All DJ Entries

(Note: for this post and future posts, I will only be posting lucid dreams here. (Too time consuming otherwise)

NON-LUCID LUCID

Identification: (No. 8) I can't drive
Time Recorded: 7:30, Date not recorded (presumably 09-2010)
Genre: Disaster
Character(s): Mariella R.
Method(s): WBTB used before dream at 5:50. MILD Visualisation
Lucid: Yes (DILD)

I am sick and spending most of the day in bed. I am watching T.V in bed, Grandma comes in with a computer. On the screen is one of my old illustrations scans of a nautiloid mollusk. She tells me that she thinks my illustration is ''very good''.
Later I decide I am going to drive to the hospital. I am in the back-seat of the car and the car is driving itself using the G.P.S for direction. After a while I notice the car started to be following a car infront of me, so I work out that that car must be going to the hospitol also. I climb into the front seat and take control of the steering wheel, I think it would be good practice for driving for when I get my driving licence. I keep following the car infront of me until we arrive at a gate that was partially opened. The car infront of me is slightly smaller and is able to scrape through, I realize my car is too big, so I am about to open the door so I can get out of the car and open the gate wider. The car rolls forwards and smashed the gate down. I quickly drive away and look behind me in the car. There is a policeman who is yelling ''we need to close down the road''.
At this moment I realise that I cannot drive, and therefore I must be dreaming!

Self Esteem

We were skating around some strange place with my friends. There has been a giant recent loss in self esteem for some reason in the whole world. Me and the guys decide to hang out in someone's house which I remember as being pretty well furnished. Since I was the most confident in the group, I had to go get the snacks. Everything is kinda dirty on the way out, I arrive at this guys store. He's a fat middle euro guy behind a glass kind of shield. Asks me what I want and the first thing that I ask for doesn't need to be paid for so then he spends a long time complaining about how I never pay for anything but then I remember that I have to get snacks so I get a shit ton of candy bars and two giant bags of mini resee's and then I poke fun at him "I never buy anything?" we joke and laugh and on the tv a news story comes on about the crisis in the world's loss of self esteem. I found it upon myself that I had to be a hero for the world and have more self esteem than everyone else and somehow save the day.

Rock Fights and Boarding

Was with my mom outside what kinda reminded me of a place near my house. she gets really mad at me so I have to follow her to figure it out. I get on my knees slowly and try to explain my recent anger. She silently brings me on this double decker coach bus which was the local transit in the dream the bus drive is mad at us fr talking forever but the new money system was hard to figure out. the door finally goes through and we go to the mall which is much more grandiose and modern looking than it already is. She walks me to rainforest cafe, all the time I was asking, with no reply what she as doing. So I guess we're gonna have a talk here. Some reason I leave, find the car and drive it back to another neighborhood. I go back to my house, which now i so a really steep hill. There is a strange knife fighting asian guy who wants to kill me. We fight for a while, swing our knives at each other, dealing out heavy blows. I have a "hunting rock" which I know with three good blows to the head will kill hi. Instead I keep aiming for his ribs...i don't want to kill him. I've hit him twice on the head and multiple times in the ribs. I hit him again in the ribs and can hear his ribs crack. He chokes up blood and goes limp. I back up a little and he jumps out. He was only pretending. He comes at me and something in my mind changes the dream is flickering and I was half waking up. I realized that I was dreaming and became lucid. Something about this lucidity was really weird though. The dream was still flickering and fading and I was still slightly waking up but I didn't try to stabilize the dream. He hit me over the head with something and I acknowledged the pain and then ignored it. I give him one more great hit in the ribs. he's done. I think his father was around to pick him up and go. I forget it's a dream...I get out of the house and the down hill looks really good as a long-boading thing. The hill is really traffic-y and cars are going down really fast in waves toward this tol booth thing. I see that my longboard is down there leaning on a tree, when I get back there I realize tha I left something up at the house, I start walking back tot he house but decide I don't need it, look back and my longboard is gone. I freak out for a long time but then my mom drives by and gives me a backpack with my longboard. its some move of reconciliation from an earlier fight. I go down the hill boarding

Herpes

. I'm with this one black girl that I've met, kinda chunky but I'm still diggin her. We back into an alley way get out of the car and into this door. We were in there for a long time and through a window I can see my car. While we're talking I see that a bunch of cars are trying to pass mine but they just stop. They're trying to pass it on both sides but my car is blocking them. I forget it and start making out with the girl in her room (which is a replica of my room). We really start going at it and were both shirtless and kissing all over. Before I take off her underwear I ask if she has herpes and she barely answers and I assume she does and I ask if she's having an outbreak, she says yes pulls down her pants and shows me it. I say I can't do it and go to get dressed. She's noticeably frustrated and angry as I walk around the room and pick up my clothes and put them on. She pulls up her pants while lying on the bed being all pissy. It was weird because there was one second where I looked at her and she was 10 times hotter than before, then it was back to normal. She wasn't ugly, just average. I go outside of the room and see that my car windows have been smashed and the whole car was stripped and pushed to the side so that people could get through. The car weakly starts on the second try but can't stay in park and the emergency break barely works. As I get back out of the car and then back into the house, I can hear her frustrated screams from inside "I get half way 3 times a week but I can't get fucked!!?" I cautiously go back inside telling her about my car and she's mad at me and tells me she can't deal with it now. I accidentally go into another room (which would've been my mom's room) but it was where her dad was sleeping. Also, I could hear one of her parents with the tv on the whole time before this but that was no big deal. The dad, with messy covers drawn over him in the dim room looks at me and says "oh its you, the [something wispy like smoke I think]" I say I am not one of those and try to head back to my car, I want to turn back and say that I lived here before they did but I don't...

Wednesday Jan.11/2012

Woke up at 4:31 am and remember getting images and going into LD, but don’t remember, if there was an LD.

DR: I’m on a top floor of college dormitory/hotel. I need to remodel some thing in the rooms, to get them ready. I feel like student’s are coming the next day.

I’m repairing small picture frames by putting painters tape on frames and painting. I go from room to room. When I’m done, I go to check, but they are not good. When I pull the tape off, some tape is stuck. I go to rooms to collect them and redo by next morning. Kids and teachers are already there.

1 teacher S is already in the last room on top floor. She is heating up something on a small electric heater for her daughter. I see sparks flying. It smokes and sets of the fire alarm. I can hear it’s beeps. People start moving downstairs, I know, I can’t use the elevator. I come upon the infirmary with patients in blue sitting on benches alongside the walls, waiting to be evacuated. There is a girl with two crutches. I ask her if she needs help getting down, but she says no. I ask the nurse if I can help anybody get downstairs, she also says no.

Thursday Jan.12/2012
DR at 4:25
I have a nosebleed, someone is helping me.
We have returned from a trip, I’m going to lay down.

