The Fourth Factor

I’m in a study, sitting at a desk facing a wall. A man is sitting to my left. This seems to be some kind of music lesson: we have sheets of manuscript paper in front of us, and I’m doing some sort of exercise where I fill in bits of the melodies that aren’t written. I’m having trouble figuring out how to notate the rhythm I have in mind, but after moving to something else for a little while, I come back and manage it easily. I write the notes in with a red pen, very neatly.

The lesson’s almost over when a young girl, 7 or 8, runs into the room and lies down on the desk in front of us—the man’s daughter. She seems to be in a silly mood. She speaks to him in German - we've been speaking English until now - and he answers. She moves across the room, and they have an exchange in which he asks her questions, but she just gives nonsense answers and giggles (and totally ignores me). I just watch and pet the cat, a gray tabby that’s also entered the room, not at all put out by the interruption. Before long, a woman who seems to be a nanny comes in, presumably for the girl.

I wake up.

In the next dream, I’m staying in a large hotel with my parents. As I walk through the lobby, towards the staircase, I see a number of men dressed in suits of armor decorated with intricate patterns and women in white ballerina’s outfits with similar patterns in silver. Some sort of wedding party, I figure.

After a quick trip to the room, which is at the end of a hallway, my mother and I seem to be walking out, away from the city center and towards the outskirts. This is Wilhelmshöhe, apparently—although it would be hard to find a place that looks less like the actual place of that name. There’s less and less to see as we walk along. Less traffic, too. A man drives a horse-drawn carriage past and gives us a peculiar look. Somehow, I have the feeling that we’re expected here, and he’s a part of it.

And, an unknown period of time after that, I’ve been transported to a different place, a large building full of people getting ready to something to begin. I’m a part of it, too, now. A man is explaining to me what’s going on in a mixture of French and German. That seems to be the norm here, and I slip into it too as I speak with him.

I comment at one point that something he just said sounded more like how people talk in movies than in real life—or dreams, I add. Because I do know it’s a dream by now, although I’m not sure just when the realization hit me. But I’m going along with it because it looks like some interesting and possibly important things are going on here.

Unusually for a lucid dream, it was difficult to remember much of what happened—some details stood out, but a lot of it just blurred together. The man I’ve been talking to seems to be in charge and has us carry out different tasks, and give answers to questions. I seem to be apart from the others somehow, involved, but playing a different role.

(17.6.18)

In this dream, I ampart of a group, possibly of students, although we seem to be doing whatever it is we’re doing out in the streets of a city rather than in a classroom. At some point, I go into a shop with a few others. It’s selling clothing—skirts mostly, long, summer-y ones that look handmade, in a variety of colors and patterns, but some belts and scarves and things as well.

The things in the shop don’t seem to be in any particular order: in one part of the room is a big pile of loosely-folded skirts. I think one skirt looks interesting and pull it out to get a closer look, but it now seems to be a sheepskin vest with pictures and words on it, not really like anything else in the shop. I put it back.

I then look at a display of jewelry on one wall. It all appears to be carved out of some kind of iridescent mineral of many colors—definitely something natural, judging by the variations. Next to the jewelry are some plectra made from the same material. A young woman from the class tells me that there are more in another part of the room, so I go to look at those as well.

I find one plectrum there that’s blue, in a kind of boomerang shape. It looks interesting, but I’m concerned that it’s too blunt. Another is a brilliant red with little flecks of black and white on the edges and basically triangular, but with slightly concave edges going up to the point. I’ll buy that one, I decide.

12.6.18

This was a dream from early in the night, which may explain some of the peculiarities. I—and I may or may not have been me—mention some ongoing problem to my mother—who definitely wasn’t my actual mother. Neither of us actually seem to be represented visually in the dream: I perceive her as a powerful and protective energy, and I am observing somewhere from outside of the “I” character—I guess whom I also recognize by ‘feel’. The only clear imagery from this part I can recall is the setting—the basement of my old house in M---.

