maboroshi

Good morning, everybody.

Happy holidays! The icy Dream Views logo is really fun. And the Santa Claus flying through the moon is cool, too.

Dream #1

It was night. I was either getting into or out of a car with my sister and my brother-in-law. The car was probably my sister's. It was a kind of short car, and it was packed all around by some bigger SUVs.

My sister was drunk, but she was trying to act like she wasn't. She was trying to act nice for my sake.

We now all got out of the car. The parking lot the car was in was in some downtown-like area. There was a really big, ominous-looking, tan-brick building right at the edge of the lot.

We walked out to the road, which felt very old and run-down. This place was like one of those downtowns that shut down completely at night. We were all alone here. The streetlights seemed like in a horror movie -- the light was all grainy, almost sepia-colored.

My sister was now not able to control her drunken appearance at all. She even asked, "Hey, isn't there some place we could pick up some booze?"

I knew there was a store somewhere -- maybe even just across the street and around the corner. I could even see the store, still open, like a chain drug store, its greenish fluorescent lights shining out through a window-wall in a stately, stone building.

But I figured I'd do what I could to keep us from going to that store. I think my brother-in-law felt the same way.

Somehow we decided we needed to go to the bathroom. I knew where there was a free public bathroom. We walked off to our right, toward some park-like area, then along a nice, stone walkway.

The light was just becoming blue with early morning, and there were already tourists out here -- it mostly looked like mothers and daughters.

We went to some area that looked like a fast food restaurant. It had the same color scheme as Dunkin Donuts, but with a lot more brown. And it was shaped like a wide, low public restroom in a park.

I knew that this bathroom had either been sponsored by the restaurant or was the restaurant itself. I probably thought the restaurant was McDonald's or Burger King. I think the restaurant itself was closed, but that the bathroom was always open.

I think we first walked through the restaurant's seating area, which was huge, but completely empty of people. I think we then walked through a concrete-floored, cinder-block-walled hallway that felt like it was a bridge over a road, between two buildings.

The three of us were now in the bathroom, which was a wide, concrete-floored, cinder-block-walled bathroom, like a really nice public bathroom in a park. But it may have had a Dunkin Donuts color scheme.

My sister was still drunk -- kind of wandering around randomly. But I myself was now really distracted. Eventually I decided I needed to use the bathroom. I went to a stall, so I could take a crap.

But I was having trouble closing the stall's door. It wouldn't stay closed. I was also trying to close it by twisting the little doorknob using a huge, wadded up piece of toilet paper. It was like I was afraid to touch anything in the restroom. So I was protecting my hands with toilet paper. But it was really hard to do anything with the amount of toilet paper I had in my hands.

Then, at some point, I felt some kind of erotic feeling. It related to the feeling of taking a crap. I thought I was going to do something really bad and gross in the stall. And it turned me on sexually. But I didn't want to get caught doing it.

Then a mother and daughter came into the restroom. I was kind of annoyed. I knew that if a couple of tourists were coming in, then that meant that a whole bunch of people would soon be coming into the bathroom. Everybody would know I was here, and they'd all start harrassing me. So I might as well leave now.

I might have walked back out of the stall, passed the mother and daughter, found my brother-in-law and sister, and walked back out into the long corridor.

Dream #2

It was a nice, sunny day. I was probably in the backyard of the house where my family lived while I was in high school. But the backyard was now three or four times as big as it was IWL, and it was filled with flowers. It was an incredibly huge, English-style garden! Where our garage had been, there was some big, shady kind of pagoda-like structure made of greyish, dark wood.

There were some little kids running around and playing in the garden. I thought of these kids as something like my friends or siblings. They were all angelically beautiful, like the golden-haired children of storybooks. I feel like they were all involved in some task. But I can't remember what it was.

My attention was caught by the huge, stalk-like plants near me. I couldn't put a name to them. They seem, now, to have looked like hollyhocks or foxgloves. But they weren't those flowers, either -- I'm pretty sure. They had a kind of fuzzy look. And some of them had bud-like centers: tight, green bulbs, inside a collar of thin, peach petals.

I was suddenly laying on my back. Our old dog, a cocker spaniel, was standing over me, vigorously licking, or "kissing," my lips. She was actually licking off a bunch of honey that I had on my lips.