Friday Jan.13/2012
B-complex 100 at 2:50pm
DR 3:24am I sit on a ski lift alone
going down to the gold mine

7:18am
Our class is on a trip. We are in a small airplane. The entertainment on the plane were magic tricks by a magician. We are told it is expensive. We made a stop. People are getting off, I’m looking for my camera. I unload my backpack, everybody is leaving stuff on a plane, we just going to get some souvenirs and continue on a trip. Someone tells me he is going to get me same big gift as he is getting for someone else already, because I saved his life. Prior to this we flew very low under some electrical cables and I was worried we are gonna hit them. Then this person stands up and reaches up to see if we are too close. We were not, but he got electrocuted. As he is laying on the floor I check his pulse and breathing. He comes to and he thanks me.

Then we are in mountains. Not much green, more dusty and dry looking. We are crossing a natural bridge. On the other side is a castle. Inside we are finding treasures - I find couple of tiaras in shelves, bunch of jewelry, rings and such. There are also photographs from my previous trips with class. I want to borrow them to make copies. I ask husband of the teacher (they live here) if I can borrow the yellow envelope full of pictures, that I will return it to the teacher when she goes to work, school is just two streets from my house.

WBTB 7:18am-8:10am GM 4mg+Choline300mg at 8am
woke up f/WILD at 11:35am

HH- I’m looking at a moving landscape underneath me. Sunny fields. I Imagine seeing myself on the ground. The view is coming closer and I see something flying in the skies. When it lands, I realize its me. As my view is coming closer to the ground, I wish and I merge with myself on the ground. My view changes and I’m in the dream standing on the ground in middle of fields.

There are a few houses nearby. Three cars are parked in front. Yellow, maybe red and closest to me is a beautiful, shiny black dodge charger. I have never drove a car in my dream before, so I decide to go for a ride. Then I notice beautiful orange flowers in grass in the lawn right next to the car. I squat down to take a closer look. These are my favorite orange flowers, that are so common in parks in SoCal. They are so pretty. I see the grass too. Very clear, sharp, I see every blade of green grass. I inhale the air, don’t smell anything though. I look at my hands. They look completely normal, only 6 fingers per hand.

I get up, open the car door and get in. Its beautiful inside. Black leather, black steering wheel, gages and dials accented with red, windows are small and sleek and tinted. I realize I don’t have the key but I know I just need to put my hand to key hole and I will have the key. So I do that, turn the key and car start up. I step on gas and off we go. The road in front of me is turning left in front of some houses. I come to the corner and wake up.

Saturday, Jan. 14/2012
I have two roommates. One is M, we are in US. We want to go to the beach, but she says she cant, she is ill, had some tests done.
Then we are in front of my home in NZ and I’m telling her about possibility of healing in LDs and I explain to her all types of LDs.

Sunday, Jan.15/2012
We just got back home from somewhere. I’m in NZ. Before going upstairs to the apartment, I check the mail. There is a ton of mail. I look for ours and find a ton of magazines, envelopes. It’s exciting.

WBTB 5:37am-6:20am
DILD around 10am

I woke up in this house. For some reason I go to the roof. I see the roofs of other houses, it’s a residential area with moderns SoCal. houses in terracotta colors. I say to myself, if this was a dream, I could fly. So I levitate up and I realize I’m dreaming. I’m dressed in underpants and undershirt. I look around and there is a car approaching. Behind it is a cop car. I decide to better get of the roof, I’m sure the cop had seen me and comes after me thinking I’m breaking in. I loose lucidity around here. I’m back inside of the house. There is more people here now. I wake up.

29th of April, 2011

On a road trip with Nooks somewhere in the US.
Stopped and got out into a curious little plaza* adjacent to a road. It was a wonderful, sunny day.
We went for a stroll around the neighbourhood and noticed that all the houses were really odd. All totally unique and situated among each other unlike anything I’ve ever encountered in the dream or waking life. Some had ramparts, others were really thin and windy, lots were colourful. It was kind of Suess-ish in a more ‘normal’ way. I mentioned that it would be a really awesome place to go trick-or-treating.
Anyway, we found ourselves walking in a roughly hewn underground tunnel with dingy electric lights hanging from the roof. At some point during our walk I realised it was a dream and we exited the tunnel into a lovely green, bright forest. We went jumping around. Nooks was sitting in the grass playing an instrument– guitar or violin. I lay down in the grass and tried to shrink myself just for fun. It kind of worked but was a bit of a struggle so instead I climbed a tree to see the cool houses again but woke up.

Lay still in bed trying to get back to sleep.

Found myself climbing (literally, up the cabinets and stuff) in a kitchen and was still lucid. I ran down the hallway at speed and vaulted without a second thought over the balcony, falling at speed and crushing my car all awesome superhero style. I jogged down the street and decided to see my special door** again.
As I approached it, I woke up.


*Why am I always dreaming of plazas?
**See the DJ Entry "The First Recorded Lucid"

Goals: Went to sleep wanting to have some continuity with the demon slaying dream I had, or see Kaomea. I spent most of yesterday thinking about my dreaming life more than my waking.

I remember being at some area and seeing BJ...it was the first time in forever. I don't think I've seen the guy since elementary, but we caught up briefly, and he was asking about what I was doing now a days and whens the last time I've seen x, y, and z. Then he asked me when was he going to get seen in the back.

I told him if we skipped him our doctor would probably get fired, and our rules is to bump anyone with an emergency up before the non-emergent people....ugh...freaking ER dreams.


I'm with D and we're at some warehouse...I remember walking barefoot all around this place. The area had water all over the ground and I was trying to avoid it. I don't know why I didn't have any shoes on, but there was a splattered rat on the ground that I wasn't sure if I stepped on or not. It also had tape worms in it.....ugh.


Now we're at some store, and we need two huge bags of pineapples and one case of them. I have no idea what for. We take them, and I end up talking to some kids in the gaming section. There's this one game that's compatible with a remote control race care. And someone tells me there's a tournament that's going to be held there. I told them I might make it, and left. D was contemplating filling up his car with reserve fuel he had strapped underneath his car. I told him to go ahead, because the stuff that's out now at the moment is higher. The other D didn't want him to do it.

I'm in a field...then I'm traveling around my block. I see some shrubs with onions growing on it. The people who live there have long moved out, but I tell myself not to grab them at the last second.

I'm at my house with D and J...we're talking about ownership of a pool table. I tell them a false memory that this one girl who I dated left it there for me...so it was technically mine. We started playing this fighting game. One character had something about "rainbows" on her shirt, and she was supposed to be a grappler with easier moves. I know she had a suplex, and some move where she removed the entrails out of the character. But everything was looking real cartoony.

Had a frag where I was about to cook but I realized I had been eating chicken and mixed vegetables for three days in a row. Nathan made an appearance and borrowed a 5 for the snack machine.


I'm in the desert and I'm trying to park my car. For some reason I do it with a remote from someone else's car. The controlls get jacked up and the car goes flying down the interstate. Micheal Strahan is there and he's telling me some hind sight crap about how I shouldnt have done it.

I also remember seeing Acatalephoc...I just don't remember why.

