memorable

Night of December 12, 1969. Friday.



This dream seemed to last all night into the next morning but with several false awakenings. Regardless of it being somewhat nightmarish, it is one of my favorites from childhood. This was yet another dream where Pepto-Bismol pink dominated some aspects of the dream elements. It also involves another early attempt at tulpa creation (as with the “Cobra in the Hayloft” dream). This is still the original dream journal title from age eight and the first version of this dream theme as far as I know.

In an early part of the dream, my pillow seems to have moving imagery on it somewhat like a television screen. There is a scene with the “MGM lion” logo roaring (as at the beginning of a movie) except that the lion has been replaced by a triceratops. (It is possible that the small portable heater had been on a few times, which sometimes made a rattling noise and provided a slight glow in the room.)

Over time, I develop a very intense, clear, and focused lucidity and am able to control the somewhat phosphorescent images on the pillow. Once I gain more faith and expectation, I also gain a sense of being able to communicate with the white family cat, Snowball, or at least get her to understand my ideas somehow. The cat had been in the room throughout the dream; in reality as well, I think.

Throughout the night, seemingly, there are different “games” played with the imagery on the pillow. One amusing scene involves the word “dots” appearing on my pillow several times, like a grid-like pattern (after I had watched actual polka dots for a time). As I put more intent into the manifestation, the words rotate and then say “stop” like some sort of “tingly warning”. Another image that flows across the pillow is a sequence of letter Zs, in a snake-like fashion. It is similar to watching projected images from a slide projector moving about on the surface of the pillow (and part of the sheet at times).

I also seem aware of a loud snoring (on and off) over the few hours that the dream seems to last. I used to think it was my father (and one story I wrote based on the dream did imply that), but my father’s room was in another part of the house at the other end beyond the hallway and would not have been that loud, I do not think. It was either my own or solely in-dream, but certainly seemed vivid and made the dinosaur’s sounds seem more threatening somehow, through the false awakenings - yet at the same time was a reassurance at one level of thought in a particular liminal state at random times.

“Look Snowball, I can make a monster appear,” I say with confidence (and again feel the in-dream “tingling”). Instead of the imagery appearing on the pillow, a “real” full-sized triceratops appears standing near my bedside, facing east (where my head is). (The bed is along the south wall, head at the southeast corner at the time, both in the dream and in reality. The bed had occupied several different locations in the room during the time I lived there. This particular setup was the farthest from all the large jalousie windows during the winter.) The triceratops makes a “snoring growling” sound, very vivid and convincing, but mostly just remains in the same standing position as if I might still have some level of control over it. There is an eerie glow of Pepto-Bismol pink from it (which does not fully light up the room). The cat seems a bit nervous but does not run off.

I seem to shift into another state and realize it was only a very vivid and lucid dream with the appearance of the dinosaur seeming like part of a false awakening (though I was lucid dreaming, I had a partial sense I might be partly awake and watching hypnagogic events projected onto the pillow as was sometimes the case in reality). I think about getting back into the same state, because it was quite intriguing. However, the dream eventually takes on a lesser vividness and my lucidity lowers as well. In the last section, the dream is non-lucid. I am out of my bedroom and in a sleeping bag on the living room floor (southwest area of the room), apparently having been placed here by my mother either due to a monster being in my room or being “safer” there for some other reason. From here, the triceratops appears again (but is a darker mossy green, not pink) and I sense it is getting closer to my face as I slowly wake.

Morning of November 22, 1969. Saturday.



I am only about two inches high or smaller. I am with a female classmate, Linda (I think on the weekend within my dream as well). We are sitting in a “giant” nest playing house. It seems to be mostly made of Spanish moss. A few “giant” raindrops fall but do not endanger us (we are under a larger branch in the tree in the northwest corner of the West Elementary playground). There is a very blissful, timeless feel as well as a slight awareness of winter beginning. At one point, I seem to move into and around the scene, as if I am flying but disembodied. It is incredibly vivid. As was often the case, I felt a very strange sense of nostalgia, even for things that were seemingly visually completely new to me, or so it seemed. This idea may be related to having a lot of the “same” dreams you do not remember in any way, and then having the “same” or similar dream you do vividly recall for some reason.

Night of November 16, 1969. Sunday.

Dream #: 1,063-02. Reading time: 1 min 18 sec.



In my vivid dream, I am riding my school bus in the morning, but I soon notice that it is now an airplane. I realize this because of the unfamiliar bird’s eye views that I observe and enjoy. I am seated in the middle of the right side, closest the aisle. There is a feeling of comfort and security as I remain passive to my surroundings.

