memorable

Night of July 5, 1964. Sunday.



One of the first vivid and somewhat lucid nightmares I remembered with more clarity as a young child is this one from age three. Woody Woodpecker is driving a car (which is rendered in my dream as a real car, that is, not like a cartoon), which seems like my brother-in-law Verdell’s car. Knothead and Splinter are also in the front seat. He accidentally drives off a very steep embankment (which is likely modeled after the road up to Grandad Bluff). His car rolls downward and out of control over the very steep incline with my dream showing (as if I am hovering in front of the scene) terrified expressions from the three of them, sometimes taking on an almost anthropomorphic appearance. His car does not turn over or completely wreck; it just keeps tipping forward a bit, dropping and moving forward. I seem to be hovering closer in front of his car at one point (almost as if switching between being in front of a movie screen as to actually being there, though incorporeal). It seemed to go on for a very long time. This was a late nighttime dream, but which seemed to “reset” and repeat near early morning. It did not cause me to wake with a start as with other nightmares.

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This dream is likely my first remembered “failed flight” waking transition. The birds, even though cartoons, are trapped in the car and there is no apparent escape. There is a transmutation of “I am falling” (waking consciousness shift though sustained here in real-time foreshadowing) to “they are falling” as well as “I cannot drive” to “he cannot drive”. This dream was very likely the result of the memory of riding in a car on the road up to Grandad Bluff and the sustained wariness I had in real life for a time.

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Morning of March 23, 1974. Saturday.



I am either (originally implied to be) resting or “sleeping” within my dream, with my bed being fully in the southwest corner of my Cubitis bedroom, aligned along the south wall near the one jalousie window, though my head to the east, lying on my right side at first.

After a time, I hear someone say my name from above (but seemingly close to my head), the dream becoming more vivid, followed by “Claude…here are some books” with a loving and intimate intonation. It is my “mystery girl”, but I am not sure where she is, perhaps in another dimension oriented above my bed, with the portal being part of the ceiling itself, though the ceiling does not look any different. Several large old books fall somewhat in slow motion (or somehow held back from falling more heavily as if perhaps by levitation) onto my bed. There is a very clear and strong sensation of weight shifting by the books landing on my bed. For a short time, I consider that the girl will join me, but I do not see her anywhere at any time. There is a vivid sense of antiquity as well as a feeling that these books are also one-of-a-kind. They mostly seem somewhat encyclopedic, some relating to the paranormal or perhaps spiritual rituals. I am somehow somewhat aware that the writing in one book reminds me somewhat of plant roots (which is a recurring concept) even though I do not seem to be looking inside any of the books. This event seems to be happening in the morning. Sunlight is filling my room and I feel a sense of true love from somewhere unknown.

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I am disappointed that they are not there after I wake up, as if I have residual consideration that items from my dreams can materialize in reality with the right focus.

Night of March 2, 1974. Friday.



I am in my room in Cubitis very late at night (possibly a couple hours before dawn). I am in my bed, with my head to the north, and on my right side, my bed along the west wall. I am looking out my window into our large front yard. I maintain a very vivid state of awareness but I am not lucid.

I see a shadowy form move through the sky over our front yard (from the northwest) and land on a branch of one of the three young silver oak trees (aligned north to south and a few feet from my windows), the rightmost one from my viewpoint. I am trying to work out if it is a hawk that has caught a snake or if it is actually a flying snake. It turns out to be a flying snake, but is somewhat awkward in its movements. It has large bat-like wings. I mostly only discern its silhouette against the background of the sky. It flies toward our neighbor’s house to the south. I vividly feel “privileged” to have seen it and also feel a sense of both mystery and increased well-being.

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Resupplemented for a clearer and more detailed explanation on Saturday, 2 December 2017.

My dream starts with me being in bed. This obviously means I have a residual thread of conscious self memory at having gone to bed but without viably remembering I am asleep.

My act of looking out my window directly relates to a subliminal attempt to look through my real eyes or link to my conscious self identity (and recent memory thereof), which is presently inactive to some extent despite my dream’s vividness.

The flying snake is a real-time composite of two RAS-related factors. A snake is the primary mechanism of RAS (though depending on the dream type, a snake may relate to real-life associations, such as a warning about a frayed electrical cord or an intestinal issue - due to its shape and coiled appearance, though if a snake is rendered vividly or realistically as one of the last features, it is likely only RAS and thus completely unrelated to “interpretation”), typically rendered to induce enough emotion to trigger waking (as a biological necessity, including to attend to real physical needs, but sometimes as a result of a real environmental noise of which the source is unknown to the unconscious). Flight is related to inner ear dynamics and the nature of not correctly perceiving the physical body while unconscious.

