Mezzanine

School - I'm walking to class. I think I'm in college. I know I'm walking to class because there are a lot of other people my age walking in the same direction. I'm wearing one of my favorite outfits - my burgundy pants with my pink collared shirt and my pink and brown houndstooth vest (which I decided to wear today, except no pants, just jeans). I'm wearing a pair of kitten heel shoes and I step right smack into a pothole/puddle. I'm not terribly bothered by this, kind of laugh it off, when I see in front of me a girl I went to middle and high school with - Dara Tillman. She turns around and says that she loves my outfit, and tells everyone she is walking with that I'm really wearing a great outfit today, especially the pants. Then we get to class and it's Spanish. The teacher asks what day of the week it is, and it seems like no one is answering so I say 'Miercoles!' and I guess I'm not supposed to answer because maybe I'm the teacher's assistant and not really a student? The teacher looks sternly at me and I feel bad for answering.

Grad School - I'm in a library at a school, and I guess the stepping in a puddle in the previous dream made me dream of a stormy day. The one side of the library is all doors and they're open, and it's windy and rainy out but not so bad that it's really affecting things inside. There are a lot of people inside sitting down like we're waiting for an assembly. Then someone starts handing out clipboards with applications on them. They're applications for grad school. But it takes me a while to realize this. I decide that I might as well apply to get my Master's in Spanish. Then I'm looking at this table - it's dark brown wood grain and there are all sorts of flyers on it. But they're all different students' transcripts or something. I'm trying to spread them out on the table and organize them in some way, but they are all brown and start blending in with the table.

So this morning, in order to help me remember my little baby fragments, I gave them all one word titles when I was in the shower. Now I'm at work and I can jot these down.

Luggage - I was in a hotel room, and I remember luggage, but I don't know if I was packing or unpacking. There were clothes and toiletries in the room and the bathroom.

Shower - I think I'm still in the hotel room, now in the bathroom. There are three shower stalls, all in glass. The last one is about as big as a bedroom. There's a shower head on the one wall, and when I open the glass door to get into the shower, I notice that there are 2 giant triangle sized sections of tile missing from the floor. I see someone I know, Jo, walking past the shower, and I yell at her, "Brandon, what's going on with the floor?" (Brandon is her last name.)

Gallery - I'm in a room/ studio with my ex girlfriend Lauren. All along the all are paintings hung up. They're very colorful. There are like 3 or 4 rows of them, some are different sizes, but mostly bigger than 11x14.

Dirtbike - I am maybe at a vacation resort. There's some people walking around like a wooden framework of stairs and walkways connecting the hotel (or apartments) to the ocean (or lake). I think I was thinking of fireworks, maybe setting them off, and then somehow I'm looking for a bike. I get on it, then off it, then someone else gets on it and takes it up a flight of stairs, then on the way down the stairs, they turn the motor on. I was shocked that I didn't know that it was a dirtbike.

I'm in a hotel, checking in. Go to the front desk to pick up my keys and they tell me I'm in room 135. There's not a lot of people in the lobby. I get into an elevator for the first floor. Why I needed to get on an elevator, no idea. So I'm in a hallway looking at all the plaques on the walls in front of all the doors for my room number. The numbers aren't in any sort of order, but they do all start with one. Then I realize, there's way too many people hanging out in the hall. I finally get to my door, use the actual key, not a key card, open the door, and something just doesn't feel right. The lights are on, I barely peek my head in and I just have a bad feeling. The coat rack is knocked over. So I decide to go back to the front desk. I turn around and there's still a lot of people in the hallway, just sort of milling about. In all my time in hotels, there's never been this many people in the hotel hallway, not even on Spring Break. Then I'm taking a closer look at the people... and they're definitely zombies. But they're not attacking me, like zombies are traditionally known to do. So I wonder... am I a zombie? And then I realize that if I'm having any cognizant thoughts at all, I must not be a zombie. But why aren't they attacking me? ::shrug:: So I get to the elevator, and someone else is in there with me, not a zombie. I look for the button for the 8th floor and realize that it's already lit. A bunch of numbers are lit. Then the elevator doors close, and I'm on the Tower of Terror at Disney. We're flying up and down and I notice there's someone in the corner operating the elevator. Looks evil. But smiles? Anyway. I realize that this is a ride at a theme park, thank the operator, and get out of the elevator.

