Blue_Opossum

Morning of June 22, 2018. Friday.

Dream #: 18,813-02. Reading time: 1 min 23 sec.



The first part of my dream presents a shopping situation in an unfamiliar store. There is significant visual detail in what I am buying, mostly food. After finishing our shopping, Zsuzsanna and I (and our children) walk along what vaguely reminds me of the King Street area in America.

Silas Weir Mitchell, the American character actor, is with us, though my dream self does not recall him as either a celebrity or a character he had played. He is an implied friend.

We approach an intersection, though it seems a challenge to continue. Snow covers an embankment though there is no awareness of winter or being cold. Where the end of the sidewalk joins the curb, one must first go up and over the embankment before crossing the street. I am pushing a shopping cart full of groceries. Silas is helping me, although he soon seems to be annoyed.

Upon going over the embankment, there is a sudden drop of about two stories, with the street far below. I look down and see that Silas has fallen with the trolley, though seems uninjured. There is annoyance at my lack of progress in getting home with our food as the groceries are now strewn on the street far below.

I soon realize it is a dream and that it is the usual vestibular system correlation of the waking process. As a result of this emergence of dream state awareness, I mentally reset it, and immediately, Silas and the shopping cart are back near me on the sidewalk, but I still decide to wake.

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In this dream, Silas is the vestibular system personification, a projected simulacrum of the waking process (which typically comes with an imaginary perception of flying, falling, or rising as a result of not fully discerning the physical body or its orientation while asleep). An intersection is autosymbolism for RAS (reticular activating system) mediation and synaptic gating, that is, the choice to wake or return to dreamless sleep (or attempt to continue the dream).

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I explain this dream type in “Dreams of Type PRECONAV-VSCPCEL, 01-15."

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Morning of March 24, 2018. Saturday.



I find myself on my own in the middle of a shopping excursion. The shopping mall is of an unfamiliar layout. I wander around for a time until I am more focused on my dream’s dynamics. Although I am not lucid, there is still a vaguely discernible summoning factor as with the majority of my dreams. I remember that I am married and have children, but no other conscious threads are present such as knowledge of my age or location.

I am thinking of getting a tackle box, mostly for our sons for when they go fishing. I go to a lower shelf and pick one up and decide I will get it. Even though I perceive it as a tackle box, its appearance is that of a white Styrofoam egg carton. I consider that its design is as such to keep individual fishing lures from getting entangled by their hooks.

From here, I look at a display wall featuring various types of fishing tackle. I consider getting one of my favorite and useful types from years ago; a yellow jig. A couple are near the bottom. I study the many other types, virtually every kind of fishing tackle I have ever used, including various plug lures and spoons. I absentmindedly carry the tackle box and jigs out of the store to the parking lot without paying, though I realize I will pay for everything I get after shopping longer. I put the items into the back seat of a car, from the left side.

In attempting to go back into the mall, there is now an unfamiliar male painting the foyer. It is a darker cyan, and the entire walls, ceiling, and floor appear to be covered and still wet. (Of course, my dream self does not question this impossible sudden event.) The coat of paint has somewhat of a folded appearance, like the wrinkles and minor folds of a bed sheet. The painter, in blue bib overalls, is on a step ladder and remains cheerful. I am somewhat annoyed by this challenge. I attempt to go in, but I soon consider that I am now partly covered in paint when getting halfway to the opposite door. I subliminally reset my dream and I am again back outside the store (as I was prior to the previous event), wondering how I can enter. I notice that there is now an additional foyer to the left of the first one, which two unfamiliar females walk through to go into the store, so I use this one.

I start thinking about getting some snacks for my family. Eventually, I approach a large table in the center of one store, which apparently is a bakery. There are several large butterfly cookies (about the size of my hand) with multicolored frosting of mostly yellow, cyan, pink, and blue. Each is wrapped in cellophane. First, I see what I think is the price of 95 cents on a very small label. I then notice that the price on a larger label is two dollars. I pick up two to purchase but begin to wake at this point.

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Return flight waking symbolism (RFWS) has occurred in at least one dream per sleeping period for over fifty years, but sometimes there are multiple diverse flight symbols in several different dreams in a shorter sleeping period. Their specific nature seems directly correlated with both my subliminally discerned level of unconsciousness and vestibular system dynamics. However, in this case, the autosymbolism seems a fairly obvious rendering of “butterflies in the stomach” in subliminal anticipation of RAS modulation (in the sometimes unexpected or jolting transition of dream self to conscious self). Because the butterflies were a static feature as cookies however, the waking was softer than usual. The imagery was also beautiful and even reassuring.