Because of my near-lucidity (though not viable lucidity), the RAS dynamics are intriguing in this case. The typical perception of “falling” out of the dream state (the natural dynamic of becoming conscious) is transmuted to this otherwise unique feature and as a result, I have a soft, enjoyable awakening from the illusion of the dream state. This is “exit flight waking symbolism”, which is a very common type of waking symbolism (and typically unrelated to real life or the conscious self).

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Morning of January 27, 1974. Sunday.



I am at my middle school in Arcadia. For some reason, my GI Joe jeep is a lot bigger than in reality, but not quite big enough to really drive around in, it seems; perhaps about the size of a child’s pedal-car toy. However, over time, it moves around seemingly on its own through various areas of the large school’s halls or as if by remote control (though I do not think I have the remote).

My good friend Johnny C is in the middle school cafeteria with me. We are seated near the end of a table. The jeep is there, but there is some sort of electrical problem near the dashboard. An area near the front seat starts to spark and sizzle (which I can clearly hear) and melt a bit (though in reality my GI Joe Jeep neither has the electrical features nor can it be controlled by remote). At this point, I am not sure if the jeep is mine or belongs to an unknown group doing some sort of test drives or experiments in our school. I watch and see it very clearly when it stops in a more open area between tables and see small embers and fire emerging from around the gas pedal and parts of the dashboard.

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From January 15, 1964. Wednesday.



This is an old recurring dream from around ages three to four.

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I am in a large old house with two floors and a large staircase. Some of the design is based on mahogany constructs or veneer at least. There is a familiar smell, somewhat like cinnamon at times, but later, a lot like that seemingly old but strong unusual wood scent (and for me, very nostalgic) that I used to smell when walking by certain old apartment buildings that had a wooden staircase and with an entrance door open to the public at street level. I only know of two locations in real life where I had caught that special scent in such a perfect way - one of them being the Rose Street apartments - which no longer exist, the other being in an area I only walked by a few times in another part of town.

The house is possibly partly based on Evelyn W’s house in real life (on Tenth Street in La Crosse) which was a place I visited as a young child and picked out “Little Red Feather” (which I have included details about in other entries) to keep, as I was given a choice to take one of the toys inside the large “toy box” (actually a large laundry basket) as my own and I chose a red plastic Native American figure in a kneeling position. I should point out that my wife Zsuzsanna had an imaginary friend called “Little Red Feather” (also as a child) long before we met, which is of course, only one of hundreds of very precise and incredible meaningful “coincidences”.

In my dream, an unknown dark-haired and green-eyed lady comes to the house to give me a toy steam shovel. I am not sure why; I do not think it is for my birthday or for Christmas.

Not much happens in my dream, though there is somewhat of a sense of being isolated at times. I sense the woman is “for” me but I will have to grow up and wait a long time before we meet (and she does not remind me at all of my mother in my dream, who I never saw at this younger age anyway). I remember standing around in the semidarkness at one point, wondering when she would return.

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It seems my wife-to-be (who was not even born yet) is somehow already in my path (or at least the detailed essence as such). There was no question on the appearance. She gave me the steam shovel “to dig or build my path to her”.

Morning of November 3, 1973. Saturday.



This is a long dream that started prior to real-life sunrise, continuing a short time after real-life sunrise, the carport (north through my bedroom windows) being fully illuminated as I woke up with the “I’ll just wake up now” resolved liminal state. As is often the case (recurring dream property, especially from 1969 to 1973), the eerie or threatening aspects of my dream break down or transform and become more mundane as the sun rises in real life - this can be seen in some of my other dreams, including several where bones become branches or picnic forks or a vampire bat becomes a non-threatening moth, etc.

In the first part of my dream, I am aware that it is Halloween night, except for the fact that November second is usually “Halloween” in my dream universe. This is due to a strong influence from the Barbara Steele movie “Castle of Blood” (from 1964). November second was always the “night of the dead” for me, which was actually more dominant than cultural associations with “ordinary” Halloween, though I still “saw” it (and accepted it) as the “real” Halloween.

