DREAMS ARCHIVE: MARCH 1999 -- PART I

"SEMINARY"

I was sleeping in a bed when a conversation woke me up. I looked around this darkened room and did not see anyone, only large windows with the curtains drawn. I lay in my bed listening to the two voices that sounded like announcers, either television or radio announcers. They were talking about a recent magazine cover featuring a beautiful bikini-clad woman. One stated that our women were the best in the world -- I assumed he meant the United States. I looked over at an alarm clock and realized that I still had a few minutes left before it was set to go off.

I decided to get up out bed; morning light was illuminating the orange curtains by this time. I could see that I had been sleeping on the right side -- standing at the foot board looking toward the head board -- of a queen-sized bed. Standing at the foot of the bed, I pulled the bed sheet and cover and threw them forward, hopping onto the bed to flatten them out on the bed. I finished making the rest of the bed.

I looked out beyond this rooms door and saw a priest, wearing bishop or cardinal vestments, cleaning a shower in a restroom. Apparently I was staying at a religious order dormitory. I felt good about being up early and getting ready to clean up for the day.

I wheeled a small red wagon past some people that had congregated in my room. Holding the handle, I wheeled it backwards under the legs of a small table that was in a corner of the room. The wagon squeezed perfectly under this table; and I was surprised that I did this maneuver without banging the wheels into the legs of the table. On the other side of this table was a door and I pushed the wagon to rest against it. Someone said something to me and I responded that the wagon seemed "evil," that I was moving it out of the way. I think a sacristy was on the other side of the door so I thought the wagon would be fine where I placed it.

I walked across the room to get some pocket change, walking by a friend who was standing next to a priest -- I think this gathering of people in my room were preparing to go somewhere, perhaps to breakfast. My friend asked the priest if "change holder" had a feminine article in French. The priest replied, "le." My friend said, "Ah, masculin, bon," and then asked a question in French about the change holder. The perfect fluency of my friend's French made me laugh so the priest asked me to respond to his question. I replied, "Ton français, c'est incroyable."

"HOMO-SUPERIOR / MINIATURIZED"

I was playing basketball with another person in a small indoor court. As I dribbled the basketball across mid-court, the other player accosted me, throwing me down to the hardwood floor. I think he slammed his body down on me, hurting my ribs. Later, I met this same guy in a small room. I revealed to him that I had Adamantium claws like the Marvel Comics character Wolverine: this seemed to put a bit of a scare in him. He quickly became apologetic and civil towards me, leaving the room by climbing through an opening in the ceiling of a closet.

I went to talk to someone else in this house, telling this person I had something to tell him but that it had wait a moment -- I was waiting for the guy from the previous encounter to leave. When I thought enough time had passed, I told the guy that I had fooled my "attacker" with imaginary claws; that I had somehow made my imagination of them real enough that the guy saw them and was intimidated by them. As I recounted this story, we overheard the guy say goodbye from the roof -- we looked up to an area in the vaulted ceiling where we thought his voice was emanating from. After this, I finished what was left of my story.

Next I was at an "Olympic" event, seated in a grandstand that was not very crowded. The few people that were in the stands were clustered together, making up large flags that represented their home countries -- some had the individual cards that made up a larger flag; others held massive nylon flags aloft that rippled in the cool breeze. I watched a diving event that was going on behind me, turning my body awkwardly in my seat so I could see the various dives. The divers were diving off of a simple springboard. The divers hit the water with a mighty splash, prompting me to ask aloud if "The Cannonball" was now an Olympic event.

I was dropped off at a parking lot, which quickly turned into a parking garage. I entered my car, starting the ignition to warm it up. I drove past a guy who was pulling a plastic garbage receptacle towards his nice sports car. The receptacle had designs of cheese and/or mustard squirted all over it, as if it was something he had received with a food purchase. I noticed a gray door that led to a staircase. Someone kindly opened the door for me, which was nice because I thought I might have to get out of my car to open it. I thanked the person as I passed through the doorway and took my car, which was more akin to a pedal car for kids than a full size car now, down a few flights of steps. When I got to the bottom floor, the ceiling was very low; so low that only the heighth of this small car barely made the small clearance of this ground level parking garage ceiling. I think I rode the car from behind and left through the parking garage exit. Once outside, I looked back and saw the low clearance exit -- it ran like a horizontal slit across the face of this parking garage.