I guess I was just complaining about it, but she takes it as a call to action and immediately sets to work. She first does something to me to keep me from interfering in any way—like an abstract version of shutting me up in a room. It had been a problem that I considered tough and protracted—I can’t remember any more about it than that—but she takes care of it with astonishing ease. And then she lets me go.

But I manage to get into some kind of trouble again not long after that—in a forest, almost falling into a freezing-cold river I don’t see because of the snow covering it. Fortunately, she comes along and is able to get me somewhere safer, but I can’t convince her I’m not getting into dangerous situations in purpose, and so she does the shutting-in-room thing again.

9.6.18

I’m walking down the metallic corridor of a spaceship, carrying a small backpack and some other item with me. I spot a door on the left-hand side and walk in. It’s a little room with a bed, a sink and various other useful things along the walls. I set my things down. It looks like nobody’s claimed this one yet. I’m glad because I like room #2—they’re all pretty similar, but I just like this one more for some reason.

I look at the bed—just a molded bit of plastic, no sheets on it yet. It’s pretty uncomfortable. I could have brought some extra bedclothes, knowing in advance that it would be, but I figured I’d just pick some up along the way.

All of this is so familiar to me because I can remember all of it happening before, even the things that haven’t happened yet. If déjà vu is like seeing a firefly flickering in the darkness, this is like being in broad daylight. I remember all of it, although not everything seems to be set in stone—little things like my being the first one here and the outcome of one very big thing that’s still a long way in the future.

Somewhere out in space, there’s an odd device wired into the workings of a satellite devoted to climate monitoring. The device had originally been with me, but some time back, in the midst of a chaotic situation, some group had managed to get their hands on it—not a hostile group, exactly, but not overly friendly either. They had managed to figure out that it was a powerful device and even how to get it to do some interesting things, but they really have no idea what it was capable of.

This situation doesn’t bother me too much. An unmanned climate monitoring satellite isn’t a bad place for the thing for the time being. They’ve taken great pains to keep it a secret, and nobody is likely to find it there. And when it leaves dormancy and begins to destroy the satellite—it is a matter of when rather than if—there’s only so much damage it can do.

That won’t be for a while yet. It will also take a while for them to trace it back to the device and figure out just what they’re dealing with. And that’s when they’ll come to me. I have some kind of connection with this thing, which is how I know all this, and I’m the only one who has a chance of destroying it. I won’t have to bother about getting it back. All I have to do is make sure I’m ready when the time comes.

Someone else enters the room—a young woman, tall with short, blonde hair and a punk-ish look. I’m one of four people who have just been brought here, possibly as some kind of training program, and she’s another of them. She tells me the people in charge here found something out about her past and are making her take some kind of test—something they needed a blood sample for. She hasn’t got the results back yet. I don’t know anyone here that well yet, but I have the impression she just needs someone to talk to.

We go out together, through a door in the ceiling. We aren’t actually in space now—we’re parked. It’s definitely not earth, though: we move through the air like swimming, as if gravity is very low here. It’s dark out, and there’s nobody else around. Not far from us is a park with a playground. We float over to it. I notice my companion is wearing a purple pair of flippers, which strikes me as a smart idea—she can probably move faster that way.

I grab ahold of a colorful children’s play structure and maneuver through a hole in it. Might as well get a feel for what it’s like moving through the air like this. I think that this, in a way, is also preparation for what I’ll eventually have to do.

The woman heads back to the spaceship at some point, but I stay out a bit longer.

5.6.18

I’m sitting at a table by a window in what seems to be a coffee shop/bookshop, looking down at the streets below—a couple floors below, I’d say. The people in the room are seated at couches on both sides of the tables, and it seems to be pretty full right now. The street below is has broad sidewalks on either side of the road and mostly tall buildings with shop windows along the side of it I can see - a city center vibe. And while this is supposedly Prague—it seems I’ve come here for a week or so—it doesn’t resemble anywhere in particular.

It’s early evening. The streetlights have come on and snow is falling, and I spend a while just watching people go by. I think about how I could watch the snow fall from where I’m staying as well. It would also be nice in its own way, but there wouldn’t be anywhere near as much going on.