Act One:

The first part of my dream reveals that a few classmates had been to my house in Cubitis; I assume mainly Tina L, Brenda W, Toby T, and Steve J. I seem to be the only one directly in-dream until near the end, though. The very large antique wooden dining table in the living room, along the middle area of the east side of the house and near the windows in usual view of the backyard (but the curtains are mostly down in-dream) has three areas that display several small skulls made of hard candy, mostly on the left side of the table to my perspective, some on a transparent glass plate of fancy spiral relief patterns, some not. The three sets are of slightly different sizes. Many are of the glow-in-the-dark pale green as of the color of cereal prizes that glow in the dark. A few others are in different pale colors such as Pepto-Bismol pink (recurring dominant color), a pale violet, and a pale yellow - none are white. In the back of my mind is the idea that some of them may be poisonous. I am not sure why people would put poisonous candy on the table (and I am hoping more friends or classmates do not come in and eat them unknowingly), but I get two other associations, one being cough drops in the shape of skulls, the other being skull-shaped vitamins. Therefore, each set of skulls is either candy, cough drops, or vitamins, with perhaps a few poisonous ones in each. I am wary of them all, though, and do not touch any of them.

Act Two:

I go into the hallway with the intent of, I think, going to the bathroom, though I do not recall an actual need to. It may just be a random in-dream wandering. Suddenly, a large hairy bat flies down from the back door area near the ceiling and its face is so close upon reaching me, it would have logically hit my face - but instead - suddenly vanishes. This is rather puzzling. The bat had a grinning gargoyle-like face, almost smiling at me.

Act Three:

As it grows closer to sunrise, I hear dogs barking and snarling. Normally, I am wary of going onto the carport at night (or even early morning) in dreams, but not always. I open the front door and the barking is actually right in the carport. I see several dogs right there just past the doorway and immediately close the door. The dogs continue to bark and growl. After the sun rises, I open the door and Toby T is there and holding a large poster, but beginning to roll it up top to bottom (and which had been completely covering the other side of the doorway) showing dogs in various aggressive positions (a couple of them apparently leaping up towards the viewer), which is exactly what I had seen before. He explains that the sound of the dogs was from a cassette playing on the table on the carport. Thus, what I saw when I opened the door was only the poster. I am somewhat relieved and it was all in good fun, I suppose. I am also aware that the bat, which was fake, was what I myself had set up and forgotten about, triggered by my movement into the hallway and pulling a string with my lower leg, which caused it to fly down from a setup at the end of the hallway.

Act one blends several associations, including the idea that sugar is “bad” for you, and so can vitamins if you take too many (especially, as I understand it - vitamin A, which has the highest toxicity if taken too often). On another note, I never really liked hard candy, which often tasted really bad to me and I could not understand how other people liked it or could even suck on it - horrid fake “cola” or “root beer” taste, fake horrid “citrus” and so on, that also make me cough just having it in my mouth and reminded me of sucking on the opening of a bottle of perfume (though admittedly I had never done that) and sometimes had an overwhelming soap-like taste. The cough drop aspect featured also brings to mind when a teacher at school gave me “candy”, which turned out to be an old cough drop - something I never confronted her on - just thought it was strange. It seemed to also be “warning” me about taking too much Pepto-Bismol, which I did not find out about in real life until much later.

Act two mostly used the association with the opening of the original “Scooby Doo” television series where animated bats fly at the viewer. I also had a toy/fake rubber bat on a string which I ended setting up as in my dream for a bit of amusement.

Act three shows my wariness and fear of dogs in dreams (curiously, which did not reflect real life to any degree) finally beginning to subside a bit as well as showing potential in-dream manipulation - that is, two-dimensional concepts made from what first seemed three-dimensional (the opposite of photo projection), thus a background latent ability to warp dimensions and planes of portals in-dream, almost in the manner of an implied hypercube. This recognition is delivered by my best friend. Toby T was somewhat like a “mirror” more representative of everyman, yet was not really like me at all at higher levels.

Steve J represents conditional love or conditional friendship, almost in an incidental way, due to a childhood “I’ll be your friend if…” or “I’ll continue to be your friend only if…” mentality. Tina L represents a combination of absentminded humorous outlook and incidental or faux snobbery. Her last name was also a play on “linear” (with only the relative accent slightly different in each); that is, a logical western progression in contrast to Brenda W’s (who was the main archetype for my wife-to-be) more “gypsy-like” or “Wendy the Good Little Witch” (but brunette, not blonde) magical persona.

This was a DDR dream I really enjoyed. The MITD (“monster in the doorway” waking transition, which is analogous as the emergent consciousness event) in the “final act” was rendered as just a poster of barking dogs that Toby had put up over the doorway to fool me (with a cassette of barking playing on a table in our carport). Everything was resolved to be part of a practical joke being setup by classmates.