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Morning of February 27, 2018. Tuesday.



I am in an unfamiliar store and looking at a large wooden display unit for magazines. It has four shelf sections and is as long as the aisle.

I notice an American Mad Magazine on the third shelf up, the front cover of which resembles that of issue 145 from September 1971 (with the original’s cover price being 40 cents), though the art is somewhat sketchy, seemingly by Don Martin, and drawn smaller and lower than the real version. It also seems to be implied to be a hot air balloon with a male character hanging from the basket’s gunwale on the left side and a female character facing left in profile and looking down at him with a question mark over her head.

I pick it up with my left hand but I never open it. Still, I perceive that some of the pages are stiffer than usual, perhaps due to several different thin cardboard pages throughout. I consider that it may be a special issue. I assume it is two dollars and prepare to buy it, discovering that I have an Australian two-dollar coin in my right hand.

Zsuzsanna is also soon present and she finds a magazine that she plans to buy. It seems to be a different issue of Mad Magazine, but I do not see the cover.

I go to the singular checkout counter, which looks somewhat like the type in a convenience store, although there is no display unit at the front. I prepare to pay for the magazine when I notice that I am also carrying, in my left hand (and below the magazine), what looks like three VHS cases, though smaller than real ones and ambiguously associated with DVD cases. Looking at them, they all seem to be folk music albums.

Their covers are all in brown and beige hues and feature mostly print (apparently lists of song titles). I put them in a display bin in which others are strewn, at the end of the aisle near the checkout. Going back, I notice that I still have one case in my hand, and wonder how I had missed putting it back. I feel somewhat annoyed by my absentmindedness.

When I am at the checkout (Zsuzsanna standing on my left), the unfamiliar male cashier tells me it will be twelve dollars. Looking at the cover, even seeing that the price in the upper right corner reads as $3.12 (three dollars and twelve cents), I still exclaim, “How can a two dollar magazine be twelve dollars?” I consider that I might pay the amount, as I start to remember that American magazines in Australia are much more expensive than their printed cover price, but I wake at this point.

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Zsuzsanna is usually on my left in the last segment of a dream. This is subliminal awareness that she is on my left as we are sleeping, and as such, is a common DSI (Dream State Indicator).

The Mad Magazine cover depicts static “failed flight waking symbolism”, suggesting that the character is about to fall, potentially precursory symbolism of my dream self in waking transition (the typical biological jolt of waking). However, these common dynamics had been quashed in this case, both in being featured on a liminal space divider (magazine cover) and oriented incorrectly. This is otherwise based on the biological vestibular system ambiguity of being unconscious, unrelated to waking life. There has been at least one VSA factor in at least one of my dreams of each sleeping period for over fifty years, so pretending that VSA autosymbolism is relevant to waking life is asinine (other than when literally prescient, though I doubt I will be in a hot air balloon or buying a Mad Magazine in the future).

This dream is the typical checkout scenario, which is autosymbolism of consciousness reascension (leaving the dream state), one of my most common factors of waking autosymbolism since childhood. The confusion about prices (as well as having to do the same thing more than once) is a common dream state dynamic (as the non-lucid dream self does not usually possess or maintain viable thinking skills or temporality) of which is unrelated to waking life and the conscious self.

The preconscious personification (the cashier) is an unfamliar male to prevent my dream from having waking life associations. (However, in direct contrast, this factor is sometimes inexplicably prescient.)

RAS mediation renders the store as unfamiliar to prevent my conscious mind from mistaking it as being related to waking life (for prevention of false or ambiguous memories). (There is always the possibility that it may be visually prescient, but it is probably only the usual unique fictitious composite.)

In summary, this dream features the usual components and autosymbolism. The Mad Magazine cover is similar to the first issue that my mother bought me when I began to collect them in 1971, thus this represents the induction marker of my dream, while the checkout is the exit marker.

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Morning of June 12, 2017. Monday.



I am walking through an unknown city in a commercial area, where there are a number of small stores to my left as I walk. It seems to be late morning. I seem to be on my own at first. I have an interest in looking around in a store and turn to enter a store I think I recognize. When I walk in though, I see it is a clothing store.

