maboroshi

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was walking with a couple "friends" through a large area like a mix between a museum and an airport. The floors were grey. There was at least one balcony overhead. The light was a watery-white fluorescent.

One of my friends was a woman. She going to take a trip somewhere in South America. It was somehow like I had gotten her interested in this trip, or like I had gotten her involved with some organization that had put her on this trip.

The woman was kind of worried about how the trip was going to turn out. She didn't even know exactly where she was going in South America. But she didn't want to be so far away from the equator that she was always cold, and she didn't want to be in such a small town that there was never anything to do.

I told the woman that we would look at a map of South America. If she told me enough about the place she was going, I could probably figure out where it was on the map.

I now saw that the big area we were in had a gigantic map of South America. The map stood upright. It was maybe twenty meters tall. It was shaded to match the land forms and vegetation areas of South America. It may have been three-dimensional as well. On the floor, perpendicular to the map, was a long platform-like base with words on it.

I pointed through the moderate crowd up toward the map of South America. I could almost imagine myself driving along some of the roads in South America.

The woman must have been telling me about the place, because I was gettng a distinct impression that she was going to ----- (? - Chile, or Argentina?). I told the woman she didn't have to worry, that she would be going to a very warm place.

But now we were walking up toward a whole new map. I don't know what happened to the previous map. But we'd never gotten very close to it. But now we were getting up much closer to the second tall map.

The second map may have been larger than the first map as well. For some reason, I was afraid to be so close. The map was all blue. The ocean surrounding South America was a dark blue. South America was a pale blue or turquoise.

One city near the northeast end of South America began blinking. But the woman then told me the name of the city where she would be: "Las Ne-----." That city started blinking, just a little to the southwest of the very center of South America.

I knew that this city was in Brazil. The city was small, and the winters got very cold there. The woman would be miserable. But this is where she'd been assigned to go. And I'd gotten her into this whole thing in the first place! I felt terrible. But I still tried to convince myself that maybe she'd end up liking it.

I looked over to my friend. She was now TB, a male co-worker from a couple jobs back, who IWL comes from Brazil.

Dream #2

I was riding a bike through a suburban park, along a concrete path. It was a sunny day. I was all alone, but I may possibly have felt like I was a part of some race.

I rode across a lawn, which was flat at first, then rolled down a small slope. As I went down the slope there was a small building about fifty meters ahead of me and off to my left. I headed for another concrete path at the bottom of the slope.

Closer to the path was a small tree, kind of like a pine tree. But its limbs and branches were rather barren of needles. The branches were also dotted with a strange kind of fruit.

The meat of the fruit was yellow, but very small. It was dotted with seeds, like a strawberry is. But the seeds had either grown so big or ingested so much of the fruit's meat, that they were huge, taking up more space now than the meat of the fruit did. The seeds were shaped like coffee beans. There were also brownish pine-needles sticking out of the fruit.

As I got down toward the concrete path, a young woman came biking up the slope toward me. I figured she was gay (a shallow assumption) because she was overweight, wore a boyish t-shirt and khaki shorts, and had a boyish haircut of curly, brown hair.

I knew that this woman was in a race. I figured it was probably the race I was also in. I didn't seem too concerned about the race, though.

I was now eating as I was riding. Maybe I was eating something like beef jerky or fruit roll-ups. I remember I was chewing like crazy, almost like a wild, angry animal.

I pulled a small, narrow paper back out into my field of view. I pulled two small pins out of the bag. They were backed with brass and fronted with some kind of multi-colored, glass or porcelain design. They were medals for races I'd won.

I may have been stopped and standing or sitting on the lawn by this point. I may possibly have popped one or both of the medals in my mouth, as if I were going to eat them. But I suddenly realized that you don't eat medals. You save them. I was really hungry. But I put the medals back in the bag.

Dream #3

I was inside some kind of structure with a lot of people. The structure -- I'm guessing -- was a tent made out of tarp-like material, like you see for big picnics or for large booths during summertime festivals. The walls were all pulled down, though, so that the sunlight coming through them was a dim, dusty amber.

I was in the midst of the crowd, talking with two little Asian girls. They were maybe five years old. They were good friends. They both had short hair, cut about jaw-length.