Morning of October 6, 1973. Saturday.



I am fairly certain that there are older versions of this dream but at any rate, it holds a sort of unusual “nostalgia” yet also rather distant, but clearly “fixed” in the “background noise” of my memory. October 6th, 1973 (had missed a couple days of school during the week before this Saturday - flu). I am still in fourth or fifth grade in my dream, yet somehow back in La Crosse, it seems, or some sort of strange composite of La Crosse and Arcadia (Wisconsin and Florida). It is late fall as in reality for the most part. (There is a false memory in my dream that I had the lizard as a pet when much younger while living in Wisconsin. I only had it in Florida when almost a teen.)

I am focused on one thing - trying to recover my lost pet draco volans. The flying lizard could have “flown” off like a bird, perhaps, but I am not fully focused (they cannot actually fly upwards like a bird). It would seem impossible to look under every leaf, of which there are thousands. The streets are mostly deserted. I get the impression it may have somehow been attracted to a fake gumball machine version north of where I am mostly exploring. I do get there, but there is no sign of life of any kind, really. I am only vaguely concerned about missing more school (though my dream was not actually on a school day as implied within my dream. By a strange coincidence, researching a bit more meticulously, I learned that there were eighty-six days left in the year from this date. “Eighty-six” means “getting rid of something”).

There is very mild confusion regarding one of those Chinese fortune-telling fish that can curl up in your hand. I pick it up from near the curb and mourn for Draco. This is not my pet, though. My pet is a live lizard. It barely lasted a week in reality before somehow vanishing into…where? What would a draco lizard think of a Chinese fortune-telling fish? I am alone in my thoughts. I do not even see any cars going about on the streets. I walk by a laundromat. At least one dryer is going but there are no people in there, either. I do not really feel anything threatening about this absence of people in the main part of town.

My flying dragon will probably not return and I am close to accepting this and putting it behind me.

There may be a very loose connection between this and seeing myself as a “prehistoric chameleon” (Florida chameleon - they often came into the house in real life as the larger geckos do where we live now) embedded in a rock (as some sort of fossil) - with a sort of mossy and olive color, which was at the end of a dream where there had been an explosion on the sun - that part of my dream also reflected a strange sort of nostalgia as it flowed into a vivid hypnopompic state.

Morning of September 16, 1973. Sunday.



This is, I believe, one of the first versions of a rather interesting dream when twelve years of age.

The first section involves a legend of a Martian “time barrier”. I believe that much of this particular dream possibly takes place in the 1800s in perhaps Arizona (perhaps the 1860s-1870s) or more likely Nevada, where they had done nuclear testing later on. It almost has a television western feel at the beginning, like an episode of “Gunsmoke” with science-fiction characteristics. There is an area about the land (near an old fence) where time moves much faster than the areas around it. I watch a very vivid scene of a couple cowboys riding through the desert-like area. One of the men is on a horse, another on a mule. The man on the mule unknowingly rides through the “barrier” and begins to age rapidly as he is riding. He slumps over and the mule also ages rapidly and they fall to the ground and turn into dust, but the other man is not affected at all even though he was not that far from the other man’s left side.

This is relative to some sort of quest or hunt for gold. There are other men in the region, mostly outlaws. The Martian coffin is found out in the open in one area and the coffin seems to be where the more-detailed map to the gold (and possibly other treasures) is. It seems to be simultaneously located in the living room of my Cubitis home at one point (with the coffin aligned north to south, head to the north). The Martian appears to be dead and seems to have diamonds for eyes. It is mostly human-like in form but green and with lizard characteristics. The main character of the scenario looks into the coffin and screams and runs off. It seems the story goes that the Martian is still alive or in some sort of suspended animation where he can still cause harm to anyone in the area if you get close enough. The man is very afraid and runs away, waving his arms, and forgetting about the gold, and (absentmindedly) ending up in the most dangerous area and soon becoming a pile of dust.

I look down at the Martian’s face and see what first looks like eyes moving. I then realize that the diamond-like eyes are only reflecting my eyes. There is a strange mood at this point as all the other men are running off, as it plays out like some sort of clever twist O. Henry ending. This is the only part of my dream I seem to be directly “in”.

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The unusual idea of the dream’s outside primarily unfamiliar setting somehow at the same time being in my Cubitis living room is a fairly common distortion in some dream types.

