Dragging my Mind Over the Gap Between Is's

Thursday, June 30th

I. Burger

Another Pasty dream. We are playing the show in a tent, just like normal, however it’s completely a different scene. The tent is open on all sides, and is on grass where a dirt road lies in front of it and goes into a wide clearing. There’s a bit of a medieval quality to it; this is expanded later. I also have to play the songs acoustically with one other person before the show, however it’s not E.G. It is a male whom I cannot identify. We are playing the songs in a small stone chapel, also with a dirt floor. At least one of the times nobody shows up. I am in each of these places a few times apiece during this dream, the particular order I can’t quite remember. During intermission of the show there is also a singing contest, which some unidentifiable male wins the first time.

At another point also, K.S is playing a song and singing and I’m just sitting there listening. I can’t tell if it’s the chapel or not but it is definitely in a nearby area. The only part of his song I remember is “You don’t always have to listen to what I say.”

The 2nd or maybe 3rd time I show up to play the show, I have the intuition of having come back from the house where we’re staying, which is completely different from physical reality in that it’s mansion-like and a straight shot down the dirt road from the tent to get there. When I show up, somebody asks if I can go and get the coat rack with the costumes on it that has been left behind at the house. B.R follows me, inclined to help with the task.

We pass an enormous truck, wider and longer than usual but also stilted at least 50 feet in the air. It does not seem like this from the ground, however when I climb it I find myself at a dizzying height (once again.) B.R says “hold on!” and he somehow gets it to start moving without driving it – he also hops on the back. I hold on for dear life and am therefore not very observant of what’s happening around me as we get to the house.

The room where I have to get the coat rack from is on a higher floor of the house, and I must go up several flights of an ovular shaped staircase. I can vaguely envision the hallways, hardwood flooring and lighting as if the only light source was flame. The strongest memory I have of inside the house though - I am hurrying back down the stairs, not wanting to be late either getting back or getting there in the first place. I have no coat rack with me. I run into Z.G, H.R and a friend of his who he introduces to me as “Burger.” He’s blond with sideburns and seems a bit strange. He says he’s “basically moved into the apartment,” meaning Z.G’s apartment, and I say that I remember him. In the dream I genuinely do remember him though he doesn’t exist. Then I see C? come down the stairs. I give Z.G a long hug, and as I look over his shoulder I see a setting that I cannot describe. Very 'out there.'

Unfortunately I have to rush away from them after the greeting and head down to the tent. As I get there I see that the place where we play is suddenly empty. I turn to B.R and he says “Looks like we’ve got some stolen equipment,” with his eyebrows high, using humor but obviously trying not to show his agitation.

We walk toward another tent at the right and we learn that all of our equipment, and apparently in fact the show, have been moved there. I talk to S.A briefly who is dressed in some medieval garment. I think she may have even had a conical hat on. She is singing the song that she’ll be competing with in the singing competition at this particular intermission. She’ll be singing a song that has something to do with a bed (whose melody is a sped up version of “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” one of the songs from the show) and she then notes that R.S will be competing with a song called “Kiss my Pillow,” (?) and notes the coincidence. I am interested but I am also preoccupied with trying to consolidate all of my equipment.

While I am trying to drag my music stand toward where I am sitting I notice that there’s already some type of scene going on and I’m right in the middle of it. I think I just leave the stand where it is and rush away and sit down. The main character of the show, who seems like a mixture between B.W and M.C.C, is addressing the crowd about something completely irrelevant to the show. She then introduces everyone to her “sister” who looks much like a smaller version of herself. They walk off in a stately way. The following lucid dream may have been the end of this one, but I cannot remember for sure. I even have a few fleeting impressions that there was stuff from Rocky Horror.
I think this dream was a commentary of the possibility of my playing for pit bands in musicals for a living. Either way it's affecting my dreams quite a bit.

II. Hut

I am in a small hut with B.W. I’m not sure exactly how big the house is but I’m decently sure the ceiling is not square but more rounded. Everything inside the place is also quite small.

