would you rather not have the browser?" he asks in a smirky way. This is when I find that if I don't take the browser, the e-mail they have already sent for me will have to be charged to their long-distance bill, and the hotel is not happy about this.

"No, I don't think I would like the browser, thank you. And if you're going to speak to me in that way, I think I'll just find another hotel while I'm at it. This is not the only hotel in town."

"Well, if that's what you'd like. . . I had already given you $1 credit in the gift shop to make up for the trouble."

I think about it for a couple of minutes. It's going to be a pain to go to another hotel. He seems almost sincere. I go back up to the desk, and another guy (who resembles Richard, the guy who won Survivor, with a short beard) asks if he can help me. I tell him the story, and he takes my old room key, which is no good now, and my debit card and gives me a new room key.

I go into the lobby and begin to round up my belongings. Then it hits me: He didn't give me my debit card back! I semi-panic. I rush back to the desk. More people are here now. It's getting busy. I don't see the bearded guy. I ask someone where the Manager is. I'm told he's just down the hallway beside the desk area. I go behind the desk and walk down a short hallway. There's a guy in a suit sitting at a desk at the end of the hall. I say, "Are you the Manager?" He says, "No," that Mr. Whitman's (?) office is thru this door (to my left). I look in that door, and there's a big desk with Mr. Whitman behind it and some other hotel official sitting in a chair in front. I step in and say, "I have a problem."

Well, Mr. Whitman has a problem with me, too. "You've been in this hotel now for less than 15 minutes, and you've already caused more trouble than we've had here in a week."

"But, your staff has taken my debit card and I can't find it."

"No problem. What bank do you use?" I stammer around, trying to remember the name of my bank (which has changed names 6 times in 10 years), and finally blurt it out. He tells the other guy in his office to flip some switches on a board on the table between them and says, "All fixed." I'm not sure what he just did, but I assume he nuked access to my account. (How did he know my account number? How did he know all my passwords and stuff? Oh, yeah; when I filled out the paperwork for the browser.) So I start to walk away. I'm about five steps outside when I hear him say, "Hey, come back for a minute." So I walk back in his office. This is when the weird stuff begins.

He's now behind a green sofa with a hole cut in it, and just his head is sticking out. He starts to sing some song about Social Security and the draft. After one verse, his head disappears and he's now laying down in a Santa Claus outfit in another part of the room (how'd he get over there so fast?) and didn't miss a beat in his "song." (What the hell is this song about? It has something to do with saving money, doesn't it?) And now his office has turned into an outdoor lawn, and there are other people standing around watching the performance. He goes immediately from the Santa outfit into some sort of sideways canoe, and sings verse three. Then he climbs up on a pedestal next to a statue of a giant flamingo (or some bird) and sings verse four. As he's changing positions to another pedestal by another big animal statue to sing verse five, I turn to a guy standing next to me and say, "I wonder how many times these folks have had to endure this routine?" The guy sort of smiles and backs away from me. I can tell this is something you don't talk about.

The show is over after a couple of more verses, and after Mr. Whitman leads them all in a rousing hymn. It must be a fast-paced hymn because I start to clap in time, and others take it to be clapping for Mr. Whitman and join in. A couple of folks in the crowd "get it" and I notice that they are clapping in rhythm with the song, like me. Then folks start filing out. I'm up on some sort of raised area, and beneath me, several small gray cars are leaving. These are obviously the other big wigs at the hotel (or, is it really a bank, too? They look like bankers.). The cars are being driven by chauffeurs, and there's one which only has a black man in it as a passenger. He looks particularly bored and almost upset. I can tell he's seen this show one too many times.

