memorable

Morning of November 29, 1976. Monday.



My older brother Earl (half-brother on my mother’s side whose father died on September 23, 1950, age 39, in a newspaper van accident) is in the process of completing his work in building a spacecraft which looks like the classic 1950s flying saucer, at first (though the appearance changes). He tests it around town and people often stop to see what is going on. I am with a friend and he also seems interested in this endeavor.

In the last part of my dream it seems my brother intends on leaving Earth and not coming back. The flying saucer takes off ominously into the sky in the afternoon and narrowly misses a clock tower, flying very slowly at first, nearly hovering in one spot at times. There is a very vivid awareness at this point. Regardless of a couple near misses with the tops of buildings, it successfully flies away. At this point it looks a lot like the Flying Sub from the television series “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”. Shortly after this, I do not see any sign of where he has gone.

My (unfamiliar supposed classmate) friend and I are discussing his life as we are walking along through an alley, seemingly south. He asks me, “How old was your brother?” and I say “Thirty-six,” waking up slowly to the unusual sadness in my voice.

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I had to do a lot of research on this to make sure it presently stands as correct as possible (regardless of later versions which have proven to be even more ambiguous). My brother died on November 29, 2007 (age 67, way too young in my opinion), so there is indeed a (long-term precognitive) marker here, one clue (unknown at the time) being the clock tower.

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This dream has the typical waking transition of the flight symbol, but it appears as an extraordinary atypical composite (with layered meaning) here, firstly as a flight symbol that metaphorically shows the essence of the dreamer successfully leaving the dream state (in contrast to the far more common directly perceived “falling” event). However, it is a “flying sub” which means it also comes from deep within the unconscious (or even collective conscious or the Source’s) realm. It is also a spaceship, which relates to tentative associations between waking self and full conscious self memory. I should add an additional note here that my brother also owned a Stingray (car), and of which the marine animal called a stingray resembles the Flying Sub. This dream also seems like a subtle “continuation” of my “Rocket Science?” dream, from earlier this year.

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Just because a dream is influenced by, say, television, does not mean it is dismissible. The foundations of non-lucid dreams will borrow anything and everything to metaphorically display the sleeping, dreaming, and waking process. The day before this dream, I had seen a CBS report on UFOS as well as as Nova’s “The Case of the Bermuda Triangle” (featuring the ocean of course and loosely associated with UFOs, perhaps even “flying subs”).

Late morning of October 17, 1976. Sunday. (There were other versions which played out more like semi-lucid reconstructions, as this dream was more like a very interesting coherent story than is usually the case.)



There apparently is going to be a movie made of a class play regarding issues on pollution and habitat loss. I am to be the main performer in the opening of the film, which will supposedly be distributed to a larger audience. There is a sketchy mascot, a beaver, related to the line, “You too can be an eager beaver and help stop pollution”. The movie is to be made at a city dump which happens to be near a large otherwise clean lake where logging had been done at one time. The mascot drawing is not very good and reminds me somewhat of “Go Go Gophers” and he appears in a concentric oval frame with lines going outward around between the two ovals, with the school logo above that and with the antipollution line under that.

I arrive at the location too early. The season and feeling seem much as in real life regarding the temperature and such. There is an old and worn dingy sofa on a pile of rubbish at the dumping area where I am to sit and converse with the puppet beaver. I wait for awhile in case the camera had already been set up. After a few minutes, the beaver comes up through a hole in the seat of the upholstery, the arm of the controller likely under the cushion or near the back of the couch. I seem to remember most of my lines, most of which are simple questions of which the beaver is supposed to answer. As time passes, I notice how amazingly “real” the beaver puppet appears to be. Not only that, I am aware that the communication from the beaver seems telepathic in nature. I find this a very strange and intriguing “film trick” and wonder how they are doing it - possibly with speakers on each side of my head, but at a distance and in an unnoticeable area, probably hidden.

I look around but I try not to absentmindedly search for the camera that is filming the interaction. Everything is going well and I feel very assertive in my performance. The beaver says its last line and then is gone.