“Whoops, wrong store,” I say as I soon turn around to leave. Another (unfamiliar) man who had been walking behind me also enters the store and turns around to leave when I do. It is almost as if he had been having the same thought orientation as I had and was simply following me as if I was “leading”, apparently also looking for whatever I am (even though we had not spoken and I am not even sure where I am going).

I continue to walk, but only a short distance and into another store that has a different type of entrance as the previous. There is a large long checkout counter on my right and an interior wall to my left so that it seems almost like walking through a narrow hall. I continue towards the back and see that it is a large bookstore.

I see a magazine that I find interest in after first noticing what I take to be an Omni magazine. When I pick it up and look through it, I see that it is a science-fiction comic book (in color) about dinosaurs and a group of men. I decide that I will buy it. I look in my wallet and I am somewhat surprised to find at least two one-hundred-dollar bills, a few fifty-dollar bills, and more. I illogically reason that my mother (who died in real life in 2002) had placed the money in my wallet. I have no memory that she had died even though I assume I am my present age.

I then see another magazine I want. I look through it and find it interesting. It also has at least one story relating to dinosaurs but is seemingly for older readers as well as being thicker. It is supposed to come with a CD, but I decide I will ask at the checkout if they have it. Our youngest son appears to my right as I decide to buy one more thing. I see a few groups of Casper comic books to my left. There are about four different covers (different issues) in the groups. I ask my son if he wants one and he says yes and points to one in another area to the right, but I already have one I find interesting and inform him that it is also larger. It is a fifty-two pages “giant” edition. He seems happy.

I go to the checkout and there is an unfamiliar cashier who is a female of perhaps fifty. She has gray hair. I remember to ask about the CD. However, when I look at the magazine, which is wrapped in (transparent) plastic, I see the CD is already there. I tell her that I had thought it would be in a jewel case attached to the cover. She looks at me with wary concern and asks if I had put anything on the CD (such as a computer virus, I assume) and I sarcastically ask her how I could have done that, asking her if I used the cover as a computer. Then I consider that technology might very well allow one to use a magazine cover as a computer, which I talk to her about for a very short time, but nothing negative commences and I remain cheerful.

As I pay, holding my wallet open and taking out a fifty-dollar bill, I notice an unknown female on my right cheerfully looking at the hundred-dollar bills in my open wallet as I hold it up near the counter. It almost seems as if she never saw one before and, slightly wary, I put my wallet away. It turns out however, that she had not been looking at my wallet or even at me; perhaps something on the counter.

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This dream is a very good example of why dreams are nothing like stories. I am looking through a magazine, planning to ask the cashier where the cover CD is. The magazine is somehow then commercially wrapped, implying it always had been (thus I could not have been looking through it even though I was). I then tell the cashier that I thought it would be in a jewel case, which makes no sense as I said this spontaneously and had really not considered it in this manner. Then the cashier asks if I had “put something” on the CD. Obviously, being wrapped, I could not have, and even if I had, I am buying it, so whatever I might have put on it would only be in my possession and with no problem or concern for others.

Additionally, my mother died in 2002, yet my son, born in 2007, is with me at his present age. My mother only ever lived in America and would not have had Australian money of such an amount to give me, thus making the setting itself ambiguous by location. Omni magazine stopped publication (in print) in Winter 1995. The Casper comic book, though new, was like one from around 1971. The threads of the fictional dream self always seem completely different each time and from many different timelines and temporary false memories.

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Morning of September 10, 2016. Saturday.



My wife Zsuzsanna and our children and I are living back at Stadcor Street in Brisbane. It seems to be early afternoon and we have to go shopping for groceries. I am going out the back way, through our kitchen, but the layout is a bit different. The small square area that one needs to go through to get to the back porch is much bigger and there are additional doors, one directly into our backyard and another one onto our back porch.

I notice what I first think is our pet black cat in the small room with me but it has no eye, nose, or mouth detail. It is like a three-dimensional shadow and I sense puzzlement radiating from it. I am slightly wary (but not fearful in any way) as the creature jumps up and somehow goes through the area between the central top part of the door and the door frame (and would have to be as thin as a sheet of paper to do this). This would be the door that goes to our back porch (liminal space).

I go to the lounge room to talk to Zsuzsanna about this strange event and she calls the animal something I do not seem to be able to hear properly. After I ask her to repeat it a few times, it still sounds something like “wolf-roosh”. My hearing ability seems to become too distorted each time to hear the final part of the term. What I grasp from the term seems odd to me as it was seemingly a cat shadow, without any wolf associations at all.

