maboroshi

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was walking through the hallways of a school, possibly walking faster than usual. I headed into one classroom, off to my right. The classroom was big and bright, partly with morning light and partly with fluorescent ceiling lights.

The front half of the classroom seemed empty of desks. But right at the front were three microphones, spaced about two meters apart from each other.

One or two girls, maybe around twelve years old, may have been standing at the microphones. The girls may have been dressed very primly.

The girls were going to give some kind of presentation for this class, which was a Japanese class. The presentation would be some kind of recital, maybe even a mini-concert.

One of the girls may have asked me about my presentation. I realized I had to give one, too, even though I probably wasn't prepared.

I was now "upstairs," in some room with my sister. The room had furnishings in it like might be found in a bedroom or living room. My sister may even have thought of this room as her bedroom.

My sister was getting ready to go "downstairs" to school. She was going to bring a baby doll to Japanese class, as a kind of show and tell project.

My sister had the baby doll sat up on the floor. The doll's legs were stretched out in front of it. My sister put a diaper on the baby doll. But the diaper was huge on the doll -- so huge that only the doll's head poked out.

I didn't want to make my sister feel bad. I wanted her to feel like she'd done a good job of putting a diaper on the doll. But I may have made some joke about how the doll looked.

I may then have told my sister that she should use a smaller diaper on the baby doll. But I couldn't think of what kind of diaper would be appropriate.

Dream #2

An episode of the 1980s TV show Family Ties. Alex Keaton was in the kitchen. He'd just heard that one of his best friends had died, right after leaving Alex' house. Alex was upset. He made some kind of sarcastic comment in a shaky voice.

Alex was about to leave the house, either to go to the hospital or to go to the funeral. But his family stopped him. Alex' mom Diane told Alex that the family would leave the house together. Diane told Alex he wasn't to blame for his friends death. So he should just relax and go with his family.

Everybody in the family left the house. They were all -- including Alex -- wearing hooded sweatshirts or hooded parkas. The hoodies were all in pale or pastel colors.

The family was now in front of a door to what looked like another suburban house. I knew this wasn't the hospital or the friend's funeral. I was wondering if Alex' family wasn't purposely trying to keep him from going to his friend's funeral.

Diane again, while waiting for the door to be answered, reminded Alex that it wasn't his fault his friend had died. So, she told him, he should just relax and take his time in getting to the funeral.

The family all now walked in through what looked like a mix between a fancy restaurant and a living room, lit by natural light coming in through a big window at the back of the room. They all sat down -- probably at a couple different tables.

The family was waiting for some kind of social engagement, possibly having to do with someone who would give the family money. I knew this had nothing to do with Alex going to see his dead friend at the hospital or funeral.

Dream #3

I walked into a school bathroom. The walls were a brown-painted concrete, and the walls were of glossy, pale-tan, wide bricks. The light was a greenish fluorescent. I had to walk through a tiny passage to get to the main area of the bathroom.

I felt like I was all alone. But then I heard somebody's voice. It sounded like the person was annoyed that I was in the bathroom, so they were trying sigh and breathe out loudly to make me feel bad for being around.

Out of nowhere some faucet on the wall to my right sprayed me with a bunch of water. It only hit the outside of my right leg. And it was only on for a second. But the force of the water was so strong that my pant leg was soaked.

I was a little afraid. I didn't know how the water could have turned on and off, all by itself. For some reason, I assumed that only a poltergeist could have done something like that. (???) So I now thought the bathroom was haunted.

I walked back into the main area of the bathroom. There were toilet stalls on the back wall, to my right, and either urinals or sinks on front wall, to my left.

I heard the man's voice sighing, like the person was annoyed that I was here. Suddenly one of the bathroom stall doors slammed violently shut. I had been looking toward the urinals or sink. When I looked at the bathroom stall doors, they all looked equally shut.

The slam of the stall door, though, had been so violent that I was sure the person wasn't just annoyed, but was really angry that I was around. I was pretty sure I was going to get attacked. I thought the person had hid in one of the stalls so that when I went to a stall, I would get surprise-attacked.

I looked under the doors of the stalls from a distance. But I didn't see any feet. I thought the person may be hiding from view by standing on the toilet seat. But I suddenly felt like there really wasn't anybody here after all.

I thought I would use the bathroom. But I felt like if I went to the urinal, I would get surprise-attacked while my back was turned. So I just decided to leave the bathroom.

I walked into a school hallway. I was walking really fast. My pants leg was still wet from the faucet spraying on me. I didn't want to be seen like this. I wanted to get to wherever I was supposed to be, so I could just sit down and hide my leg.

A black man, who I guessed was a teacher, came walking down the hallway. He was a bit taller than me, skinny, with long dredds covered in a hat and wearing a white t-shirt. As I walked past him in the hallway he seemed to try to indimidate me in some way or another.

I got toward the end of the hallway. There were a couple of fat, black women, who I also thought of as teachers, gabbing with each other in the hallway. They saw me and seemed to peer at me, as if they were thinking of some way to bother me.

A really pretty black woman, also a teacher, I thought, in a purple tank-top and tight blue jeans, walked down the hall. She got directly in my way, so I moved all the way to the right, out of her way.