4.6.18

I am in a small classroom in a university, but it’s not lecture I’m attending here: it’s a theatrical performance.

There are about a dozen of us in the audience, as well as three dogs, two of them large ones, which is almost enough to make the room crowded. Both the main actors are here already too, in the front of the room. It seems they’re performing “Faust”- or something Faust-ish, at any rate. Both the main characters are being played by women, the title role by Hélène Grimaud, although it’s not clear whether it’s actually the pianist or just a well-known actress who happens to have that name.

There’s also a woman in the back who seems to be involved in some official capacity. She’s the one responsible for checking tickets—at least theoretically. I’m hoping that remains theoretical since I don’t actually have a ticket. The prevailing system here seems to work like train tickets, where the ticket is good for a certain range of dates. While I do have one on hand, it’s good for three weeks in November, and it’s still October now.

She begins by giving a short speech, which she records using a small camera. Predictably, the smaller dog, which is hers, sticks its face directly in it at one point. Things come to a halt for a bit as the audience makes a fuss over all the dogs and encourages her to get them on film. But eventually, the performance itself gets underway.

For a while, it’s just the two leads talking, but very clever dialogue. At one point, the Mephistopheles(-ish) character begins asking for members of the audience to volunteer. And, as people begin to get more comfortable, they begin to participate more. Soon—what with the intimate space and the lack of separation between us and the performers— it’s as if we’re a part of the performance rather than just observing it.

I look out the (partially frosted glass?) wall at a man walking by—he probably thinks this is a rather odd lesson, given that it’s probably not obvious at first glance that it’s a performance. But actually, he seems to be part of the performance as well. He enters the room, placing some notes and a glass with some white wine in it on a lectern, and beings to talk about philosophy.

One of the audience members comments on the wineglass. The newcomer enters into a hilarious dialogue with them, still in a philosophical vein, all in a complete deadpan. I recall him claiming that he wasn’t the same person he was a couple of drinks ago. Another half-dozen people seem to have joined the audience at some point, which is more than enough to make the room crowded. At some point, I wake up.

After writing everything down, I fall asleep again and find myself in a continuation of the dream. I seem to have watched the rest of the performance, as well as the lecture taking place in the room afterwards—apparently a Marxist interpretation of diabetes, which I’ve stayed to listen to out of a combination of morbid curiosity and a lack of anywhere better to be. But I have a class I need to get to soon, and I want to get some coffee first, so I gather my stuff together and cut out early.

Once outside, it occurs to me that I don’t actually know where this class is going to be held. I find my notebook in my messenger bag and look through it, but it only looks like I’ve got last semester’s schedule written here—not this one’s. But I do recall receiving an email from somebody mentioning the class’s location, so I can check on that—but it will have to be on my laptop, since I can’t access that particular account on my phone.

My room isn’t far from here—it’s in a large building just down the street. I enter and make my way up to my room. It’s a tiny room, and unlike anywhere I’ve actually lived, but it all seems familiar and somehow pleasant. I put what seems to be my cast-iron shrine teapot on a hotplate on the top of a small, precarious-looking shelf to one side of my desk to boil water for coffee and sit down to find the email.

According to the email, the class is taking place at St. John’s Observatory—so not on campus, then, since I would have seen it if it were. I pull up a map website to find out where it is. To my own amusement, I initially mistype "Kassel"—the place I have apparently decided I am—as "Kessel" (kettle, that is).

Based on the pictures my search has turned up, the place I’m going to is a greenhouse as well as an observatory: it’s a small building with mostly glass walls, through which greenery can be seen. I’m not sure where it is relative to me just yet, though, and it’s now 17:00, when the class was supposed to begin. Maybe that won’t matter so much on the first day? But then it occurs to me: I’m in Germany. Akademisches Viertel. That means I still have time to get there.

I’m walking through an unfamiliar urban area. It’s fairly busy traffic-wise, but there are some young men kicking a soccer ball around in the streets. Occasionally, someone has to run out into the street and bring it back before a car gets to it. This strikes me as a little dangerous.