After we do our shopping, the unfamiliar balding male cashier (of about forty years of age) cannot seem to get the cash register to work properly. Apparently he has to press his thumb on a pad to acknowledge he has the authority to use the cash register, but it is not recognizing him. I am thinking that maybe his thumb needs to have a small amount of yellow ink on it to get it to work. I am getting annoyed and I am not sure how we will complete the transaction if the cash register will not work.

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The checkout area of a store is a waking transition metaphor symbolizing leaving the dream state. In this case, the lack of “yellow thumb” is associated with not being fully conscious. The cash register symbolizes the potential increments of critical thinking during the waking transition as conscious self identity emerges.

The threshold event (here an atypical precursor rather than my dream’s final scene) concerning the door, featured a cat shadow in liminal space as the emergent consciousness factor. Curiously, this was borrowed from the ending of “The Flintstones” (which I had seen so many times as a child). Even the essence of the movement (comparative to the sabre-toothed tiger jumping up in the cartoon) was the same. I found that fascinating, especially as the ending theme’s line “…cat will stay out for the night” could be interpreted as remaining unconscious (asleep) throughout the sleep cycle.

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Morning of July 2, 2016. Saturday.



In my dream, my wife Zsuzsanna and family as we are now are living in an unfamiliar and unknown location. I need to go to the grocery store before it closes, as it is late at night. Even though the location is unfamiliar, I seem to somehow know where I am going when I leave our house.

I walk mainly down a sidewalk in an area where there are no buildings. I am headed towards a bridge that is perhaps half a block long. On my right, across the street, I notice a ninja in black jump up onto the bridge railing after it seems he had come from the middle of the street ahead. At first, I had thought he might be approaching me, thus I remain wary. I am not sure if it is a teenager intent on attacking and robbing me though that feeling is not that strong as I keep walking. It may be that he has no intentions toward me. This remains unclear.

I seem to discern another person ahead of me and in lighter clothes, but walking towards me. However, this person seems to either disappear or also cross the street to the other side. I have a vague impression he may be connected to the ninja as part of a gang. Still, nothing threatening happens. The ninja remains on the railing in a squatting position.

There is an odd and atypical dream within a dream where I am reading about an older male from China concerning some sort of anecdote of the author’s. This occurs as I am walking but my dream goes back to the original setting after a short time.

Eventually, I cross to the right side of the street and enter the unfamiliar grocery store. An unfamiliar and unknown Asian girl is the cashier at the one counter across from where the shelves are. There is one aisle on the other side. Even though the store seems to be closed at this point I tell her I will not be long. There is a shift, and I already have two small bags of groceries without any recall of either picking them up or paying. I then tell her, as I am heading toward the doors, that I need to get one more thing, a box of cereal.

I find myself going to an area that is apparently in the back of the store. I notice that it is a mess, with various items strewn across the floor to my left. Otherwise, there is not that much on the shelves. I walk out back to being near the counter and ask her where the cereal is and she makes a note of it being on the other side of the main area. I notice a box of cereal (at the top of the shelf) which is Weet-Bix but mostly cinnamon flavored and consider that I will just grab that. I still do not have full recollection of paying for anything as I leave, though my dream fades from there.

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I have had other dreams where a certain part of a grocery store was messy or under construction or repair. It may relate to improper diet and the under construction aspect may relate to healing and cellular repair - or, it may just be incidental to the transient nature of the dream state. Shopping for food dreams are fairly common for me.

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A bridge typically represents a consciousness shift within the dream state. This is validated in this case by the ninja in black jumping up onto the bridge railing before I cross the bridge (though again, across the street from me yet seemingly just appearing from the middle of the street), which seems to be a less interactive form of the waking precursor. In this case, the ninja may be a curious variation of my own shadow form that has appeared in a number of dreams since early childhood, primarily in two forms, both forms implied to be my own shadow (regardless of how far away or even being of a different orientation). In the one form, it seems to be “matched” to my dream self as I test to see if it is my dream self’s shadow and in the other form, it seems to be my conscious self (doing different things than my dream self) looking into my dream and watching my dream self. However, even in the former, it seems related to a subtle awareness of conscious activity and emerging (that is, growing and clarifying) self-awareness.

Morning of December 10, 2015. Thursday.