But she got back in my way. I walked really fast, figuring I'd just have to bump into her if she didn't move. But she got out of the way just in time so that we only brushed against each other.

I was kind of turned on by how smooth, and slightly muscular, the woman's arm was. But the woman only seemed to be annoyed that I didn't try to get even further out of her way. I had been right up against the wall as it was!

Dream #4

I was in a National Park with my family. We were at the visitor's center, which was a complex of one-story buildings and a long, narrow-parking lot surrounded by a Southwestern kind of forest of pine trees. It may have been late afternoon -- the sky was dim and silvery grey-blue.

My mom's old boyfriend, N, oversaw this park. He was, apparently, going to be busy doing some stuff with my mom and the rest of my family, like showing them around the park. So either he or my mom asked me to take care of something for him.

My job was to take an urn with the ashes of somebody who had just died to a cemetery in the park. The person who had just died may have been a friend of N. But it may have been N himself. (???)

So I took either the park-owned pickup truck or N's personal pickup truck and drove it down some wide path in the park to get to the cemetery.

The pickup truck was really big. But the path was wide enough to accommodate two of these trucks, like a two-lane road. I kept to the right side of the road, as if I were driving on a regular road in the US.

The path was asphalt, but it also had a coppery, gravel- or cinder-strewn look to it. On either side of the path were dense stands of tall, leafy shrubs.

A white mother, tall, blonde, and pretty, though with a kind of worn-looking face, was walking back down the path, back toward the visitor's center.

The mother's little girl, maybe two or three years old, had come toddling up ahead of her. The little girl wore a black dress that didn't go much farther down than her waist, and exposed a big diaper. The girl's blonde hair was done up in a top-knot, or a ponytail on the very crown of her head.

I had to brake fast to avoid hitting the little girl. But I stopped in time. The little girl ran off to the left side of the road. The mother called to the little girl and seemed grateful that I politely stopped and didn't make a big deal about the little girl running all over the road.

I drove on a bit more without encountering anybody else. I was proud of myself (???) for not having hit the little girl. But suddenly a gnawing suspicion came into my mind. What if I'd actually hit tons of little girls with the pickup truck so far -- but the truck had been so big, and the girls so little, that I hadn't even noticed?

I now came on a group of black people, mostly fat women. They were spread all over the road, talking and laughing with each other. I kept to the right side of the road. But now they all veered over into the way of my truck!

I pulled as far over as I could -- there was now a shoulder of grass to the side of the road, and I was trying not to hit that. But the women seemed to be trying to "spook" me into driving into it, by getting in my way.

I decided to just stop the truck altogether until the women passed. As I did, I twisted the truck (or else the truck slid as it braked) so that it took up half the road.

The women saw that I wasn't going anywhere. So they'd either have to walk onto the grassy shoulder or move over to the left side of the road. They all moved out of the way of the truck. I started driving again. But as the women passed me, they all gave me the evil eye.

I drove on a bit more. I was now kind of worried that those women would sic some men on me to "pay me back" for having made them move.

I just wanted to get to the cemetery and take care of my job. But I realized that I didn't really know where the cemetery was. I hoped it was close. But I didn't know if it was going to be far down the path, deep into the forest.

And, I thought, once I got to the cemetery -- if I were even able to spot it -- what would I do there? Would someone be waiting to take the urn from me? What was I supposed to do with the urn?

I thought I might even have to "bury the body" myself. I imagined myself having to dig a six-foot-deep grave. But then I imagined that there was already a hole dug in the ground for me, and that all I'd have to do was fill it after I'd put the "body" inside.

I came up to a fenced-off area to my right. I could tell this was the cemetery. I stopped the truck on the side of the road.

I looked at the cemetery through the pickup truck's window. The area was a well-groomed lawn about the size of a football field. Through the middle of it ran a concrete path, about the size of an average sidewalk. In the center of the cemetery was a huge, concrete column. The lawn was dotted with flat, plaque-like grave-markers, most with colorful bouquets placed on them

I opened the car door, as if I were getting out to go into the cemetery.

Dream #5

I was somewhere -- possibly in bed! -- eating a chicken drumstick. I was eating it in some weird way, like taking swiping bites off of it, so that I'd bite down at the tip of the meaty part and then tear down all the way to the bony tip.

But in one bite I'd rubbed the greasy joint of the bony tip against the left corner of my mouth. I was disgusted. I could feel that the corner of my mouth and a good section around it were now all gross and greasy.

I got really panicky and decided I needed to go wash my face off right away. I couldn't seem to get enough motion into my body, though, to do this, and I just got more and more panicked.

Suddenly I "woke up." I sat up in bed in the dark. I knew the whole "chicken leg" scene had just been a dream. But I still felt really gross, and I still wanted to go wash my face.

But all I could manage to do was thrash around in bed, going from a sitting position to one where I was half-crawling and half-laying, facing the bed.

I somehow managed to look at my alarm clock. I saw that it was only 2:37 AM. I told myself I should really be getting back to sleep.

Dream #6

A view of my old co-worker, DC, possibly as he stood over me while I sat at a desk.