This “airplane” continues to maintain the appearance of the inside of my school bus. The “pilot” or “bus driver” is on the left as with my school bus. He is focused and does not turn to look back at any of my classmates at any time.

Based on my views primarily through the front windshield, we seem to be going downward at one point at about a forty-five-degree angle though there is no wariness or fear. Mostly, there are scenes of ancient Greece, including the Oracle at Delphi and the Temple of Athena Nike. The imagery causes an eerie essence as if I am traveling back in time or at least seeing images of the distant past.

There are only a few other students on board, and I do not recall seeing anyone I know. I remain unsure who the pilot is. Though he is in a formal outfit and wearing a cap, my real-life school bus drivers never wore a uniform. (I do not recall waking from this dream, which seemed to be in the middle of the night.)

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It became typical for me to imagine that I was riding in something other than my school bus when going to school, such as an airplane, rocket, train, a machine that chopped all the trees down along the way (after seeing “The Lorax”), and so on.

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This dream was before I maintained a consistent use of “opossum” (family DiDELPHIdae) in my ceremonial identity (and eventual Internet username) and the spiritual link with dolphins (family DELPHInidae). I was surprised to find “Delphi” in both.

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Early morning of November 8, 1969. Saturday. (Between 1 and 3 am.)



In my dream, my female classmate, Carol Waters, is swimming in a very small “swimming pool”, which seems to instead be a section where concrete is otherwise to be poured into the hole that is presently filled with water (as part of an internal floor foundation my father had been working on). The water in it may be a result of recent rain even though the setting seems indoors, though there are possibly missing external walls behind me or on either side as well as the roof not being constructed yet. It reminds me a bit of an actual construction area my father worked at previously but also (more likely) could be from newer construction on the new rabbit shed on the north side of our backyard. There is another person in my dream besides me and Carol Waters; seemingly my father, standing with arms akimbo to the south (facing north) of the small “swimming pool”. I am to the east of it. There is a sense of puzzlement in the scenario. It seems to be midnight or after in my dream, which may be reflecting the actual time in this case.

My father seems to be puzzled as to why Carol Waters (her real name) is using it as her own private “swimming pool”, as he needs to finish his work and pour the concrete (after removing the water), though he would not actually do this work so late at night. She is “swimming” upright, almost vertically in a seemingly physically impossible way; in an unusual very swift manner back and forth (east to west and back). The scene is highly unlikely, as the area for the concrete to be poured would not be deep enough to use as such (assuming Carol is actually upright in the water, though she may just be doing a wrongly perceived or distorted dog paddle). My father says that she is “afraid to come out of the water” giving me a vague awareness of the Brian Hyland song “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” (even though I am not certain of what Carol is wearing in my dream, as she never comes out of the water).

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This dream was in the middle of the night, seemingly coming out of a very deep sleep. It also seems too cold (even for Florida) to consider that someone would be swimming at this time. It seems amusing in that her surname was Waters and this is the only dream I documented as ever having her specifically as a character and was related to her being in the water.

Trying to be as accurately detailed as possible here, I will add the nature of the setting as in being of typical very clear perceptual bilocation. The scene, as well as its implied in-dream location, also seems to be oddly set between the south inner and outer wall of my bedroom, partly in the front yard in front of my father’s room (original room before he built the extension into the carport). This sense of bilocation occurred in the majority of my dreams when young (and still occurs more sparsely) though I had not previously given the specifics online.

A probable meaning to this dream is that I was merely focused (in-dream) on the dreaming process itself; that is, the water being the essence of the dreaming mind, projecting myself as Carol the swimmer, the pool not being a real pool (dream state as opposed to waking consciousness), my dream being short (not that much water in the faux pool), and the building incomplete (dream not fully rendered even though vivid). As most dreams have a precognitive or remote viewing layer, this one foreshadowed newer work my father was to become involved in. (He added a new area to the rabbit shed as well as becoming more involved in local construction involving houses, churches, and park utilities.) Also, immediately after my dream, he talked about rainwater making the concrete too wet and had to do additional work.

Additional notes. There was an association with an apparently fictional lyric “she was afraid to come out of the ocean, she was afraid to come out of the sea…” (as I often misremembered song lyrics as a child). Also, I always, even at this age, felt the song was a bit ambiguous, as it was not clear if the bikini or the polka dots were yellow. I did not see Carol Waters as shy in real life.

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melatonin simulacrum subsequent mediation / water lowering waking symbolism

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Morning of November 3, 1979. Saturday.