Soon though, I notice a station wagon coming around the curve of the road. A man gets out and sets up a tripod about ten feet from the bank of the lake. There are also at least three of my classmates in the vehicle but I am unsure who. I am now unsure of what is going on. After a time, I feel movement and look down and a very ugly cartoon-like allover orange beaver puppet, which reminds me of the texture and color of my Nerf ball, has emerged from the hole to my right. This beaver puppet has mismatched googly eyes that roll around a bit as it moves and its voice is very annoying; scratchy, squeaky, and slightly muffled. I am not sure what happened to the realistic puppet of minutes before. After the scene is filmed, the puppet “bites” me on the fingers and hand (and I experience realistic discomfort in my fingers) and the unknown male controller is playing around and really annoying me.

I get up and look at the lake and I realize that the first beaver was “real”; that is, an actual living animal that was supposedly “speaking” telepathically, yet no one else had been around at the time. Its head emerges from the lake at a fair distance and nods and I “hear” the phrase “and now you know”.

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I remained intrigued by this dream. The overall plot was very unique and did not reflect anything I had thought of in waking life. At its core, it is doubly-layered autosymbolism for the nature of lucidity, even though I am not viably lucid in this version. A puppet represents both the fictitious nature of the dream self identity (as manipulated by RAS and the preconscious) but also the potential for controlling the dream state as one would a puppet show.

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On a spiritual level, it might also serve as an analogy for everyman, when the general public allows themselves to be controlled by an invalid belief system even when truth has already clearly revealed itself.

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Morning of October 3, 1976. Sunday.



I travel in a car with good friend Johnny C as the driver (same car he had in real life and this scenario being similar to real life to a point), best friend Toby T, and three girls including Tina L (so I guess the car was apparently crowded but did not seem as such). There is a recurring idea that was very common in dreams of this time period. The idea of moving through time or into “alternate worlds” based on a series of directions alone. I am semi-lucid but not “take full control” lucid, as I did not seem to want to be at this stage, just so I could passively enjoy things.

I am in the back seat on the right side. We are going north at one point. There is the idea that we should stop near my Cubitis home to see how it has changed. We decide to make my house the main destination through different “alternate worlds” or “alternate times”.

Upon our first stop, we find the house has changed into a laboratory but it has seemingly been abandoned. I see a beautiful painting on the east wall in my room that shows strange birds. They look like ordinary birds except that they have “sideways beaks” that I realize are exactly like the mandibles of a stag beetle. I feel a very strange awareness upon seeing this, an unusual feeling I cannot quite relate. I also notice a few pinned-up diagrams and scattered papers with various complex equations sitting on a desk. For some reason, I think of them as “byrds” with understanding of the different spelling.

We leave and come back into a different “time”. This time the place does not seem abandoned and one man is there to say that we are allowed to look around but not to touch anything. Going onto the carport, we see cages on the left. There are about three larger cages with strange creatures in them. One is like a peacock with snakelike features and it hisses and “strikes” at us but only succeeds in hitting the bars. I notice that our chicken shed is still there but built up a bit.

Once again, we leave and “come back”. This time, the house is abandoned again. We look around and mostly only find dusty ground and rusty pieces of metal. As there is not much to see, Toby T suggests going “as far as possible”. Johnny C seems hesitant, but we are on our way.

There is a strange sensation of moving very swiftly. We seem to be thousands of years in the future. We look out and see a strange sight. The house is very different (or likely a different building) and there are some strange creatures. It seems a “mother creature” is communicating with her “son”, who is standing near an upper-section-opened Dutch door to what looks somewhat like a barn (upper half open). They are somewhat human in form, but also a bit more like mostly white, living ceramic chickens with a Chinese appearance and with very small but defined simple geometric patterns (in mostly red and black) all over the large heads and smaller thinner bodies. They are making a sort of higher-pitched crunching noise to communicate by moving their “beaks” which is not really a beak but like some sort of small sliding door that varies in sound to how far it is open at any given time. The “mother” is somewhat wary of us, which is why she wants to get her “son” (about half as tall as “her”) and go inside.

We decide to go back. However, we end up taking a wrong turn, it seems (seemingly based on something Toby said), as the car goes flying westerly over an embankment and into Lettuce Lake. We all escape, but Johnny is annoyed at having lost his car. (There is also an idea that the land features may have changed when traveling through different time periods rather than solely misdirection.)

