maboroshi

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

Two criminals had escaped from prison. There was a view of only their legs as they got into the back of a silver-grey car.

One of the criminals, the leader of the two, seemed to be an amputee. His hands and feet, and possibly even most of his legs, had been cut off. They were bandaged up with clean bandages. The man may also have been really short. He also wore a nice, grey suit. The other criminal was tall and muscular. He may have been dressed in leather pants and a tank top. He may have had long hair and a beard.

Now two cops were chasing after the escaped criminals. They had followed the criminals to some abandoned building. The criminals had gone past some chain-link fence and up a stairwell. All around the stairwell was dark. The stairwell was lit with some kind of intense, orange-yellow light.

The cops were now trying to push past the chain-link fence. But they were also proceeding cautiously. They weren't sure whether the criminals were waiting up on the steps to shoot down at the cops.

One of the two cops got past the chain-link fence. The cop was Latino, a bit heavy-set, though not really overweight. He wore a white tank top and black glasses. His hair was combed back in a wavy style. He may have had a goatee. The cop had his gun drawn. Instead of walking up the steps, he walked under them.

The second criminal was now seen hiding in the shadows. It was like I was seeing from the shadows, too, at a distance from both the cop and the criminal. The criminal drew his gun, pulled it high in the air, then slowly leveled it at the cop. The criminal was about to shoot, but the cop saw him and shot first.

The cop shot the second criminal a few times. But he was then surprised when another gun shot him in the chest, on his far right side. The cop got shot a number of times. He reeled back against the chain-link fence, which now had a wide hole in it.

As the first cop tumbled backward out of the stairwell, the second cop charged in. The second cop looked a lot more clean-cut than the first cop. He wore a dark suit, maybe dark blue. He had coppery skin, short hair, pale eyes, and a square jaw. Right away he tackled the person who had shot the first cop.

Behind the fence, the first cop stood, bleeding from his wounds. One or more officers may now have appeared behind the fence to assist the bleeding cop. It seemed like the cop had been mortally wounded. But he kept calling out, in a panicked way, "I'm not gonna die! I'm not gonna die!"

The second cop had the first criminal wrestled to the ground. Apparently the first criminal had shot the first cop (how? He didn't have any arms!). The second cop was slamming the first criminal against the ground and even, somehow, had his gun drawn on the criminal. The cop was yelling and the criminal something like, "You killed my friend! Now I'm gonna make you pay! I'm gonna kill you!"

The criminal, who was bald and had a kind of thin, sharp, tan face laughed and said, "No you aren't! Every cop tells me they're gonna do that. But nobody ever can. I never get really punished!"

The criminal, now captured, was in some room like a medical laboratory. He was being held down in some weird position, probably against a bed, by somebody like the chief of police. He was surrounded by medical people and police officers, all of whom seemed to be jostling the criminal, as if to make him feel bad about what he'd done. But the criminal just kept laughing.

Finally a doctor grabbed the criminal's head. He sliced his scalp open from front to back, along the center. He did it in such a way as to hurt the criminal, but the criminal just kept laughing, as if he didn't even care. The criminal's scalp was now pulle away from his skin. The doctor now sawed into the criminal's skull, splitting it in the same way as he had cut the scalp. But the criminal was still laughing.

The doctor then hacked open the criminal's brain, right along the center. The brain looked dry, bloodless, like just some solid, white, kind of fatty mass. The doctor reached either his hands or some tweezers down toward the base of the split section of the brain.
From the right side, very near the cleft, the doctor pulled up a yellowy, plasticky-looking section of brain, almost rectangular, about 2cm tall and .75cm wide. The doctor, and maybe other people, seemed to think that this was just "yet another" piece of brain that they'd had to pull out of this criminal's head.

Dream #2

I was sitting in a small apartment. I may have been sitting on a couch, but I may also have been sitting on a coffee table. It was daytime, and the room was lit with greyish-green light coming in through the curtained windows. The room seemed to be full of boxes.

I had ordered something, and I had been waiting for it for just a little bit longer than I'd wanted to wait. But just as I was thinking of calling the store I'd ordered from and asking about my delivery, a delivery man rushed into my house. He kind of scared me. I did't expect anybody to just rush into my place.

The man was tall and white, kind of strong-looking, very pale, with pale, blue eyes. He seemed to have a shaved head, but he wore a baseball cap, maybe red. He wore dark clothes, almost like an Adidas track suit. He carried a white plastic bag in his hands. It held my stuff for delivery. It looked like the stuff inside was white styrofoam, like for take-out meals.

I now had the bag. I looked inside. I'd apparently ordered two or three Asian DVDs of some sort. One may have had a cartoon panda on the front. There was some other merchandise in the bag that I don't remember.

The man told me, "The movies are due back in two days. For the rest, you'll be charged..."

The man continued talking. But I didn't quite hear him. I'd been surprised. The DVDs were due back? I thought I'd bought them. But now it made sense to me. I'd rented the DVDs, or checked them out, like from a library.