The first segment of my dream is a vague grocery shopping event of a type I have had since the late 1970s, though in this case, my wife Zsuzsanna and children are known as they are now in reality. Still, the store does not seem familiar, though it is only rendered in my immediate surroundings and “foggy” beyond about eight feet in all directions. Based on the real directional orientation of our bed, it seems I am going easterly through the checkout. I do not notice any other people except for the (unfamiliar) cashier.

From here, there is some sort of abstract distortion about having action figures all over a bed (dream sign) along with random (human) clothes and accessories for the action figures as well as a few unrelated miscellaneous items. One of the action figures is Thor. Thor is slightly smaller in scale than the other action figures, just enough to notice. Other action figures are Jean Grey, Wolverine, Magneto, Iron Man, and a few others. Jean Grey is actually the largest in scale compared to the others.

There is some sort of confusion about playing a game with the action figures, which possibly relates to a board game. Thor’s clothes are missing and as such, he might as well be a Ken doll, it seems. I am also annoyed at the disorder of the various toys and game pieces and the apparent difficulty in quickly finding something. However, I eventually find Thor’s outfit (next to the other miscellaneous items and clothes, under my shirt) and am able to interact with my family in the informal game (which seems more like random playing around). I notice that Jean Grey has a large monochrome plastic basket (not that realistic in detail as it seems to resemble a My Little Pet Shop accessory) which seems to have a smaller basket extending from the side (this being oddly like a previous dream where a pot of gold icon had a smaller one right next to it - in the same orientation - on the left from my view). It is empty and may be unrelated to the game. Not much else happens. The setting is not rendered that clearly.

Morning of October 7, 2015. Wednesday.



Walking in an unknown town, my wife Zsuzsanna and I go into an unfamiliar grocery store. The store’s entrance is directly adjacent to the public sidewalk and city street. Firstly, I am looking at jars of pickles that I contemplate buying for Zsuzsanna. The lid somehow comes off one jar when I tip it to try to find the label. There does not seem to be one and I get the impression it is from an individual who sells wholesale to the store. Two pickles fall to the floor. I consider buying the jar out of a vague sense of responsibility to the store owner, as no one else would buy the jar if they knew, but I instead put the pickles back and pretend that nothing happened. Instead of a shelf, the large pickle jars, about five of them, are in a wooden display as in the vegetables section. Each pickle is about as high as the jar, about five to a jar, arranged vertically.

I start pushing a shopping cart through the aisles of the store. An unknown girl who works there is standing in one aisle, the last aisle on one side of the store and the most distant from the entrance. We talk for a short time as I soon realize that instead of shelves, the sides of the aisle feature random pieces of plywood nailed up, all similar in size, some yellowish and some white, at least one piece looking like it was borrowed from a sign. Looking around, I do not see any shelves or areas with any food and become annoyed.

Zsuzsanna and I leave the store without buying anything. A few unfamiliar people, seemingly homeless, start following us. They are friendly but somewhat sickly looking. A female of perhaps fifty asks me if I can help her. I put my hand near her forehead, though not touching it, moving my hand about as if to “detect” anything that might be wrong with her.

She starts to faint, though I push her back so that she does not fall in my direction. After a short time, I tell her that she needs more Vitamin A. I tell her that she needs to start eating tomatoes to become healthier and fix whatever problems she may have. She seems very happy after I tell her this. A friendly cheerful male smiles upon hearing my suggestion and then adds to our conversation by talking about lentils, which is what he thought I had been talking about (rather than tomatoes). I am annoyed but I decide not to correct him as that might make him feel embarrassed by his inattentiveness. Zsuzsanna and I walk to a larger grocery store without them following us as I begin to wake.

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• Why jars of pickles? It seems to be phallic symbolism and a feature being in water is a real-time indicator of being asleep. I may be subliminally contemplating sexuality, which is otherwise inactive in this particular dream segment.
• Why do two pickles fall to the floor? Either superfluous redundancy or an association with two adult males living in our house; our oldest son and me.
• Where is the preconscious factor? I could not find it until I realized that looking at the jar of pickles made me think of Vlasic Pickles, and the mascot is a cartoon stork (flight symbol that “drops a baby from its beak”; subliminal anticipation of the hypnopompic mechanism)
• Why does the unfamiliar homeless female begin to faint? Because she is The Sleeper in this particular dream; a real-time indicator of being asleep.
• Why tomatoes? Tomatoes are associated with the color red and red represents waking priority. It is curious that my dream self (personified subconscious) subliminally initialized it rather than the preconscious.
• Why lentils? Lentils can look like the lens of the human eye, which is possibly a subliminal REM indicator.
• Why vitamin A? This may be a literal factor in the unfamiliar female being symbolic of Zsuzsanna, a possible precognitive thread of when Zsuzsanna is older and may need more vitamin A (though through normal food, not vitamin pills, which many consider dangerous).
• Is there any additional real influence? The unknown empty grocery store area with the plywood nailed up is based on the closure of a small local grocery store in August 2014. It had a similar unusual mood and there were areas of the store eventually blocked in a similar unlikely way while it was still open to the public. Also, Zsuzsanna remains on my left throughout this dream, the same orientation that we are in bed at the time.