Some voice in the distance (or in my head?), probably a child's voice, asked me either if my dog liked honey, or if my dog liked to kiss me.

Whatever the question was, I answered, "No, she's just getting the honey off my lips. She's really excited to go traveling. She loves to go places in the car. In fact, when she ----- (can't remember) -----, we'll probably get a nice car for her. Then she'll be happy to go!"

I now had an image in my head of a white, horse-drawn carriage, like a nineteenth century carriage. But the carriage was very short, proportioned, it seemed, to fit small children or dogs. And there was no top to the cabin of the carriage. It was flat and open, kind of looking like an ornate, white Radio Flyer wagon.

A man in a suit and top-hat sat in a small front area and drove the carriage. He may also have been holding a white, lace parasol.

I could see that there was a main seating area: a small square. But there was also a smaller, back rectangle, which, I now guess, could normally be used for luggage.

But I guess my dog was now dead, because she was stiff and motionless, and we had laid her in the back area, as if it were some kind of coffin for her, or a space that would have fit a coffin for her.

But I'm pretty sure the carriage wasn't taking my dog to a funeral, but to a wedding. And I may have been a part of the wedding. This was probably whatever I'd been referring to when I'd spoken to the voice. But I'm pretty sure this image didn't have anything to do with what I'd actually said.

Dream #3

I was in some kind of huge place, something like an old, French palace, mixed with a museum, mixed with an old, run-down, slummy apartment. The place was filled with all kinds of clutter -- boxes, junk, all over the place.

There were no lights on, and it was night. The only light coming into the place was extremely dim, orange light from the streetlamps outside.

There were a few other men in the structure with me. They were all in one room. The place was huge, but we were all sitting in just one room, which had a bunk bed and a computer desk in it, but which was so filled with junk that we could hardly fit ourselves into the room.

The men may have been Latino, and they may have spoken very little English. They seemed to be in their late thirties or early forties. They were short, a little overweight, and a little tough-seeming.

The men were being nice or indifferent to me. But I had a feeling that, as time wore on, they'd probably start annoying or harrassing me.

My mom now came into the room. I was happy just to have someone familiar to me in this environment. It kind of diluted the bad emotional sense I was beginning to get from these guys.

My mom looked a bit different. She was skinnier, and she had shorter hair. She sent me off to some other room. She told me that we were both getting up early tomorrow morning to take care of some task. She stressed the importance of getting up on time.

I was excited about the event. And even though it was already late, and that I wouldn't get very much sleep at all if I wanted to get up on time, I was really happy and determined to get up on time.

I lay down in bed and closed my eyes. Almost immediately, I re-opened them. I realized that I had woken up an hour late!

I ran out into the hallway to find my mom. It couldn't be true, could it? Had I overslept for the thing I was so excited for?

My mom was at the other end of the hallway. She said, "Yep, you overslept. But I wasn't going to wake you up."

I could tell my mom was disappointed in me. I felt horrible. But my mom now said something like, "Hurry up. If you just get your shit together and get out the door right now, we can still probably make it on time."

I was back in the room with the Latino men. Some of them were sleeping on the bunk bed. One was still up, sitting at the computer desk. The light was still dark. It was still very early morning, before sunrise.

I crouched before the bunkbed and began arranging something on the cuff of my right shirt sleeve for some reason. It was like I was peeling back my cuff and then twisting it back and forth. It felt like I was trying to put some kind of steel band around my wrist.

But I realized that I was just wasting my time doing this. My mom was probably out in the car, waiting for me. If I didn't hurry up, my mom would either leave me, or else she'd wait for me and we'd both be too late to make it to our task.

I stood up to get my shit together and go downstairs. But I was so unfocused. I really couldn't remember what the hell I needed to do. I didn't really know what I needed in order to get the hell out of here. And the Latino men didn't help. It was just like they were waiting for an excuse to distract me.

I now found myself in a car, an old, clunky station wagon, like the one I drove IWL when I lived out in the desert for a couple of years, working for the Park Service. The car was inside -- in one of the rooms of the house. I sat in the driver's seat. One of the Latino men stood just outside the door, looking in.