The two girls were now being called away, maybe by one girl's dad, who may have been a tall, kind of skinny, white man. The girls had to go get ready for a running race.

I now stood in another area. I looked up to my right. There was a doorway in the wall of the tarp. From that doorway, a plastic-boarded running-track was laid out through the center of the structure. It was bordered on either side by some kind of barrier -- maybe a jumble of stretch-tape barriers, steel-gate barriers, and plastic net barriers.

Everybody milled around on either side of this race track, kind of half-anticipating the start of the race. I may have looked up through the doorway to see the girls. They were in their starting positions, which were actually a few meters outside the doorway.

I was now back a ways from the track. The race started. Two girls may have run into the structure. But I didn't know one of the girls. The other girl was one of the friends. But she now seemed much younger than the other friend I'd been talking to. And she didn't know how to stay in her own lane. She was veering far to the left.

The race may have been stopped, due to the lack of focus by its two participants. Or it may have continued, though nobody really cared about it anymore.

But I wondered what happened to the other girl I'd been talking to. I may have looked (maybe only in my mind's eye) up through the doorway again. I may have come to the conclusion that thing had been so confusing at the start of the race that the girl had tripped and fallen.

I was sad that the girl had fallen. Everybody knew she was the favorite to win the race. I thought they might even start the race all over again for her sake. But maybe they wouldn't. That might not be fair.

I then thought that maybe I had caused the girl to fall. Maybe, while I'd been talking to the two little girls, I'd caused the older little girl to become so sexually attracted to me that she was distracted, and so she'd messed up her footing at the beginning of the race.

Dream #4

I was sitting in a seating area of a small deli with my friend MG, a Swedish guy I'd worked with on an Americorps program in New York.

We were going on some hike somewhere. We'd stopped at this deli to pick up some stuff before we left. But then we'd decided to sit here for a while before we really headed off and drove to wherever we were going to start this hike.

The table we sat at was a small, two-person table. From about waist-height up, there was a mirror running along the wall to my left. Across the narrow dining area from me, some refrigerated food and beverage display cases lined the walls. The floors of the area were brown tile. Farther ahead, behind MG, I could see where this area opened up into the larger store area of the deli.

Two girls walked down toward, then past, our table. The girls were maybe eighteen or nineteen years old. They were incredibly hot, with blonde hair, tight shorts and soft t-shirts clinging closely to their breasts. It seemed like the girls may have been planning to go hiking, too.

The girls sat directly behind us. It seemed like they wanted us to talk to them. But I felt like I was too old to hit on eighteen-year-old girls. I'd look like a dirty, old man.

My backpack (? - don't wear one) was on the table in front of me. It was stuffed so full it almost looked like a green ball. I unzipped it and pulled out a clear, disposable container, like you might see in a deli, holding a single slice of cake.

The container held a meal or side dish made out of rice and a ton of black beans and black bean sauce. I ate the entire meal, scraping as much of the black bean sauce as I possibly could.

MG said, "Are you sure you have enough ----- for our hike?" I didn't know whether he meant food or water. So I told him I was fine. I said that after I'd eaten this thing, I wouldn't need anything else for the rest of the day.

MG said, "Well, I guess some people just have different bodily needs. It's kind of amazing to me. I would never go that long without -----."

I now wondered whether I hadn't misunderstood MG. I'd just eaten a ton of food, it seemed to me. Why would I need to eat anymore for the rest of the day? MG must have meant that I'd need water. And now that I thought of it, I didn't have any water in my backpack. I would need water.

I looked over to one of the refrigerated display cases. It was a narrow cabinet with a glass door, holding a bunch of sodas and waters. I saw a few waters, like Poland Spring waters, on the bottom shelf. I figured I'd buy one of those.

Dream #5

I was in an apartment with a pretty girl. It was night, and all the lights in the apartment were off. The only light in the apartment was from dim city lights and the light of the moon, which was apparently full and huge, so bright that the rest of the sky was inky black.

I was apparently house-sitting here. I'd invited the girl over for the night. The apartment was big and nice. But the living room held both the couch and the bed. My viewpoint kept changing between the couch and the bed.