Back in the lobby, I meet a couple and sit down to chat w/ them. It seems I know them quite well. (Was the room for two couples, and not four guys?) And my girlfriend (wife?) walks up. It's actually my girlfriend from back in college (we lived together for six years) and she looks so nice. She falls into my arms and says, "Look!" She pulls back her hair and shows me her neck. There's a kind of scar there. She says, "I had the first acid peel done, finally!" This seems to have made her very happy, and I'm happy, too (why?). Then it hits me! I know what happened to my debit card! I hold her as I get up from my chair and say, "When I gave the bearded guy my debit card and my old key, he thought the card was another old key, too, and threw it away!"

She and I hurry back to the front desk, and as we're walking, she catches the carpet with the toe of her new hiking boots and says, "I hate these shoes!"

* * * *

If the phone hadn't rung in real life, I am sure this would have gone on a lot longer.

It was the first day of my senior year in high school. I'd just walked in to my calculus class 'math 150', taught by some professor from the community college, fearing it would be a pretty hard class. The lights were off. The room was huge, and students were sitting in various locations. I didn't know anyone.

Well, my book was still wrapped up in plastic because I didn't want to risk the $120 we paid--if you unwrap it, you can't return it. I went to ask the teacher if it was the right book. Other students kept on getting in my way as I was about to ask him, so I never got to.

Next thing I knew, he was adressing the whole class, and I was in my seat. He said that the first day was about survival. I was munching away on some sort of snacks he gave to the class--I think it was a bag full of those little brown things found in chexmix that you either love or hate. He went on to say that we'd have to fend for ourselves outside, and that those who survived would be those who took the class. I stopped crazily eating the little brown chips, realizing I'd need them for survival in the wilderness.

All of a sudden, everybody was finding a spot to lay on by the beach shore to watch the 'show'. I didn't know what the show was going to be, but I figured I'd better get a good spot. It seemed as if all spots were taken except for one, next to Hien. Hien's my friend, see, but most people at our school really dislike him and find him annoying. So I sat next to him, and next to Pat--this punk I know who's the best drummer in the highschool band. And I thought I didn't know anybody here.

Next thing, we were in the forest. It was sort of like a highschool campus except, where you'd expect halls and grassy areas and quads on the outside, it was pure forest. Nothing but trees, etc. There were bathrooms and such amongst the buildings--that was about it. For some reason there was a kitchen stove with a rangetop by the bathrooms. I joined forces with two people near me who seemed willing to coöperate. I think I tried to talk to them but they seemed so bereft of civilization they could hardly speak more than grunts. I, however, was determined to make some torches.

I found a branch from a tree that'd fallen that was remarkably torch shaped and carved a circular notch on the top. I then went into the bathroom, grabbed some toilet paper and some paper towels and tried to shove them into a torch the way they seemed like they should've been shoved--I'd never actually seen a torch up close, or even unlit, so I was doing as best I could.

All I remember after that is I never got to light my torch, though one of my idiot caveman companions had some sort of fire-bearing device which he had to hold by the rangetop for it to keep lit. What an idiot.

End of dream.
I noticed a sad pattern in my dreams. I have a dream involving the television show, Full House, in a dramatic effect once a week. I've figured it out. The Olsen Twins are somehow connected to communism!

We were living in a commune. During daytime hours, our house would turn into a beach house. There was also something about one of those crane machine games involving stuffed animals. I kept winning animals but they wouldn't budge. So I got the crane to collect all this money on the bottom and it finally pushed it out. We were in serious trouble. I was almost arrested.

I went to my swimming pool but it was for "elite" citizens only, and because I upheld some comradian system of sharing benefits, the woman laying out felt it necessary to trip all over my poltical views. I was forced to leave and return to the commune.

Then it was time for bed, so I go to my bedroom which is right next to laundry room. The bedrooms have nothing in them but beds. I lay down on mine and look around. There are doors in each room that connect to other rooms. There is no hallway in this house. You have to go through the rooms to get to your room. My room was connected to the laundry room, and someone else's bathroom.