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The presumed Martian corpse is a subliminal distorted perception of my sleeping body. Note how it was originally documented “I look down at the Martian’s face and see what first looks like eyes moving (note that this is in reference to the side to side motion of the eyes as well as perceived blinking). I then realize that the diamond-like eyes are only reflecting my eyes.” This is an obvious subliminal recognition of REM sleep.

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Morning of September 13, 1973. Thursday.



I first dreamt of the fictional animal - the “cataroo” (long before the Internet and the potential to see that others had thought of it) at this time. In this case, it has the upper half of a cat and the bottom half of a miniature kangaroo (as it is cat-sized here). It has a very special vindication for me, personally. In this first dream of the “cataroo”, it was in a wicker cat cage with a rounded top, the cage facing west, while in the northeast area of the living room, which remains semi-dark throughout my dream - the small carrying cage itself and its precise appearance as in my dream being something that I had never seen or heard of. This was very precise precognition many years ahead, as my wife had one exactly like it when we got together many years later. Also as in my dream, the door broke off eventually.

The cage was, again, visually exact relative to my more distant future and marriage, but the rest of the precognition was a composite of other factors and facets as it often is - my wife was breeding cats at the time I went to her, and she lived in Australia (thus the cat-kangaroo mix), which I had no real-life association with at all as a boy. This is why I have always firstly looked at dreams as a literal combination of past, present, and future (even distant future) and not symbolic in an obscure or totally unrelated sense that so-called dream dictionaries try to promote.

On a lesser note, this night was the first episode of the second season of “The Waltons” television series (the episode “The Journey”, where there is some unusually complex synchronicity, one facet relating to the December 20, 1960 comic strip “Henry”). This is only relative in that the “mystery girl” or “imaginary girlfriend” and I were intimate when it was on in my dream and with Roosevelt I making a gag of the “watching the Waltons while making love” scenario in real-life. Coincidentally (or yet more subtle precognition), a similar gag was used on an actual (sitcom I think) television show a short time later, but I cannot presently recall the name.

Morning of July 20, 1973. Friday.



I am seemingly somewhat “disembodied” but still aware of being above my bed, looking downwards, perhaps hovering (it is aligned north to south in the southwest corner of my room). For quite some time, nearly a half an hour perhaps, I had been listening to the sound of my mother’s typewriter. For some reason, even though my bedroom door is closed, it sounds rather loud and close to my ears. I seem to fade in and out of this dream several times, still being aware of the typewriter sound, but it is not all that annoying as there are points where it is almost “reassuring” somehow.

Eventually, I see the typewriter on my bed (while still hovering above, seemingly disembodied or in my “orb” form) and invisible hands start to type. As this happens, I hear the opening music to Sandra Gould’s 45 “Hello Melvin (This Is Mama)” from August 1963 (which I had in real life and listened to fairly often at one time). There is no comedic singing or talking, just the music as on the record and with light typewriter clacking, which actually seems more and more reassuring and even soothing as it continues. The typewriter clacking even seems to match some of the musical aspects (mainly the four-note main phrasing) with three-note “answer” clacks after each phrasing (somewhat like a “cha cha cha” element). It seems to go on for several minutes.

Coincidentally, Sandra Gould (who was also one of the actresses who played Gladys Kravitz on the television series “Bewitched”) was born the same month and year of my mother (but nine days later) - July of 1916 - and also died on this date (July 20) in 1999.

Morning of May 6, 1973. Sunday.



I have had a few dreams (early to mid-1970s) of a miniature but “real” Cape Kennedy / Cape Canaveral being set up in my bedroom, living room, or side-yard to the south. In one, outside, seemingly in late morning in Cubitis, I knock the rocket over that was about to launch (it was about three-quarters my size) and watched the “chaos” below with no regret. Still, even though I am supposedly a “giant” in their eyes, everything else (including the houses) was of correct size and to my scale, though there were also some “miniature trees” in my immediate area, only up to about my ankles or so. It was the area between my house and the neighbor to the south, but oriented more towards my front yard. It seemed very realistic (I was semi-lucid any very aware of the details), and it vaguely reminded me of the “Thunderbirds” television show (although the “real miniatures” were much smaller in my dream and there were larger ant-like signs of people and activity).

Night of April 4, 1973. Wednesday.



I am on a four stacker ocean liner very late it night (or an hour or so before dawn) that apparently has left California (even though I live in Florida). There is firstly the idea that the liner is on its way to Hawaii (probably influenced by the Elvis special “Aloha From Hawaii” just aired at this time). However, I do not want to go to Hawaii, but feel I need to keep going all the way to Australia (though I knew little of Australia at the time). I become a bit concerned that the ship is not going as far as it “must” for me to get to my “mystery girl”.