The girl was over in the shadows of the room, maybe in a corner near the door. She had specifically come here to have sex with me. But now I seemed to be afraid to have sex with her. I may have expressed a fear that I didn't want to be having sex right at the moment when the people I was house-sitting for returned.

I was now sitting with my back to a window or to a sliding-glass door. But some part of the window must have been open, because a gauzy, billowy curtain kept wafting up around me. I may have been looking off to my right, to a TV set, which was turned off.

The girl was on the phone, either the apartment's phone or her own cell phone (which may have been an old, silvery, flip-open style phone). The girl was talking to her friend, complaining about all my excuses for not having sex with her. These excuses were mostly about the apartment itself.

"But," the girl said, "if this place were a loft apartment, where we were the only ones who could get into the entire floor, there'd be no worry about anybody seeing us coming into the apartment."

(This had, I guess, been one of my worries.)

The girl now said, "But, wait! Isn't this a loft? This is! This is a loft apartment! We have the whole floor to ourselves!"

I realized the girl was right. Maybe we could have sex, after all. But suddenly my mind began filling up with a million other reasons why the girl and I couldn't have sex.

I was now kneeling on the floor, near the corner of a coffee table that stood before the couch. The girl was back to complaining to her friend on the floor about all the excuses I kept giving for not having sex.

All the time I listened to the girl, and thought of ways to get past all my silly excuses, so that I could have sex, I was staring at a sculpture of a woman's torso.

The sculpture was nicely shaped. But it seemed to be brittle and plastery. And the skin was a little too orange to look human. The torso was made to look like it wore a black bra and a skinny pair of black panties. I may have been turned on by the panties.

Dream #6

I was out in some area, kind of like a parking lot that was being used for a summer festival or fair. There were a decent amount of people milling about.

A little girl was milling around with her mom and dad, maybe five meters away from me. The mom and dad were standing at a distance, maybe eating some food. The dad was tall and thin, bald, wearing a white polo shirt. The mom was shorter, maybe a little overweight, blonde, with a kind of saggy face.

The girl was maybe nine years old, blonde, with tan skiny. She wore a summer dress with thick straps and a plaid pattern with a dark pink background and lighter pink criss-crosses. The girl stood in front of some sort of belt-rope barrier.

The girl began doing dance moves or gymnastics moves, possibly while she was eating an ice cream cone. She lifted her right leg out to her side, then bent over to touch her right arm to her right leg. She then "bounced" off her leg and twirled her torso and arms over to the left. She moved into something like a somersault, then stood and began the move again.

As the girl did all of this, her limbs formed trails, like in a multiple exposure photograph or film, so that it looked like the girl, as she moved, was forming phantom arms and legs. It was really beautiful.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in some place that looked like a living room. But there were a lot of people there. The living room was lit with natural light, which came in through a big window off to my left. I sat along a wall with a lot of other people. In front of the window may have been some boxes or cases, like guitar cases.

A tall, white man with shoulder-length, brown hair walked up to one of the guitar cases and picked it up. (Or he may have brought a guitar case to the window and sat it down.) It looked like the man was struggling a bit with the guitar and case. So I got up to help the man.

I found that I was really of no help at all. I tried to grab one end of the case and just dropped it. The case was really heavy! Somehow the man managed to arrange the case or pick it up or something.

I knew the guitar was the man's guitar. I knew the man was in a band, so that he was out playing this guitar all the time. I asked the man, "No offense, don't take this the wrong way. But -- how can you play a guitar like that for a whole show?" By this time the man had the guitar out and was tuning it. I continued, "I can barely lift the thing. How can you carry it for a whole show?"

The man may have made some comment to me about how I shouldn't be so lazy, and how it wasn't so hard to carry the guitar.

I got a closer look at the guitar. It was made up of a lot of gagues and meters, like for some kind of electrical reading apparatus. The strings and tuning knobs themselves looked more like high-tech machine parts than guitar parts.

The man had started playing something. An old woman came up to me, as if to dance with me to the music. The old woman was just a bit shorter than I, with a big, round hairstyle of dyed-bright-red hair. She was slightly tan, with slightly wrinkled skin. She wore black sunglasses and some kind of white, soft, leather jacket.