The man seemed to be a little eager to leave. As he had been talking, he had slowly come to recognize how full of boxes my place was. Something about this seemed to freak him out. He no longer wanted to be here. He finished up his speech really fast, but almost automatically, as if he didn't want to betray how freaked out he was.

I had gathered from what the man had said that I owed the company something like $22. I pulled out my wallet. I had something like $21. I told the man I could give him $21 now and pay the company the rest when I returned the movies. I knew this was more than I had to pay right now, since I didn't have to pay for any of the movies until I returned them. So, somehow, that meant I only had to pay $20 right now.

But, even as I'd offered the man the money, he was already back out the door and into the hallway. He called back to me, as I walked up to the door, "No, don't worry about it. You'll just be charged for it all on credit."

I thought that was both convenient and a little bit of a pain. I didn't really want to have stuff charged to my card.

There was another white kid in the hallway. He wore a thick, yellow sweater with a black logo on it and big, baggy, green pants. He had black hair which swept down over his eyes. The boy had seen how freaked out the first man had been by my place. So he now looked inside. He seemed to be interested in something.

I was a little freaked out by the kid's gaze, so I turned around and walked back into my place, trying to look, to the kid, like I hadn't seen him looking into my apartment. I looked at all my boxes. I wondered if the kid had thought there was something here he'd like to steal.

I walked farther back into my apartment, into my bedroom. This room was full of boxes, too. I thought, No wonder people get weirded out by my place. It's full of boxes. It looks like I've never moved in. But I never feel comfortable anywhere. If I could finally feel comfortable somewhere, I'd unpack my boxes. Then it would look like I actually live here.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was possibly with my brother and sister at night. It was pitch black outside.

We may have been driving a car around, possibly a black SUV. But we may have needed another car, which my mother may have had. We may have been angry or impatient with our mom because she wasn't bringing the car.

We got some call from or about our mom on one of our cell phones. Our mom was either sick or injured. I suddenly felt very worried and sad, but also ashamed that I could have been so impatient about my mom when she had actually been injured all along.

Dream #2

I was with my friend H. We had been attending some kind of lecture. Now it was over. We were standing in some side room, off to the side of the lecture room.

The lights were mostly off in the lecture room and the side room. A little bit of fluorescent light seemed to be coming from somewhere else. The lecture room was kind of big and square, like a dance rehearsal area, but with low ceilings and full of folding chairs.

The side room was much smaller. It had something like two workshop tables in it. On each of the tables, long sheets of paper were rolled out, more than one sheet per table.

H and I stood in the side room with a white man with red hair and a red beard. The man was something like a professor. The man's hair was kind thinning back from his forehead. He may have worn blue jeans and a sweater with dull green, yellow, and red striped and designs on it.

The professor had given a lecture on something like Buddhist mandalas. The papers all rolled out on the table were Buddhist mandalas. But they were all laid face down.

H was talking with the professor, asking a few questions about Buddhist art. I got a little distracted from their conversation, and I was wandering around at the other end of the side room.

At some point H and the professor decided it was time to go. They started heading out the door and told me they were ready to go. For some reason I told them that I would just be a second, that I just needed to put my shoes on.

As he walked toward the door, the professor began telling a story, apparently directed toward me, about how he did research on certain monkeys using certain chemicals. The chemicals might often create certain blood conditions in the brain, like hemorraging.

The professor said, "Of course, the monkeys run around and play all happy. But they have no idea that if the chemicals make the blood conditions in their brains, I'll have to make them fall asleep." The professor then explained that he would then sell the affected brains to the researchers.

The professor and H had walked out a door, into the next room (a stairwell exit?) which was lit with fluorescent light. I stood there for myself for a second. For some reason, it took me this pause to realize that the professor was purposely infecting these monkeys, then killing them, cutting open their skulls, taking out their brains, and selling their brains to interested parties.

I may have tried to get the professor's attention (he and H were still within earshot) to ask him if this was really what he was doing.

Dream #3

I was possibly walking back home. It was late afternoon and a clear day. The air was cool and pleasant, and the sunlight was dim, pale gold.

I turned left and walked down a sidewalk bordered by lawn. It seemed like I was either at the boundaries of some park, or possibly the lawn of a complex of very tall apartment buildings. The road, to my left, was wide, but it wasn't very busy.

The whole setting seemed very clean. But I wasn't familiar with it, and it didn't feel like my neighborhood at all.

Somehow I now needed to cross the street to get to the sidewalk on which I had already been walking. There were two black boys, about ten years old, one of whom may have been sitting on the metal housing for a transformer.

The kids saw me crossing the street. I passed the kids. One of the kids stayed where he was. The other kid kind of followed me. I had a feeling that the kids were going to try to jump me or steal something from me. But I wasn't too worried. The only thing I had with me was a CD version of Philip Glass' opera Akhnaten (why?).

The kid who was following me kept edging up, as if he were going to walk in front of me, then falling back. I just kept ignoring him.

But now I saw a big group of black kids walking down the street. The kids were maybe in their late teens. There were seven or eight of them -- enough to block up the entire walkway and small strip of lawn by the curb. The kids looked like trouble. So I decided to just cross the street right away, to get out of their range.