Notes on the bird relevance in this dream: Firstly, the living ceramic chicken (somewhat anthropomorphic) in this dream is perceived as being an incarnation of me (as the dreamer) at the “end of time”. It is curious how it is near the Dutch door. As a door represents the waking point (or shift in awareness), but here has only the top half open, it is a very curious reference to a false awakening (as well as a seeming invitation to be above as opposed to below - possibly suggesting rising from the end of the dream rather than the usual “falling”), which does occur, but still with continuation of seemingly the “same” dream. (Johnny’s car ends up in the water, which, even though water is often induction, is more relative to the “falling” waking transition here.)

Addressing the two other odd bird forms here, the serpentine peacock that hisses from the cage is a form of “captured flight” (restricted emotional, sexual, or spiritual freedom in the dream state). Even though the dream is very vivid, I do not become viably lucid. It may also be an association from when I heard that people thought that a peacock feather was an “evil eye” which may be linked to the fact that the peacock also had snakelike aspects. This of course is an absurd idea that I never considered as having any merit, but dreams utilize anything and everything (including the nonsensical beliefs of humanity) to teach viable focus and discernment. The other odd distortion, a painting of flying birds (which may otherwise be implied to be sparrows) with the sideways “beaks” (mandibles) of stag beetles, is relevant to the greater understanding of dream composites in general. The fact that these flying birds and beetle composites are only in a painting is a giveaway relating to the two other nonflying bird symbols and the failure to become lucid or resolve the concept of freedom. My dream self is not able to resolve why these birds are “wrong” either, only that they are somehow unusual. I even think of them as “byrds” rather than “birds” while in the dream state.

Morning of September 30, 1966. Friday.



In my dream, I somehow find myself back in the forest I used to play in (up in the bluff region) before moving down into town on Rose Street. It seems to be early morning, during sunrise.

In a deeper part of the forest and mainly near a large tree near a cluster of bushes, forming somewhat of an implied semicircular arrangement, I see a pile of life-sized dolls or mannequins which I soon realize are my actual classmates who have been transformed by our teacher Mrs. Yandell. Their arms are freely out and some of them are in pajamas. Somewhat puzzled, I consider whether or not if I am also there somewhere, even though I am fully in-body in my dream self’s perspective. The scene is eerie but no violence is implied. (Our teacher is not present at any point.)

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This dream, like many, is extraordinarily easy to understand. I am seeing my classmates in their static sleeping form, as a doll or mannequin represents being asleep, as well as lesser patterns of active conscious threads within the dream state. This metaphorical meaning also links to dreams representing circadian rhythms in various ways. There are several layers of validation in understanding this but I will keep it simple here. They are in a semicircular pattern deep in the forest. The forest is a deeper level of the dream state or the unconscious realm (as mostly anything away from day to day “civilization” is). I do not recall (or it was not documented) the waking transition of this particular dream. They are “arranged” as such due to (threads of) my conscious self attempting to quantify and “organize” facets of the dream state.

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Night of September 9, 1976. Thursday.



One of the worst nights of pain based on the operation on my right thumb (on the 25th of August) and wrist (and much tissue removed), a cobra strikes me on my thumb in my dream, extraordinarily vivid and bright in the backyard (Cubitis), seemingly in early morning.

Finally, my mother gives me a stronger painkiller again and I slip into an extraordinarily vivid and lucid dream. I am rolling down an embankment head over heals, along a grassy hillside, doing “perfect” somersaults with no physical discomfort whatsoever, and in fact, feeling quite peaceful and blissful. I roll into a river of mist. It looks like a normal river and in an otherwise normal meadow-like area, but instead is made of flowing foggy tendrils instead of running water. I am heading into a “bottomless” domain, much like Alice on morphine, I suppose, and am completely free from all discomfort and concern.