I think I'm in my bedroom at my parents; house. Or the guest room. Anyway, I've been watching a lot of Charmed recently. Piper is in my room. I'm super attracted to her in my dream. We're all smiley and giggly. I lean in to her and say, "I really, really like you!" And I remember thinking, girl is totally straight, what the fuck am I even doing? But what the hell, I'll tell her anyway, what's the worst that can happen? So we start kissing and everything's cool. Then she's not there anymore, I'm still in the room and in my hands is a magazine open to an article about Japanese sex dolls, and what they all do, and rating them 1-10 and giving a description, etc. I am perplexed and sort of disgusted by this. Then I throw the magazine down and walk out of the room, and someone comes out of the other room. I look at the wall and make a comment about how the decals look good there. There were some tribal sort of decals on the wall, and they really didn't look good there at all come to think of it. ANYWAY!

- Grandma Tootsie and Pa were at some *very important* even that was going to take place in my life, and they were in Mom and Dad's garage. I remember thinking in my dream that it was really awesome that my grandma was there, and I think I started to sort of have a conflicted thought, because both of my grandparents are dead and I was trying to reconcile the fact that there were standing in the garage.

- There was a party going on in some second story apartment that seemed sort of familiar, like when I lived in Rebel Manor apartments in Louisa county with my mom and dad when I was like... 5 or 6 years old. Except now I'm an adult, and everyone is smoking weed and drinking. Everyone is having a good time and there's no drama. Until... I look out the window, then step out onto the balcony and there's blue lights flashing from a cop car. It's dark out. I can't remember if I tell everyone to break the party up or what, but I remember Katie Goodman coming out of a back bedroom with a big blunt. Then I remember Matt Tacey and I washing dishes and no one else is there.

- I'm in the car with my dad, he's driving. We're on a two lane road, driving in a residential area, past some houses. We get into an argument about money - he said he gave me $25,000 but I was telling him he only gave me $5,000. I go to look something up on my cell phone, then get mad at him, throw the phone at him, break it, get even madder, then I grab the steering wheel and force him off the road to the right and into someone's driveway. We drive down the driveway and through a garage that has a door on the front and the back. Now we're at like a service station. That's all I remember.

I remember having been in movie theaters before in dreams. This time it was a theater similar to one I'd been in in a dream, not in real life.

I was in the theater, no movie was on, no one's in the theater. It's dark, it's big, it has three sections of seats. I walk up to where the screen is and go behind it. It's like a walk in freezer/refrigerator where they keep all the concession things. I look around and find (of all things) milk. There's tons of gallons of milk and little single serving milks. There's also like candy and popcorn and things, but no one is back there.

So, not a full blown dream, but I'm glad that I'm remembering more and I have to get better about putting things in the journal in the morning.

Man it's been a while since I've put something in here. I have to find some balance with when I wake up for work and when I can stick stuff in here. Overall, though, recently there hasn't been a whole lot to write about. I started taking Choline again, though, and it seems like my dream factory has been ramping up production. A couple of weeks ago I had some great vivid dreams, though of course, since I didn't write them down, I don't remember them.

Last night I remember there being a scene where I feel like I was either watching a tv show or having a premonition... and there was a girl tied to a bed and she seemed scared, so it's safe to assume this isn't some kinky foreplay about to happen. Then this thing appears out of nowhere. It is like... a clown, alien thing. It has sharp teeth and claw-like fingernails. It's lying next to the girl now, and it starts caressing her face. That's all I can remember about that.

Then, another scene, I feel like I'm on Gossip Girl, or with Caleb Haas from Quantico. It seems like someone has been abducted, and there's a guy walking around on a cell phone talking to someone. The place where we are is like... Greek/Roman style architecture outside. The floor is all beautiful mosaic tile, however, stand on it, and you're in about six inches of water. The guy on the phone is flipping out about finding his girlfriend, but I'm just wondering what's the deal with the water on the tile.

