hoopoe16

Will post some older ones, going backwards in time. This one was from the night of July 29th, 2022.

What felt like one dream though it bounced all over the place. So much there, have to do it in bullets…Know I don’t have enough in me for narrative.
• Initial theme was a visit, a reunion of sorts, at Tech
• Stayed in my old dorm room, though it was larger, and loftless. Did have at least one bed.
• Bed unimportant, as I stayed up all night smoking pot.
• I was alone throughout most of the pot smoking, but knew Anton, Cecil, and a couple were there (for the Tech reunion) with me.
• Of the couple – it was a guy who I had known only slightly in the past, and his wife, who I knew not at all. On waking, I thought his name to be Brian Anderson (not the real one), though I don’t think that’s right.
• During the pot smoking, the room was almost full dark, only light to be had was of an orangish quality coming in through the windows from the street.
• I sat on the floor, smoking from a glass piece, trying my best to exhale out the open window.
• People came in and out of the room, and I was mildly concerned that the smell of weed must be wafting out into the halls.
• Eventually dorm monitors did arrive. Scott (funny, the names you remember vs the names you don’t), and one other self-important jock type. They wore matching blue t-shirts, and postured almost comically in the doorway.
• I remember checking their line of sight…Looking behind me to see what drugs or paraphernalia might be visible to them. The glass was on the floor, most everything else was at least partially obscured by a chair.
• Cecil was there when Scott and friend arrived, and maybe the couple too. I was prepared to self-identify as the lone source of the weed smoke when Scott and friend closed the door and left.
• At some point, not 100% sure if it was before or after the visit from the dorm monitors, I put my bowls in my backpack. There were now two, the glass one and a hammer. Somehow, the apparently still lit bowl (not sure at this point which one) was getting airflow. I would see the cherry glow inside my backpack, glow flaring, then receding, then flaring again. Writing about it, could describe it as the bowl being drawn upon on its own, but never felt that way in the dream. In the dream, it was more like wind was blowing over the cherry (inside my backpack), though I don’t remember any wind in the room. Opening my pack to take the bowl back out increased the airflow, and the cherry’s glow became brighter. I tried to suck in the smoke coming off of it, not wanting to waste any.
• Think there were actually two backpack cherry sequences. The one above, then one later, after I had done my inventory.
• After Scott and friend had left, I decided it might be a good idea to gather everything up. Wasn’t necessarily planning on leaving, just wanted to make sure that things weren’t so obvious if anymore so called authority stopped by.
• The glass was on the floor again, and there was so much weed. I had a cardboard flat, like the ones I bring my beer home in, and placed it behind the chair. The glass went in first, then I began loading the weed into it. It was all loose, there was so much of it, and of so many different shapes and varieties. Nugs of all sizes, from goose eggs down to pebbles, shreds, and varieties that looked more like houseplants. Remember one in particular that was more like yucca leaves.
• The larger pieces, I could simply pick up and put in the cardboard flat. A lot of it though, I had to scrape up off the floor with cupped hands. When I was done, the flat was filled, the pile (topped by the ones that looked more like houseplants) rose six to eight inches above the walls of the flat.
• I remember wondering how I ever fit all that weed in my duffel (yes, had a duffel in addition to my backpack), and how I got it past airport security.
• Back to my backpack, although maybe this scene occurred at the same time as the earlier one. Maybe think they’re different, because in the first go around, both the glass and the hammer where in the backpack. This time, it was just the hammer. Same phenomenon though. Cherry flaring, then receding, through some unknown source of air circulation. This time I was worried about the cherry falling out of the bowl, and igniting the contents of my backpack.
• Of course, that’s exactly what happened. Although I probably caused it to happen by jostling the pack in my efforts to open it and extract the bowl. I couldn’t find it, or rather, I couldn’t grasp it in time, as I saw the cherry spill. Took some time then to locate it, but I finally did, sitting near the collar of one of my t-shirts. Miraculously, it had not even singed, let alone burned, the shirt.
• During the dorm room scene, I had interactions with Cecil, Anton, and the couple. Only interaction remembered was a conversation with “Brian Anderson” and his wife, where they were surprised to find that I had been up all night. I found their surprise humorous, somehow.
• There’s a gap in my memory here. Next remembered piece is of being alone in an urban setting, pretty sure a K-Mart parking lot to be exact. I call it a “gap” rather than a “jump…” I think I dreamed of leaving the dorm and walking through city streets (definitely not my college town, memories of neon skyscrapers), I just can’t recall specifics from that portion of the dream.
• Frankly don’t know if I had left the dorm with the intention of finding a shopping cart, or if the idea struck me when I found the shopping cart in the K-Mart parking lot, but either way, I was going to use the cart to transport my cardboard flat overflowing with weed.
• Nothing special about the cart, just a silver open-topped cage on wheels, like you’d find at a grocery store (or a K-Mart.)
• I started wheeling it back to the dorm. I knew it was an awful long trek back, and even in my dream realized there must be an easier way to transport my weed. Didn’t’ matter though…This was the course I had decided upon.
• The K-Mart was in an industrial part of town, my walk back to the dorm began through streets crowded with low, commercial buildings. Remember specifically an auto shop, but nothing else stands out.
• Remember little of my walk pushing the shopping cart, with the exception of one scene in which I was in a covered parking garage. Mostly on the flats, but I do recall pushing the cart up a ramp to a higher level at one point. How this was supposed to get me closer to the dorm is a mystery.
• Full jump, don’t think this one is a gap…No feeling that I ever made it back to the dorm.
• This sequence may have come after the upcoming singing sequence, or maybe it replayed. Or maybe they ran simultaneously. Or maybe I was dreaming in Tarrantino…Had this sequence, then the singing, then came back to what immediately followed this one. Anyway, was in an apartment with Brian Anderson and his wife.