I “land” softly in a hallway after moving downwards through the mist for a seemingly long time, which appears to be the set for some sort of avant-garde movie called “Hello Harry”. It is about a young businessman who dies at an early age on his birthday (late twenties, I think). All of the other workers at the business, both male and female (but mostly male) benefit only from his work (and do little themselves) - yet he is mostly disliked by his business associates. This seems to imply that the business will now fail since he has died (though he is not the manager - there may be some sort of very subtle connection to “Gunga Din” by vague implications), without the other associates knowing or acknowledging his role in keeping the business going, possibly as the best or most dynamic salesman (and may actually come in part from having read “Death of a Salesman” at an earlier date, as I did read the 1949 play sometime during this period). He only has one good friend who mourns him. I “float” into a room with concrete walls and floor and see that the man who had been his friend is drinking too much from a bottle of gin and “celebrating” his friend’s birthday while wearing a multicolored cone-shaped cardboard hat (with red “V” or boomerang shapes) and a red tinsel lei. The remains are in a coffin in an adjoining smaller room. The rooms are mostly featureless and appear to be part of some sort of large basement, but possibly in the commercial building where he died. (It is possible he may be cremated in the business’s furnace, but I am not certain.)

The man (name unknown, I only know the dead man’s name is Harry - the other man could be Willy) goes into the smaller room and places a cocktail glass of gin on the coffin and takes one final drink from his cocktail glass and slowly and mournfully sings (to Harry) “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you…” (obviously not expecting an “answer” of any kind, as he is the only one there and the other man has died the day or so before).

However, a clear voice comes from the closed coffin and it is supposedly Harry (even though he has actually died) also mournfully singing…“Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me…”

This is the last scene and it seems to have some sort of science-fiction-like theme as well as the avant-garde movie essence.

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Night of August 18, 1966. Thursday.



This is probably one of my first more precisely documented dreams over time. It was recurring and lucid in some versions. One might think this would be a nightmare, but not even close, just a sense of childlike awe and wonder and likely my first tulpa-creating attempt within a dream state.

My dream usually starts at the Concordia Ballroom (at 1129 La Crosse Street) where my father often performed in real life. It is fairly late at night. I danced there in reality at the time, but in my dream, things are quite different. The Concordia building seems to be oriented perpendicular to actuality. There are also a lot of cars that seem more of a late 1940s style than the 1960s.

Not only that, I end up wandering off into the darkness, yet seeing that a large barn…yes…a barn - exists just down the street a short distance from the Concordia Ballroom.

In the barn it is semi-dark. Cobras are certainly not to be found in Wisconsin (in the wild, anyway), but there is a cobra in the hayloft (and only ever one). It is mostly black with a bit of yellowish orange. In some versions (even later on, as it got colder in real life), I wait expectantly, but wake up before it appears (almost as if it had to appear before I could leave my dream with “better confidence” - hard to explain). Sometimes it seems to be a long time for me to be standing there. No drama happens. No one comes looking for me. I do not think of climbing up to the hayloft at all. The cobra is high above in the hayloft, upright, around the middle area, and is no real threat. There seems to be a mystical atmosphere over the whole time period with similar dreams.

Night of August 13, 1976. Friday.



I am within a continuity of false awakenings. There is a somewhat uneasy sense that someone else - a stranger - had somehow gotten into the house. This is unrealistic, as my bed is actually blocking the unused jalousie-window door to the carport (which opens inward). However, there is a shadowy form that I am sure is an intruder. It turns out to be a balding man in a loose, white, robe-like outfit and with some sort of medical kit in a metallic brief case, similar in size and shape to my real-life typewriter case which I then used for part of my Matchbox car, Johnny Lightning, and Hot Wheels collection. For some reason, I get the impression that he is “from Saturn” even though he seems fully human and from Earth. This seems based on some sot of hypnotic muttering he continues with and it is something to do with male surrogate “pregnancy” for an experimental reptile-like offspring, the area of the thumb being the ideal location for several reasons (including a natural tendency to draw the hand forward in defense). I seem to be part of some sort of unorthodox experiment conducted by a publicly unrevealed department of government.

I am unable to move or react as I am in a state of sleep paralysis, but not as vivid as usual. He injects something into my right thumb. I feel I need to escape as soon as possible. The utensil he uses is like a cross between a hypodermic needle, an ankh, and small scissors. There are various other objects similar to this in his case. I somehow manage to get out of my bed and try to get into the living room, but my dream “resets” and repeats a few times, and there is eventually a perception of needles moving on their own towards my right thumb, though possibly relating to some sort of implied magnetic remote control. They seem to fly “in formation” (like a flock of birds in a V-shape) at one point.