The car only had AM radio (IDL and IWL ). I had a plastic tub -- like the plastic tubs you get for various purposes during hospital stays -- filled with little, plastic knobs, each about 2cm in diameter. I had to put all of these plastic knobs onto various parts of the radio's face. Only after that would my shit be together enough so that I could leave.

But I couldn't fit all of these knobs onto the radio face! I think I managed to find ways to fit some of them onto the volume and tuning knobs. I also popped some of them onto the set-station buttons. And I may have tried to stick some onto the actual station indicator plate. But I was running out of space. And I had a ton of knobs left!

I was now by myself in a large hallway, probably inside an apartment. It was night, and the hallway was pretty dark.

I stood near the front door. The door was made of old, worn-out wood. I could feel something like a gentle wind whispering past the door. I knew it was some kind of presence. I partly thought it was a ghost. But I also thought it was some person -- or, a person coming, not a person who was actually there yet.

I knew that I was still a bit early. But as long as I kept aware of the situation, I'd see the person. Then I could meet the person just outside the apartment. I may actually have just thought of this person as only a breeze of wind.

I was now looking out through my door through a small, square window that was maybe 30cm directly above the doorknob. Looking out, I saw the dark sapphire sky of morning. I could see that out there was something like a brambly yard, which may have been something like a big, nice garden.

I was telling myself something very soothing, like the person who was coming to me was a very nice person, and that I had nothing to worry about or be afraid of.

I watched one or two people crossing my field of view. They were walking along some path, I think, that crossed between the garden and some much wider field. They were a man and a woman. A man may also later have crossed by himself.

I told myself, "See? See how nice they are? When they come for you, they'll treat you nicely. You have nothing to fear."

I was now outside. It was a bright, sunny morning. I was drifting up a very, very slight slope, on a long, wide lawn that led up to a sidewalk and an asphalt road.

I saw a man and a woman walking along the road, heading from the right to the left side of my field of view. The man and woman both looked like they were in their late thirties. But they wore clothes and had hairstyles like from the late 1970s. The man's hairstyle was particularly chunky and bowl-shaped.

The man and the woman seemed to be in a kind of peevish argument with each other. It scared me a little bit. I felt like if I got into their field of influence, they'd probably start getting all peevish and annoying with me.

But they were walking pretty quickly. And they were already away from me by the time I got up to the sidewalk.

Now that I was on the sidewalk, I noticed a few handfuls of people, all adults, walking toward a building. I realized that I was near a university campus.

The campus neighborhood reminds me now of my occasional visits to the Princeton campus. But the university building, which I saw off to my left, looked more like an elementary school mixed with a modern, suburban church building.

All the people walking toward the building seemed to be in their thirties and forties. There were men and women. Sometimes people were in groups, talking with each other. Other times they were walking alone.

Some of the people wore suits or formal attire. Others were wearing caps and gowns, like they were attending a graduation ceremony.

I also noticed that a lot of the women had very masculine faces. Some of the women were definitely women, just with very hard, squarish faces. But some of the people dressed as women may have been men.

As I got to the actual building, I realized that it was more like an elementary school. The adults I'd seen funnelling toward this area were actually teachers. They were all now dispersing toward different parts of the building: to their classrooms, I assumed.

I was in a square, concrete-floored courtyard of the building. There were a lot of kids running all about, rushing, I supposed, to get to their classes.

There were some adult women posted here and there, apparently to make sure that nobody was getting out of hand. I figured I'd ask one of these women either where I was, or where I was supposed to be. I didn't really know the answer to either of those questions.

I saw a woman posted just under the covering of the building, at the back, right corner of the courtyard. I figured I'd approach her and ask her what I was here for.

As I walked toward that woman, a girl wearing a pale pink sweater ran through the courtyard with a clear, plastic bottle of water.

One of the other women admonished the girl for some reason or another. The girl thought she was being really grown-up and helpful for doing something. But she was also using her task to avoid having to do some thing that all the girls her age needed to do. She knew this. So when the teacher admonished her, she listened.

But as I was about to reach the woman, some kind of alarm went off. The alarm was the prayer bell. Wherever you were, whatever you were doing, when the prayer bell went off, you had to stop, crouch down on your knees, bow your head to the ground, and start praying to god.