Then the most bizarre thing of the night. I'm watching a movie with my mom, don't know where I am because all I see is this scene in front of me, but I know it's a movie and that I'm with my mom. It's Kevin Spacey. He looks around to see if anyone is watching him... then he unzips his pants, not undoing the top button, mind you, and he's near like a dining room table. On the table is a magazine which he picks up and strategically places in front of his crotch. It's very apparent that he's jerking off behind the magazine. Then after a little bit, he puts the magazine down and proceeds to try to suck his own dick. Just bends his head down. And just when his lips are about to make contact with the tip of his dick... either I shut my eyes because I really didn't want to see this happen, or my mom changed the channel or turned off the tv. The fucked up thing is the look on Kevin Spacey's face. It's like it was a porno and he was so excited to be in it. He had this evil grin on his face the whole time.

I don't remember much... my dreams haven't been as vivid as they used to be. Sad.

I was looking around to help someone find some buttons... like big circular buttons that you pin to your shirt, not the ones that keep your shirt closed. I find three buttons that are the same... almost. They have a photo on them, black and white, of someone with their face painted for Day of the Dead. Two are girls and one's a guy. Then I find three more and I think they had a company logo on them. For some reason, when I woke up, it reminded me of the button that's in KB's cube at work... it says "Crabbie's" on it and it's orange.

Then I'm at Tiffany's. I have no idea how I know it's a Tiffany's. I think I'm at a bridal shower or some sort of event. I open an envelope and see that I have a gift certificate and there's a twenty dollar bill inside. I think the envelope was really old. Then I went through a door and started singing and KB was there. I wasn't singing this song, but now I can't get "Chandelier" by Sia out of my head. Some days I just wake up with a song.

Then I'm at a grocery store and I'm helping people check out. Making sure all the lines are going they way they should. This is recurring. I've never worked in a grocery store. You'd think I would start realizing I'm dreaming at this point haha... but noooooo.

I have really got to get these out of my head so I can make room for new dreams. I think I'm blocked.

I was on a boat... and I think it was Spring Break because all these kids were on other boats partying. A few were jumping off this one boat and one kid jumped but no one saw him come back up out of the water. I look across to a sandy bank and see him. It's like my vision panned right into him and focused very sharply. I see him contort his face in a way that makes me think he's having an orgasm. Then, he keels over and dies.

Now I'm entering a house, maybe trying to investigate this kid's death and I see a woman (girl?) in the corner hiding behind some curtains. She said she had to hide from me so that I couldn't see her, not sure why. I go upstairs and I see a dark gray/black ring floating in the center of the room. It's made up of computer code. Someone said it was bad SQL. I can tell that whatever it is, it's evil. I try not to get too close to it, then it comes after me. It starts to shrink in size, then it turns into a Chinese dragon. I catch it in tupperware and sever its head.

Now I'm at work and I have to sneak into an office. For some reason I'm looking at a pair of gloves that belongs to my boss. One glove was red and one was brown. Not sure of the significance of that. We're in a big office building, bigger than the one that I currently work in, and it's really swanky. Then I have to get in my car and drive somewhere. I go through a toll that I didn't intend to go through, and the toll booth operator told me, it's ok, just go around and back up into the booth so that my window is on the opposite side of the booth and she would give me a refund and I could go on my way. Seemed like it made sense at the time haha. The toll was something like $18.

First thing I remember is that I'm at the beach. Don't ask me how I know it was the beach, I didn't see any ocean or anything, but I was in a house with some people and I feel like it was a vacation. Then things got weird. The people I was in the house with were drug addicts and they needed money or else something bad would happen. What exactly, I'm not sure, but the mood was hostile and very tense. I had a trapper keeper that held those clear pages that keep documents safe and each page had a dollar bill in it, lots of different denominations. And then my co-worker Angad was there. I'm not sure what his role was but he commented on the money. There was more to this, but I don't remember very well. I remember stepping out of the house, but nothing after that.