A living pelican skeleton walks about in my family’s living room in Cubitis (though I was living in Wisconsin by this time in real life). My dream is very intense and vivid, with an augmented sense of wonder, but not eerie despite the imagery. There is a vibrant positive energy present. The pelican skeleton eventually jumps up onto a dresser (along the west wall of the living room) and then spends time seemingly looking at itself in a mirror (perhaps in puzzlement of its “twin” in the mirror) and moving its wings of bone. I am also vaguely aware of other activity in the room, something like small balls rolling around and possibly small mammals of which I do not directly focus upon.

It seems very alive and vibrant, as if I am viewing the scene through some sort of x-ray vision. There is a lot of energy in my dream, and other events are happening, but this is the main one and the focus of my dream at its most vivid level. (It reminds me, in conscious afterthought, of an image from the Time-Life book “The Birds”, which I had since I was very young.

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This dream is a unique version of the otherwise typical type of autosymbolism in the last segment of my dreams that relates to associations with vestibular system ambiguity and not knowing where my physical body is in unconsciousness. Although there is a lesser semi-lucidity here, my dream self typically does not have viable access to either my unconscious or viable memory or thinking skills, or viable awareness of my conscious self in waking life. This, in fact, is why the mirror is rendered, as a mirror is a type of autosymbolism that represents this division of liminal space. The skeleton form represents how my dream self is not my complete conscious self in waking life, combined with the flight symbol that is precursory to the actual waking transition (and of which is rendered in over one in five of my dreams, at least once per sleep cycle).

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Morning of October 4, 1969. Saturday.



I am eight years old and am outside in the backyard of my home in Florida, and I become aware that I am dreaming. I want to enjoy myself in this lucid dream that is slowly growing in vividness, but I suddenly become aware that there are buzzards circling above (as sometimes occurs in real life) and I yell up at them - saying that I am not afraid, even raising my right fist at them. (This is mainly because Florida buzzards were a recurring fear factor in my dreams of this time period, both lucid and non-lucid.)

Almost immediately, I become aware that one of the buzzards is now swooping down to get at me. I run into the carport, and the buzzard flies onto my lower back, stabbing me with its beak (at the same time I start to sit down in an attempt to somehow crush the buzzard into the back of the chair which is impossible because a buzzard is too big for such an act). I then start to wake with a bizarre intense sensation as I am also leaning back against the chair with metal legs which I had chosen to sit in as quickly as possible (the chair facing south to the wall of the carport rather than out from the wall). The chair is not that far from the main door into the house, but I knew I could not get to it in time. I also notice a lawn mower near the chair. This also seems to be some sort of premonitory awareness of a spasm of some sort in my lower back, which is much the same as in certain other dreams.

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This dream was so intense that I was almost certain that I had rolled over onto my pet cat and harmed it, but it was not around at the time. It takes some time for me to fully wake and realize this, but when I finally move, nothing is there. The in-dream sense of touch was increased to such an extent, I could feel the lumpiness in my back for a minute or so, which was not there in reality and I felt relieved that our cat was likely okay in another room as the sensation eventually dissipated.

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Night of September 26, 1969. Friday.



I am in some sort of museum or art gallery, seemingly late at night, and no one else is around, not even my parents. I go up to a painting of a colorful landscape and the closer I look, the more “energy” I feel. After a short time, it seems I am moving into the painting and then hovering above a very large crowd of men who all look very similar, all equidistant and uniform - each about a person-width apart from each other, seemingly in a huge featureless room with a smooth white floor. They all seem to step forward and are waving a paintbrush in the air and are singing. Each sweater and beret they are wearing matches the color (or actually is the color when zoomed out) in that supposed “drop of paint” in the original painting - and it is as if I am looking at the painting at a very highly magnified level. Also, it seems this may only happen at night. I feel a sense of peace and joy in seeing this unusual “closeup” of the magnificent painting. It is like a wide miniature parade of living colors and reflects a deep feeling of comfort.

Later, my dream decays (or shifts into a different dream state and awareness) into a scene where I walk around looking at lawn mowers in some sort of large garage, but which still seems to be part of the art gallery or museum.

The original dream journal title for this, even when transferred a few times, was “Picture It Strange”, which was, of course, before I learned more about grammar. There was also a stage where it was titled “Pingere”. I wanted to make this into a story and started to when young, but could not think of a plot foundation to “explain” the main events.

Morning of September 15, 1969. Monday.



