All DJ Entries

MischiefManaged Dream

Fragment, alarm killed my recall…

I’m inside a mansion, standing in the hall. Walls, floor, everything seems to be made of gold. Right in front of me is a huge staircase to the second floor – stairs are decorated with diamonds. I’m holding an earflap fur hat and for some reason it’s really precious – I’m on a mission to deliver it somewhere.

A few weeks ago I had a rather funny and complicated dream involving a man who has the ability to quickly open manholes from anywhere, on ANY surface, even on a concrete street. I suspect he used some sort of device to accomplish this and I think these manholes are possibly gateways to another dimensions/realities/parallel universe.

The man bears some resemblance to the actor mr. Christopher Lee (I made a small illustration depicting a manhole with mr. Lee in it). The man always wears a distinctive black hat. I was very surprised to see such magic (creating manholes out of the blue) and on one occasion I was able to follow him into a manhole because he wasn't paying attention. The manhole led me to a strange concrete complex with 6 or 7 machines. Each machine was capable of holding one person, but only a few were used. There was official looking staff overlooking some processes. There was one separate room which seemed to contain the oldest of all the machines in those spaces (some in the main entrance looked newer, far more advanced). The oldest machine held one man who was sweating. He was in some sort of a trance or dying.

Suddenly there was trouble with the machinery/some sort of supercomputer had failed/or some conduit had suffered from heavy power fluctuations. I could see electrical sparks coming from one particular room. The staff was not at all concerned with my presence, even though I was intruding the complex. Everyone was rushing to fix what was seemingly broken.

I never saw the man with the black hat again nor have I ever spoken with him. I don't know what the machines were used for. I could not recognise any of the electronics used but the machines depended heavily on it.



Has anyone had a similar dream like this involving manholes/gateways to other dimensions or perhaps even seen the man wearing a black hat that could open these gateways?

note: The manhole picture used is an artwork designed by the Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor, I used the picture to illustrate what I saw in my dream.

I am in an Asian country, and have a very strange and unfortunate problem. Lightning is attracted to me, and any time I step outside, it tries to strike me. I try running in an erratic pattern dashing from side to side as I run to escape the lightning, but it's stikes are so close that I know I can't risk doing that anymore. Someone gives me a special hat, it looks like a Chinese Coolie hat but it's made of some sort of gold coloured metal. It seems to work, and the lightning strikes it often, which is rather annoying and I begin to hate wearing it and the attention I get. I feel like I look like Raiden.


Flash forward to a different scene. A kind of rough looking guy has a three wheeler ATV. He's supposed to be all badass or whatever but the vehicle does look a bit like it was converted from a child's bike. I am riding on the back of it with him, and we're going very fast through what looks like short hedged rows. He ditches me after a while and I'm not happy.

Flash forward again to the inside of some building. I applied for a job teaching English and I am having a phone interview from a Bank. They are asking me many odd questions, but I am confident and answering them all fairly well.

My college friends and I have gone to the apartment of the children's musical group, the Wiggles. Part of my dream-self expects their place to be brightly colored and the Wiggles themselves to be dressed in gaudy clothing. When I see them, however, they are dressed in solid black robes and topped with Spanish priest hats (birettas). They look serious and even epic, although they maintain a sense of good humor as we visit. Eventually we start to play improv theater games, and they guide us through some tips. My friend Q is advised to be "more like Morgan Freeman" for his dramatic entrance.

Morning of July 5, 1996. Friday.



This was one of my most vivid dreams during this time period. Somehow, even though I seem fully conscious and fully in-body in this dream, I do not enter any level of lucidity.

My wife Zsuzsanna and I are standing on a second-floor veranda in what may be some sort of unusual composite of airport, shopping center, and mansion. We are looking out over intensely beautiful silvery water. There is a heightened sense of peace and the sense of touch is augmented. I study the reflections on the water’s surface in appreciation for what seems like an hour or so. A sense of timelessness and happiness dominates the scene.

Eventually, a male around my age who reminds me somewhat of a British guard, but wearing a stove pipe hat, grows larger and larger as he walks, but not in any menacing way (as he does not seem to regard us in any way at any point). He becomes at least as tall as the two-storey building. As he continues to walk to the right, he then starts to become smaller and smaller until only his otherwise large hat is left rolling around. I then start focusing on the rolling of the hat. Even though the imagery is quite surreal, it also somehow seems “realistic” and “correct”.

In another scene, we are taking a small fast escalator somewhere. Everyone else is having difficulties, as they are using a particular escalator for the wrong direction, trying to walk down the one going up and trying to walk up the one going down (and of course, I have seen children and teens mess about on escalators like this in reality). Seemingly, we are the only ones who get to our destination.

---

The first part of my dream reminds me vaguely of the “friendly giant” dreams I mostly had around age five when living on Rose Street in Wisconsin.

---