I think I got up to go to the bathroom, went back to sleep, and dreamed up this next part -

Now I'm in what feels like an elementary school auditorium that is broken up into lots of different sections, like at a craft fair. I'm with my wife and we're looking around when we stumble upon a booth that is very large and contains a lot of mid-century modern furniture and knick knacks. I find a super cool jewelry... box...? it's got lots of different drawers in it, some of them are different sizes, and some do different things when you open them. I pushed down on a section on the top and a drawer popped out, and another drawer, when you pulled it open, something inside was rotating so that a section inside it with a place to hold different earrings rotated upwards and displayed them. I absolutely had to have this. It had a lamp on top and when I investigated it further, I saw that it was also a radio!!!! in the back there was hookups for more speakers, it had an internal speaker, and you could pull the rdio module out in order to fix it or replace it easily. I asked how much it was and someone said $180. I thought about it and said thank you and walked away planning how I could negotiate it down to $150 or maybe even $120. I popped out the radio part and noticed that it had black mold on it. Maybe I could use that as leverage...

Then I walked to the next room when I heard a song on the radio (not the radio from the jewelry box lamp) and it was familiar, and a song I even liked, but the words were different. It's like a parody song that radio hosts make up. So I hear someone say to change the song. I'm in the next room and I see above me on two walls in a corner all the canvas photos that are like 2 feet by three feet. A lot of them have the Chemical Brothers logo in the bottom right corner. I was thinking they would look great in my office. There were some pictures of people but I didn't recognize them as music artists. It was maybe cover art, but it wasn't familiar. They were $20 each. Someone was talking about the song that was on the radio and I started talking to them about it. They said that it sounded very similar to the previous one, and I said that yeah, it's the same genre, and that previous one wasn't even the original, intended version. I was having trouble talking because I had food in my mouth. I apologized for this. I couldn't even see who it was that I was talking to.

I walked into the next room and I saw a wonderful marble coffee table. it was round and upon closer inspection, somehow the marble formed a pattern that looked like the name Oprah Winfrey. I was fascinated. Then, sadly, I woke up.

Take aways - the other day my mom asked me what I want for my birthday and I completely forgot that I really have been wanting a jewelry box. I really want to have a conversation with someone about music. I haven't talked music with anyone in a very very long time. I just realized how sad this makes me.

I was maybe a foreign exchange student. I was ushered into a home in Japan, which I could tell was where I was due to the scenery, of which I can't remember any specific details.... maybe I just knew? I'm being shown a map of the home that I'm staying at by one of the residents. The rooms are incredibly large, and there are even locations of all the furniture on the map. It's like very minimalistic. There would be a small seating arrangement in the center of the room and that's it. There was even a sauna on the map.

Then, I'm in bed with my first girlfriend and she's still asleep mumbling something about Argentina. I wake her up and she says that we can go to all the countries, even if it takes a whole month. I have no idea what this means, but I'm very excited.

Then, I'm on a raft on a river that's crystal clear. The river is running through a neighborhood. I can float through people's backyards, which are all grassy and have kids playing, and all of them have pools. It's clearly summer and the kids are all out of school. I don't remember much else because the alarm woke me up.

I don't remember much, but I needed to write this down. I think I'm in an old folks home. Everyone around me is older, like grey hair and wrinkles and what not. Except it's like a school cafeteria with all these tables lined up and people sitting at them. I remember my friend Kim is there (she just had to put her dog to sleep yesterday) and everyone is giving her pairs of jeans. There are like 30 pairs of jeans scattered on the end of one of the tables. They are all waist size 32, but the lengths are all different. I picked up one of the pairs and told Kim "I don't think anyone knows how tall you are!"

Then, I guess I was a resident there, but now I'm getting kicked out. There is a box of my stuff, a couple of baseball hats and visors, and a ton of jewelry. I told the guy that gave me my box, "Oh you couldn't let me pack up my own things, you just decided to do it for me?!" I was angry. So I was transferring my things from one box to a different one (to organize?) and a couple of ladies come up to me and start going through the jewelry and taking it! I had to fight them to get it back, not like punching them, but I had to grab like a pearl earring out of some lady's hand and she was all "No, that's MY earring!" And I was like, "NO, that used to be my grandmother's!!!" And I was so livid that someone wanted to take my grandmother's things from me!

Then I think I'm still in the cafeteria, but I'm looking in a chest of drawers. I opened one of the drawers and now I can see inside the chest of drawers. Inside there are places where someone had fastened into the frame yarn or that floss stuff that you use to make friendship bracelets, and strung it through holes in the side. (This reminds me of when my sister was young and she taught my how to make friendship bracelets by using a clipboard to hold the end of the bracelet as you start knotting it.)