As I ride my crowded southbound school bus on Highway Seventeen in early morning, there is a vague recall (without lucidity) of how I sometimes daydream (in real life) that my school bus is a rocket going to the moon. This becomes the case in my dream, though my school bus remains of the same appearance. I feel the sensation of my school bus moving through the sky.

My classroom is in the same building, yet rendered as being on the moon. I sit in my classroom in the left-most row of desks in about the middle of the row, facing south. Farther to my left is a large singular window (not a real-life feature).

Instead of an outside view, it seems to be a chemistry laboratory (even though I had been vaguely aware of the moon’s surface viewed from this window, the ambiguous change probably a result of a dream reset). The Disney cartoon character Emil Eagle is there, picking up and pouring from test tubes, seemingly planning something questionable, likely with bad intent, perhaps even an intent to poison all the students and my teacher (an unfamiliar female). (However, he may be trying to create a “hair-growing formula”, based on a comic book story I had read a few times. Emil Eagle first appeared in “The Evil Inventor” in May of 1966 as a balding industrial spy that sought to steal Gyro’s hair growth formula.)

My teacher and classmates do not seem to be aware of what he is doing or even that he is present. I eventually discern an unpleasant odor, which is much like asphalt. I consider that the teacher and students might think I had passed wind, with a vague contemplation of the word “asphalt” as “ass fault”. However, I also consider that the odor is real asphalt from outside, unrelated to Emil’s experiment. I worry about the odor and hold onto a concern about possibly being poisoned by noxious gas, yet I do not leave the classroom or express my concern to my teacher, as I might be blamed for disrupting the class.

I still contemplate passively pointing out that Emil Eagle is responsible for the odor (in case someone else says something first). I consider that they might think the odor is caused by smoke from a nearby fire or (as in real life) the supposed factory fumes from Nocatee (which was sarcastically referred to by schoolmates as “Skunkatee”). I neither make the connection that Emil Eagle is only a villainous Disney comic book character, not an entity I would ever see in real life, nor do I consider that being on the moon is unusual.

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Non-lucid dream control is evidenced by the association with daydreaming and my dream self not being surprised by my dream’s otherwise impossible events. Additionally, the main factor of this dream reveals non-lucid dream control in my partial modulation of the liminal space divider’s (the window’s) autosymbolism that is otherwise a result of vestibular system correlation (and liminally anticipating it as a negative consequence as evidenced by an ambiguous sketchy flight symbol rendered as Emil Eagle, as it has always been very common for me to have liminal anticipation of the waking process, typically experienced biologically as a falling sensation, as renderings of birds, airplanes, or related factors). All of the other dynamics, including the odor itself, have literal associations.

Emil Eagle is this dream’s preconscious factor (which is often personified), always uniquely rendered. Non-lucid manipulation of liminal space barriers (or dream state “bulwarks”), the division between dream self and waking self identity, has been a very common factor in my dreams since early childhood, probably the most common form of non-lucid dream control other than generic summoning.

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Years after this dream, in ninth grade in high school, I found myself in a very similar classroom, sitting in the same orientation as I was in this dream (of which at the time did not correlate with real-life orientation of any classroom I had been in). My new homeroom teacher for this term reminded me of the otherwise fictitious teacher of this dream. In real life, this teacher had spent time one morning dramatically complaining before class started, about a bad odor. Considering the hundreds of times when Zsuzsanna and I inexplicably communicated in dreams before we made contact in real life, attributing a factor of this dream to a possibly prescient thread is certainly not unreasonable.

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Night of September 13, 1979. Thursday.



I have added some notes (March 2015). The area where I viewed the suit of armor seems much like a place I lived later on and from the same perspective; the northeast room on the King Street boarding house. Dreams typically implement precognition and remote viewing in this manner regardless of other ambiguous plot aspects. On another note, I have discovered that the first episode of “Scooby Doo, Where Are You!“ was “What a Night for a Knight“, which was first aired exactly ten years ago to the date (September 13, 1969).

I apparently am in a supposed (fictional) “horror movie” at the scene in an unknown place (though possibly Connecticut as mentioned below), though no cameras are ever visible. It seems to be a bit mixed up from scene to scene, that is, no coherent plot. The movie is called “Fear Itself” and is not only not nightmarish, it is often entertaining in an eerie sort of way and very vivid. Some sort of ghost or entity comes out of a small framed painting of a windmill that was hanging on the north wall, relating to some sort of “escape”. Later, I watch a “haunted” suit of armor walk around as I feel a sense of awe and pleasant vividness (not quite lucid) while I am watching it through a doorway as it walks past (seemingly from the north concerning my in-dream orientation) while I am seated in an arm chair. I get the sense it will be walking down and up more stairs as possibly some sort of regular routine and may relate to a certain time of night or the moon being full. I am aware that it had gone up steps directly into the hall from where I watch it. This was one of my vivider dreams during this time period. Even the silence in my dream seems to “roar” (perhaps an in-dream rendering of ears ringing) though the suit of armor seems linked to the sound of crickets somehow. It takes place in either a modern castle or a large two or three-storey mansion. (I do not remember seeing the building from the outside.)