And watching a SNL skit that involved lots of sex and coke.

tue January 3rd 2012

After a false awakening I opened my eyes and realised I must be dreaming. Attempted to stabilize the dream.

1. Standing in the left corner of our front yard I try to touch things. I touch the house, then touch the cherry tree.
(it's chopped down now, but I didn't realise that in the dream. Maybe I lost lucidity at this point already)
The tree started to grow and as if I was glued to it, it dragged me up into the sky.

There was a fraction of a second dream, not sure if it was earlier or later at night.
2. I'm with my dad in a mini van when we stop to pick up another man wearing a suit. There are no more seats in the car, my dad gives him a small inflatable cushion to sit on. The man tries to sit on it in the back of the van, I can see he's uncomfortable with his knees up to his face. I offer him my seat and we switch. Then while we're driving I'm laying near the rear door of the car, which is made completely out of tanned glass. I wonder what would happen if the glass would break and I would fall onto the road.

Couple nights ago I had some dreams too, but not worthwhile sharing due to somewhat explicit content

Last night didn't produce anything special dreamwise again. I remembered some fragments, but not enough to merit a proper entry here. So instead we are going to delve into another "classic".

Jakro "Classics" II: Weird Mansion and It's Angry Owner
Date: January 9th, 2009
Lucid: No

I was keeping a fire in the fireplace, but for some reason I somehow removed the burning contents of the fireplace and took them with me outside, next to the shed where we keep our firewood. It was winter and I took the fading fire and placed it onto the snow. Like I said I have no idea how I transported the fire from within the fireplace to outside, nor I know why I did it. The fire wasn't burning very brightly, so I poked the wood a bit to make more space for it to take air - it worked as some old wooden door that was beneath the fire burst into flames like I'd poured gas in it.

This was the time when I realized that it probably isn't the smartest thing to burn wood next to the shed. If it would have caught fire, that would have been catastrophic. The fire did indeed spread to the wood that was inside the shed. I panicked a bit but managed to put down the fire. The fire was out, but I was still nervous in case there was some smoldering.

I switched back inside the house all the sudden. There was my brother and some random buddies of him. I felt like I knew them, even though afterwards I had no idea who they were. My brother gave me his phone, so that I could call our sister to watch the shed in case there's still something smoldering.

For some reason I called my brother's number, which is odd considering I was using his phone! Funny enough, some unknown dude actually answered the phone. There is no mention of the contents of the call, so I take it I didn't move forward much in that discussion. I forgot about the shed as there was a bigger problem.

The group - me, brother and the other guys - weren't in our house at all. It was some kind of strange mansion, and we were lost there. We didn't know how we had ended up there, but we wanted to get away. We were in some kind of dining hall. There were stairs up, but they were collapsed on the upper end. The upper level wasn't that high anyway. On that upper level there were stairs even further upwards. Couple of the other guys planned to get to that upper level by climbing the stairs to as high as they go and then jumping to the upper platform. It was feasible, as the platform was just about within jumping range.

I took the lead and was first to try the jump. I managed to grab onto the edge edge of the platform with my arms, but then the platform collapsed under my weight. The fall wasn't long and I didn't hurt myself, but the other guys were a bit pissed about the fact that there was no way upwards anymore.

In fact, the others succumbed into despair. They talked pure crazy-talk that we are going to starve there as we were stuck. WTF? We were in a mansion, and in a dining hall no less. You'd think there were some food nearby, even more importantly, you'd think someone actually lives there! I wasn't really concerned about starving to death.

I rallied the rest of the bunch and we started to search for a alternative routes away from there. In some room to the side of dining hall we met a little girl. I asked whether there was any other way out except that broken stairway. The girl then asked us to come with her. She took us to a balcony that was high on the house's side, but it had a stairway going down! We had managed to get out.

Not so fast. We were just about to go to the balcony when we bumped into the owner of the mansion. Instantly I was afraid of him - he just seemed to emit this vibe of pure hateful energy. Like he was about to snap at any moment. The worse thing was that he was actually carrying a rifle when he came to us. It was some old-fashioned rifle that was probably at least a couple hundred years old. I remember the gun in vivid detail - it was beautifully decorated throughout, both it's metal and wooden parts. It must have been expensive.

I don't remember exactly what the guy said, but his message was basically this: "I'm glad you are coming out, otherwise I would have had to kill you." Jesus Christ. This guy is a madman, but I figured that out at first sighting.

We were leaving. Somehow I knew that my dad was on his way to come to pick me up from there. I tried to spark up some conversation with the guy in the meantime, just to keep his occupied so that he doesn't get any ideas about torturing and murdering us. He seemed like a that kind of guy. I was about to compliment him about his nice gun, but I never get to that, as he pulled out a dull and bent butterknife.

Yeah. This was the kind of guy that was even more scary when wielding a dull and bent butterknife. He could fuck me up with that. I had no doubts in my mind of that. I tried to defuse the situation by saying assertively "Do not point that butterknife at me!", but instead that actually blew out the situation. Wrong move.

The guy went absolutely nuts. He started shouting that I won't tell him what he can or can't do. I was terrified. "This is it, my life's going to end. Fucked up with a butterknife by some madman."

Finally he snapped fully and started coming towards me. I tried to survive by starting to run away. I ran the stairs down with the guy chasing me down.

Lucky for me, just as I was on the ground level, my dad's car emerged from the road. He stopped his car some way from me and I ran to get on board. I was barely in when I screamed at my dad to step on it. I guess he saw the guy that was coming after me as he quickly obliged.

But I couldn't get the door closed as the lunatic managed to just cut in. Car was already moving and he had to run along to keep up. The madman and I struggled a bit at the door before we finally managed to shrug him off.

Some way away my it was my dad's turn to snap. I was explaining what happened and my dad got so angry, that he made an U-turn and started accelerating back towards the madman's mansion. I presumed that he was going to try to run over the madman. Wow, I didn't know my dad could get so upset over something that he would cold-bloodedly try to kill someone - even if the madman totally deserves it.

Anyway, I was still scared to death. I managed to convince my dad to turn back away as I told him, that the lunatic had a rifle. It was lucky that my dad listened to me.

We drove away from the mansion and had succeeded to escape. My brother and the rest of the crew were forgotten by now, like they never even existed. I guess the managed themselves. Nonetheless this was an uncharacteristically happy ending for a nightmare.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

My female friend H and I were in a mall at night. We were in one of the department stores. I think we wanted to head out of the mall.

We knew the exit we were at didn't lead to the section of the parking lot where our car was. But we didn't know what exit of the mall would lead us to our car.

But for some reason we were heading for the exit at the end of this department store, anyway. We walked out a double set of sliding glass doors.

As we passed between the two doors, a policeman, not a security guard, passed in front of us. He was a couple inches taller than I, kind of muscly, black, with lightish skin, and very short hair. He seemed to be trying to bully us or hustle us a little as he passed us.

The cop passed through the second set of doors, and we followed. After the cop got a couple meters away from the exit he turned around and did something like a sly, little look at us -- at me in particular, like he thought I was some sort of troublemaker.