Now I don't know where I am, the background is a little blurry, but my sister is there and so is my grandmother (my mom's mom). There's a song on the radio and I don't have any idea what it is, never heard it before, probably some song that doesn't exist anywhere outside of my head, and my grandmother is singing along to it. My grandmother had passed away a long time ago, and the only time I ever heard her even hum was when we were staying at her house in Chicago and she had the radio in the kitchen on in the mornings. I don't think she ever sang. So when I work up, I was practically crying. I don't know what made me so emotional. Maybe I wish we were closer? I was too young to appreciate her company before she got dementia. My sister got all the benefit of really knowing her. Maybe that's how life is funny... I wind up with a really nice job and married, with no obvious mental issues, and my sister is a mental case who can't keep a job, on disability, and not married with no kids... but she got to be really close to my grandma, something that I wish I had.

I was in a house (my house?) and it's in bad need of repair. I can't remember any furniture on the main floor. I was sweeping up some debris on the floor and then I thought to myself, why is my floor concrete and not hardwood? There are cracks in the concrete and a big hole of rubble. I felt like something wasn't right. Then I wound up in the kitchen where the cabinets were all white. I had a can of paint on the floor, so I grabbed a brush and started painting the faces of the cabinets under the sink. It was the faintest green with a gold sheen (omg like the new pen that Megan at work got me!) and you could only really tell they were painted if you looked at them in a certain direction. I leave the kitchen and come back and my parents are there. I look around and all the cabinets are all brown wood now. I said "so what, I just go to sleep and wake up and now all the cabinets are different?!" (I think that my alarm had gone off and I snoozed it, so technically I woke up, then went back to sleep and then the cabinets were all different haha) All the cabinets were different except the ones I painted. My dad looked at them and I can't tell if he liked them or not.

Then I went upstairs and there was a little boy in a bedroom, and I told him he was lucky that his bedroom is so big. I looked in his closet and it looked like a clothing store with tons of shirts folded up all nice and neat, but multiples of the same one. I told him I wanted to try on some of his polos and he said no. Something else happened that I don't remember.

The strangest. weirdest. dream I've ever had probably.

I remember fragments, and I have to write this down quick because I have to get ready for work, and let's be honest, I probably won't get back to it today.

It's like I won a strange lottery or something... but not until the middle.

First thing I remember is being with a group of people at night in a neighborhood and going into someone's house that I don't know. I don't think it was my neighborhood, and at first I didn't think the owners of the house were at home. It's dark out and inside the house as well. It's a pretty nice house (this is probably because my cousin gave me pictures yesterday of the new house he bought). Then I'm alone and I'm upstairs and I see that the occupants are home. It's an overweight man and his not overweight wife. maybe in their late thirties, early forties. I feel like I have to get out of there before they see me. so I head to the door and meet up with the people who I broke into the house with and we just walk out the front door. there was an elderly lady, though, that we saw before leaving, and she didn't make it seem like we were in any trouble for being there.

Then we're in a van (maybe because we were talking about vans and the Buick Enclave I want while we were at Busch Gardens yesterday) and driving around a "neighborhood" and I use that term loosely because it was more like a backlot tour at a movie set, but it was kind of creepy. it had the feel like we were in a video game, but I didn't know the objective. I can't remember anything more than feeling that it was weird. it's like we were on a tour. it was still dark, but then it's like we were going through different terrains (I've been playing Terraria) and it was turning into a snowy area, the I feel like there was fire, and maybe muddy at some points.

then I remember walking into like maybe a casino or a gigantic arcade. I was in line with people and when it was my turn I asked for this device that you wear around your neck and it clamps down on it on either side and it has speakers in it and it vibrates like a video game controller, but you feel it all throughout your body. When it activated, I could hear someone say something through the speaker and it was like it was in my head, not a peripheral sound from inside the arcade. (I had a little while ago, maybe a month ago, been playing Fallout using headphones.) I enter the arcade and see all these games, tons of them, in rows like at a casino. Then I run into Poussey from Orange is the New Black and she's so excited and she grabs me by the shoulders and says, "it's like we won the lottery!" I can't find any games I want to play, though.