• The apartment was more or less devoid of any furnishings, white walls, and sunlit.
• A word on Brian Anderson. In reality, he’s a dreamstranger. In the dream, he was someone I had known tangentially long ago, and had not seen since. He was taller than me, broad of shoulder, with close cropped dark brown hair. Very similar to the dreamstranger in the wildlife preserve dream who was displeased that I only let on that I needed a ride to the airport after we had started drinking, but larger. Of his wife, she was extremely short, with shoulder length brown hair. Non-descript, and I don’t believe she said a single word throughout the dream, either in the dorm, in the apartment, or in the SUV scene that followed.
• Also 100% sure his name wasn’t Brian Anderson, and wonder why that’s the name that I gave him upon waking. Will need to take a peek at my yearbooks. Funny, I can remember Scott's name, but I can’t with certainty place Brian Anderson. Think I know, think he was the one who claimed to be fucking by second or third grade (as related to a bunch of us over breakfast in the elementary school cafeteria), but I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the one who had me ostracized in fifth grade. (Remembered an hour or so after writing this line…That was a Brian…Brian F.) Post Script: There is no Brian Anderson in my yearbook. The grade school stud was Brian D. I did remember correctly on Brian F.
• Though there are no specific scenes to point to that explained it, during the course of the reunion, Brian Anderson and I had become fast friends. There in the apartment, we talked about how glad we both were that we had this opportunity to get to know one another, wondering why it hadn’t happened during our earlier acquaintance.
• Because of our fast friendship, there were rumors that Brian Anderson and I had become lovers. We laid in a window box, forehead to forehead, and laughed about these rumors. We were both so thankful for our new friendship, we couldn’t care less about what people thought, and said so to one another.
• Another full jump, and I don’t think the scene here was connected at all to the reunion. I was walking through city streets in the daytime, on my way to some sort of event. Not sure what to call it…Guess festival or concert comes closest, but neither is quite right. Ahead and to my left I could see the roof that hung over the open air venue…a hard, plastic dome of glossy cartoonish red adorned with multi-colored (lots of yellow and blue) flags and small spires. It didn’t tower over the city buildings, but had just enough elevation to not be obscured.
• I was still at quite a distance from the site of the event (maybe half a dozen city blocks), but I could already hear the music. Nothing I’d be interested in…Faceless contemporary light pop probably describes it best.
• The venue itself had a footprint the size of a soccer stadium. The stage was dominant, taking up the entire area of what would have been the pitch. The dome I had seen from a distance covered all of the stage, held aloft by pillars of the same cartoonish red. The stage was of this color too.
• Seating didn’t match what the size of the stage would seem to warrant. Along one of the long edges of the field were bleachers, the size and capacity of Sahlen’s Stadium in Cary. This is where I found myself. The other long edge of the field had no seating at all. At both ends, behind where goals would be on a soccer pitch, were benches on rising steps. These were painted all different colors. Muted though, unlike the garish colors of the stage and dome.
• Upon arriving at the venue, I saw a YouTube like video of one of the upcoming performers. Unclear on how I saw it, don’t remember specifically watching on my phone, not sure if it was projected somewhere at the venue…Might have been a full field of vision thing, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t see it until I was already there. The video was of a young girl, about Shady’s age, and it detailed some hardship she had overcome. It was emotional, and left you feeling joy for this girl and her triumph.
• The little girl took the stage and sang her song. Couldn’t tell you a thing about it, other than that it was every bit as emotional, and beautiful, as the video had been. I knew I wanted Shady to see it, and walked the bleachers looking for the perfect vantage point. Found it near the right hand end of the stage, high in the low bleachers.
• Jump to a repeat of my walk to the venue, dome in the distance ahead and to the left. This time though, was with Bruce, Shady, and Julie.
• Other than that view of the venue from afar, remember nothing of the walk there. We were “inside,” in the bleachers though not yet at the spot I had chosen. I talked up the young performer to Bruce and Shady…Don’t think they had yet seen the YouTube-like video.
• Julie rejoined us. Not sure where she had been…She was with us during the walk to the venue, but once there had left us briefly. She had bubble gum in her eye. On her eyeball. A small piece, stuck to the eyeball, and stretching down over the lower eyelid. It was nearly the same color as the dome, though more pinkish. She had no idea it was there until I called her attention to it.
• I tried to get us to move to the location I had chosen…The performer would be starting soon. Julie thought she had spotted a better seat though, on the benches behind where the goal would have been, on the opposite end of stage from where I wanted us. She pointed to a specific bench, calling it out by color. The bench was a plum color, though that’s not the word she used. The dream jumped again before we settled on a location or saw the performer.
• The jump was back to the apartment with Brian Anderson and his wife. Or rather, parked outside the apartment in an SUV with them. Maybe them…Maybe it was just him.
• The SUV was excessively roomy, roomier than any SUV outside of the dreaming. I was in the back with Brian Anderson and his toddler.
• This was the first I had seen of Brian Anderson’s son, although his existence came as no surprise to me. He was strange looking…Stocky, with nearly adult facial features, balding, and wearing dockers and a button up shirt. He talked like a toddler though, only one in a dozen “words” intelligible. He crawled and flipped all over me and Brian Anderson like a toddler too.
• Not sure where we were planning on going in the SUV, but knew we shouldn’t leave quite yet. Even though the toddler couldn’t form proper words, he was communicating just fine. At least to me. Not sure why his dad couldn’t figure it out, but it was clear to me that the young man needed to take a shit. Not sure why I didn’t just say that to Brian Anderson, but I didn’t.
• Eventually, the toddler flopped off of us, and rolled under the seat in front of us. As he did, he managed to enunciate the word “toot.” At that, Brian Anderson understood the need, and I awoke.