This, being one of the few actually disturbing dreams I have had in my life, was part of a relentless change. A few days later in real life, there was a rather small lump growing from the outer side of my right thumb which I only absentmindedly noticed when playing around with a metal band from a cheaper dismantled microphone and wondering why it had not fit on my thumb as it had the day before. Within days, there were five very large egg-shaped lumps (all exactly the same size) going down from my thumb to my wrist. They were apparently atypical ganglion cysts but had hair and bone tissue mixed in (almost like a miniature part of a Siamese twin). The doctor seemed extremely puzzled about the condition of my hand, asked me some unusual questions such as if I had “been putting things in there” which seemed ludicrous to me as there were no signs of cuts or supposed entry points and I certainly would not do something of that nature.

Because of the surgery and hospital stay, I missed the beginning of tenth grade, and eventually (when returning on September 13th), due to problematic scenarios in the school (such as a couple teachers not even spending time in the classroom while the students went crazy throwing knives and orange peels) I no longer went (stopping in October before I was legally “allowed” to though there was only one visit from the police) and got my GED in Wisconsin in 1979, getting told I had the highest results by any student at that time - which was not saying much based on how the other students looked and acted.

This also related directly to a much older precognitive dream (with several levels of precognition at once including seeing a movie that did not even exist at that earlier time - the usually low-rated one with the giant rabbits called “Night of the Lepus”). There was a lot of legitimate mystery around this and I have mentioned this in a few other entries, including in the original “Old Shack” dream documentation.

We left Florida in the last week of June of 1978 (with help from my sister Marilyn and her husband Bob). Looking at Google maps, I have discovered that my playmate’s house turned out to look exactly like it did in many of my earlier dreams - that is, abandoned, mold all over, and covered with vines. No one had lived there very long after my spiritual “outburst” after she moved (two different families actually going in for psychiatric help - Larry D actually killing most of his chickens, some escaping, after giving them a long speech about “not delivering eggs as promised”).

Whether or not this was based on long-term physical precognition (or some sort of natural cellular awareness) because of the additional childhood dream of my right thumb becoming enlarged and painful or perhaps was additionally triggered by a vivid dream state (and the very strange sounds and energies that come with sleep paralysis), is hard to say. I know I have often healed myself in dreams and meditation (even as a toddler regarding the accident with my left wrist and almost losing that hand), so I suppose the opposite is just as possible or even likely, even with the foreshadowing many years ahead.

Morning of July 5, 1966. Tuesday.



This was recurring from this time period (after the Fourth of July in 1966) associated with an actual visit to a park; Veterans Memorial Park Campground in Wisconsin. My older sister Carol (half-sister on mother’s side) seems the strongest presence in my dreams for a time, with other older relatives also in the area including my older brother Jim (though only relatives from my mother’s side) and usually no other (either generic or unknown) additional characters. The area seems more isolated than in reality and somewhat bushy though there is an open area where a large house supposedly once stood. All that is left is the fireplace and part of the chimney. However, there is ambiguity here in that it also seems like a brick barbecue deliberately made for the park or at least is apparently mistaken for one or considered as such according to my dream’s back story. There is some uncertainty whether or not to use it or to look for another one (even though no one seems to be carrying food or other supplies). There were several variations of this dream, not that well-documented as I was only five years old at the time, though it is one of my first known recurring dreams. This dream series may have just been caused by a visual association; that is, the similar appearance between a residential fireplace (especially from actual ruins I likely would have have seen) and an outside brick barbecue. I am glad I have these wondrous memories.

Morning of July 4, 1976. Sunday.