Eventually, I find myself walking down into a large lecture hall, mainly white with light-colored wooden seats on either side of a central aisle. There’s a projection screen down in front, and everybody is watching a movie on it. The front area looks mostly full, but there are entire rows of empty seats closer to the back, so I sit down in a row on the left side.

It seems I have the option to select how I want the movie rendered—it’s a little like a menu popping up on a computer, but more abstract. There are three options. In the first option, I would only perceive those aspects of it that are capable of being represented in the available medium. In the second option, the basic narrative pattern of the story would be preserved, but with the unrepresentable parts of it translated into a form that the medium can handle. That's the option I choose. I can’t remember what the third one was.

As I watch, it quickly becomes apparent that the movie is something provisional rather than a finished creation. The screen shows static pictures representing the characters on a white background as their dialogue is spoken. I notice, however, that the acoustics in this room are incredible. It’s a high-ceilinged room, and the sound just fills it. I can feel a shift in my awareness, as it it’s expanding to fill the room as well.

29.4.18

In the dream, I’m watching a film. I think I was watching it on a screen at first, but in the part I can remember well, I’m just standing on scene, watching as events unfold—or, rather, fail to unfold, as this seems to be the kind of film where nothing much happens.

The main (and only present) character, a man, is in a kind of apartment with a desk or a dresser that he’s sitting at. There are no walls: I can see directly into the strange landscape beyond, where the horizon is dominated by mountain peaks, including two volcanoes. The action is divided into distinct segments, with each one ending anticlimactically. In the last one, the man calls his girlfriend on his cellphone, but nobody picks up. This seems to illustrate the unremitting futility of life—or at least you’d think it does, based on the dramatic treatment it gets.

But once that comes to an end, all sorts of odd things start happening: a nearby pool of water starts to bubble, and one of the volcanoes erupts. I’m now in the backseat of a car with several other people, trying to get somewhere safe. But then the other volcano, which is straight ahead of us, also begins to erupt, the bright magma spilling over the rim. The woman who’s driving comments on it. I tell her she’s got the name wrong—she’s thinking of the other volcano. The one ahead of us is Vesuvius. And then I start laughing because of course what matters in this situation is making sure we get the name of the volcano that kills us right.

I’m also laughing because I’m fully aware of how ridiculous this geography is. I know none of this is real, and that makes it hilarious. As if in acknowledgement, all kinds of odd and impossible things are appearing out of nowhere around us, even as I watch. A gigantic man wearing a striped shirt materializes off to our left, over a large body of water. He steps from island to island, striding in the same direction our car is going. I’m still laughing too hard to speak, and so it’s someone else in the car who says it: “I found Waldo.” They also seem to find the whole thing funny.

28.4.18

This dream was interesting: it was like I was playing out a role in a story, aware that it was a story (but not aware that it was a dream). It was being narrated—not by anybody present, but a voice that I could talk to and that seemed to be indicating what I should be doing as much as describing it.

The setting was a building like an airport - at least, in the only part I can remember. But it only appeared that way from the standpoint of the people there: it was really two separate buildings, split by a wall they couldn’t see. Inside the wall were rooms where there were people—people who could see through the wall and observe what was happening on both sides, and people in offices who were presumably working to keep the place going. The camera—for lack of a better word—seemed to make a point of showing this area, even though nothing much was happening there. At one point, it slowly panned across it so that you could see all the people as well as a window showing an entire world outside that didn’t exist from the standpoint of the people in the building where I was.

Right now, I’m concerned with getting into a special event that’s being held by people whose land borders mine. I approach a man I know—maybe in his late 30s, wearing some kind of complex, vaguely tribal outfit—and ask him if he can take me along. He’s happy to accept. He just seems to be a good-natured person who likes helping people get what they want. He probably thinks I just want to get in with a certain crowd, but I have other reasons for needing to be there (unfortunately, not ones I can remember after waking up).