There is also something about a large rooster (likely a New Hampshire Red - in fact, at one point, my dream seems to be set in isolated areas of New Hampshire and Connecticut for some reason - perhaps related to “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”, which also seems to relate to the “empty” suit of armor in afterthought) - the rooster moving through the hallway as possibly some sort of spirit or force - something about an embroidery pattern “coming to life” from a couch cushion relating to a curse regarding a wealthy family. This scene also seems somewhat associated with having left the chicken farm in Florida in late June 1978 (though because of it being unnaturally large may also have influence from a trailer for “The Food of the Gods” from 1976).

There is a later part that seems less focused (regarding my “role” in the “movie”) about an older woman looking for her lost children and a scene where she is riding in a taxi when she suddenly screams “those are my children back there” and I am aware that the “movie script” has all of the words running together like “thosearemychildrenbackthere” (which also seems written as such in a novelized version of the movie). It turns out, though, after the authorities and various members of the public had searched for a long time, that the woman is insane and actually does not even have any children - but is another “victim” of the haunted house (or castle?), which somehow creates imaginary scenarios and associated fears depending on the person.

Morning of September 11, 1969. Thursday.



My dream starts with an atypical unseen narrator who says, without emotion: “New York Harbor 1969. The city is a mess”.

I am flying over Manhattan in the first scene. I am semi-lucid and vividly aware of curious saxophone and xylophone music (never heard in real life); a series of repeated staccato notes. My sheet music image (only available on some websites with this entry) is close to what I heard in my dream. There is a later version where the third set of eighth notes in each motif is removed, giving a sense of anticipation.



On websites where the image is not available, the eighth notes (except for the last C, a quarter note) are: C C C C, C D C D, C D C D, E E E E, E F E F, E F E F, G G G G, G A G A, G A G A, A G G F, F E E D, C. The tempo is about 84 at first, though is accelerando. The music becomes a bit more intense yet with a less audible orchestral sound in the background, as if the volume is turned down though later up again. (This effect has happened in other dreams, usually when the level of dream state awareness changes, as sometimes the closer I am to waking, the less number of instruments are heard.)

Looking directly down as I fly, I watch a giant snake swim through the water, moving along on the water’s surface. (As such, my dream’s foundation is the most common form; water induction, as water symbolizes sleep dynamics in real time.) The snake is so large that it knocks aside boats (mostly tugboats) as it moves. However, there is also a brief awareness that the snake is of normal size and the debris is more like small pieces of bark, leaves, and twigs as I seemingly watch the “same” scene much closer to the water’s surface (as if of a small lake) before the implication changes again. At this point I also get the distinct impression that I am standing or hovering in my orb form (while incorporeal) to the left of the doorway in the southwest bedroom (not where I slept) at the same time I am dreaming this (with a vague association with having looked into our full bathtub and toilet while somehow sleepwalking, though I had not been). This bilocated impression (typical of a lot of my childhood dreams) does not continue. Helicopters fly over the Statue of Liberty and there is more news about the attack on Manhattan as apparently giant snakes came from a crashed flying saucer (as if perhaps manlike aliens, though unseen, and possibly from two different planets, lost control of their spacecraft for an unknown reason). There are two kinds of giant snakes that fight each other. One kind seems friendlier to humans. I watch a lot of the monster-movie-like battles though my dream eventually shifts to my home in Cubitis, and my previous lucid threads fade.

I am chasing a baby giant snake (which is my height in its upright “S” form) in a southerly direction, from the end of our driveway, near Highway Seventeen, and moving past the west side of our large culvert. The snake is the recurring Pepto Bismol pink that was fairly common in my dreams around this time period (after my mother had me drink it in real life). It is somehow quickly slithering upright like a standing (vertical) letter S and moving much like a swan. I am fearlessly chasing it, to make it leave the area so that bigger snakes do not eventually come by to investigate. Suddenly, when I get past the neighbor’s house a short distance, the snake looks “confused” (and I get the impression of an actual question mark floating in the air over its head very briefly, a curious feature of other childhood dreams, likely influenced by comic strips) and it turns around to start chasing me. I raise my arms up and out as I am now running away, but as if the scene is meant to be comedic or playful.