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Morning of August 6, 2015. Thursday.



I am with an unknown male though also sense Zsuzsanna is around at one point. I am going with him to an unknown location, though I think it has something to do with recovering certain information on the other side of the river (possibly in a different town). We are both riding bicycles and it vaguely reminds me of riding with Kenneth W or James M at a distance (out of town or on the other side of town) that eventually seems too far, though my bicycle is functioning normally. There was another schoolmate that used to go with me most of the way home (only for a month or two), though oddly, I do not recall his name (one of the only names I had forgotten in my lifetime, in fact) and this may be the character I am thinking of. It seems fairly late at night and I can just barely make out land features.

We reach a bridge over water and cross it about halfway and I soon see it is slightly inclined to where it goes down into the water, submerged from there. This surprises me, as I thought the other male knew where he was going, though now it seems he is gone (or perhaps somehow already got to the other side). I am trying to remember if he did get to the other side (with a brief impression that he was in the water for a short time). I am not sure what to do. I am not sure if I should ride my bicycle over the surface of the water, ride in while half-submerged (with the bicycle wheels half-submerged as I cross the river) or just keep going and see what happens (though I do not really want to ride completely underwater). My dilemma causes my dream to slowly fade. I have had numerous similar dreams of partly submerged bridges and docks throughout my life since childhood. I suspect it directly relates to the waking process or state of consciousness itself as many other in-dream predicaments do (for example, a car crash may solely metaphorically represent the waking process and the termination of the temporary dream-self).

I might as well include another non-lucid dream with this entry since there is not that much to it. Caution: Violence at end. Skip to avoid.

I am shopping in a store I buy food at in real life, though it is quite different. I am looking in a very large freezer (much deeper than in reality - and it seemingly has no shelves) where there are mostly meat pie packages and a few other frozen items. I hold the glass door open for awhile and am somewhat annoyed as there is not that much food in normal packaging in the entire freezer (which is nearly the entire length of the aisle). What little items there are, are sitting on large cardboard boxes (I assume they are unopened stock) and there are also a few smaller boxes on top (a couple being open) and I contemplate getting out whatever I need as I thus far only have one meat pie package (probably containing about four to six meat pies). There are only a few loose items strewn about the top of the stack that I want to look at or perhaps buy.

I then see that there are three people on the other side of the boxes who are standing within the larger freezer area itself, the boxes of which are at least three rows deep and stacked to above the waist. There are two females and a male and at least two of them have clipboards and appear to be taking some sort of inventory. They are a bit to the left. I reach over to the right and move a couple smaller lighter boxes to get to another product, which may be the only one left.

“Why don’t you go somewhere else instead of f–king around here?” asks the male (who may be the store’s manager), sounding very annoyed. This surprises me because I am a customer in a grocery store just trying to reach a product. I inform the man that I am leaving (and I do) and that I will make sure none of my friends or family ever shop there again. (In real life, I no longer shop in the grocery store that absurdly promotes self-service through the cramped and problematic small self-service section with a trolley-full of groceries while the cashiers just stand around gawking as all the normal checkouts are blocked off.)

From here, I walk home (rather than continuing to do any shopping elsewhere), though the location and building is not that familiar, yet I know I live there with my family. It vaguely reminds me of some sort of unlikely composite of Duffy Street (Australia) and Arcadia’s North Monroe (where I have not lived since early 1968). There are many young people running around randomly in the front yard, perhaps involved in some sort of game (like informal soccer) or party, though there does not seem to be any order to any of it and some of them seem to be wearing very strange and random outfits. It may be some sort of high school or college event, such as a semester break (though I do not know why they picked this area as they obviously do not all live in the area).