I thought, Oh, god, I'm getting singled out all over again. The cop walked away. But I felt like I was going to get targeted for more harrassment.

I knew H and I had walked out the wrong exit of the mall. I knew the easiest thing to do would be to go back into the mall, straight through the mall, and to the correct exit.

But I felt like if the cop already had me singled out as a troublemaker, he'd probably either head back into the mall and harrass me or contact his cop friends and have them harrass me, if he saw me head back into the mall. So I figured the smartest thing to do would just be to walk all the way around the outside of the mall until H and I found our car.

Dream #2

I was sitting at a table in a food court area that kind of looked like the dining section at the student union of my old university. But this food court was either part of a mall or an airport -- or both.

There was one big area of seats, then a wide walkway, then another big area of seats. Both seating areas and the walkway were busy with people, all rushing all over the place.

I sat at a table full of people, mostly adults in their forties or fifties. But, off to my left, I saw somebody, maybe one of my old psychiatrists, sitting at another table.

I didn't want her to get up and hurry away before I got to talk to her. So I ran to her table. But when I got to the table, she was gone. But I felt like she was probably going to return. It was now like we were scheduled to meet. So I figured I'd sit here and wait for her -- so this time I wouldn't miss her.

But I realized I'd left my backpack (a huge, tall backpack!) at the previous table. So I got up and ran over to pick that up.

For some reason, I was now kind of wandering around in the seating area. I seemed to be upset with my most recent psychiatrist. I had feelings about her that were the same as IWL -- I felt like she neglected my deeper psychological issues all the time, always looking for a quick fix and easy way out -- to save herself the trouble of work.

For some reason, I felt like I finally needed to just complain to somebody about her. For a moment I may have complained to the psychiatrist I'd seen sitting at the table -- somehow. But that psychiatrist was now gone.

But now I saw my most recent psychiatrist's "boss," sitting in an armchair in a section of hallway after the seating area across the walkway from me. I went up to this woman and either sat in an armchair right next to hers, or knelt beside the woman's armchair.

The woman looked like Susan Seaforth, who played Julie Horton on Days of Our Lives, from around the time period of the late 1970s.



I either told the woman that I wanted to complain about my psychiatrist, or I just began complaining to her about my psychiatrist.

The woman listened to me for a moment. She then said that she understood what I was talking about. But she had to go take care of some business. When she got finished, she'd come back to me. I could tell her the rest of my story. And she could figure out what to do in response.

But I think this woman's "business" was to catch a flight. I'm pretty sure she even had luggage with her. It didn't register with me then -- but -- how long was I supposed to wait?

Dream #3

It was daytime. I was out on a wide, shallow, stone staircase with a lot of people. We all stood up near the top, near a whole wall of glass doors that looked in on a comparatively dark lobby. It was like we were all assembled out here for a photo.

I was playing some kind of important part in whatever proceedings we were all a part of. But there were these two really hot, young women right next to me. One of them, even though she was a really hot, young woman, may have been one of my friends' mothers.

The two hot girls began kissing each other. First they were just giving each other mild, quick, closed-mouth kisses. But then, either because I wasn't reacting much or because I actually was paying attention to them, they began to give each other slower kisses.

I was pretty aroused by this. The two girls kind of fed on my arousal and began giving each other open-mouthed kisses. They even kind of sunk down a bit, almost kneeling on the ground with each other. They may have been wearing wedding dresses, as if they were going to marry each other.

Now the young women opened their mouths slightly and began slowly sliding their tongues back and forth into each others' mouths. This was too much for me to handle.

The girls stood back up and were almost right in my face. So, even though I didn't want to start kissing my friend's mom, I just crept my face a bit closer. I began working my tongue in there a bit.

I was trying to get my tongue in there in the least intrusive way that I could. I was really turned on by the girls' lesbian kissing. I didn't want it to turn into straight kissing. I just wanted to get a little bit of the lesbian erotic energy on my own tongue.

Old LD from 10-21-07


Dream:

I remember I saw my older sister that has cancer. I went up to her and said, "S, how are you doing? How are your legs doing?" [In real life her legs hurt so bad that she's now on crutches or in a wheel chair.]

She talked to me for a few minutes about what the doctors had been telling her. She had all her hair, unlike in real life.

The next thing I remember is that we are now in this park with the rest of the family having a picnic. I remember flying up to these powerlines and then back down.

Doing this made me suddenly lucid. I went up to my sister and said something like, "Oh my gosh, S, I'm lucid! I'm going to take you flying with me."

I took her arm and lifted her into the air with me. I said, "Let's fly to the mountains over there."

She said, "I'm not sure I can make it that far."

I said, "I think you can-- you're with me. But I'll stop when you need to."

We flew out of the park and over the Safeway parking lot and over the stores.

I noticed that music was playing really loud and was distracting me from the experience. I believe the band was INXS. For some reason I was sure that this music was playing in real life. I thought to myself that I needed to try to turn off the music with my real body while still remaining in the dream.

I could feel what I thought was my real body reaching out and turning the knob on my car CD player. [Goodness know what I thought I was doing having my real body asleep in a car] I got the music turned down most of the way, to the point it didn't bother me as much.

We flew a little ways further and then the dream faded.

I thought I had awakened in this motel room where my family was suppose dto be staying. I was disappointed for not being able to fly to the mountains. So I concentrated on getting back into my dream.

Suddenly I was standiing in the Safeway parking lot next to my High school best friend M and her boyfriend.

I told them that I was dreaming and going to fly to the mountains that we in front of us. I invited them to fly with me. But I think only the boyfriend followed.

When I got to the mountains, I was alone. I flew to the rocky ledge and touched the rock face. The rock was a brown color and very rough.

I suddenly thought about the Tasks. At first I thought that being in the mountains made it impossible to do the Tasks. Then I thought, "Well I could just make a mirror appear right here."

But then I thought, "Nah..I've tried that one twice now. I want to do the Haunted House one again since I only did that one once."

I flew along the mountain side looking for an old house. I then saw ahead of me a place where the mountain went in. I knew it was a cave. I suddenly thought, "Wouldn't it be so cool if the haunted house was in the cave?"

I got close and I indeed saw that it was a cave. I also saw that the front of the cave was built in. I saw it had shutters (for some reason I felt it had to have shutters to qualify as a haunted house). I flew to the entrance. It was actually built with very nice dark polished wood.

I went inside and started to look around. My first thoughts were that I wanted real ghost in this house not just decorations. The inside of the house seemed small. Around me everything was built out of the same beautiful dark polished wood. On several of the tables and other flat surfaces there were large white candles.

I flew to the back of the house and waited for something else to appear, but at the point the dream started fading again.

I ended up "waking up" in the same motel room. I had been sleeping on the floor. I tried to stay motionless so that I could try to reenter the dream. But then other people inthe room started talking and made me fully "wake up". I went into the motel's bathroom and saw that there was something in the tub that looked like spilled arpicot jam.

At that point I woke up for real, and felt that I needed to write this down.