This continues for a short time when suddenly, the snake and I are very good friends. We are now at the end of the driveway, where I first found myself chasing it. I am holding the large snake in my arms like a baby, which is eventually even wearing an old-fashioned pale blue baby bonnet and held within a white baby blanket and is now going to sleep.

I am aware that the War of the Serpents will continue, possibly to the point where a lot more regions will be damaged. My parents do not appear at any point, and in fact, I do not interact with anyone I know in real life. Later, I am calm in the presence of a few giant black snakes (though my dream fades when I start flying again). This likely relates to the fact that black snakes were considered good due to a reputation where I lived of them supposedly chasing off rattlesnakes, which seems the main origin of my dream’s otherwise science-fiction theme.

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This dream has two discernible attempts at subliminal reinduction (a non-lucid attempt to vivify or extend the dream state, though I am semi-lucid when my dream begins). Firstly, my dream begins with typical water induction (my most common form of dream state initiation). A snake is the primary (biological) reticular activating system symbol (RAS mechanism), due to having evolved out of the natural fear that primates have of snakes, and thus RAS renders it as the potential waking trigger (in generating enough emotion as an “alert” for the purpose of waking the dreamer to attend to real physical needs), though a snake will sometimes relate to different factors (sometimes literal) and symbolism depending on the dream type, which only the dreamer could understand the origin and validation of in any case.

My first attempt at reinduction (even though I am still in the water as sleep initiation stage, though already with the snake as a potential RAS factor) is evidenced by the music having a similar essence as snake-charming music, to delay RAS waking dynamics. The second attempt is far more obvious and easier to validate. I succeed in harmoniously putting the snake to sleep (which represents willfully though subliminally decreasing RAS dynamics that might otherwise wake me up) at the end of the driveway, which symbolizes the subliminal awareness of eventually needing to wake up and stand at the end of my driveway to wait for the school bus. Dreams are very easy to understand once ignorant superstition and “interpretation” is cast aside in the acknowledgement of what dreams actually are. It should be emphasized that this dream began with conscious choice of first deliberately “stepping into” (and then flying within) my dream’s water-based environment (as I have done thousands of times since childhood and for over fifty years), which is also why the bilocated essence regarding another bedroom (obvious dream state indicator) in our house came into focus. (It should also be obvious that the baby snake additionally symbolizes a mild stomach ache, and the RAS “taming” of it for a few reasons; one, actually being the color of stomach ache medicine, two, being shaped like a human intestine, and three, stomach pain associated with a snake that squeezes its prey.)

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Edited for clarity and resupplemented on Sunday, 29 October 2017.

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Morning of September 6, 1969. Saturday.



I am floating through the jungle in my “orb” form but still seem fully in-dream regarding dimensionality and perspective even though much of the scenery reminds me of more detailed paintings from certain animated movies.

I move into a clearing and seem to be with a body at this point, but still hovering somewhat. I see the ruins of a large castle. (It is probably illogical to think of it as a castle deep in the jungle - as it could have been some other sort of ancient ruins, yet still of the kind typical of Tarzan movies - this is just how I “saw” it at the time).

There is a large group of tigers inside a large, mostly featureless room of the ruins when I look through the window, which is rectangular but with a semi-circular top. These tigers do not see me at any point. They are sitting with their back legs down, like with the typical domestic cat position. Even though they are all tigers, I see or sense unique characteristics and subtle color differences in each. One tiger is sitting before the group (seemingly facing south in my in-dream perspective only) and lifting his right leg in the air as if to make a point. They are planning on taking over the world and I contemplate who I should tell about this “secret” plan. The tigers actually look friendly, though, with a sort of animated appearance. In some ways, there is a resemblance to certain art-like aspects of the Walt Disney movie “The Jungle Book” (from 1967), but I had not yet seen it all at this time, only shorter clips.

In real life around this time, there was something about curfews, the idea of which I do not think I fully grasped. There was also gunfire and arrests based on the “failure to disperse” (as well as “sit-ins” by another group). Even though I am not threatened in my dream, I do get the feeling I am “not supposed to be there” perhaps because of a curfew set by the very slightly anthropomorphic, animated tigers. The speaking “leader” is not necessarily Shere Khan - I get the impression he is friendlier.

When I wrote a story from this dream much later on, I used a fictional name - “Rufus Yohort”, which my brother Jim thought was hilarious.