"ASSIMILATION / DIRTY THIRST"

We were in a room, preparing to venture into space. Everything seemed ready for our departure, so we sat on a large couch and "left." I remember walking on a small city street -- I think our journey brought us to this place. The people I saw walking about this city street seemed destitute, meandering like zombies. A man noticed that we were out of place. He told our group that he had recognized that our clothing was one year out of date. From this observation he extrapolated -- correctly -- that we had been traveling via space.

I thought about space travel and the "speed of light" thing. It was not like the movies, with space travel being somewhat instananeous. That year of space travel seemed like a mere moment to me.

We made our way to a "safe house." I saw many destitute persons standing and laying about this place. It seemed to be a precarious situation for us to be in and I felt uneasy being here; the people were looking at us with great disdain -- I thought they may even eat us. I walked over to a small water fountain in an alcove or small closet with no doors in a small wall and I got a drink of water. I walked into a living room where some people were watching a small television. Despite being uncomfortable, I sat down in a chair.

Eventually I left this place with another person from the space traveling group. It seemed like we were being followed as we walked down a small, dark sidewalk. I think there was a commotion at this point but I cannot recollect the specifics of this event.

I looked for a friend at another dwelling. I saw his name listed on a piece of paper that lay on a countertop. I looked up and saw him standing across the room, surrounded by a group of people -- like a group of people crowding together to chat at a party or social gathering. I realized that he had been assimilated within this group.

After this, I found myself sitting in a small square living room with no windows. The room consisted of a modular couch, virtually spanning all four walls, and a square coffee table in the middle of the room. In one corner of this room sat none other than Bob Dole. Another person sitting on this couch talked to him about children, asking him if he thought a twenty-eight-year-old adult child would be any less a child to him. He told a story about one of his own kids: talking with another government official, who had mentioned that his child had received some great post, Bob Dole replied that his kid was now working in the Jewish Embassy. The government person replied, "Oh, sorry." There was an awkward pause in the small living after this brief story. I thought about asking him if he had received his visa to enter former Yugoslavia, but I think I -- or someone else -- asked him if he had enough money. Someone else asked if a company had given him some money out of petty cash, to which another person -- from this company -- said in a yeah right tone, "so and so would never approve such a thing."

I was very thirsty as I stood by a sidewalk curb in a parking lot. I drank several large gulps of water from a pitcher. As I drank, I became more and more thristy, like my throat was becoming dry as I began to drink this water. I stopped drinking, lowering the pitcher from my mouth and finished swallowing the remainder of the water in my mouth. Immediately I tasted something very bitter. I looked into the pitcher -- it reminded me of a clear plastic Brita Filtered Water pitcher -- and saw some black soot swirling around in the remainder of the water at the bottom of the picture. I turned the water picture upside down, emptying its contents onto the parking lot asphalt.

"AQUATIC"

I fired a gun -- along with other people firing guns as well -- but the loudness of my gun startled me. One guy talked about job stress and how great it was to have pool to go home to for a quick swim. I thought of a small pool that someone had in high school and remembered how I had thought the same thing all those years ago.

The dream changed to a swimming competition at this particular pool -- it was an in-ground rectangular pool, about twenty-five feet in length, about fifteen feet in width, with a depth of six feet or so at the deep end. I am not a very good swimmer, barely being able swim with my arms before me with my head submerged and holding my breath the whole time. I knew the the other swimmers would be swimming freestyle so I did my best to swim with my arms and legs, and alternating my head in and out of the water for breaths of air.

I remembered seeing swimming on television with underwater cameras at the "kick end," where the swimmers would roll their bodies in the water and kick off of the wall with their legs to swim back in the other direction. I thought about the exertion of the swimmers' leg muscles, kicking their bodies out about fifteen feet from the wall and gradually rising to the surface. The next swimming competition seemed to be akin to that slow, powerful swimming except that large black scuba fins were being utilized by the swimmers -- the fins reminded me of a whale's tail.

I talked with a young man and young woman at one end of the pool. I dropped myself below the water and tried holding my breath for a little while. I became anxious and thought I would have to surface for air; instead I exhaled some air through my nose and I suddenly felt much more relaxed. I stayed underwater for awhile longer before standing up and rising above of the surface.