Date: 2011-12-30 05:02:49

I had a dream about A.G. Well, mainly. At the first part of the dream, I
was inside my house. My mom was talking about Chuck Norris or something. She
ordered a cardboard cutout of him, because she loved him so much. It was kind of
weird, that standing there in the middle of the kitchen. My mom then started
talking to me about how much she wanted Chuck to visit her house, and she began
looking out the window.
I was at school now. My P.E. class was running, for some reason inside the
school. It was odd though, because a girl who never did much sporting or running
in her life was in front of my sister and I. This girl thinks she's very cool,
copies other's personalities, and is overall annoying. After we were finished
running, she turned around and said, "So, who is going to do Cross Country next
year?" She had that fake innocent look on her face. I told her I was. Then she
said that she may be too. She looked at me and her expression showed like she
was so much better a runner than any of us. The dream ended.

Time: Around 7 A.M.
Fragment:

I barely remember this dream. But it was around sunset time. I walked up onto this wooden plank that was propped up as a ramp. There was a small house at the top of the plank, must have been a tree house. I walk in and see all my friends (mostly guys) surrounded by a car. It was a pretty nice car. It was black.. and that's pretty much all I remember about that. But anyways, some of my friends got into the car and started driving. Others grabbed onto the outside of the car and hung on. I did the same. We drove (or crashed through, either way) out of the tree house and down the ramp.
This is where the dream ended.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

It was daytime. I was out on a street somewhere, probably in Brooklyn. There were a lot of people out on the street. I was apparently really focused in on something I was doing. But some person, maybe an older, kind of fat, white man, was talking to me.

The man told me that there had been some huge thing having to do with guns just down the road. There may have been a small gunfight. But the really big deal about it was that there were a whole lot of people all gathered together, and they all either had or were making a lot of guns.

The street the man was talking about was just down the block and around the left corner. It suddenly occurred to me that I needed to go down that block. The person who had been talking to me told me not to go down that block. But I didn't have a choice. I needed to go.

I was now walking down the block. It was as bright and sunny there as on a summer day. To my left was some kind of tall, chain-link fence, like might be around a school. Beyond that, farther down the sidewalk, were some brownstone row-houses and some narrow, shortish apartment buildings.

But to my right, the street, just down the way from me, was filled with cars. The cars looked like 1970s cars, more like Cadillac style than hot-rod style. They were all parked at odd angles, right in the middle of the street.

There were people sitting and standing among the cars, as well as on the stoops of brownstones on the right side of the street. I think the people were mostly white, kind of overweight, with hair in a kind of buzz cut. They may have worn black t-shirts.

I could see that all these people were either making guns or cleaning up their guns. I knew that whatever they were doing, it was horribly illegal, and that I was probably walking through the middle of a really bad situation.

I just tried to act like I didn't see anything. A few guys on my side of the street were helping out the gun guys somehow. They seemed to be suspicious of me, wondering why I was walking around here. But my nonchalant attitude made them less worried about me.

I had realized -- at some point -- that I was here because I used to live here. I'd moved to a different place a long time ago. But for some reason, some of my mail was still being delivered here. I had to come back here and pick up some of my mis-delivered mail.

I walked up to one of the narrow, short apartment buildings. The door of the building was glass with bars behind it that looked like chrome bars, which just glared in the summer-bright light. This was where I used to live.

There was a circus-peanut orange colored card in the door, somehow, as if the card were sticking out of the bars -- even though the bars were *behind* the glass of the door!

I pulled the card out and looked at it. It was some kind of postal service request card, stating that all mail should be delivered to my new address. The address was the exact address of where I live nowadays IWL, except, perhaps, without the apartment number.

I still needed to get my old mail. So I walked into the apartment. Inside, the place looked like the interior of a nice brownstone row-house. There was a nice first floor hallway area, which, it seemed to me, led to a spacious living area, probably where my old landlady would have lived.

There was a staircase along the right wall. I walked up the staircase. The staircase ended with a doorway that opened into a hallway. Along the right wall of the hallway were rooms. People would rent the rooms and then share the bathroom and kitchen on this floor.

My old room had been the room closest to the doorway at the top of the staircase. The door to the room was wide open. The room was empty. It was like nobody had moved in there since I'd left. I think I was now questioning whether I hadn't left this place only very recently, and not a long time ago, like I'd thought before.

I went into the room. There was a bed that took up most of the room. On the left side there was a weird niche in the wall, like a closet. But the shelf in the closet was low: waist-high, so that it almost looked like it could be used as a writing desk.

The place was all dusty. Some of the dust in the corners and on the surfaces of things was so old and caked up that it was starting to get gummy.

Something about the fact that this place felt so abandoned, so quiet and empty, made me feel like I should move back here. I was starting to feel like I couldn't live in my new place anymore, anyway. So maybe I would see about moving back here.

I walked back down to the front door of the apartment. But as I was leaving, my old landlady was walking up to the front door. I had been hoping that I could get into and out of the house without her ever knowing I was here. I'd felt like if she saw me, she'd harrass me about something.

I opened the door for my landlady. I greeted her. I walked outside. But instead of going out into the neighborhood I'd just been in, I walked into a big front patio of a house, which had been converted into a sun-room. It had grass-green, plasticky-feeling carpeting. Beyond the sun-room, the neighborhood also looked much nicer.

My old landlady looked about the same, except that she was a bit heavier nowadays. She wore a white, long-sleeved shirt. She told me that I still owed her my last week's rent. She'd thought that maybe that was why I was here.

I told my old landlady that I didn't owe her the money. I'd paid her everything when I'd left. I saw an image of my hands with a handful of bills. I was visually counting out everything I'd paid my old landlady before I'd left. I was even starting to think that I'd paid my landlady too much, and that she owed me some money.

But I knew it would be tough enough just to convince my landlady that I didn't owe her any money. I was trying to get my thoughts clear enough so that I could make the right argument. I didn't know if I could do it. It kept feeling like I was losing my train of thought.

As I was trying to pull my arguments together, my old landlady walked back toward the front door of this sun-room patio. My old landlady was talking to me about something, like she was still annoyed with me, but was trying to be friendly.

My old landlady spread out her arms, like she was taking in the sun. I noticed that the sides of my landlady's white, long sleeves had black designs on them.

The designs were very much like the flame-like emblems of the "tribal" genre of tattoos. But they also had a kind of "vintage," Ed Hardy kind of look. For some reason, seeing these tattoo-like designs on my old landlady's shirt made me wonder if my old landlady actually had tattoos.

Good morning, everybody.

Last night I surprised myself by having a minor bit of dream control. I didn't control my dream. But I kind of determined the subject.

Kaomea had posted a few cool songs in her dream journal a few days ago. So I wanted to share one song in particular, too. But I would only do it, I told myself last night, if I had a dream about the song or artist.

The first dream is the result. But I guess -- you can see that it's not very good control at all, though.

Here is the video. It's by the Malaysian rock singer Monoloque.