I spun the old woman around a few times. But I started to wonder if everybody around me would think I was in love with this old woman, since I was dancing with her.

I sat in the room, in the dark. A light shone on the wall across from me. It was like a round spotlight. It shone on two or three spots of a map. The spots may have moved around. The map showed countries, possibly like in Europe. The colors of the countries were probably pink, purple, and orange.

I was standing up again, in the daylight again, and possibly dancing with another person, possibly my brother or sister.

Dream #2

I was in a place like a zoo or some kind of national park. It was daytime. The light was slightly pale, the sky may have been partly cloudy, and the air cool and a little breezy. I had just walked away from some group of people, possibly my family, or maybe a group of friends. I think I went away from them so I could go get my shoes.

I was walking on a wide, stone-tile path. There were big groups of people all over the place. Off to my left was an asphalt path that went back through a moderately wooded area, up a small hill, possibly to some mansion at the top of the hill. I kept going forward.

I walked past long stretches of benches that ran along the curves of the wide stone-tile path. There were crowds of people standing and lounging around, and crowds of people sitting on the benches.

Toward the end of one of the stretches of benches I saw an old friend from high school, Michelle, who I hadn't thought about in years. She looked a lot different. She had short hair, buzzed all around the sides, with just a flip of dyed-blue hair for a kind of bangs-effect. She wore a blue hoodie and blue jeans. She may have been sitting with a girl, who may have been her girlfriend.

I was happy to see Michelle again, and I called to her. I may actually have thought she was one of my cousins. I had to keep on going -- I had to find my shoes -- but I yelled out to Michelle, as I passed her, that I'd stop to talk to her when I got back.

This path had apparently run along the edge of a cliff or steep slope, which was off to my right. The path went down a gentle slope just past where I saw Michelle. I must have gotten down to the bottom of the slope.

In my mind's eye I saw my shoes: they were old, worn out, brown leather shoes, almost like something in a Van Gogh painting.

I don't know if I ever found my shoes. But I was now running back up the hill. I had to get back to the people I left, so we could leave the "zoo" for the day. And I had to get back to them on time. But before I went back to the people I'd left, I wanted to see if I could talk to my friend/cousin one last time.

But as I was running, I got jammed up. It was like some person in the park was trying to be a jerk and had gotten in my way. Somehow I'd gotten tangled up with this person, who I couldn't see -- I think they were behind me. I kept struggling and struggling until I was free. I then kicked the person.

When I turned around to the person -- I'd expected to see some tall, white guy who was being a jerk -- I saw a kind of short, really fat, black woman in a police officer's uniform. The woman started yelling at me, "You think it's cool to hit a police officer? You're gonna pay for that!"

I was trying to figure out what I needed to do to make up to the police officer. But she now started giving me a kind of mild lecture on how there was no running in the zoo, how it was too dangerous. She may have said, "Especially when you're not wearing shoes."

I suddenly realized I knew this woman. She "had been" a "ranger" at one of the New York City Parks I'd worked at in the past. (IWL she had been a different kind of worker than a ranger.) She was now a bit taller than me, in much better shape, with a bit lighter skin-tone, and wearing a ranger's uniform.

The woman started talking to me about what had been going on in the parks since I had left. I thought this woman was taking up all the time I'd wanted to spend talking to my cousin/friend. I thought she could even make me too late to re-join my group and go home. But I thought I should sit here and listen to her anyway. I was still trying to make up for having, technically, assaulted her.

The woman's main focus was some woman who had gotten kicked out of the Parks Service. The kicked-out woman had done some apparently scandalous things. But they didn't sound very scandalous: mostly just spending too much time talking to park-goers and not enough time doing her actual job.

As my old co-worker spoke, it became night. My old co-worker became a kind of tall, overweight man wearing glasses. The man was black, with a light skin-tone and freckles. We stood in the blue night, at the edge of an asphalt path, near a stand of some tall pine trees.

The man kept telling the story of the kicked-out woman. Apparently on the day the woman had been confronted, she'd been having a really bad day. She'd actually gotten violent with some people. But now that she'd been confronted, she'd gotten even more violent.

The man backed himself deep into the stand of trees, almost to the edge of some cliff or steep slope. I had to walk into the trees to see the man, who stood under a clear sky hung with a huge, clear, white moon.

