The Lab Notebook

Non-lucid dream, [Commentary made while awake]

[This is a catch-up post from two nights ago, which was the night before an examination. As I was going to bed, I tried to concentrate on the ideas that were going to be on the exam, hoping that I would dream about them. It worked... but not in the way I'd hoped. My commentary on the dream will include explanations of what parts of it relate to the exam.]

[Dream #1] I'm making a scrapbook. I'm brushing clear, rubber-cement-like glue onto the bristles of another kind of brush, to glue it onto something flat. The handle of the brush I'm using to apply the glue breaks, so I have to apply it by holding on to the outer part of the bottle instead. Satoshi and other characters from the Pokémon anime series are there. [I can see why I was dreaming about scrapbooking: it's a method of committing things to memory, which is what I had been doing all day to prepare for the exam.]

[Dream #2] I'm visiting Fallingwater.

Picture #1

Picture #2

As I approach the entrance, I feel absolute awe at the beauty of this place, and it shows on my face. There's a big, dramatic, semi-enclosed entryway with dark brown walls; the main doors are on the left as you're walking through the channel that the entryway forms, and directly across from them is a low patio coffee table and some patio chairs, facing onto the walkway. Several of my professors from college are sitting in those chairs, including the one who taught the art history class focusing on architecture in which I first learned about this building [in real life]. I stop and chat with him about how wonderful it is to be there. He remembers me, and says that he's there to work. I say that I'm there on vacation.

I enter the building through the entryway. Inside, there's a child-care room, full of older kids and teens who would be bored by the tour of the place. There is a silent radio in the room to announce when kids who are in there are being kicked out of it for bad behavior and released back to their parents. It says things like, “(Kid's name) is now under the direct guardianship of her mother.” I watch from a third-person perspective as one of the teenage girls in the room offers to have sex with one of the teenage boys. There follows a non-graphic, narrative description thereof, without any visuals.

The child-care room is located just off of a large, open entry hallway, also dark brown and clearly built after the fact, especially for the tourists. There is a sign that says “Photographers will be shot,” as in, with a sniper rifle. [I know it's a famous landmark and all that, but that's awfully harsh!] [The exam was on the subject of data network architecture, so of course, it makes sense that I would dream about one of the most famous works of architecture ever built. Even though it didn't help me with the exam, I thought this was a pretty awesome dream. I'd love to visit the real Fallingwater someday.]