It seems I deliberately jump from the ocean liner but then have a sense of having done something foolish, as the ship is very far from any land. I do not want to swim back to California (which is illogical thinking as I am still within range of the ship) but want to go to the other side of the world to meet the “mystery girl”. I feel a profound sense of sadness regarding my failure to be with my wife on the other side of the ocean - which is unusual in that I am not an adult in reality at the time, though I do sense I will “grow up fast” if I make it to my supposed destiny and important destination. There is a sense that I will likely eventually drown though I have no physical discomfort in-dream. There is an unusual melancholy impression (very vague) of music. It is a three-note progression, followed by a five-note progression, played on something that sounds somewhat pipe-organ-like but more distorted. The almost inaudible sound (which seems to project even more melancholy associations) seems to create or alter the motions of the waves at one point. The sorrow I feel in thinking I will never reach my soulmate (or destined partner in life) is one of the strongest it has ever been in a childhood dream. (This was long-term precognitive as it sounded just like the opening of the Fixx’s song “Reach the Beach”, which was not released until about ten years later in 1983. The album cover also strikes me as reminiscent of my dream. There is also a song called “Liner” on the album which has the lyric “Seen before, back in an infant’s dream” as well as "Liner, it was a fantasy sea cruise. It was a bet destined to lose. Across the waves, what was he thinking?” Therefore, it cannot help but be one of my favorite musical albums as there are numerous other personal associations even though the seeming personal connections are only subtly partial and not directly relevant to the song meanings in reality.)

There are layers of quite different linear formations of colors (mostly perpendicular to the direction I am swimming) representing the ocean - the surface of the ocean being almost continuously rainbow-like in a sense but also dark and very eerie, and I see myself from a distance with my arms up out of the water. I also get the impression that the beach will continue this pattern. Time seems to have “stopped” and the visionary impressions seem to last a long time even after waking.

Afternoon of January 7, 1973. Sunday. In-depth revision on Sunday, 22 April 2018.



Scene one: My dream starts with my semi-lucid dream self walking south beyond the backyard of my Cubitis home (the backyard being on the east side of the house) in late afternoon, close to the railroad tracks. I do not attempt to actively auto-script my dream but I do summon some schoolmates into the setting, which discernibly includes (in order of real-life familiarity) Toby, Brenda, Steve W, Tina, and Sharla. I contemplate experiencing a science-fiction adventure. Walking a short distance from my home, behind what would be the second house south of mine, there is an area where the railroad tracks had somehow seemingly been pulled upwards. Looking up at the bent and twisted railroad tracks, which are at least twelve feet in height, creates vague vertigo. The feature also reminds me of a ladder. From here, we soon come to an old wooden sign, with “FORBIDDEN LAND” (in two rows, that is “FORBIDDEN” written above “LAND”) sloppily painted in red. Despite the sign, I know we are going to explore the area.

Scene two: Eventually, after walking east, we find ourselves in a small isolated town of which has the overall appearance of Dodge City, from the “Gunsmoke” television series, though there are a few additional modern features. When we are inside a restaurant and there is noise outside, like amplified galloping and implications of an earthquake, there are people talking about this event as if it occurs on a regular basis, at a certain time each day around noon. We notice plaster falling from the ceiling as whatever it is passes by, down the dirt street. There are not many cars and most are from the early 1960s. There is talk of a giant white horse. It is said that it is a hundred hands high, which is about 33 feet. I realize that the damage to the railroad tracks was caused by the giant horse galloping across that area. Despite the damage it has caused to the buildings (apparently the people are always rebuilding), the giant horse apparently does not go after people.

Scene three: We make our way up a mountain, but I am on my own in the final view. I am looking down over a large field, mostly featureless except for a lake in the right of my view, though there is also a cluster of trees beyond. The giant white horse was a mother that had been looking for her foal which she has now just found. The giant foal is drinking from the lake, which is not much bigger than him. I sense that they will go north to another land and no longer be problematic for the town. My dream takes on a very peaceful and positive tone. I feel very happy upon waking.

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Threads of scene one explained: The vague vertigo is a dynamic of vestibular system correlation (and the lack of viable awareness of my real physical body as I am sleeping), even in the intriguing ambiguous railroad tracks to ladder association, a ladder implying the potential to rise up from the dream state or augment lucidity.