"ESCHEW EASE"

I was sitting on some bleachers -- they reminded me of the ones at my high school, except there was a wall/support column directly before me. A person online asked me for a knot idea. I made a simple slip knot with a small piece of dark green rope and placed it on a flatbed scanner to scan it and send it along. When I looked at the graphic picture I had made -- it was scanned in a grayscale mode instead of a color mode -- I saw that I had scanned my face in addition to the slip knot I held in my hand. My face was obscured because of some heavy fingerprint smudges on the glass of the flatbed scanner -- they were dark smudges, like fingerprints one makes after holding a newspaper. I had also obscured the slip knot with my hand, scanning more of my hand and less of the slip knot.

After this, I was upstairs, in a loft area. I was called down for some supper. I looked over the balcony and down through a square opening that made for an open air space, like a grand ceiling. A person on the main floor looked up and asked if I was interested in having a drink -- something "ball," perhaps a high ball. I informed the person on the main floor that I already had a drink, a soft drink. I went into a small bathroom and saw a large yellow trashbag, tied up and resting on the floor against the toilet. I looked into the small wall mirror over the sink and splashed some water in my face, hoping someone was no longer downstairs; I did not want to talk to her.

"HOSTAGE"

I was in a small room, like a dorm room, with two other people. They left and I put some clothes into the closet, sorting out a few jackets from the shirts. After this I saw a guy run from one room to another though a double-hinged door -- it seemed to be a soundstage setting, with three sided rooms and walls that ended so the camera could easily film room to room. As the guy passed through the door, he saw a gray cardboard sign with "KISS" written upon it and he giddily took this as his cue that he was supposed to kiss someone. The only person he encountered was another guy, so that is who is grabbed and kissed -- he seemed to appreciate the comedy of the whole thing and followed his "KISS" cue with full vigor. One of them picked up a gun and began to wave it around, like it was the next part of the script.

I remember sitting across from the guy with the gun in a large room; it seemed like I and another person were being held hostage. A woman left the room to use the restroom, so the guy with the gun slid another gun -- a revolver in a black leather holster -- across the carpet towards me and told me to take it out. I did so relunctantly. We were to aim our guns at one another until the woman came back. I chose not to aim my gun at the other guy, opting to point it up in the air, resting my arm on my knee since I was sitting on the floor with my knees up. He pointed his gun up and fired a round into the ceiling. I saw the small bullet hole he had left and looked out the large bay window behind him. It was sunny outside and I could see other neighborhood houses. I pointed out to the guy with the gun that some people outside of the house could have heard his gun shot; he seemed indifferent to my observation.

For some reason, the scene changed to a small yard on the side of the house but we were still in our "stand off." A car pulled up in the driveway next to us, with a woman and a child leaving the car. Still sitting upon the ground, I turned my body slightly towards the woman and child and placed my gun on the ground between my legs -- I had turned my body to shield my actions from the guy with the gun and I hoped either the woman or child would see the gun between my legs and call the authorities. The child noticed the gun and began to walk toward me but I think the woman called the child to go into the house with her on the other side of the driveway. I think the setting changed back to the large room after this.

"HOW THE DREAMS HAVE CHANGED"

I was standing by the side of a large house when a man drove across the front yard and hit the corner of the house. He exited his damaged car and fled, like he was being pursued by police authorities. I think I made my way into the house for safety. I remember looking out of a side door, peeking around the door jamb. For some reason the man lay unconscious upon a white bed sheet in the front yard with a few people encircling his inert body. A police officer stepped forward with a shotgun and shot him. I wondered aloud how the police could justify shooting him as he lay unconscious on the ground and someone nearby told me that he had fired upon the police officers first.

After this I remember crossing a large bridge at dusk, going from one side of Chicago to the other side -- this was a large suspension bridge and it seemed like I was crossing Lake Michigan and going somewhat downhill. I walked into a building that seemed familiar to me, as if I had been there before but it had changed since I was last at this place. This place seemed empty and I proceeded to walk around, inspecting various rooms and recalling the rooms as I had previously remembered them. The people that were with me seemed overly cautious, not wanting me to inspect this place of familiarity.

We walked outside of the building and behind it. We saw a very tall wooden fence, about twenty feet in height, with car parts and other metal debris piled high enough that we could see it above the fence. I remembered that I had dreamt about this place before, and that the junkyard that was behind this building was a remnant of what it was now. I informed the group that the junkyard people had purchased the land behind this building and had expanded their junkyard complex; previously the land behind this building was a set of fields for various sporting activities. I remember being at this place before for a family reunion picnic.

