The Fourth Factor

I’m at the counter of a coffee shop that looks like one in a town not far from where I work. They seem to be selling small squares of chocolate cake, and I decide I’ll get one with my espresso. I’m hoping that it will be less expensive than their big slices of cake. But the total comes out to a little more than $10—meaning it was actually quite a bit more expensive. The woman behind the counter tells me that, if the total comes up to just a little more, which it would if I ordered a different kind of coffee—but actually, I can’t seem to get her to explain what’s supposed to happen and why it would be a good thing.

After a couple attempts, though, it occurs to me that I’m probably dreaming—possibly just because it was one of those rare scenarios - rare for me, anyway - that’s enough like waking life to where the differences are obvious. I look around the room. I have just enough time to observe that this is actually quite a good rendition of the waking life location before my vision starts fading.

I head for the door, and stepping outside seems to fix the problem. I can see just fine here. I’m now on a street that’s a little reminiscent of the waking life one that I’d expect to be here, but more vibrant and interesting. But I don’t stick around: I start running down the street, then flapping the wings I know will be there when I want them to be, then flying.

I rise higher, above the treetops, then make a strange kind of turn—I ought to be flying straight up, but somehow I’m parallel to the ground in a different location. I seem to be above a forest now, and above me is the evening sky. There’s sort of a natural path here, a groove where the foliage is lower, and I fly along it. I pass a lamppost on my right. It’s an interesting thing, very modern-looking—just a smooth, cylindrical pole with a vertical slit near the top that has purple light shining through it. I note that it would be completely useless from the ground—almost as if this is a real trail I’m flying along, and it's lighting it.

Was there anything I was planning to do next time I had a lucid dream? The only thing I can think of is actually looking at my wings. I never seem to think of it until—like now—I’m already in the air. Oh, well.

In the sky, above and ahead of me, I can see a red light—really, more like a small circle of lights. I figure I’ll go see what it is. That might be interesting.

I fly towards it. Pretty soon, there’s nothing in my field of vision but sky and the red light. It will be harder to maintain lucidity with nothing more solid to focus on, I know, and so I increase my concentration.

Once I’m closer to it, I can see what it is: a meteor, headed down towards the earth. I wonder if I should try to keep it from hitting. I aim myself towards it, but miss and end up behind it. I fly back down towards it, manage to catch up, but miss it that time, too. But, as I happen to glance at the fields below, I spot chunks of broken-up rocks in a few places. They look like the same type of rock the meteor is made of. And it isn’t a very big one—only about half my height. Maybe this isn’t something to worry about, then—this is something that happens all the time here.

I watch as it hits and breaks apart and then land to get a closer look. Among the fragments is a pile of colorful rocks. Some look like red and white crystals, some like turquoises, others like amethyst geodes. I gather them up.

I notice that someone’s nearby—an Asian man, maybe in his 20s. It occurs to me that he might want some of the rocks—and really, I don’t have any claim to them. I was just the first person to get here. I offer him some. He says he’s only interested in the turquoises right now and picks one out—a particularly smooth one—and sets it among a large number of others he has in a bag. I insist that he take another one, too, but then wake up soon after that.

(8.10.18)

In this dream, I ampart of a group, possibly of students, although we seem to be doing whatever it is we’re doing out in the streets of a city rather than in a classroom. At some point, I go into a shop with a few others. It’s selling clothing—skirts mostly, long, summer-y ones that look handmade, in a variety of colors and patterns, but some belts and scarves and things as well.

The things in the shop don’t seem to be in any particular order: in one part of the room is a big pile of loosely-folded skirts. I think one skirt looks interesting and pull it out to get a closer look, but it now seems to be a sheepskin vest with pictures and words on it, not really like anything else in the shop. I put it back.

I then look at a display of jewelry on one wall. It all appears to be carved out of some kind of iridescent mineral of many colors—definitely something natural, judging by the variations. Next to the jewelry are some plectra made from the same material. A young woman from the class tells me that there are more in another part of the room, so I go to look at those as well.