There is something called a “time divergence” (my original 1976 dream journal title being “Time Diverge”, which I changed after more fully understanding “diverge” was only used as a verb while “divergence” was the event itself and sounded better as a proper title) which is based around my Cubitis home. This has something to do with the appearance of a black sheepdog, at times, carrying a miniature keg as in some cartoons. Time breaks off into a different timeline whenever this black sheepdog makes an entry from somewhere (from near or off Highway Seventeen to the west). All of the spirits of all of the United States presidents (or at least the more respected or more familiar ones) meet in my living room around a large rectangular table (longways north to south from the north wall), to plan how they may inspire or help humanity. I play the “shadow game” (testing to see if a shadow that is matching my movements in my dream is really mine - though it always turns out to be). George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are there for certain, along with a few other more familiar ones. There is not much drama; I mostly only watch and listen to the meetings, which are mostly in semidarkness, where no faces can be directly made out for the most part. The black sheepdog seems to be there to help people move on into “different futures” from where they are originally headed or something. I rarely (in my earlier childhood) dreamt of any positive associations with dogs. There is even a slight eeriness associated here, but no personal threat perceived.

There is also a device made of (semi-matte silver) metal that seems to be used for changing the direction or potential of “alternate” timelines (perhaps as if to bring all facets of time together into one “time stream”). It has a secret compartment - relative to a diagonal lid inside, and a hidden one past that - and is the same size as the larger rectangular box that contained Velveeta cheese at the time - but mostly like a matte silver trap for smaller mammals that we used in real life in school (grades six to eight).

Although I do not consider this dream to be predominantly precognitive, it occurred before I knew much about the “Hall of Presidents” in Disney World, even though I had been in Disney World in 1974 with my sister Marilyn and her husband, though did not see that attraction.

Night of July 2, 1976. Friday.



My brother Earl has been living in Wisconsin (in reality as well) but comes back to Florida on a vacation, I believe (possibly relating to the Bicentennial, which seems to be related to something on television at a lower volume in the background in the northeast corner). A lot of his belongings are in our Cubitis home in the living room. There is a black microscope (I owned a real one, neither a toy nor of cheap plastic in reality) and a lot of other things, including test tubes and such, somewhat like a makeshift laboratory. Most of the stuff is set up in the southwest corner of the living room on a very large table. There is a very vivid but eerie atmosphere.

He is talking loudly and clearly for quite some time while mostly standing in the northeast area of the room, but I do not seem to grasp a word he is saying at any point (it may be related to the television also being on, but again, it is not that loud). I know it has something to do with rocket science but that is about all that I get out of it.

Suddenly, there is even a more intense feeling in the room. A sheet of typing paper hovers in the air for a short time near the ceiling - and then flutters loudly at a forty-five degree angle downward, making the pattern of an implied staircase as it moves. I am not sure what this means. The air itself seems to vibrate with hidden energies.

Later on, I am on the carport and see a strange vehicle in the sky just beyond and above the other side of Highway Seventeen, to the west. It looks like a school bus with helicopter rotaries that also resemble umbrellas. It moves apart and back a little bit (and very evenly, almost unnoticeable) like the middle has large “accordion bellows” holding it together. The helicopter rotary also moves up and down as it flies very slowly across the sky to the north, making a lot of odd noises and a lot of lighter gray smoke. For some reason, it also seems very ancient, like from the 1400s.

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Morning of April 10, 1976. Saturday.



There is some sort of very rare and special type of larger grouse (though more quail-like in some ways) in the backyard at Cubitis, though their size may be a typical in-dream magnification of perspective. It is supposedly “sacred” and has some sort of incredible ability to prey on humans at times as well as supposedly send human-like emotions apparently telepathically to disorient people. There are about six or seven in the yard at one point, and I am not sure if it is a good idea to even be outside.

I somehow fall down near the south side of the shed (fairly close to the carport) and feel an intense and bizarre sensation like a “deep tickle” in my side and lower back, which I have had on and off all my life, especially more recently. I am aware that I have fallen on one of these “sacred grouse” and thus may be doomed because of this. I see one of them closer to my face as it walks nearer and I feel a deep sense of awe.

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This was similar to a number of other in-dream premonitory events, including the dog with the knife-like nose, the buzzard’s beak, and several others. They all involve this intense spasm in my lower back that is like a mix of unbearable pleasure and a strange mild pain.

