Night Vision

A canyon-like setting, rocky with little vegetation. I’m seeing events play out in third person. A man called Xeno lives in a house there with his wife, and others live there as well. It seems as if they’re his students or something of the sort. He knows that the area is about to flood and that there aren’t enough people there to do the necessary work to keep the house safe, and so he raises a man from the dead to make a zombie to help. He talks with the man, who doesn’t look visibly dead and seems rather like a sleepwalker. At one point, the man says, “I like unimaginative nightmares.” I’m not sure if there was a context for this or not….

—

I’m standing in a long line outside of a restaurant, waiting to get in. For a long time, the line doesn’t move, and I’m just about ready to leave and go somewhere else, but then it does start moving - and pretty fast at that - and doesn’t stop, so that I’m inside just about as fast as I can walk.

Once inside, somebody I know calls me over to her table, and I sit down across from her. She indicates the table next to us, on the left - nobody is there now, but there are a couple shopping bags on the booth seating. She says that my Aunt O is sitting at that table, and they were talking earlier. She obviously has no idea that this is not something I’d be all that happy about. I wonder - should I warn her about some of the things she’s done to me and said about me to others? That doesn’t seem right, though - like I wouldn’t be giving my friend the chance to make her own first impression.

The dream changes to a view of a line drawing, kind of like a manga page but not really in the right kind of art style, showing a full-body picture of smiling woman. The title of the book was: Love Brings Us Home.


22.1.25

I’m in a school, waiting for a colleague to arrive. He’s supposed to be here subbing for the person I’d usually be working with. I’ve never met him before, and all I know about him is that his name is Rishab.

Through the end-of-school-day crowds, I see a dark-skinned young man wearing what I can tell even from a distance is one of the bright green company t-shirts. I wave at him, trying to get his attention. He sees and comes over to me, and I tell him to follow me to the room where we need to set up.

I realize that we’re going to go right past where my Aunt B is, so I stop to check on her. She’s been here for a while - I couldn’t get her to go lie down. I say something to her, but she just sits there staring and doesn’t answer. I am concerned - so is Rishab, and a couple others who are in the room.

1.2.25


Part of a longer dream. I’m in a school, walking students to the door to meet their parents alongside someone else. Mostly notable in that, at one point, the perspective switches to that other person, so I can briefly see myself from behind. I’m wearing black cotton trousers, a pink tank top, and a black cap - all modeled off of clothing I actually have, although I wouldn’t ordinarily be wearing it to work - and my hair is in a braid down my back. It switches back and stays that way for the rest of the dream, as far as I remember. A student’s mother is already there at the door waiting for her. One of them is called Britney, although I can’t remember now whether it was the mother or the student….

—

I’m in a grocery store, or something that’s supposed to be one. It really seems more like an outdoor market that just happens to be inside, if that makes sense. Various things happen which may or may not have been interesting, but at some point I become aware that I’m dreaming. Possibly before I get into a conversation with a man there, although I think this is one of those cases where the realization didn’t happen all at once.

He was the one who started the conversation with me, I’m pretty sure. A heavyset man, maybe in his 40s or 50s, with dark skin - so black it’s almost bluish. I don’t remember exactly what he was wearing - just an impression of bright colors and complexity.

He expresses concern about me. (This may have had some connection to the dream, but definitely had a foundation in waking life, as I’d probably spent most of the night trying to find a sleeping position that didn’t hurt to lie in. Kind of a long story, but it boils down to a bad reaction to a food additive combining with chronic back issues and developing into neck and shoulder pain. So no, it hasn’t been a good week.) I tell him it’s no big deal. I’m not going to let it get to me, and I know I’ll be feeling a lot better if I can just get out to dance this weekend. He seems skeptical that it could really be that significant, saying something about people just going out now and then for a night dancing to top-40 stuff. I reply that maybe that’s how it is some places, for some people - maybe even the way it is for most people, for all I know - but that’s a totally different world from the one I’m familiar with. And I have no idea what’s even in the top 40 now, and I bet that’s probably true for most people over 30. He laughs, as if to say that, yeah, I’ve got him there.