Threads of scene two explained: My subliminal conscious self chooses the “Gunsmoke” set in recognition of my dream being like a movie or television show (unrelated to real life), which has been the case in a number of other dreams. Additionally, I typically pick the farmland to the east in such dreams (though it sometimes resets to being back closer to my house) as I was unfamiliar with its overall real-life appearance as I had never gone there and could only see some of it from my backyard. This way, my lack of experience with what the area looked like benefited the imaginary layout of my dream (even though my dreams do not render locations correctly anyway, to avoid associations with waking life memory). The restaurant in scene two seemed modeled somewhat after my middle school’s cafeteria, though was only around half the size. The attention to the plaster falling from the ceiling is a focus on liminal space division while in the dream state. It is more linked to vestibular system correlation than is doorway waking symbolism (or other subliminal anticipation of the dream ending).

Threads of scene three explained: In this dream, the emergent consciousness factor, more commonly rendered as an animal in childhood dreams, is the giant white mare. In the final waking event, my dream self, perceived as the foal, due to its incomplete nature while in the dream state, is found by way of the preconscious transition, without any conflict. This is a type of coalescence event which activates consciousness. The final dynamic is the very common water lowering waking symbolism, key autosymbolism for leaving the dream state since early childhood.

Conclusion: The main concept of this dream (the giant horse) was borrowed from the “Arizona Midnight” episode of the “Gunsmoke” television series seen the previous week (January 1). There was also an incidental association with the large plastic black stallion Aurora model that was of a much larger scale than all of my other animal model kits.

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Morning of December 25, 1972. Monday.





This is a dream from Christmas morning of 1972. At the time I was certain that I was sleeping on the floor of the hallway during several false awakenings (I was actually sleeping on the living room floor fairly close to the Christmas tree and did not remember how I got there) - but of course, that would not have made any sense based on what I was seeing - a very strange and vivid state.

In my dream, I am pondering, over a very long time (seemingly several hours) on how a new Pinocchio book was sitting on the record shelf along the north wall, being the outermost book (it was actually a record shelf for 33s, not for books) - “It’s probably an unwrapped Christmas present,” I am thinking - but I am too tired (in my dream) to cheerfully get up and check everything on this Christmas morning. I feel dazed (years later, I learned this was precisely a jet-lag feeling I was seemingly experiencing). I was seeing it in a sort of vague half-aware state yet still saw it “clearly” in one sense. Pinocchio was shown from above the waist and seemed to be holding a violin or something (it was actually Hank Snow holding his guitar) - although I sometimes get the impression it is a large wooden mallet. This turned out in real life to be the cover of “The Best of Hank Snow” record album that my hypnopompic states were warping somewhat whenever I opened my eyes now and then and through false awakenings unrelated to the earlier hypnopompia.

It is also not realistic that I could have even seen this view from supposedly lying on my back in the hallway, fairly close to the back door.

Over time, a dream within a dream (and more vivid) unfolds, I have the recurring “mystery girl” dream (no mystery - this was the girl whose birth I sensed in 1968 and ended up marrying - from a great distance across the ocean to the other side of the planet - that area and Port Kembla are almost perfectly parallel in a diagonal mean and in each case, the hospital within the same close distance to the beach).

She seems sad and on the right side of a fictional doorway in the hallway. The doorway leads into a dark fictional room which is reminiscent of a cave - I have had several variations of this dream. I see the glow of a television which seems not bright enough to be a television even in a dark room. Later I am aware it must be the oven in the real-life kitchenette on the other side of the wall. (Ovens sometimes “replaced” dragons in childhood dreams.) We seem to be in some sort of intimate intended “meeting of minds” but it is mostly uneventful - I simply know she “is my wife”, yet I do hear her “mother”/“dragon” growling and snarling in the room with mostly human-like vocalizations. It is as if the girl is “trapped” by the manipulations of her mother even as an adult who wanted to have her own life (this turned out to be true in every way years later). She is beautiful but it is not the “time” - she is very young in real life at the time. My “jet-lag” makes me feel somewhat embarrassed (even this turned out to be true many years later).