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Induction factor: water (man-made; birdbath made by my father for my mother). The setting is known and realistic and mostly private (backyard sometimes shared with friends). There are no other characters directly seen, though I sense my father is also in the backyard. I have a greatly enhanced awareness of my physical body, movement, and weight. Return flight factor features as a large quail or grouse with unrealistic intelligence and human-like sentience. The mood was of a growing awe and eventual mortal fear. Additional coalescence factor: ground (soil), coalescence (as my body inexplicably falling on the bird with the belief I may have crushed it) with the belief that I am dead or at least paralyzed for a long time. Possible explanation: Unknown, other than the back spasm event - but premonitory or causal? I seem to have “died” in this dream, but only my temporary dream self incarnation came to an end here. My father raised quail at the time, though much smaller than the birds in my dream.

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Morning of April 9, 1966. Saturday.



This, I believe is the first version of this dream, a day before Easter.

I am in an unknown region. There is an isolated house in the forest but near a winding path. Oddly, the house seems “cut in half” in that some outer walls seem to be missing but a family still lives there. The imagery is intriguing and appeared in other dreams with different themes later on, including some featuring the “mystery girl”.

I am aware of a real, living wolf, but am also aware of the “ghost” of Little Red Riding Hood, who is wearing a white riding hood and is mostly glowing all over, a white light with a lighter bluish tint. She seems somewhat sad and lost. I talk with her but do not recall the conversation - there is an unusual awareness of peace at one point as if she is to be a long-term part of my life. The association may be related to a basket she is carrying being filled with Easter eggs, but I also get the impression they will hatch at a later date rather than being eaten. Even though my dream implies she is a spirit and that the wolf has possibly already eaten her, there is still a strong presence of her in my dream. She is dark-haired and green-eyed and very pretty. There is no direct threat from the wolf although I do see it looking down from a ridge in Chipmunk Coulee (recurring).

Interestingly, the only other time I saw this precise dream imagery was of an actual “incomplete” house in a photo my wife-to-be had sent to me many years later. This, like many other dreams, seemed to establish a connection to my beautiful wife (and “dream girl”) a couple years or so before she was even born.

Afternoon of April 9, 1976. Friday.



I had fallen asleep in my father’s original room in Cubitis that he also used as a music studio (until he bought the matte silver bus he kept parked in the backyard and by this time also had the new room he built into the carport). My mother sometimes sat near the south windows when writing letters to various friends and relatives.

In my dream, I am hovering upside-down, seemingly in the fetal position, in a vast expanse of darkness, both to each side of me and at least below me. It is not quite like my prenatal memories in that it does not have a sense of being in two places at the same time and no immediate “walls” around me. I do have a sense of comfort, but also feel a bit displaced. I am trying to recall my dream that I was apparently “pulled out of”, thinking I must be awake now but am not sure of the setting I am in or why I seem to be hovering like this. My perception is about as vivid as possible for such a dream. I cannot see anything but my physical orientation seems as “real” as real life regardless of the unusual position.

Suddenly, I hear the mystery girl’s voice (long-term precognitive wife-to-be presence) calling out “Honey…honey…” (louder the second time) almost as if it is an attempt to get my attention with the assumption that I am sleeping, though again I cannot see anything. This causes me to begin to question what is going on, though my dream is too short to think too much about it. I know it cannot be my mother (especially as she has a much older-sounding voice) because I perceive myself as an adult for some reason (as well as maintaining a growing lucidity where I seem to be awake and asleep at the same time and trying to work out why the mystery girl wants me - I also feel intensely connected to a “different time”) and perhaps sleeping next to my partner while coming out of sleep because of her calling me. I come out of my dream fairly quickly (with a sudden somewhat startling shift in my physical perspective) and it is almost like the sound was actually perceived, with the residual faux echo (much as in real life when the consciousness is slightly shifted from being very tired and there is a faux echo when anything is spoken - something to do with slowed-down short-term memory, I think). This was one of my most vivid dreams during this time period as well as quite puzzling in terms of orientation and perspective. Of course, the voice matched my yet-to-be wife when I did talk to her on the telephone years later. This is one of thousands of dreams that validated who she was. Without a cue or clue from me (and although it is a common term of endearment), “honey” was the first thing my wife-to-be called me when we first started talking and even after twenty years, she is the only one I have ever heard with her particular unique accent and vocal nuances.

Morning of December 12, 1965. Sunday.