The ritual seems to me now to be Islam-influenced. But the prayer was more like a Christian prayer mixed with something like the United States Pledge of Allegiance.

I bowed, too, because I at least knew what all this meant. I was near a stairwell. A girl wearing a Muslim-style head-covering bowed near me.

As I looked at the floor, I noticed it was tiled in meter-square tiles looking like flecked granite. But this tile was all chipped away in a corner, so that almost a quarter of the tile was chipped into an oily blackness.

During the prayer-pledge, the girl in the pale pink shirt ran out of the doorway of a classroom near me. She had the water bottle again, and she was about to rush off somewhere. But the woman I was trying to approach told the girl to kneel down and pray, like everybody else.

The girl said something like, "Oh, yeah. Right." She didn't kneel down, though. She just sat, in some kind of athletic pose, with her back to the wall, and waited for the prayer to finish.

Something about the girl's face made me think she might have Down's Syndrome. But the girl was really smart and active. I liked her a lot.

When I got up from the prayer-pledge, I approached the adult woman. I had a feeling now that I was here for some kind of volunteer project with New York Cares. So I asked the woman if she knew where we volunteers were meeting. The woman pointed to the stairwell behind me and said that New York Cares was meeting up on the second floor.

But before I could go upstairs, a little girl grabbed my hand and told me to help her with her spelling. She dragged me over to something that looked like folding gym mats stood up on one side and w-folded, to look like a gym-mat version of Chinese screens.

Before the Chinese screen was a long, school-like table that was only 25cm or so above the ground. Both the little girl and I had to kneel to sit at the table. The table had a long sheet of paper across it. The paper was filled with items like multiple choice questions.

For each number, there may possibly have been questions, probably ridiculously inane questions, like, "How do you spell -----?" as if a kid wouldn't know how to spell a word he was looking right at. But there were no answers in the multiple choice spaces. It was just A, B, C, D, with no answers beside the letters!

I think what the little girl actually had to do was choose the correct letter, A, B, C, or D, and then correctly spell the word in the space beside that letter. I think the little girl may actually have explained this to me herself.

The little girl was probably learning impaired. But she seemed really smart, as well. She seemed to be doing well enough spelling for herself. And maybe she just wanted me around for the heck of it while she was doing her work.

But every once in a while I'd have to help her with spelling. At some point, I even chose, and circled?, the letter "C" on one of her questions. I also remember something about one of us writing in cursive.

Then the little girl's brother came up. He was also, apparently, learning impaired, though not as much as his sister. He may have been a bit younger than the girl. He was climbing all over both me and the little girl, though he mostly seemed to be climbing all over me. He really wanted my attention, and he wanted to prove, I think, that he was smarter than his sister.

At some point I stood up, as if my lessons for the little girl and boy were over. I told them they'd both done a good job.

But the boy wanted to see my cell phone for some reason. I was pretty sure that that was not a good idea, because I think I'd been looking on some sort of fetish website before I'd come here. The boy didn't need to be seeing any of that kind of stuff.

I then saw my phones screen, as if it were flickering on, like a TV would, with a bit of vertical hold striping a black screen, as the TV is getting started up and getting a hold of itself. The striping was yellow -- so it seemed to me that this was "effect" for a production, not real vertical hold striping.

There was then, probably, some kind of video, maybe starring Hyde from the j-pop band L'Arc en Ciel. But I can't remember anything about it.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a dark room that was kind of like a living room mixed with a small, cafeteria-style restaurant. The room was lit on the outer edges by dim, but vividly-colored, lights, like weak LEDs. But the lights barely lit anything at all, so the room was mostly dark. There a few other people in the room, mostly my family members.

My mom was sitting on one of the sides of the room. She asked me to get her a drink. She may have asked me to "go out" and get her a drink. I may have been planning to go outside, to some store, to get my mom a drink.

But I went to a small drinks case that sat on a counter. The drinks case (unlit) had a few Red Bull-shaped cans of pink lemonade in it. I may have thought that I would take one of these cans of pink lemonade to give me energy on my errand to pick up whatever drink it was my mom wanted me to get her from the outside.