I begin to curiously seem to be in two dreams at the same time (the most has been four simultaneously, to my knowledge). From there, I begin to pantomime the song about Miller’s Cave (only the title for the most part is relevant in this case). Doing a sort of embarrassing pretend-march (rather than just implied normal walking - why march in a cave?) and rather pointless arm movements (almost as if pretending to be a marionette) I look through two sets of eyes at the same time - a very odd awareness - one being “me” there and then in that dream within a dream - the other looking at the supposed Pinocchio book on the shelf thinking I am waking. The echo of the girl’s mother’s growls fade a bit. I sense that she is working on a marionette that I sense is me (first had a similar dream at around age six). Being in the doorway of the “dragon’s” room/cave very briefly I get the impression that Pinocchio is being created in a steel mill in a distant land in the “sizzling fire of the oven”. (Precognition again, my wife’s real father worked in the infamous “Bloodhouse” in Port Kembla.)

My wife’s mother’s maiden name was Miller (more precognition or telepathy in this case).

Finally, I wake into a completely different orientation, location, and position than what I thought I was in. I am somewhat disoriented. But I am happy it is Christmas morning.

This dream confirmed several important elements of my future path in exact detail.

The real, original version of “Pinocchio” is much different than the heavily “watered-down” Disney movie of which I still like. Part of this dream was almost as if to say “Disney represents modern mainstream ‘ignorance is bliss’ (a common consensus play in general - including "Fantasy World and Disney Girls” I mostly heard by the Captain and Tennille); the real Pinocchio story is very cruel and even he is - his feet are even burned off while sleeping at one point.

Synchronicity and other connections:

Hank Snow died on my birthday in 1999 in Madison (Madison is another recurring pattern throughout my life and is a play on Maidstone). However, it was Madison, Tennessee, not Wisconsin. I did not get a Pinocchio book that Christmas, but I did get a View-Master set of the non-Disney story which had the scene of a large snake threatening Pinocchio.

The “Blue Fairy” of the Pinocchio story is intriguingly like my “Blue Pearl” event (which actually resolved into the Blue Fairy in early childhood - the first time being in Christmas of 1969).

Does Hank Snow really look like Pinocchio? No…I do not think so (when awake that is)…

Morning of December 17, 1972. Sunday.



A bear is wandering around in the area near our home in Cubitis. There are no clearer thoughts of my parents or addressing my concerns to them about the bear, as if I do not perceive them as being present (though this is not logical - though many of my childhood dreams were erroneously rendered as such, which may be a natural but vestigial dreaming element, as my parents never left me home alone in reality). I worry about it getting into our house (though this dream has no nightmarish element, only lesser trepidation). At times, it seems of a duller orange coloration, though I think it is a lighter brown (or meant to be) in most scenes. There is a concern which seems to last about a full day and night and there is what seems like at least one “reset”. Throughout this seeming passage of time, I am not aware of any other activities or events.

Finally, the bear finds her three cubs in our backyard (an event which seems to be taking place early in the morning) and the mood of my dream changes completely into a beautiful sense of peace and love as the bear then seems to radiate a sort of light or light rays like the sun (even though it logically seems as if she would have found them before unless they had recently just strayed into that area coming into the backyard from elsewhere). Two of the bear cubs are in the area between our house and our neighbors’ to the south. The third is closer to his mother on her right side.

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This dream combines two forms of waking symbolism, sunrise waking symbolism and coalescence waking symbolism.

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This dream is a wonderful example of rendering two contrasting ideas in the same scene. The mother bear of course represents my mother (especially as it is this dream’s preconscious factor). The cub directly to her right (in the foreground in my viewpoint of the scene) represents me. Farther to the right in this scene, another cub (in the pair of cubs closer to the neighbors’ yard) is also me, but with the third cub representing Lisa. The two of “us” in this pair farther from the mother bear relates to a real day-to-day activity, though the mother bear is still watching them. (This is really not that different from seeing two versions of someone in a dream, or in fact, seeing oneself in a dream as if invisible or incorporeal or seeing two or more versions of the same pet at the same time.) The bear also remains, in the final scene, in the area where my mother hung clothes in real life.

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“Seeing” my mother as a threatening figure from the viewpoint of my dream self (prior to resolving the association in the last act) is really not that unusual. However, there were a number of dreams where the animal symbolism was not resolved as such and seemed limited to biological factors, that is, being “warned” about a potential animal-related event as a biological safety mechanism rather than having an “interpretation”. (I am fairly certain that if a dog dreams about being pursued or attacked by a large animal that the meaning is literal and preparatory, not symbolic.)

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There was a precognitive thread in this dream as well. About a day after this dream, I had gotten, from my older sister Carol, a package containing a number of plastic model kits. One of them was “Black Bear and Cubs”. There were two cubs in the kit, and the bear was not golden, but the associations where very similar.

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