Morning of August 7, 1969. Thursday.



I am in the backyard of my Cubitis home at some time during late morning. The sun is shining and the weather seems fine overhead. However, to the east, beyond the railroad tracks and the expansive farmland, is a tornado, heading straight towards my home. In the area farther out towards the tracks and where we usually burn rubbish in real life, is what looks like an old worn plaid blanket (which is dirty and with a few holes) within the unburnt trash and ashes. There are at least six or seven recently born kittens on the blanket squirming around, a few noticeably calico. I do not know where they came from, but they seem to be my responsibility. There is an ambiguous awareness of being indoors looking down at a bed, even though I am also aware of being outside in a different location at the same time.

“You can’t die,” I say fairly softly and mournfully (though without any perceived personal worry), hearing my own young voice very clearly and vividly. I plan to take them from the area with no thought of anything else. I am almost lucid, but slowly wake.

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Understanding the dream state and the biological nature of RAS mediation will help in understanding a dream’s real meaning to rise above the erroneous concept of “interpretation” in the popular misuse of the term. There are obvious clues here.

Firstly, a tornado is a common dream feature for me, not always threatening, and was validated in childhood to be, at the mundane level (though there is also the spiritual association regarding the Merkaba), autosymbolism based on the naturally ambiguous dynamics of the vestibular system loosely associated with the dizziness of spinning even when this is not a direct factor, though of course avoiding a tornado is related to avoiding the faux vertigo of liminal space. This means that my dream self has a subliminal awareness of being in the dream state. What are some other clues? The kittens in the blanket are another clue. A blanket being rendered means I am probably subliminally aware I am asleep (without my conscious self identity being within the dream state itself).

Additionally, saying “You can’t die” is another dream state indicator from “If I die before I wake”, from a “prayer” that I never even considered uttering at any point in my childhood (even though some children supposedly utter this “prayer” prior to sleep, but what kind of a parent would allow this, I cannot even imagine it), though I had heard about it around the time of this dream. Thank goodness I was born into a family that did not practice such a grim ritual.

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Morning of July 19, 1969. Saturday.



This dream, looking over notes and doing a bit more research, seems to have been influenced by the following real-life events and associations:

1. “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (original movie from 1951).

2. Visits to a parking lot near a store at an early age (not sure where, somewhere near Port Charlotte, I think) where an elephant would perform tricks near our car. It terrified me when I was much younger, but as I got a older, the fear subsided. My mother had said that I had yelled for them (my parents) to roll up the windows of the car when we first went there when I was really young. An older sister still has photographs of these events.

3. Movies in the earlier grades in school about Pompeii and volcanoes in general. My wife said she had dream influences from such movies as well. I dreamed of volcanoes fairly often during my early years and once in real life, was startled by a sudden hailstorm which I thought was lava and volcanic rocks pouring down on our roof (this was a few years after this entry’s dream) and so I ran and hid in the closet until I realized what it was. Due to the fact that there was a large rutted metal section as the roof over most of our carport, it was really loud.

4. The “Uhny Uftz” episode of “The Dick Van Dyke Show”, first seen September 29, 1965.

Contrary to what my dreams sometimes presented, I was never alone in a car at an early age.

My dream begins with my becoming aware of being in the middle of my backyard and assuming it is Sunday, late morning, perhaps around ten. A shadow appears on the ground, which is perfectly round, moving southward over our neighbor’s house. Perhaps it is a cloud, but perhaps not, so I go inside. I get a very vague sense of a “poisonous cloud”. Inside, in the living room, a man on a news report is talking rather unemotionally about a flying saucer having been sighted.

I am slightly lucid, so I decide that I will take control for a time and visit Brenda W, a female classmate who lives north of me. We go back to my house and I notice the news reader is still talking about the flying saucer and some sort of (I think) toxic gas or some such. Brenda is laughing because when the man is speaking on the television, certain things he is saying seem to be going on outside in the backyard at the same time as each spoken reference (round shadow, flashing light, strange hum…).

Later, Brenda seems to have gone home and I am seriously annoyed at this, as I want to spend the day playing with her (more like “playing house” even though I was quite young at the time). I decide to go back to her house. Soon, though, the round shadow appears on the ground, but I do not really look up. I start walking faster and faster, first trying to hide under trees, but eventually I start running and turn to go south towards town where there may be bigger and safer buildings and more people - and I have a vague idea that Brenda may also have gone there instead of going home.