From there, the conversation turns to the Grammys, and in an oblique dream logic move to award shows in general, which I profess to be meaningless. He agrees overall, but adds that there are exceptions - he mentions actors who fit their roles so well that from that point on, people don’t think about them apart from the role. This strikes the by now definitely lucid me as having some special significance that I ought to make a point of remembering.

At some point we get up from where we’re sitting and part ways. I walk around, just looking at my surroundings, and I soon find myself in a relatively open area, where I spend a couple minutes just messing around, running and jumping higher and longer than a person could do outside of a dream. But then I decide I’d really rather go somewhere else and walk through a wall. Usually I just go straight through them, but this one turns out to have kind of a gooey texture, a little like raw bread dough, and so I have to push my way through.

I find myself in utter darkness on the other side. But I know what to do in a situation like this: just keep on going, and keep my other senses as engaged as possible. I walk. The air is a little cold here, and I feel cold water around my feet, which becomes deeper as I go. I sing the first thing that comes to mind, which happens to be:


Hello darkness, my old friend,
I’ve come to talk with you again.


Lyrics appear out of the darkness - not in space, but in my mind’s eye, which just happens to be indistinguishable from it right now. They appear one line at a time, spelled out in large letters in a vivid orange, and I treat them kind of as a karaoke prompt - although I only realized after waking up that what appeared weren’t the actual lyrics, and by then I could no longer remember anything specific about them. Waking up to a body in pain definitely does not help with dream recall.

Eventually, I can see my surroundings again. I’m now in a corridor with an industrial back area feel to it. No windows - only metal doors in metal walls. I walk along and push open a door that’s already ajar. The room inside has tables set up in a horseshoe shape like an office boardroom, although it looks like some kind of storage room otherwise, and isn’t quite big enough to fit the tables comfortably. A couple people are sitting there. One of them tells me that I’m not allowed in there. Fair enough - I continue down the hallway and try another door.

This one appears to be a classroom - there’s a long whiteboard along one wall with writing and drawings in black marker all over it, although, similar to the other room, it looks more like some kind of storage space that just happens to be set up as a classroom. Students are seated on the floor facing the board, and there are a number of free-standing shelves on the other side of the room, which is much larger than the first one. I notice a drawing on the board showing an octave’s worth of piano keys. Maybe this is some kind of music class - this could be interesting. I ask one of the men who seem to be teachers there if I can sit in on it, and he says yes, so I go in.

I take a closer look at the shelves, as it looks like they’re not quite ready to start the lesson just yet. It occurs to me that it could be a good idea to have something to make notes with, so I make a pencil materialize, but before I can do a notebook as well, the lecture begins, so I go over to where the students are to sit down. I wake up soon after that, though.

6.2.24

I’m walking down a dirt road at night in some rural-looking, semi-wooded place. It’s very dark, maybe lit only by the moonlight. A car is coming down the road, from the direction I’m headed. It stops nearby, and a woman opens the driver’s side door slightly and asks me whether I need a ride. I tell her no, I’m just out for a walk. She drives off, and I keep going.

I’m only going as far as the end of the fence before I turn back - a wooden one on my right - and I’m almost there now. Actually, I’m not surprised the woman stopped, since I’m carrying some pillows with me, and that probably made it seem like I wasn’t just out here because I want to be. Why am I carrying these things anyway? I’ve been doing it for a while this way, and it’s not like I’ve ever done anything with them. Maybe I should just leave them behind next time.

Then it’s as if the scenario repeats itself, but with changes. This was a dream from early in the night: I went to bed a little after midnight, and woke up to record everything around 2. Perhaps because of this, even though the setting seems fully realized, the dream is unusually full of sudden shifts - or else I’m unusually aware of them - and I’m also aware at times of other less imagistic mental content taking place simultaneously, influencing the dream from without. This time, there’s a restaurant by the side of the road that I walk past - one that’s clearly still open, as I can see and hear people out on the terraces. As I turn around, I see a man a little ways behind me. He explains that he just happened to be walking the same way, as if he’s reassuring me that he’s not actually some kind of creeper.