Summary of meaning: In the need to wake from a vivid dream state (from needing to get up and use the bathroom), my emergent consciousness is rendered as a bull crashing through the wall, as a wall symbolizes the metaphorical divisions of consciousness and the “other side of liminal space” between dreaming and waking. In this case, it seems my father was the parallel symbolism to the bull in representing my more urgent need to wake. The bull’s horn, being pointed and similar to a bird’s beak in hypnopompic physical anticipation (which is experienced as a jab in the lower back), may be a factor.

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I am sitting with a few family members, the two closest being two brothers-in-law, Bob and Verdell, and they are apparently drinking beer. (Verdell is on my right.) I am not sure of whose house we are in (possibly my older sister Carol’s, as it does not seem like Chipmunk Coulee, but it may be a unique composite of both). There are two couches along each wall, perpendicular to each other, with a small end table towards the corner from one couch. Everyone seems cheerful at first.

There is a sudden feeling of impending danger. A bull crashes through the wall from near the corner of the room, directly from in front of me, knocking plaster and such about.

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This dream was recurring for a short time. In one version, Verdell actually says “look out for the bull” at the moment of waking. This was before I ever saw or heard of the “look out for the bull” Schlitz Malt Liquor commercial on television and also before I grew up and worked for Ford Taurus where I was injured on my right wrist by someone throwing a sharp metal part back down the line from them not being able to keep up (though the commercial is more relevant to dream content regarding prescience).

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Morning of November 22, 1975. Saturday.



My dream starts out with a detailed backstory with fictional characters possibly implied to be living in Arcadia (as that is where the final event likely takes place). There is a family curse where an unfamiliar man of perhaps about thirty was warned, I believe by his grandmother (and possibly other family members), not to ever become a sailor or go near the ocean at any point in his life.

There had been a sampler in his family for several generations which depicts rats leaving a ship that is implied to be destined to sink, which is hanging on display in a local museum. The edge of the boat is shown and the gangway is visible, with three rats on the gangplank in running position from upper left to lower right, diagonally positioned. This design also seems to represent the family’s coat of arms.

Eventually, I become corporeal and part of the scenario. I am with my best friend Toby at a public gathering in an unfamiliar setting. He is seated to my right. The unknown man has decided to go to sea as a ship’s captain (apparently without moving up the ranks). He is dressed in a captain’s uniform and is explaining how he no longer believes in his family curse. There are at least two other speakers at the gathering. The speakers take turns sitting on chairs to the right of the podium (my left). There are probably less than twenty people at the indoor venue. The podium and speakers are perhaps about six feet from the first row of the audience, who sit on singular chairs.

Time passes. There is an uneasy quiet growing, followed by an eerie clattering (reminiscent of wooden wind chimes), followed by another eerie silence. Toby is looking off to the right. I tap him to get his attention, saying his name. The unknown would-be captain has become a skeleton, now sagging slightly on his chair, still in his uniform, unmoving. A hush falls over the audience as the dream, now at its most vivid point, quickly fades.

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The preconscious personification, who never regarded me directly, was rendered as an unknown male who wanted to go to sea (return to sleep, as water represents the internal biology of sleeping and dreaming) as a captain (dictating control of his sleeping and waking habits). Instead, he became a skeleton to symbolize the cessation of the dream state and to activate the waking stage. This was foreshadowed by the sampler of the rats leaving the ship. Rats basically symbolize nighttime circadian rhythms (as they are primarily nocturnal, excluding pet rats) and the gangplank is actually oriented like a clock to represent a time around four or five o'clock in the morning. The sampler also implies leaving the potential to sail upon the ocean (analogous to not returning to sleep). Additionally, the background of the sampler was yellow, which represents sentience and a precursor to dawning consciousness (waking). This was my last longer and clearer dream of the morning. There was no fear created in this dream; just a subtle sense of awe and curiosity. The foundation for this dream was water induction (my most common dream induction).

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It is possible that my dream was influenced by a cover of DC’s “Ghosts” comic book (volume one issue nine, cover date November 1972), one that I had looked at fairly often, even though there is no implication of a ghost in this dream, only the skeleton as symbolic of the cessation of my dream.