There were two different flavors of pink lemonade (i.e. another flavor added in with the pink lemonade flavor). I saw one flavor that I knew my mom liked. I figured that was the drink she wanted. The other flavor I thought I would take for myself. But I didn't really like the flavor. I wanted to see if my favorite flavor was available, but I couldn't remember what it was.

I was then coming back from or finally going out on my errand. But some of my family members, particularly my brother, thought I was an old man and that I wouldn't be able to make the trip. For some reason, I took a pair of black socks with me to prove I was strong enough to make the trip. But the socks had holes in their heels.

I was now feeling old and very tired. I kind of collapsed on the ground in the middle of the room, laying on my side. I figured I just needed a bit of a rest, and then I could get up and run my errand.

Dream #2

I was walking through a neighborhood that was like the neighborhood where my cousins lived when we were kids. But something about the feeling of the place was much larger and lonelier. It was like all the houses were twice their size, and the neighborhood was hidden away in a series of winding streets. The sky may have been grey, and the day a little damp and chilly, like it was going to rain.

I knew that if I walked up one of the side blocks I could go see my cousins' old house. But I didn't want to risk going up that block and running into my aunt. So I decided not to go up that way.

The road I was walking on ended up turning into a park. It was slightly secluded, but it was a nice, wide, long lawn with some rolling hills and some trees. I was walking on an asphalt path on the lawn. After a while, a dog came running up from behind me.

I recognized the dog. It was a dog I liked quite a bit. I thought it was my aunt's dog. I saw a figure sitting in a bench far back in the park. I thought that was my aunt. She (?) May have been wearing an orange shirt. I didn't want to acknowledge the dog because I didn't want my aunt coming over and talking to me.

But the dog seemed really happy to see me. We ran over to the right side of the park. We began playing and rough-housing a little bit.

Dream #3

A pretty, blonde girl, maybe about eleven to thirteen years old, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, said, "Everybody says p***y is so great. They act like it tastes and smells like the greatest thing in the world. Well, I'm a lesbian. So I know. And I don't think p***y is that great at all. It doesn't taste that great. And it doesn't smell good."

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a house. I walked from something like a living room into something like a kitchen. The kitchen looked like a normal suburban kitchen, but there was a big table, which was either wide and made of thick wood or was a big, wide table like for a group of students in an elementary school art class. Orange-gold afternoon light came in through the kitchen window.

There were three young men at the table. Two sat on one side and one on the other. I walked behind the two and sat to their right. The seats were benches. I saw that the two young men were working on homework assignments. The assignment seemed to involve a lot of photographs.

Then the other young man began explaining stuff to the two young men. The stuff he was explaining had to do with English writing and speech. I thought, Well hadn't I been teaching these guys English before? Why is this guy teaching these guys English? But I then thought, Well, if that's what they want, I can't be mad at them. And I can't act mad. So I think I stood up and walked into the other room.

Dream #2

I was out in some park, either at night or in the early morning. I was walking past some small, red-brick structure which I think was a bathroom. As I did, a man walked up with a small dog.

The dog wasn't on a leash and it ran straight up to me. The owner made some comment about how the dog was nice and how he wouldn't mind my petting her. The dog was a litte, red dog that looked like a mix between a dachshund and a collie, with pointy ears. It only stood 200cm tall.

I reached my hand down to the dog, even though I was still standing straight up. I may have asked the dog if she minded my petting her. The dog responded in a distinct voice, but probably by telepathy, "Oh, I don't mind at all. In fact, I'm gonna give you a big hug."

The dog managed to curl her head and neck around so that she had my arm pressed close to her shoulder. I was kind of flattered that the dog liked me so much.

Now it started to rain pretty heavily. I was carrying an umbrella. I knelt down and picked up the dog, which was now something like a tiny, white poodle. I again asked it the dog minded my carrying her to her owner. The dog said, "No! You can help me get back there without having to go through the pouring rain!" But the dog was already soaking wet.

As we walked over to the owner the dog began telling me about some kind of reality show from Russia that she really liked. We got over to the dog's owner. But now the dog was a really pretty woman with pale eyes and brown hair.