He’s going there now, and I’ll be coming along on a – well, I’m not entirely sure what it is. It has a special name (that I forgot) and seems to be a bit like a jet ski, but attached to a helicopter and with things like leather shields I’m supposed to hold onto. As I look it over, I’m glad this is going to be broadcast over the radio because that gives everyone in the audience a chance to imagine something less stupid-looking. But I get on it, and we head off.

24.4.18

It seems I’ve gone to a bank to figure out why I can’t get my checking account hooked up with Paypal. They’ve given me a form to fill out—I’m sitting at a large table with a few other customers scattered around it while a female employee stands behind a desk at one end of the room.

But the form is proving quite frustrating. All the questions are so unclear that I keep having to call the woman over to explain what information it’s asking me for. And it seems that a lot of what it’s asking for is other people’s information—relatives, friends, people who would be able to do a particular thing for me.

I call the woman over to explain yet another question—it claims to be questions 4 through 10, although it seems to be a simple yes or no question. What’s this one asking me for? She tells me that one doesn’t actually count for anything, and I can write anything I want there. Well, fine then. I write: “yes?/no!” below it. The woman seems a little dubious. But if it doesn’t matter, then presumably it doesn’t have to make sense. Besides, I say, how often do you get the chance to answer a question like that? And she seems to accept that.

I had hoped to have this matter settled today, but since I’m going to have to get in touch with so many people to get the information I need to fill the form out, it looks like it’s going to drag out for a while longer. But then it dawns on me: this thing is making me think about the ways I’m connected with other people. Could it be that that’s what this was really about?

Later that night, in a different dream, I’m going to a place like a big department store with a group of people. A lot happened in this one, but in the only part I can remember well, we have all met up at a café that's part of some larger space. We sit at a couple small, round tables to one side of the counter. There are some nice-looking pastries on display, but I don’t recall anyone actually ordering food.

I was hoping to sit next to Katya, but she ended up at the other table, and other people sat down there before I could move over. Instead, I seem to be sitting beside an old schoolmate, someone I haven’t seen or even thought about since we were both 10. We talk about life back then. She mentions a particular boy, saying she remembers I had a lot of classes in common with him. I can’t remember whether I did or not. It’s not something I would have taken note of. I say that I remember having a lot of classes in common with another boy, though. She doesn’t remember who he is at first. But then she says, “Oh, the one with the naked fairy dream?” This is referring to the dream records that are displayed here in this café. It seems they were collected by Judge what’s-his-face from some of the students back then as part of some project—maybe like a public display of kids’ artwork, like you see sometimes— and by some massive coincidence, they ended up here, where we are.

I have my bouzouki in my lap, in its case. I’m thinking of taking it out and playing it. It would have nothing whatsoever to do with anything that happened in the past, and that would be nice.

22.4.18

I am going on a trip with some other people—vague impressions of preparation, of using a computer in a lab to take care of some paperwork I need for it—some kind of registration, maybe.

It seems to be a long trip. We are traveling by car, and after a while, we stop at a gas station. I go inside to find something to eat and am pleasantly surprised to discover they have marzipan here. I pick out a couple small bars of it, along with some other food for the road.

A little while later, I’m in a room belonging to my friend Nina—it seems to be in the same building, with the gas station just on the other side of a door. I’m examining some small statues on the shelves. The statues illustrate the “eight ways of dying”—which actually seems to signify ways of living, the idea being that they’re lifestyles that don’t really deserve to be called living.

There are two complete sets of the eight, and they both go about illustrating them in different ways. I looked at all of the statues, but the only one I remember vividly was the eighth one of the second set, which I was looking at as I woke up. The key symbol seems to be a snail, representing an unthinking, animal-like life. But while the sculptor of the first set has just portrayed the snail, the sculptor of the second—who seems to have a more fanciful take on things in general—has portrayed the snail crawling over a human corpse in a colorful stage of decomposition. Where’s Nina so I can ask her about these, I wonder.

I can also vaguely remember a couple other statues, also from the second set. The second statue showed a woman lying on a massage table surrounded by jars and bottles and things, and the fourth didn’t seem to have any living figures at all, but looked like a mineralogist’s work table might—rocks of various kinds scattered over it and a jar of rocks in the center.