"FLIGHTLESS"

Someone was attempting to fly a prototype airplane. It looked like a white thirty foot long box kite, with sections that reminded me of the Wright Brother's "Kitty Hawk" airplane. The wings did not seem symmetrical; one side seemed longer and heavier than the other -- and I wondered how it could ever fly. The plane was backed up and put into position. I remember seeing it race across several parking lots trying to get momentum and lift so that it would fly, but I do not think it ever left the ground.

After this, I was walking with someone. I became separated and found myself walking alone in a small parking area nestled against a small "L-shaped" building. I noticed a lion walking nearby. I froze in complete panic when the lion noticed me and began to saunter towards me. It jumped over a small car that was between us and all I could do was stand still and await my mauling. To my surprise, the lion jumped over the car and landed by my side, walking about me -- the way a cat runs up to you for inspection and to say "hello." The lion seemed to purr as it stood by me and I realized that it was not going to attack me. I left the lion and caught up with the person I had been walking with previously. I recounted my harrowing tale and began to cry -- the realization of my lion encounter had sunk in and it was too much to hold back.

"THE PLAN"

I was a passenger in a car that pulled into a parking lot and the car was parked behind a semi-tractor trailer. I checked my back pocket to make sure that I had some cash on my person. I entered the open door of the tractor trailer cargo area and greeted a few men inside. One was sitting behind a desk. It seemed like we were all police investigators, setting something up. I presented the cash I had brought to the man behind the desk. A shady man entered the trailer and presented two tommy machine guns to the man behind the desk. As the man and I inspected these guns, I thought to myself that we must be running a fencing operation. The shady man, wishing to show off his machine guns, fired several rounds into the wall behind the man sitting at the desk; this did not seem to bother him because he sat calmly at his desk the whole time, like it was no big deal.

The people dispersed but I was not sure what our next plan of action was for later in the day. I found another guy within our group and tried to discuss "the plan" with him without being too obvious to others that were milling about. His behavior was a bit erratic; sometimes forth-coming about things; sometimes evasive with an air of ennui. We were sitting at a table when he was in one of his happier moods because he got up from his chair and kissed the guy seated across from me while he sang and smiled. When he moved around the table toward me, I turned my head away from him. Undaunted, he leaned his head down and continued to sing in a gleeful manner. I wanted to keep things professional so I continued to associate with this guy -- I still wanted to know the details of "the plan."

We walked along a sidewalk outside and he explained that he was brought in from a different division, pointing out a delivery truck driving down the road that was part of his group. We entered another semi-tractor trailer area that was set up like walk through display. The walls were shiny white metal with plexiglass areas for viewing items behind these walls. There was a small dining area, where the guy began to eat barbequed chicken. He told me it only cost five cents to barbeque a single piece of chicken, holding up a drumstick as he said this to me. I left, exiting through a screen door.

The dream changed to a group of people walking down an alley. We saw the side of a restaurant that was our destination. One person in the group recognized a guy sitting in this alley as someone he had once went to school with. Since we were such a large group, we sat at a couple of tables; I sat with the new guy and the person that had recognized him in the alley. I looked at the other table and saw that they had plates of food on their table. It seemed like we had brought these plates of food with us to the restaurant. I suggested that we have the restaurant staff warm them up for us.

My attention returned to my table. The new guy was pouring some powdered sugar, an awful lot of powdered sugar in my humble opinion, into his bowl. He was rambling on about some subject and I quickly lost interest in his story.

"MARIA"

I remember being in a library or a book store. I was sitting n some low pile carpeting, leaning against a three foot tall shelf of books. I looked across this small walkway in which I was seated and saw something written on a small chalkboard. It had a word puzzle written upon, with the odds of guessing it correctly below the question: a typical person would get it correct after 700 hours; a genius would get it correct after 70 hours. I picked up a dictionary to look up a synonym for a word in the clue but could not find the word for a synonym comparison. I realized that the word was actually an anagram: V-I-C-E-R-O-Y. I was astounded that I had figured it out and I contemplated writing the answer somewhere on the small chalkboard, but I did not.

An older cousin of mine joined me on the carpeted floor. She was working on a crossword puzzle and I did what I could to help her out. Eventually, we progressed to the last part of the puzzle. She turned the crossword paper sheet and showed me the area that we needed to fill in with answers -- instead of being vertical, horizontal, or diagonal, it serpentined all over the page. I remember seeing the darkened boxes for the answer. Somehow the answer was found and she was very happy to be able to turn this crossword in, like it was homework. She turned the crossword puzzle in and I left, walking by a few tables with older students seated quietly.