Dream #1

It was a grey-white, partly cloudy day. I was in a car with some other guy. The guy was driving us through some kind of downtown area of a city. We must have been on the outskirts of the downtown area. It felt pretty quiet and desolate.

There were a lot of warehouses and small factory buildings on either side of the streets. The warehouses either looked closed down or vacated. Their gates were all pulled down. On a lot of the buildings' walls and gates, there were also a lot of posters advertising, I suppose, either rock concerts or movies.

We had driven up a slope, then around a block, then back down another small slope. We were -- or at least I was -- looking down the streets for something. I don't know if we were lost.

The man was talking this whole time about how arrogant the singer Monoloque was. It occurred to me from this that we were looking for the location where we were supposed to pick up Monoloque. We were either going to take him somewhere else, or spend the day with him, like we were collaborating with him on some project.

But the man was really not looking forward to picking up Monoloque. He thought Monoloque was really arrogant.

As an example of this, the man said, "One time Monoloque told me, 'A man hasn't really done anything with his life until he's directed a film.' As if anybody who hasn't directed a film really isn't a man! Well -- this was only right after he'd directed his first film!"

I think I may have seen a tall-spired, stone church in the distance, down the block on the left side of the car. I looked at some of the posters on the wall again. I realized that they were all for Monoloque's film. They were done in a kind of psychedelic, 1960s style, with block printing, big, chunky letters, and a swirly circle of color in the center.

Dream #2

I was in a bedroom. I stood before a dresser. I think I had just pulled something out of it or put something into the top drawer. I was now closing the drawer.

I must have been getting ready to go somewhere, although it turned out that I wasn't going to the place I'd really wanted to go to. My mom was taking me wherever I was now going. And she'd told me she wasn't taking me to the other place.

I looked to my right, to the doorway. The living room, apparently, was right outside this bedroom. There was a couch against the wall opposite from the bedroom door. A young Muslim woman wearing a head covering sat quietly and patiently on the couch. On the wall behind the woman was some beautiful, possibly iridescent, piece of artwork.

I walked out of the bedroom. I was frustrated that my mom wasn't taking me where I wanted to go. But the Muslim girl was so gentle-acting that I tried to mask all my frustration, and just smile gently, as I walked past her.

I was now in some kind of warehouse. The warehouse was huge -- maybe as huge as an airplane hangar. Where I was standing, it seemed like there was a living room set all laid out, with a bunch of stage lights cluttered around it.

My mom stood off to my right, about thirty meters or so away. She seemed really impatient for me to get started with something. She was being really insistent and mean -- almost like my mom had her spirit combined with one of my old shithead co-workers. My mom also seemed a lot skinnier than she is IWL.

I was frightened into doing whatever it was I was supposed to be doing. I turned around. There was something like an entertainment center -- it looked more like a TV and a bunch of other junk all piled up randomly on a cheap desk.

But over that stuff there was a huge tangle of old TV-top antennas. I knew I was supposed to be doing something with these TV-top antennas. But I couldn't reach them from the front of the "entertainment center." I had to go around.

I walked around to the back of the "entertainment center." I walked into the thick of all these old antennas, as if I might have walked into the center of a tall, brambly shrub.

I must have tried to arrange some of the antennas or something. But suddenly some of the antennas started throwing off fountains of sparks! I thought the antennas must all be catching on fire. I was really afraid. But, like an idiot, I think I grabbed a paper cup full of water and actually threw it on the sparking antennas!

Things were really a mess. My mom, madder than ever, called me out to the front area again. The living room, I now saw, also had one setup on either side of it. These setups were like cheap offices: there were a desk, a computer, and a kind of flimsy desktop bookshelf. There may have been a man working at each station.

Things were a big mess. In some weird clutter of technology surrounding the office on my right side, another fire, or some other kind of malfunction, was raging. Whatever I'd done in the antenna-nest had probably started this mess, too.

The person working at that station looked like one of my old co-workers. He seemed to be just about as mad at me as my mom was. My mom may have been standing behind him and on his right side.

I turned around, backwards and clockwise, to face the office station that had been on my left side. The office worker here was just as panicked. He looked like the 1980s actor Andrew McCarthy. He had shoulder-length hair and wore a pale-blue, button-up shirt.

This guy was on the phone with someone. But he was also dealing with some major computer issue he was having. I knew that all this was probably my fault, too.

Finally the guy started slamming his mouse against the desk, as if he were trying to aim it against something. It was like whatever the problem was with his computer, it had turned real and left the computer. The guy was trying to smash it and kill it, or poke it back into the computer, or something. He really seemed to be raging.

Dream:

I was a passanger in a car driving down the freeway. I suddenly saw two little girls (ages about 5 and 4) in the road walking right to where out car would be passing in seconds. They were so close when we passed I couldn't tell if we hit them or not. We pulled over. I looked back and saw a man standing over two little bodies at the side of the road. I ran back. I was horrified.

But when I got to them the little girls were sitting up and appeared to be alright. They had been knocked down, but not directly hit. I suddenly recognized the girls. I said" I know you. I taught you in preschool last year.....or was that two years ago? Remember me?" Neither girl seemed to remember. But then I realized that they were so young. Of course they wouldn't remember something that happened two years ago.

Good morning, everybody.

Happy holidays! The icy Dream Views logo is really fun. And the Santa Claus flying through the moon is cool, too.

Dream #1

It was night. I was either getting into or out of a car with my sister and my brother-in-law. The car was probably my sister's. It was a kind of short car, and it was packed all around by some bigger SUVs.

My sister was drunk, but she was trying to act like she wasn't. She was trying to act nice for my sake.

We now all got out of the car. The parking lot the car was in was in some downtown-like area. There was a really big, ominous-looking, tan-brick building right at the edge of the lot.

We walked out to the road, which felt very old and run-down. This place was like one of those downtowns that shut down completely at night. We were all alone here. The streetlights seemed like in a horror movie -- the light was all grainy, almost sepia-colored.

My sister was now not able to control her drunken appearance at all. She even asked, "Hey, isn't there some place we could pick up some booze?"

I knew there was a store somewhere -- maybe even just across the street and around the corner. I could even see the store, still open, like a chain drug store, its greenish fluorescent lights shining out through a window-wall in a stately, stone building.

But I figured I'd do what I could to keep us from going to that store. I think my brother-in-law felt the same way.

Somehow we decided we needed to go to the bathroom. I knew where there was a free public bathroom. We walked off to our right, toward some park-like area, then along a nice, stone walkway.

The light was just becoming blue with early morning, and there were already tourists out here -- it mostly looked like mothers and daughters.

We went to some area that looked like a fast food restaurant. It had the same color scheme as Dunkin Donuts, but with a lot more brown. And it was shaped like a wide, low public restroom in a park.

I knew that this bathroom had either been sponsored by the restaurant or was the restaurant itself. I probably thought the restaurant was McDonald's or Burger King. I think the restaurant itself was closed, but that the bathroom was always open.