I find one plectrum there that’s blue, in a kind of boomerang shape. It looks interesting, but I’m concerned that it’s too blunt. Another is a brilliant red with little flecks of black and white on the edges and basically triangular, but with slightly concave edges going up to the point. I’ll buy that one, I decide.

12.6.18

I am in what seems to be a dorm room set up for three people, although there are only two of us living there. Above the doorways, I can see red text continually scrolling by, which is then replaced by new text—records of conversations, it seems. On the walls, there are a few posters, different pictures, but all with the words “conserve merriment” at the bottom. This is a reference to something familiar to the person I am in the dream. I walk from the room where I am to the one where my flatmate is sitting.

He/she—this person seems rather androgynous, and the dream itself offers no clues—wants to know if I’m interested in going to do something with him/her. I reflect that I do seem to have been learning more from the things I spend my free time doing than from my actual classes. But I still feel reluctant. It has to do with things I experienced before getting here, I tell my flatmate. In a way, it’s like I’m telling about everything that’s happened to me up until now, but all compressed into a sentence or two—a lifetime spent as a fugitive, never being able to stay in any one place for long, just one bad thing after another.

And then he/she replies: “Is that all?” And actually, when you put like that, it really doesn’t seem so bad. Sure, I guess I’ll go to your thing.

We then talk for a bit about the place we’re at, which is called Campa Piri, and another place I can’t remember the name of now. Then I find myself reading a transcript of the conversation rather than experiencing it. I glance a bit further on, where we’re talking about yet another nearby place called Stone Sway and joking about how it totally sounds like a double entendre. And at that point, I wake up.

In the next dream of the night, I also seem to be a different person—a young boy staying at a large house with a group of other people, all adults, apparently. There was a lot that happened in the early parts of this dream that I can no longer remember, but it seemed to involve finding some kind of special thing in this house—I want to say it was a book, but I’m not entirely sure, and so from here on out it will be known as the MacGuffin.

We are all preparing to leave, and it seems that my uncle—my actual uncle, the only familiar person in this dream—is going to be taking the MacGuffin back with him. I don’t like this: I think that it would be better off in the hands of literally anyone else in the world, and it really ought to stay in the house here. But he’s intent on it and, as usual, impervious to arguments.

He’ll also be taking all the paintings that were in the dining room. It’s a wood-paneled room with a long, wooden table in the middle of it, and pretty much all the space on the walls was taken up with paintings, which illustrated various stories. But now he has them stacked in a closet there, ready to be taken out to the car. I’m not happy about this either. I tell him that he wouldn’t have the space to hang them up, and they’d probably just sit in his house, not even properly stored. He claims he’ll hang them up, but I don’t believe him. What strikes me as particularly unfair about this is that it was only by means of the paintings that we had managed to understand the MacGuffin’s true nature and gain possession of it—possibly from some dark sorcerer type, but that’s also escaped my memory. If the paintings aren’t available, the MacGuffin may never be able to make its way into the hands of someone more suitable in the future.

But then it occurs to me—I can make sure the paintings never make it to his house. There are many people here who also feel this isn’t right, and with their cooperation, we can have the paintings mysteriously back on their walls. Maybe we can spook him into returning the MacGuffin. I pull someone aside to tell them my idea, and pretty soon, the plan is ready to be put into action. But we need a diversion so we can get our hands on the paintings.

It’s announced that I’m going to be talking about a painting in a nearby room, and so everybody—minus a few co-conspirators—files in and sits down in rows of chairs. I have the painting there at the front of the room: a fairly small one of a winter scene with trees. I begin talking. I am a kid and don’t know a thing about painting, but I confidently B.S. my way through it.

Just as I’m explaining how the branches of the trees in the painting are reminiscent of the branches of knowledge, continually reaching out and producing new shoots, an older man with short, white hair stands up and approaches me. He is a professor of art history, and he thinks that the branches are nothing of the sort. I tell him that that’s what one of my philosophy professors had said about them. I definitely have the impression that he, too, is in on it, and that this, too, is part of the diversion.

Once I’m done, we head out towards the door. This requires us to pass through the dining room, which I had forgotten about, but I see that the walls there are still bare. That’s good—right now, it’s still too early. But I’m sure the paintings will be back up once everyone’s gone through.

16.2.18