There was a huge get-up with Michelle (you know, on Full House) and her new bed. She was having that post-traumatic crib loss thing going on, so I explained to her how simple it was to sleep in a bed (this is not like me at all) and showed her that her room was connected to Joey and her dad's room. I then offered to sleep with her until she fell asleep. But the instant I closed my eyes, I opened them up and there was sunlight in the room (even if there was no windows?) Michelle was excited about her new bed now, and I was becoming jealous about her room. It was nice and quiet in here, not like my room right next to the laundry room. Dammit. I had to steal her room.

The elite woman from the pool came to our house and yelled at me some more. Supposedly, because of me, her husband had impregnated her in the pool. I asked her who her husband was, and she said, "James K. Polk." I replied, "Manifest Destiny?" She smiled and we had a sudden bond. I ended up marching around the house screaming something like:

"MORE POLK! LESS SPANISH FOLK!"

A short, but horrifying, nightmare last night:

I'm walking the tracks of a wooden rollercoaster (the Texas Cyclone??) with my goddaughter and her best friend. We reach the crest of a hill, and my goddaughter starts to do gymnastics on the wooden beams.

At first, this is not unusual to me, as she's always doing crazy stuff like this. But then I'm filled with a sense of imminent danger, and that's when I hear a beam start to crack.

It's the beam my goddaughter is clinging to. I feel a wave of relief wash over me as she manages to vault herself back up to stand next to me.

Then the track beneath her crumbles, as if rotten. I try to reach for her, but I'm too late. Again, I'm relieved when she manages to grab another beam.

But while I'm trying to figure out a way to reach her, that beam cracks, and she falls to the ground ... so very far away.

Then I wake up, in a cold sweat.

I think this dream is in reaction to finding out that my goddaughter has her first serious boyfriend. I've been her father figure for most of her life, and I think I fear losing her. The mind is strange.

I didn't get to sleep until late. And it was uneasy sleep because I was lying in bed next to my best friend who had passed out from a drinking binge and smelled like a distillery(two-dollar drinks are always a bad idea). I went to bed upset and is always the case when I fall asleep in that state, I had nightmares. In the first, I was standing in the middle of a burning house trying to rescue a book of Anne Sexton poetry (incidentally, there's a Sexton poem called "Love Letter Written in a Burning House', a fact that somehow escaped me in the dream). The books was lying on the floor without a cover. I tried to pick it up, but it wouldn't budge. The flames are rising higher but I must save this book. I look up, and a small boy tells me in a sad voice that "All things die, even poetry", and he is hit by a burning beam. I rush to save him and I get hit by another beam which pins down my legs. I wake up with a 15 lb cat on my shins.

We were a team of programmers working on psyche to machine interfaces for a top secret government contractor .I was their best. I was working late into the night at my console when I felt something invade the interface. I felt it take my mind between its cold hands and twist and squeeze and crush me until I was a mangled pulp.

They found me the next morning, bleeding where I had broken my nose from banging my head against the plexiglass screen. I was mumbling incoherently, trying the same command over and over.

They carried me to sick bay.

I slept.

I slowly got better.

I tried again, meeting the machine. But the pathways in my brain had become twisted, darkened, ruined. I could not meet it, there, on the empty plain. Again, I became incoherent and confused. They were there this time, watching over me, and cut the connection before I could hurt myself.

I woke up in my bed, knowing I had failed. Knowing I was ruined. I could never touch the machine again.

I haven’t done this dream log before so bear with me for I am a dream log virgin. My dream as best I can remember started with me playing cards with my brother and roommate. It was a kind of a magic take off but the pictures and cards where all of naked women. (I know says something about me) Anyway I remember being upset because I couldn’t figure out which ones gave me mana. After getting upset and throwing the cards down I got up and left.

I don’t remember how I got from there to the beach but then I was on a clam beach with my girlfriend. We where just sitting and set asked me draw her a picture of the sky. And well even in my dreams I can’t say no to this women. I start up the gimp (some how I had my computer with me on the beach.) and start work drawing it for her. Thats all I can remember.

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