I think we first walked through the restaurant's seating area, which was huge, but completely empty of people. I think we then walked through a concrete-floored, cinder-block-walled hallway that felt like it was a bridge over a road, between two buildings.

The three of us were now in the bathroom, which was a wide, concrete-floored, cinder-block-walled bathroom, like a really nice public bathroom in a park. But it may have had a Dunkin Donuts color scheme.

My sister was still drunk -- kind of wandering around randomly. But I myself was now really distracted. Eventually I decided I needed to use the bathroom. I went to a stall, so I could take a crap.

But I was having trouble closing the stall's door. It wouldn't stay closed. I was also trying to close it by twisting the little doorknob using a huge, wadded up piece of toilet paper. It was like I was afraid to touch anything in the restroom. So I was protecting my hands with toilet paper. But it was really hard to do anything with the amount of toilet paper I had in my hands.

Then, at some point, I felt some kind of erotic feeling. It related to the feeling of taking a crap. I thought I was going to do something really bad and gross in the stall. And it turned me on sexually. But I didn't want to get caught doing it.

Then a mother and daughter came into the restroom. I was kind of annoyed. I knew that if a couple of tourists were coming in, then that meant that a whole bunch of people would soon be coming into the bathroom. Everybody would know I was here, and they'd all start harrassing me. So I might as well leave now.

I might have walked back out of the stall, passed the mother and daughter, found my brother-in-law and sister, and walked back out into the long corridor.

Dream #2

It was a nice, sunny day. I was probably in the backyard of the house where my family lived while I was in high school. But the backyard was now three or four times as big as it was IWL, and it was filled with flowers. It was an incredibly huge, English-style garden! Where our garage had been, there was some big, shady kind of pagoda-like structure made of greyish, dark wood.

There were some little kids running around and playing in the garden. I thought of these kids as something like my friends or siblings. They were all angelically beautiful, like the golden-haired children of storybooks. I feel like they were all involved in some task. But I can't remember what it was.

My attention was caught by the huge, stalk-like plants near me. I couldn't put a name to them. They seem, now, to have looked like hollyhocks or foxgloves. But they weren't those flowers, either -- I'm pretty sure. They had a kind of fuzzy look. And some of them had bud-like centers: tight, green bulbs, inside a collar of thin, peach petals.

I was suddenly laying on my back. Our old dog, a cocker spaniel, was standing over me, vigorously licking, or "kissing," my lips. She was actually licking off a bunch of honey that I had on my lips.

Some voice in the distance (or in my head?), probably a child's voice, asked me either if my dog liked honey, or if my dog liked to kiss me.

Whatever the question was, I answered, "No, she's just getting the honey off my lips. She's really excited to go traveling. She loves to go places in the car. In fact, when she ----- (can't remember) -----, we'll probably get a nice car for her. Then she'll be happy to go!"

I now had an image in my head of a white, horse-drawn carriage, like a nineteenth century carriage. But the carriage was very short, proportioned, it seemed, to fit small children or dogs. And there was no top to the cabin of the carriage. It was flat and open, kind of looking like an ornate, white Radio Flyer wagon.

A man in a suit and top-hat sat in a small front area and drove the carriage. He may also have been holding a white, lace parasol.

I could see that there was a main seating area: a small square. But there was also a smaller, back rectangle, which, I now guess, could normally be used for luggage.

But I guess my dog was now dead, because she was stiff and motionless, and we had laid her in the back area, as if it were some kind of coffin for her, or a space that would have fit a coffin for her.

But I'm pretty sure the carriage wasn't taking my dog to a funeral, but to a wedding. And I may have been a part of the wedding. This was probably whatever I'd been referring to when I'd spoken to the voice. But I'm pretty sure this image didn't have anything to do with what I'd actually said.

Dream #3

I was in some kind of huge place, something like an old, French palace, mixed with a museum, mixed with an old, run-down, slummy apartment. The place was filled with all kinds of clutter -- boxes, junk, all over the place.

There were no lights on, and it was night. The only light coming into the place was extremely dim, orange light from the streetlamps outside.

There were a few other men in the structure with me. They were all in one room. The place was huge, but we were all sitting in just one room, which had a bunk bed and a computer desk in it, but which was so filled with junk that we could hardly fit ourselves into the room.

The men may have been Latino, and they may have spoken very little English. They seemed to be in their late thirties or early forties. They were short, a little overweight, and a little tough-seeming.

The men were being nice or indifferent to me. But I had a feeling that, as time wore on, they'd probably start annoying or harrassing me.

My mom now came into the room. I was happy just to have someone familiar to me in this environment. It kind of diluted the bad emotional sense I was beginning to get from these guys.

My mom looked a bit different. She was skinnier, and she had shorter hair. She sent me off to some other room. She told me that we were both getting up early tomorrow morning to take care of some task. She stressed the importance of getting up on time.

I was excited about the event. And even though it was already late, and that I wouldn't get very much sleep at all if I wanted to get up on time, I was really happy and determined to get up on time.

I lay down in bed and closed my eyes. Almost immediately, I re-opened them. I realized that I had woken up an hour late!

I ran out into the hallway to find my mom. It couldn't be true, could it? Had I overslept for the thing I was so excited for?

My mom was at the other end of the hallway. She said, "Yep, you overslept. But I wasn't going to wake you up."

I could tell my mom was disappointed in me. I felt horrible. But my mom now said something like, "Hurry up. If you just get your shit together and get out the door right now, we can still probably make it on time."

I was back in the room with the Latino men. Some of them were sleeping on the bunk bed. One was still up, sitting at the computer desk. The light was still dark. It was still very early morning, before sunrise.

I crouched before the bunkbed and began arranging something on the cuff of my right shirt sleeve for some reason. It was like I was peeling back my cuff and then twisting it back and forth. It felt like I was trying to put some kind of steel band around my wrist.

But I realized that I was just wasting my time doing this. My mom was probably out in the car, waiting for me. If I didn't hurry up, my mom would either leave me, or else she'd wait for me and we'd both be too late to make it to our task.

I stood up to get my shit together and go downstairs. But I was so unfocused. I really couldn't remember what the hell I needed to do. I didn't really know what I needed in order to get the hell out of here. And the Latino men didn't help. It was just like they were waiting for an excuse to distract me.

I now found myself in a car, an old, clunky station wagon, like the one I drove IWL when I lived out in the desert for a couple of years, working for the Park Service. The car was inside -- in one of the rooms of the house. I sat in the driver's seat. One of the Latino men stood just outside the door, looking in.

The car only had AM radio (IDL and IWL ). I had a plastic tub -- like the plastic tubs you get for various purposes during hospital stays -- filled with little, plastic knobs, each about 2cm in diameter. I had to put all of these plastic knobs onto various parts of the radio's face. Only after that would my shit be together enough so that I could leave.

But I couldn't fit all of these knobs onto the radio face! I think I managed to find ways to fit some of them onto the volume and tuning knobs. I also popped some of them onto the set-station buttons. And I may have tried to stick some onto the actual station indicator plate. But I was running out of space. And I had a ton of knobs left!