The scene shifts. I’m in a hallway full of closed doorways where moving shadows pass by me on their way from one end to the other. A sense of unease. Major liminal space vibes here.

After what feels like a short time, though, the setting changes again. I’m once again outside on a moonlit night, but this place has a different feel to it. Also, I’m now aware that I’m dreaming, although it isn’t clear what led to this realization. There’s still a sense at times of parallel mental content happening, including awareness of a dream plot being imposed, but there are also some short segments where I seem to be imagining how things play out before they actually do.

I walk. It feels somehow more like reality than like a lucid dream - that's how it strikes me at the time, anyway - and I’m fascinated by how detailed the mist looks - little swirls of it are constantly catching the moonlight, especially over a stream I pass by, where it’s thickest. After what feels like a few minutes, I reach a house - my destination. I knock loudly on the garage door, and there’s another sudden change of scene, to where I’m now inside the garage.

Until now, I’ve been following the “plot”. It just feels as if I should somehow. But the setting here has felt so unaccountably somber. There’s a heaviness to the atmosphere that’s getting to be a little oppressive, and by now it’s starting to bug me a little, so I yell out: “It’s-a me, Mario!” As loud as I can.

“Don’t say that,” a voice says from right next to me. “It makes me heartbroken.” I turn to my left and see a man standing beside me.

“Why?” I ask. His answer didn’t quite make sense to me. “Is your name Mario?” But he doesn’t answer me. He is completely absorbed in pouring himself a glass of amber-colored liquid from a bottle into a glass and then drinking it. I take a closer look at him. He’s a fairly young man, white with short, dark-colored hair and wearing a black leather jacket. I briefly wonder whether I modeled him after a character in a gangster movie or something.

The man is on his second glass when the door leading into the house opens. A woman is there, having heard me. She’s been expecting me and beckons for me to come in. I go, inviting the man to follow along as well.

Another sudden shift of scene. We’re sitting in a room, at a square table. Across from me is the woman: we’re talking about something, although I can’t remember any of the details now. Meanwhile the man, seated on the side to my left, seems oblivious to our conversation. His attention is focused on what looks like a primitive electronic toy of a sort that was around in the ‘90s, and maybe later too, but I really have no idea. It’s pastel blue, and it emits all kinds of little bleeps and blips as he presses buttons. He’s apparently trying to type something out but finding it rather hard going. I hear an awful lot of the two-quick-blips sound (I recognize the interval they make as a descending tritone) that indicates he’s using the backspace key.

And then I wake up.


19.12.24

It’s sometimes disappointing to wake up with only fragmented memories of dreams—but sometimes, trying to image what the context might have been is almost worth it.

In the beginning of the dream, I’m walking into a building. Many people are already there—it seems like some event is taking place, possibly multiple events. A couple men are entering at the same time as I am. One of them seems to be able to see me—although he doesn’t say anything to me—and the other doesn’t. I’m keeping track of the people who are able to see me since I’m really not supposed to be here, and I’m trying to keep a low profile.

The space I’m entering is basically a circular building with a separate central area, although the specifics kept changing throughout the dream. The first area I walk through, going clockwise, seems to be a restaurant. I pass people sitting at tables, including one that’s occupied by dreadlocked guys dressed in Jamaican colors who seem to be having a lot of fun.

[Note: today, the day after the dream, I was given a story to work on about reggae becoming a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage—so maybe that’s what they were so happy about.]

There was a lot that happened after that, most of which I can’t remember very clearly. But, towards the end, the space was like an auditorium, with a lecture area in the center and areas for students to sit all around it and higher up. I had put the table I had surreptitiously borrowed from Nancy Pelosi among the tables in the student area while I went and did some other stuff, but in the meantime, students had come in, including my friend Dirk. And somebody, noticing that the table is more wheelchair-friendly than the standard tables there, which have metal bars crisscrossed underneath them, has set him up with it.

Now, I had totally been intending to give Nancy Pelosi her table back. It’s what I came back here to do. But Dirk is clearly getting some good out of it. Also, Nancy Pelosi was more of a jerk than I had expected. I figure she can just buy a new table or something.

1.12.18