Amazingly, I run so fast and “perfectly” that I manage to run straight down the wall of a gulley, then turning about at fully ninety degrees upright again, treading effortlessly and swiftly over the surface of the deeper stream - only lightly splashing the surface, and turning my entire body again at ninety degrees and going straight up the wall on the other side - and then continue on as if nothing strange had happened, my only concern being that I had wasted a few seconds by not running in a straight, horizontal path!

Eventually I am in town (Arcadia) and I do not notice any people around. Even though it seems to be the weekend, I notice a few cars in the elementary school’s parking lot and think it may be a meeting of the teachers - or perhaps a few alarmed people did not know where else to go for safety.

I notice that the flying saucer seems to be landing, so I go to duck down near a car (but do not yet get into the car). It lands and looks just like the spacecraft from “The Day the Earth Stood Still”. The “door” of the flying saucer opens and…as I start to climb into the front seat of the car to hide…

Out walks a large elephant…

The elephant lifts its trunk straight into the air and out sprays a massive amount of lava and volcanic rocks. I jump into the car, but I notice the volcanic rocks quickly stacking up over the front window of the car (almost in “fast motion” animation) and so…it is the end of everything.

Morning of July 5, 1969. Saturday.



I go to Waikiki in Hawaii, or so it seems (I had not been there in real life). However, it is seemingly called “Waikikiki” in my dream (unless that came from a musical repetition of the last syllable) and is more like an island on its own (perhaps it is a play on “Waikiki Key” as with the Florida Keys). As my dream is ending, mostly seemingly in hypnopompia, a slower fictional song comes into play as I wake (though came back in a later “reset” version of my dream), which seems to be a warning for tourists not to cause problems for the local wildlife, though more as self-advice rather than receiving the message from elsewhere. It is sung (by a group of men and women, though in my own young voice in one version) as “Neh-ver go…to the EYE-eye-land…of Wah-ka-KEE-kee again!” The tune is fairly simple and I have included the sheet music here. Curiously, this totally fictional song replayed in my head every now and then for years after (even more than actual commercial music) and I can still imagine it now fairly accurately.

My dream is quite long but mostly involves just exploring the landscape, such as riding in an open train car (that reminds me of a roller coaster car though it does not have challenging events during the trip) and seeing a pterodactyl and nonthreatening volcano. Parts of the region I visit are seemingly “still” prehistoric, or it may be related to the train itself that goes through certain areas and goes through time. The Smothers Brothers are there planning to kill or knock out a triceratops for posterity (or perhaps because they feel threatened by it). However, the triceratops charges at them near boxes of dynamite near a cave and everything blows up as they gawk in fear, side by side, prior to their end…I wake just prior to the implied moment of impact but also get an impression of a cartoon-like jagged “ka-boom” balloon.

I now think that it is likely that this last scene was influenced from a “Road Runner” cartoon (where Wile E. Coyote is hit by a train) though I cannot be certain if that was the sole influence here. I did not really much care for the Smothers Brothers routines (and did not like Rowan and Martin either) so this is probably a form of wish fulfillment at one level. (I only watched their shows because of the guests they had on.)

Morning of June 2, 1979. Saturday.



This is a much longer, almost movie-like dream in some ways. The main idea is that I have two very friendly and faithful pet wolves. They are both males (perhaps twin males), I assume, and their names are Lupus and Lee. They save me from problematic events a few times, sometimes from just standing around, based on how potentially trouble-making people react to their presence. At one point, I am in the hospital, which seems like some sort of “replay” of when I had the surgery on my right hand back in 1976. They somehow end up in my room in the hospital and I eventually leave with them a bit earlier than I am supposed to, I think, but I am very healthy later on, and for some reason, apparently had recovered more quickly from being out of the hospital sooner.

They save me from drowning when higher waves rush in when I “fall asleep” on an isolated beach. They are even allowed to be on a city bus and travel with me at one point. Their presence is very vivid and “realistic” and even though I feel like my “true self”, the unlikelihood of having two pet wolves never dawns on me.

There is a seemingly unrelated scene with my best friend making a response of why he supposedly does not have to listen to the teacher. This is the ninth grade class we actually went to (northwest corner of the main high school building), and my last full year of public school. His reply to her is “Because my father is Lucas Taylor, that’s why”. (This was actually not his father’s name in real life.)

This is a time period where I had first begun to find it curious that dogs had usually been more threatening in dreams than wolves and coyotes. In this particular dream, it seems that Lupus and Lee will be my companions and helpers for life - the idea seems very clear and almost like a long-term false memory (even for a brief time after waking).