I was now by myself in a large hallway, probably inside an apartment. It was night, and the hallway was pretty dark.

I stood near the front door. The door was made of old, worn-out wood. I could feel something like a gentle wind whispering past the door. I knew it was some kind of presence. I partly thought it was a ghost. But I also thought it was some person -- or, a person coming, not a person who was actually there yet.

I knew that I was still a bit early. But as long as I kept aware of the situation, I'd see the person. Then I could meet the person just outside the apartment. I may actually have just thought of this person as only a breeze of wind.

I was now looking out through my door through a small, square window that was maybe 30cm directly above the doorknob. Looking out, I saw the dark sapphire sky of morning. I could see that out there was something like a brambly yard, which may have been something like a big, nice garden.

I was telling myself something very soothing, like the person who was coming to me was a very nice person, and that I had nothing to worry about or be afraid of.

I watched one or two people crossing my field of view. They were walking along some path, I think, that crossed between the garden and some much wider field. They were a man and a woman. A man may also later have crossed by himself.

I told myself, "See? See how nice they are? When they come for you, they'll treat you nicely. You have nothing to fear."

I was now outside. It was a bright, sunny morning. I was drifting up a very, very slight slope, on a long, wide lawn that led up to a sidewalk and an asphalt road.

I saw a man and a woman walking along the road, heading from the right to the left side of my field of view. The man and woman both looked like they were in their late thirties. But they wore clothes and had hairstyles like from the late 1970s. The man's hairstyle was particularly chunky and bowl-shaped.

The man and the woman seemed to be in a kind of peevish argument with each other. It scared me a little bit. I felt like if I got into their field of influence, they'd probably start getting all peevish and annoying with me.

But they were walking pretty quickly. And they were already away from me by the time I got up to the sidewalk.

Now that I was on the sidewalk, I noticed a few handfuls of people, all adults, walking toward a building. I realized that I was near a university campus.

The campus neighborhood reminds me now of my occasional visits to the Princeton campus. But the university building, which I saw off to my left, looked more like an elementary school mixed with a modern, suburban church building.

All the people walking toward the building seemed to be in their thirties and forties. There were men and women. Sometimes people were in groups, talking with each other. Other times they were walking alone.

Some of the people wore suits or formal attire. Others were wearing caps and gowns, like they were attending a graduation ceremony.

I also noticed that a lot of the women had very masculine faces. Some of the women were definitely women, just with very hard, squarish faces. But some of the people dressed as women may have been men.

As I got to the actual building, I realized that it was more like an elementary school. The adults I'd seen funnelling toward this area were actually teachers. They were all now dispersing toward different parts of the building: to their classrooms, I assumed.

I was in a square, concrete-floored courtyard of the building. There were a lot of kids running all about, rushing, I supposed, to get to their classes.

There were some adult women posted here and there, apparently to make sure that nobody was getting out of hand. I figured I'd ask one of these women either where I was, or where I was supposed to be. I didn't really know the answer to either of those questions.

I saw a woman posted just under the covering of the building, at the back, right corner of the courtyard. I figured I'd approach her and ask her what I was here for.

As I walked toward that woman, a girl wearing a pale pink sweater ran through the courtyard with a clear, plastic bottle of water.

One of the other women admonished the girl for some reason or another. The girl thought she was being really grown-up and helpful for doing something. But she was also using her task to avoid having to do some thing that all the girls her age needed to do. She knew this. So when the teacher admonished her, she listened.

But as I was about to reach the woman, some kind of alarm went off. The alarm was the prayer bell. Wherever you were, whatever you were doing, when the prayer bell went off, you had to stop, crouch down on your knees, bow your head to the ground, and start praying to god.

The ritual seems to me now to be Islam-influenced. But the prayer was more like a Christian prayer mixed with something like the United States Pledge of Allegiance.

I bowed, too, because I at least knew what all this meant. I was near a stairwell. A girl wearing a Muslim-style head-covering bowed near me.

As I looked at the floor, I noticed it was tiled in meter-square tiles looking like flecked granite. But this tile was all chipped away in a corner, so that almost a quarter of the tile was chipped into an oily blackness.

During the prayer-pledge, the girl in the pale pink shirt ran out of the doorway of a classroom near me. She had the water bottle again, and she was about to rush off somewhere. But the woman I was trying to approach told the girl to kneel down and pray, like everybody else.

The girl said something like, "Oh, yeah. Right." She didn't kneel down, though. She just sat, in some kind of athletic pose, with her back to the wall, and waited for the prayer to finish.

Something about the girl's face made me think she might have Down's Syndrome. But the girl was really smart and active. I liked her a lot.

When I got up from the prayer-pledge, I approached the adult woman. I had a feeling now that I was here for some kind of volunteer project with New York Cares. So I asked the woman if she knew where we volunteers were meeting. The woman pointed to the stairwell behind me and said that New York Cares was meeting up on the second floor.

But before I could go upstairs, a little girl grabbed my hand and told me to help her with her spelling. She dragged me over to something that looked like folding gym mats stood up on one side and w-folded, to look like a gym-mat version of Chinese screens.

Before the Chinese screen was a long, school-like table that was only 25cm or so above the ground. Both the little girl and I had to kneel to sit at the table. The table had a long sheet of paper across it. The paper was filled with items like multiple choice questions.

For each number, there may possibly have been questions, probably ridiculously inane questions, like, "How do you spell -----?" as if a kid wouldn't know how to spell a word he was looking right at. But there were no answers in the multiple choice spaces. It was just A, B, C, D, with no answers beside the letters!

I think what the little girl actually had to do was choose the correct letter, A, B, C, or D, and then correctly spell the word in the space beside that letter. I think the little girl may actually have explained this to me herself.

The little girl was probably learning impaired. But she seemed really smart, as well. She seemed to be doing well enough spelling for herself. And maybe she just wanted me around for the heck of it while she was doing her work.

But every once in a while I'd have to help her with spelling. At some point, I even chose, and circled?, the letter "C" on one of her questions. I also remember something about one of us writing in cursive.

Then the little girl's brother came up. He was also, apparently, learning impaired, though not as much as his sister. He may have been a bit younger than the girl. He was climbing all over both me and the little girl, though he mostly seemed to be climbing all over me. He really wanted my attention, and he wanted to prove, I think, that he was smarter than his sister.

At some point I stood up, as if my lessons for the little girl and boy were over. I told them they'd both done a good job.

But the boy wanted to see my cell phone for some reason. I was pretty sure that that was not a good idea, because I think I'd been looking on some sort of fetish website before I'd come here. The boy didn't need to be seeing any of that kind of stuff.

I then saw my phones screen, as if it were flickering on, like a TV would, with a bit of vertical hold striping a black screen, as the TV is getting started up and getting a hold of itself. The striping was yellow -- so it seemed to me that this was "effect" for a production, not real vertical hold striping.

There was then, probably, some kind of video, maybe starring Hyde from the j-pop band L'Arc en Ciel. But I can't remember anything about it.