As I decide to go around and enter my home through the back of the building to avoid collision or confrontation with what may be a chaotic group of addled college or high school students, a (unfamiliar and unknown) girl who seems friendly joins me. We walk to an area near the back of my apartment building (which at this point looks a bit like the apartment building across the yard from where I lived at North Monroe). The back of my building has a door to enter the premises (at about the middle of the walkway from where we are), though directly to my right seems to be another tall building so that it is like looking into a narrow alleyway. There are several boulders and large rocks within the alleyway which are blocking my way to the door (though realistically, it would be ridiculous to assume someone or even several people put them there by hand). “Who did this? How are people supposed to get into their apartment?” I ask the girl (who is standing to my left) angrily. The girl leads me to the other side of the building where the rocks are now mysteriously gone just from looking through the opposite side of the alleyway.

From here, we get to the back entrance where there is a screen door. A tall young unfamiliar male (though he seems almost thirty when I look again even though I first get the impression he might be a college football player) comes out asking “How are you doing, dad?” as if with mindless sarcasm related to my age (and I am at my own home after all and I assume he is not supposed to be there). At this point, I am annoyed, as I reach semi-lucidity and the waking stage at the same time. In previous dreams I used to shoot every annoying character during the waking process. This time I pull out a large knife and effectively run it across his throat as I wake.

This last part was strongly influenced by the “Secrets and Lies” television miniseries filmed where we used to live (where the father goes to get his oldest daughter and is insulted and pushed and told to leave by the younger male as if he had no right to look after his own children), where the little girl turns out to be the clever criminal and killer rather than the suspicious adult males or other characters. Sorry for giving it away but at least I spared you the misery of watching it. And yes, it was supposed to be a serious detective show.

Morning of June 27, 2013. Thursday.



In my dream, I was shopping for food, a not uncommon recurring scene, probably because I do a lot of food shopping for my family in real life. There is almost always something unusual about the food or about my money (such as being printed on only one side though realistic otherwise, or being Monopoly game money, or foreign).

I had selected some supposedly good meat at a store that had opened just recently (or reopened after a long closure - as a few have since the floods here in real life). The cut is unusual, like a very thick and more rounded steak and I have two of them. The manager is there and he is making a claim about how good their food is. There are also two other pieces of meat, perhaps chicken, or a different, smaller cut of beef or pork - and I remember that I had some other items, including cheese or something processed and in a small cardboard container. I soon understand that I had forgotten to wrap the meat pieces up myself prior to purchase as the manager makes a note of it, similar to how a shopper bags his own fruits and vegetables in many cases.

The meat itself looks very strange (although the bone and outside area is seemingly normal), like a sort of transparent and soft pink jelly, although it actually seems more like watermelon, but is still “seen” as “meat”. I can see a total of four cigarettes inside farther down, two in each cut of “steak”. There is this strange idea that they somehow got into the food when it was being processed or “made” (although the idea is pointless, as the meat would be otherwise solid in real life - unless it is a “fake steak” made of various bits of meat). Although these cigarettes are new and unsmoked and encased in the jelly-like meat, I still get the sickly impression of dirty cigarette butts, ashes, and dirty water and chemicals (and people of ill health having touched my supposedly “fresh” food) and a growing disgust at having almost bought this awful “second-hand” or “used” food.

Another shopper, a female of about thirty, is looking at the meat in awe, seemingly being surprised by such a thing being in a store and for sale. As we look down, one of the cigarettes encased inside the pink “meat jelly” somehow lights itself rather brightly and dramatically (with no oxygen yet, although reminding me somewhat of a sparkler, as sparks seem to fly out from the cigarette as well, even when inside the “meat jelly”) and parts of the steak explode from the side, but no one is hurt. Another one does that as well. For some reason, as the cigarettes light themselves and explode and mostly burn up, the more sickening feeling I had lessens just a little, but I still make a mental note not to shop here again and leave everything else here as well without buying anything.

I have not been near a smoker (other than occasionally in public settings around people I do not know) in over twenty years. Neither of my parents nor friends smoked as I was growing up. Also, I rarely eat steak on its own, as I have always found it (even as a child) akin to trying to chew on a shoe. I do eat beef and all meat in other forms, but not nearly as much as other people. Perhaps this is some sort of play on “smoked” meat for whatever reason or more likely, implying that eating a lot of red meat is as unhealthy as smoking.

I have included the “dream journal synchronicity” tag because of this entry which appeared right after mine but with a date just prior to mine: WATERMELON