Then I see this lady sitting on the ground or in a beach chair talking to a group of people about selling... cars... electronics... something, and I start talking about how I would sell the shit out of whatever it was we were talking about. I was pretty excited about it, and it seemed like she was, too, like she wanted to hire me.

Then somehow I don't have my shirt on and I walked up to someone that worked at wherever I was at and told them, and she said, oh it's no big deal, show off that six pack! (I do not have a six pack... but I *am* losing some weight!) so I straighten myself up and stand tall and walk around like it's NBD.

Then I'm outside and I'm walking around in the snow and I can see my footprints. At this point I become lucid for a brief moment and think that I can go do whatever I want now because I realize I'm dreaming. but something startles me and I lose it. I haven't been lucid for a very long time. Maybe stressed out at work, I dunno. Then I see my wife go walk off into the bushes with another woman and I feel really upset, like, that's my wife! what are you doing?

then I'm in a group of people and we're walking through what feels like a haunted house, except it's outside and there a guy and a few girls with me. I feel like it's a game and people are watching us (like Cabin in the Woods). Then we get to a swimming pool/lazy river and we all get in. we float over to a section where there's a man asking what we want most. one of the girls says she wants a spoon with caramelized sugar on it and I say I want a "marijuana cigarette" which must have been a big no-no to ask for and the girl and the guy asking the question's eyes got really big ans so I said "haha, I got you, just kidding, I want to do stand-up comedy!" and so then I'm on a big stage and the curtain opens and the song "I don't wanna lose your love tonight" comes on, but I sing the words "I got my first real six string... bought it at the five and dime... I don't know the rest of the words... I just wanna shake my ass for you!!" and then I'm on these gymnastics parallel bars and I do some really sweet routine.

then my alarm went off.

damn. what a night. I need to take a shower.

of course I don't remember how it all started... I remember running through Richmond for exercise, and I'm following a girl who's ahead of me. I'm yelling to her to stop at someplace to eat. We end up at a place that's selling breakfast food. I remember it was pretty dark out; it felt like it was around midnight. We go in to order food, and I get a breakfast bagel, and she gets a bagel as well. They put butter on her bagel and she's unhappy about this, so she leaves. Meanwhile, my bagel is in a toaster along with several other bagels. I go get myself a fountain drink. I come back to the counter and all the bagels are out of the machine, but there is scrambled egg stuck in the toaster now. I can't concern myself with that, so I pay for my food and leave. I walk outside to find the girl. She was sitting (laying?) on the sidewalk and there are no other people around. We're having a conversation about something, and then she looks deeply into my eyes, and everything became clear like when I get lucid. But that didn't last for but a split second. Her eyes were such a gorgeous grey/blue/green. They were amazing. She tells me her (last?) name is "Moss." I look down and I think it might be a menu, or a flyer or something, but I see that it says Sausage - the Polish. I wonder if that's somehow related to this girl. I don't even know how we met each other. Then a ton of ladies with baby carriages come by like they're in a parade and a bunch of them are sorority sisters. Some of them are pushing each other in these carriages. None of them seem to notice Moss and I.

Alarm goes off. I fall back asleep.

I'm in a house with another girl and her mom is there in the kitchen. Everything seems normal. The mom asks me if we're ready to go swimming. I lift my shirt up and show her my bikini top. "It's a good thing I wore this!" The girl goes to get ready and I go downstairs into the trophy room? There is a giant display case with all of this girl's awards form all sorts of sports including "Circus." Her name is everywhere "Molly Beech." I guess she's ready to go swimming now, so we head out the door to go to the car. I get in the back seat and she gets into the front passenger side. Then the car starts moving. I guess she's driving? Her brother parks his car and I think he was trying to get in the driver's seat of our car, but the alarm went off, so I"ll never know.

I think I was at a parade. I was standing on the sidewalk waiting for something to happen and there are a bunch of people lining the streets. I don't know what city I'm in. It's raining, not heavy, not drizzling, but steady. I look in the street and there is a median of sidewalk running down the middle. Now I see it... babies in baskets and like apple-picking bushels are floating down the median in a stream of water. These babies... they're SO HAPPY. They're all smiling and clapping and just having a great time. They're all naked from what I can tell. I woke up like, WTF? That was hilarious. I felt like I watched the funniest thing ever.