The Lab Notebook

Non-lucid dream, [Commentary made while awake]

Night of December 5-6

I'm attending a service at an unfamiliar church. I'm in the choir. The bishop is there, and he shushes the choir, ending the song we're singing early. Two other famous people are there: Arnold Schwarzenegger and H. [a writer who is on the Internet and likely to search for himself]. The two of them and the bishop pose for a group picture. H. is wearing a big, floppy USC baseball cap. We all tell him to turn it around and wear it so that the logo is showing, or else there's no point in having it on at all. He actually looks more like my real-life friend Victor K. than he looks like H.

The service also involves honoring some military people. There is a man in a very highly decorated, green military dress uniform there.

Night of December 6-7

[This was a long, fun, interesting dream with a really cool setting and particularly good recall, especially for dialog.]

This dream is set within the world of a TV show called “Cruiser Island.” Cruiser Island is one of a small group of small, tropical islands, very close together, located just off the coast of Florida and connected to each other and to the mainland by bridges. One of its neighboring islands is called Alo Island. There is a large, single-story building there that says “Alo Island Public Hospital” on the sign on the front.

House #1 is located on Cruiser Island. My family is hosting a sort of sleepover there. I'm in my bedroom, in the top bunk (which is mine), wearing pajamas, ready to go to bed. A boy who's maybe 8 or 9 years old climbs up the end of the bunk bed to get into the top bunk, and we talk. He says he's afraid of some kind of wild animal, and I reassure him by saying that we're in the middle of downtown, and no wild animals are coming here. The rest of the conversation goes something like this:

Me: What's your name?
Boy: Thomas.
Me: Yeah, I thought you kinda looked like a Thomas. I'm (Emiko). (we shake hands)
Thomas: You know that guy who sings with the Parish girls... I'm his younger brother.
Me: Oh, you're Dom's brother!

I decide I enjoy spending time with kids.

[Note: In the dream, when Thomas mentioned his older brother, I knew who we were talking about and knew that he shared a first name with, but wasn't, the protagonist from Inception. In real life, both brothers sang with the Parish girls, but only once, two days ago. They also have different first names in real life.]

I'm standing on the floor next to the foot end of the bunk bed. There are two Vietnamese women, a mom and a grandma, who are sleeping on the lower bunk. Two more Vietnamese moms are standing around in the room and in the hallway, along with a whole bunch of their kids. One of the moms says something about how she doesn't have magical Japanese eyes [I don't even know.] and then sternly commands all the boys to go and brush their hair, now, so that they can go to bed. All the girls have their hair in braids or pigtails, so they'll need their moms' help to comb it out. I think, With all these people in the house for the sleepover and all this excitement, my sleep cycle is getting completely thrown off. I'm not going to get a chance to try to lucid dream tonight. That's too bad. [And yet, I still somehow managed not to realize that I was dreaming at this point. I laughed when I remembered this thought upon waking up.]

I go into the bathroom to toss a few of my stray hairs into the trash can. I don't just toss them on the floor because of all the guests we have in the house. While I'm in the bathroom, I see that my gold cross necklace has fallen into the toilet. Also, I find some bedbugs somewhere in the house, crawling all over some white paper thing. I take it outside, showing it to my mom and explaining to her, as we walk along a sidewalk outside, what they are and what it's like to have them in the house. I say that I'm pretty sure I just got rid of all of them.

My mom and I continue walking through Cruiser Island's downtown, which looks a lot like San Luis Obispo's downtown, until we reach a small light rail station on the street. We look at the big, dark-blue metal signboard there to find out what its schedule is. We continue walking along the streets, turning at least one corner and passing one more light rail station. The street signs are white on blue like in L.A. [not white on brown like in the real SLO]. I talk to someone I pass on the street about which of the streets will be closed for the parade that's going to start soon.