15.4.18

(Note: I think the Buddhist ideas here are pretty clear, but it may be less obvious that it’s also drawing pretty heavily from Plato.)

I’m an observer watching a scene unfold on a boat—but really, it’s more that I’m looking at it and the people on deck while being aware of the situation playing out there in a more abstract way. There are some documents I need for traveling on this boat, and I’m not sure if I have them or if I need to go through some process to get them.

The scene shifts—I’m now exiting a bus. But instead of winding up outside as I had expected, I’ve simply stepped onto another bus. I quickly take a seat behind the two women who entered ahead of me and wonder where this one is going to take me.

The scene shifts again—this time, I’m waking up in the back of a car my parents are driving. It feels as if I’m younger in this one. We’ve just stopped by a building I recognize as the one where my father’s workshop is. That means we’re not far from home now. I fall back asleep.

The scene shifts yet again—this time, I’m in a grocery store. And this time, I know it’s a dream, although I still seem to think the last bit with the car was waking reality. I think it would be best if I sleep for the remainder of the trip, and so that means making sure this dream lasts.

I look around. There don’t seem to be anyone here but me. It's reminiscent of the specialty grocer’s down the street from my old flat on Svornosti. That means there should be a counter over in the corner where I can get some coffee.

I go over and find the counter is there, and that there’s somebody behind it. There’s nothing displaying prices, so I just put down three bills, possibly dollars, which seems like a more than fair price. But the woman tells me I have to make the coffee myself using the machine there. It’s an odd contraption, like no coffee maker I’ve ever used, but after messing around for it a bit, I get it to pour some coffee out - Turkish style, with the grounds at the bottom. I drink it. This isn’t a conscious attempt at stabilization, I don’t think—just something that struck me as a pretty good idea—but it may have had that effect, as it’s normally hard for me to stay asleep so late in the morning.

I consider where to go from here. Perhaps home, where the car was headed—only I have no idea where I am right now. But if I fly, perhaps I’ll see some familiar landmark from the air and be able to find my way from there. And to fly, I’ll need a high place to launch from—so it looks like I’m headed to the roof.

In the meantime, I’ve noticed six or seven wolves between two shelves on the upper story, which is a sort of balcony over one half of the store. They all trot off in a single direction as I watch. Are they coming after me? But I wasn’t planning on sticking around here in any case. I climb a shelf and phase through the ceiling.

I now find myself in a room lit by a warm light. A long mahogany table laid with bright red dishes is some distance off—set for an elaborate meal, it looks like. It's quite pretty. I continue on my way, climbing another shelf and jumping through the ceiling.

This time I’m in an attic-like room near a big calico cat that, in typical feline fashion, seems entirely unimpressed by my unusual method of transportation. But it’s about then that I wake up.

I also wake up remembering something else—not something I heard, but words that seemed to be impressed on my mind. It went something like: “Use the gifts you’ve been given, human.” I don’t know who said it—perhaps it was the cat?—but it seemed somehow independent from the rest of the dream, like it was taking place on a different level. Good advice, in any case.

12.4.18 - (Happy Lucid Dreaming Day, everyone!)

I find myself walking down the staircase to the basement of my M--- house. It occurs to me that this is a place I only visit in dreams—and so I must be dreaming right now.

The room is dark, so I try to brighten it up a little bit by clapping as if the lighting there was the kind that responded to that. But that doesn’t seem to help, and the visuals, though still vivid, have an indefinite quality to them that tells me the dream isn’t very stable. I decide I’ll cut the visuals off altogether to stabilize it through other senses, but wake up first—right around the time I ordinarily wake up, which explains the instability. I seem to have completely lost the ability to sleep in nowadays.

10.4.18

This dream took place in a city than my brain identified as Dubrovnik. And it wasn’t entirely unlike Dubrovnik—it was by the sea, and in the right sort of general landscape, only hillier, and it did have a similar aesthetic. This wasn’t the first time I had a dream set there, although I don’t think I identified it as anywhere familiar that time.