But, crossing the street, I saw a huge fence, maybe 6 meters tall, possibly bordering another lawn-type space. On top of that fence there sat an even bigger group of black kids. They were already looking at me, and they looked ready to jump down from the fence and attack me as soon as I passed them.

I veered to the right, to head back toward the road I had been on before turning onto this road. I could tell that that road was much more populated, and that a lot of cars ran down it. I figured it would be better for me to just hang out on that road and avoid these gangs of kids.

But, for some reason, I was really flustered that I had to do this. I felt like things hadn't been like this before, or like in the neighborhood I thought of as my neighborhood things weren't like this. I wondered why things were like this now or here.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was coming to see the birth of a baby. I had apparently seen the mother give birth before (possibly in an earlier part of this dream). I hoped I wasn't late this time.

It was day, and I was running toward the house. I seemed to be coming at the house from the back. The house was very small, white, and in a rural setting.

I noticed that the land behind the house had become a huge pool of water, apparently right from the backdoor. I stood at the edge of this pond, looking toward the backdoor.

A group of men and women about my age all exited the backdoor. A woman stayed in the house. She handed the newborn baby to a tall, skinny, slightly bearded man. The man may have dunked the baby in the water. This was the baby's birth.

I jumped in the pool (I was wearing a backpack, for some reason). I swam toward the group of people. I wanted to be part of the birth process so much.

I thought to myself that I've always worried about seeing a baby still covered in everything right after birth. But now the baby would be clean. I was disappointed and relieved at the same time that I wouldn't have to see the baby right after birth.

Everybody was now carrying the baby toward the far back end of the pond. I had to swim all the way over there to reach them now.

I got to the group of people. It may now have been all women. They were all talking with each other in cooing voices. I tried to be a part of whatever they were doing. But I couldn't see the baby anywhere.

I may have seen somebody carry the baby, now wrapped in swaddling cloths, over the edge of the pond. The pond was bordered by a ledge of flat, grey stone. I clumsily hoisted myself, in my wet clothes, onto the ledge. Beyond the ledge there was a slight drop down to some bare, dusty soil. I jumped.

When I landed, I was reminded of my backpack. I thought of how wet it must be. Then I remembered that my computer was in my backpack! It must be soaked right through!

I walked around the right side of the pond, heading back toward the house and the spot where I'd jumped into the water. I was trying to convince myself that my computer really wasn't soaked all the way through. I'd had it in its case after all, right? But I knew that was a lousy argument. The case wasn't waterproof. I knew I'd have to test it.

I got back up to the edge of the pond, then I turned around and walked back toward the back end, but up on the ledge instead of down in the dirt area.

I may have encountered my old friend K or my mom. I explained my problem with my computer. K/my mom asked me why I jumped in the pond with my backpack on. I replied that seeing the baby was so important that I didn't care what I was wearing.

I now had my computer sat on the ledge, opened, and turned on. I said, "See? It doesn't work. I'm just getting this one program you always get when your computer doesn't work. It's like a sign from the company that your computer is broke."

The program was some yellow and green colored video game that reminded me of an Atari 2600 video game.

My view may have changed to a dark office, where I was all alone.

Dream #2

I was in my great-grandmother's house. I sat near the front door. I sat on one of my great-grandmother's stools and ate some kind of sandwich.

I was probably by myself in the house, waiting for other people to arrive. The lights in the house were all on, and it was warm.

Some of my family had gone to the hospital with my great-grandma. She may now have been dead. Regardless of that, the doctors had done a bad job on her.

I recalled one particular statement made by a doctor. My great-grandmother had had something like a stroke. The doctor said that my great-grandma's brain would heal itself, so that there was so need for treatment.

I laughed to myself, thinking that they all should have realized there was a lot more damage than they'd thought, and that my great-grandma had actually needed a lot more help, especially since she was so old.

I tried to remember something about what the doctor had said. It had something to do with the electrical patterns in the brain, how they travelled in circles. I could feel the electricity in my brain, travelling counter-clockwise in my skull.

I remembered that the doctor said that if you have an electrical anomaly, such as a minor stroke, you could often wait for the electricity to come back around and reset the messed up part of your brain.

Now I had an electrical anomaly in my brain. I was having trouble speaking, as if my tongue were way too thick for me to talk with. I wondered if my mouth were just too full of food. In panic I pulled whole chunks of tomato out of my mouth. They looked like the upper palates, like for braces.

I tried to speak again, but my tongue still wasn't getting words out. I was pacing around the house, in a bit of panic. I convinced myself that it would just take time for my tongue to heal.

Just then my sister and great-grandmother walked in the door. I knew I couldn't speak, so I just kept quiet, trying to show by my facial expression how happy I was to see my great-grandmother.

My sister sat me and my great-grandma down on a red, plasticky couch (very unlike the couch my great-grandma had). My great-grandma seemed to be a lot livelier than she'd been in a long time. But I still was unable to speak!

My great-grandma (wearing a grey, tweed coat) said to me, "Aren't you going to say anything? Here I've come all this way to say hello. Aren't you going to be grateful and talk with me?"