The woman had told me quite a bit about the reality show. I had even seen a few images of the show in my head. The woman said, "They had the whole collection of the show on sale. So I bought it! I bought the whole series!"

I my mind's eye I saw a huge collection of big, fat videotapes.

The man said, "And that was a lot of money for her. $380 (or $830?). For the amount of money she makes at her job (nursing?), it was a big sacrifice."

The woman said, "But I love the show, because I'm from Russia, too. And they had a full showing of the series and then an auction for the videotapes right after that. And I won the auction. Well, everybody loves the show. The showing was done in a church. So even the church supports the show!"

I laughed at the fact that the church would support what was apparently an outrageous reality show.

Suddenly I was having sex with the woman. It may have been right there, as we were standing. She was naked, and I was suddenly having sex with her. I came, and somehow I felt as if I had certainly made the woman pregnant. I felt like somehow we were in bed. I felt like I would turn the woman over on her stomach and start having sex with her from behind.

But the woman was gone. I looked around. I was standing on my knees on a bed in a dark bedroom. The bedroom was big, and there was at least one other bed. The beds were set close together. They were all big and nice, with a lot of thick sheets on them.

Somehow I knew that I had had sex with the woman in this room. While we had sex, another woman had been in the room with us. It was somehow understood that I was going to have sex with the second woman as well. But once the second woman realized I had gotten the first woman pregnant, she took the woman into another room, which was something like a hospital room.

The women, I thought, may have been lovers. There had been no intention for the second woman to have sex with me. The women just wanted me to have sex with one of them so that one of them could get pregnant. Not for a family, but for some kind of medical purpose.

I stood up to go look for the woman I'd had sex with. I didn't know whether I should feel obliged to look for her, since our sex must likely have created an emotional bond between us, or whether she'd rather I just left her alone.

I ended up in some kind of schoolroom. There were a group of people, at least one of whom was a little girl playing a flute or a recorder. The little girl was slightly tan and blonde. She wore a pink t-shirt and a knee-length skirt with flower patterns on it. She wasn't who I was looking for.

But suddenly I was in a maze. The maze was made out of cardboard or particle board. The walls were all painted in a scribbly fashion with white, green, and grey. I got the feeling that somehow the little children in the class that the little girl belonged to had made this maze, or else that the maze had been made in such a weird style for their enjoyment.

I was near the front of the maze. The front part of the maze just seemed to be some kind of wide gallery, itself a kind of classroom. A male teacher sat just inside the gallery. A group of students were sitting in chairs just outside the maze. The maze was like its own building, so that the children were sitting outdoors, in a field like at a county fair.

The teacher was giving the children music lessons. One by one he was having his students play their instrument, usually a flute or recorder. The student would go through some kind of song and then would be required, at the end of the song, to go into an improvisation.

I now had the understanding that the maze was something used for careers. It was like children would go through this maze to determine what career would be best for them. Or that when children went through this maze, sensations were fed into their bodies to help them understand just what a career was like. Or that people actually walked into this maze when their careers began, and they just kept on going.

A couple of teenage boys walked into the maze. One of them was pale with a medium build, kind of wavy, shoulder length hair, and glasses. He looked kind of brainy. He wore a t-shirt that was a little too tight for his build. He looked toward the classroom and called out for a younger student, "Hey, where's -----?"

The boy's friend said, "Didn't you hear? They monetized him (her?) early." The boys then walked through the maze.

I understood that "monetizing" mean readying someone for a career. Apparently this was the near future. It had been determined that the only purpose of an education should be to prepare a person for his or her career. The aptitude and ability of a child was determined early. And the child was advanced to begin his career as quickly as he was capable of advancing.

The boys' little friend had already been "monetized," put into a money-making position, very early. I got the impression that the classes were full of children of all different ages. The classes also seemed to be extremely relaxed, easy-going, almost to the point of being random or aimless.

I was now outside the maze. It was now a little girl's turn to play. She played through the song. But when it got to the improvisation part, the little girl kind of hesitated. She played something that sounded a lot like "A Love Supreme." But after cycling through that melody, she hesitated to fly up into an improvised melody.

The little girl stopped playing. She acted embarrassed, rubbed her hand against her forehead, and said she didn't think she was ready to improvise quite yet.