The man began acting out all the violent motions the woman had made when she had been confronted. The man was tossing his limbs all over the place and shouting. He looked crazy. I was a little afraid, as if I thought the man would attack me.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a house all by myself. The house was one story. The living room was huge, but it was extremely cluttered, as if laundry and blankets were strewn everywhere. It was early morning and dark.

My mother and the rest of the family had left the house some time ago. They had probably left for at least a few days. I had the house all to myself. I didn't live here with my family, but I was "in town" for a few days.

I walked into a bedroom which was just off from the living room and right next to the front door of the house. The room was really small, maybe twice as big as the small bed inside it. It was also extremely cluttered.

I may have heard a car arriving outside. I knew it was my father. I think my mom and the rest of my family had left because they knew my dad was coming for a visit and they wanted to avoid him.

I walked out into the living room through some kind of thin sheet that was now hanging over the doorway to the bedroom. My dad was already in the house. I was wearing a red and white trucker cap. My dad may have been wearing one as well.

My dad may have asked me why I was up so early. I said, "I always get up this early. This is when I go to work. In fact, I'm heading to work right now."

My dad and I were looking toward a huge sliding glass door to the backyard. But our view to the backyard was blocked by a thin, yellow curtain and possibly also a white dry-erase board.

My dad asked if I always go to work this early. I told him I did, and that I tried to work pretty late as well. My dad said, "Well, my habit has always been to do Fridays only from nine to five. I thought you might do the same thing. At least on Fridays."

Dream #2

I was in a grocery store, getting checked out. The front of the store had big windows running along the wall, looking out on a bright, sunny parking lot. I felt like something, almost like a big piece of machinery, was behind me, making it very uncomfortable for me to stand in the checkout line.

A thin, Latina girl just a bit shorter than I was bagging my groceries. She asked me at some point about my work. I was away from work and I needed to get back. I may actually have been picking up supplies for some kind of work party. The girl may have asked me if my work was really strict with how long I was away.

I told the girl about my hours and what I did at work. She had bagged my stuff and was now walking out of the store with me, helping me take my bags to the car.

I was out in the parking lot. I may have been by myself. A few kids whom I may have thought of as a group of kids I'd taken out on volunteer projects came walking up. I was a little shy, but I called out to them. We kept talking, but for some reason I kept heading to my car, which was a few aisles away.

I now saw that my sister was among the kids. I couldn't see my sister or the kids anymore, but I was "talking" with my sister. She told me she would try to be back at home for whatever party I was throwing. But she wasn't sure she could make it. But if she didn't make it I shouldn't be upset. Because she -----

Dream #3

I was in a hotel lobby. The interior was small, but furnished with nice wood and chairs. But the light was a terribly drab fluorescent. I sat at some couch.

I got a call from my grandmother. She said she had prepared some form for me so I could stay at this hotel for a kind of long period of time. I now had the "form" in my right hand. It was on an iPad. The form was black with white lettering. The blanks, when not written in, were an orange-fadey color.

My grandma said she'd filled in a lot of the form. I noticed she had filled in my social security number. I was kind of surprised by that. But my grandma said, "Yeah, of course I have your social security number. I can get that if I want. I can even have them give me your social security card if I want. It comes with being your grandmother."

I felt slightly inconvenienced at having to be at this hotel, but I figured I'd stay here anyway, since my grandma had done so much to secure a place for me.

But either I or my grandma pointed out that the forms would not be finalized for a while. I told my grandma, "If thats's the case, I need to go somewhere else until the forms are finalized. These people don't like having me here in the first place. And having me here without my permanent forms finalized is just an excuse for them to give me a bad time."

I spoke with my grandma about where I should go while I wait. My view was now of a map. It was apparently a map of Colorado, where I grew up. I kept travelling south on a red road on the map, through a number of towns notated by circles. The color of the map changed from pale lime green to yellow.

I kept telling my grandma I couldn't stay in any of the towns my vision passed through, as the people in those towns all hated "people like me." I eventually went south of Colorado's border, which was much more jagged and rounded than it is IWL. There were three towns just south of the border. I may have figured one of those towns would be safe for me to stay in.