In this dream, the city seems to be gearing up for a festival, with some tents and stalls already up, some still being set up. The city is full of people, which strikes me as an unusual circumstance, as if I’ve been living here rather than a visitor like them. As I hear people talking among the crowd about the best route to a certain location, I know the answer. But right now, they’re heading in the right direction anyway—at least, if they want to see the preparations along the way, which is what I want to do.

Across a canal or some kind of long, rectangular pond, there are yet more people near a fountain, including someone I know—an old classmate of mine, an Italian exchange student. She and an unfamiliar man are embracing there. In front of me, some other people I recognize as classmates have also noticed, and they don’t like what they see. One young woman in red makes a disparaging comment rather loudly, clearly intending to be heard by them. I don’t know what the story is here, but I find it hard to believe that it could possibly be any of their business.

I run into her again later on, as part of a group of performers, doing some kind of open-air act—oddly, it’s as if they’re all hovering above the water of a canal like the other one, only wider. I wave to them as I pass, and they wave back, but nobody else is even acknowledging them. I have the impression that they’re afraid to for some reason.

At some point, I’m further up, out of the city proper. I pause to look down a broad stone staircase—really, more of a terraced sidewalk—that winds its way down to the sea. The sea is shining and calm, pale blue and pink, as if the sun only rose a short time ago.

And further still, there's some kind of special site. I climb on a big rock to get a better look at it. The whole area is blocked off with a sheet of glass and has a rather stage-y appearance, as if it were intended to be seen from this angle. To the right is the entrance of a cave, where cacti and other scrubby plants are growing. To the left are four reclining chairs in a row—I assume that means this place will be open to the public at some point, since I can’t imagine why they would be there otherwise.

The ground they’re located on breaks off with a sheer cliff face which I’m directly facing, and I can see something interesting there: some kind of symbol carved in the pale stone. It's a small circle with two lines inside it, which are arranged like the hands of a clock when it’s 10 o’clock, and coming off the bottom is a long, wavy line ending with a wedge, like an arrow. It strikes me as vaguely alchemical. I wonder what it signifies—it definitely seems to suggest some kind of downward motion.

Some other people have gathered here while I’ve been looking—I recognize someone else I know. The last time I spoke to him was very awkward, but he doesn’t mention that, which I’m glad of. He’s telling me about the cave. But unfortunately, I can’t remember much of what he says—only that something important took place here a couple millennia ago.

8.4.18

I’m in a car with my mother, driving down an unfamiliar road towards the house where she's living—it seems that I’ve come here to visit her and will be leaving soon. We aren’t far from the house, but she indicates that I should turn off to the right, where there’s a cemetery. I already have some idea what this is about since I know there’s a grave here that she’s been taking care of. We’ve already visited a couple times during the course of this visit. I turn into the entrance.

Now we’re both walking through the cemetery. It’s a bit overgrown, but a livelier place than you might expect since there are kids running around doing kid things and other people who are here visiting.

Some of the children are decorating the grave we’re headed for. They’re debating over where to put a special artifact—it looks like a small spiral seashell, only brown and lightweight like a cicada skin. Right now, they have it set on the leaf of a flowering plant, but it seems to be bending the leaf back too far.* (At some point, I couldn’t say exactly when, I seem to have become a different person—a friend of my mother’s, a man, maybe in his 40s or older.)

Eventually, somebody gets the idea of calling up the spirits themselves and asking them how they want the grave to look. Now there are a number of them floating around, including one that is just a disembodied hand. They ask it to point to what it wants on the grave—but, unexpectedly, it goes straight for my car keys. Really? But I know I have to give them up now.

But I also know—not from the man’s perspective, but from somewhere outside it—that they are laying claim to the keys because they like him, they think he’s a great guy, and by doing this, they can prevent something bad from happening to him that they know is in his future otherwise. The fact that he is massively inconvenienced in the process is completely incidental.

*Note: I had spent a few hours of the previous day on website design, a lot of which is figuring out how to get thing A to location B without messing anything else up. An interesting parallel here.

2.4.18