As she is talking to be about something that is very fascinating (I could remember when I woke up, I can’t now because I tried to fall back asleep instead of writing this down immediately) I suddenly become lucid as I realize what my surroundings are. This time I do not impulsively try to fly or anything but I don’t do a great job at stabilizing either. I do not look at my hands, my feet, or rub them together or anything. I turn around and start walking around the little house. I am standing in the kitchen and see very small dishes and appliances and the cookware all looks very alien and I cannot think of any uses for it. I wait for B.W to stop talking (I don’t even bother interrupting for some reason) and I say “What…would you say…if I told you I was in a dream right now?”
Bap. Awake.

Wednesday, June 29th

I. Basketball Games

This is the first awkward naked dream I’ve had in a good long time. I am in the house on BHI that I lived in during the Patsy Cline gig. Alone in the house with me is E.S. I don’t recall most of what happens in his dream, only that at one point she comes down the stairs, mostly naked. I believe the point where I suddenly become completely naked is while I’m standing by the front door. I walk into the living room, see her suddenly and immediately cover myself up, not trying to come onto her although I’d like to. She says something along the lines of “I’m not even into that stuff.”

This may not have been during the same dream but the next thing I remember is sitting in front of a very large tv screen flipping the channels. There is nothing on except basketball games. I stop and watch one for a small while then, thinking my dad is behind me (?) I start flipping the channels again quickly. I cannot quite explain this thinking.

II. Jazz Band

I am outside a building I don’t think I recognize. There is a group of us that is presumably the jazz band for the coming school year. However this is my high school jazz band director in front of me; I graduated three years ago. One of my friends from college is also standing right next to me. J.B, the band leader, is greeting all of us giving high-fives. I see him offer one to somebody and I foolishly stick my hand out immediately, out of turn and disregarding the people between myself and him.

He says something like “Looks like M.B has showed us a part of his personality, huh?” He is evidently talking about M.B but as he says it he gives me a strange look. I realize he’s inadvertently calling me an asshole, as he should. I look to my right and M.B is giving me that smug “I know something you don’t” grin that I get so often from dream characters.

Tuesday, June 28th

I. Late

This dream starts with me eating dinner with my parents in the house I grew up in. I don’t remember the conversation all that well but at one point I am trying to convince them to come to a show I have that night with one of the local bands I play in (a thousand miles away from this house…) She doesn’t want to be out late, etc. I tell her that the singing isn’t the best but I really like the writing and she would also.

As I am washing my dish in the sink, S.A is suddenly there and tells me they are focusing more on the vocals now. She starts singing either the song “Lie Down” or a song that I’ve never heard before; either way what strikes me now thinking about it is that she is somehow singing in harmony with herself.

I am not sure of the reason, but I then travel to the venue where the show is at without any of my equipment. I think I may have been under the impression that the show had been cancelled. I am on my bike and for some reason I bring it to the second floor of a building I’ve never been in. I text J.L to see if the show is still happening, then realize he’s standing on the stage directly in front of me, with several girls behind him and to his left (I suppose this the new “vocal emphasis,” I do not recognize anybody on the stage as being actual band members. They are standing eerily still.

I ask him if the show is on and, if so, when are we playing. He replies that we are to start in a couple of minutes. I am now in a hurry, my absolute least favorite state of affairs. I think about biking down the flight of stairs which I walked up to get into this room, however I see a chain link fence right in front of the doorway at the bottom so I decide this is a bad idea. A 12-ish year old kid looks at me strangely.

Despite my haste, I apparently manage to write down a dream I’d had earlier that night (and remember virtually none of now) in sidewalk chalk down about a hundred yards’ worth of sidewalk on my college campus. All I remember of this is fixing one word. It may have been the word “Directions.” I have to correct myself on making an E, and then have to go back to the beginning of the word to put a D where I’ve accidentally written a B. I am evidently lost in thought so none of this strikes me as out of the ordinary at the time. After this slight detour I find myself back in my actual house in North Carolina.

I am racking my brain trying to figure out everything I’m going to need. I wake up A.L, who is asleep in the living room, and tell him it’s time to go play this show. He walks like a zombie out the front door. I do not even recall whether or not he put a shirt on. Meanwhile I am trying to consolidate all my pedals, and find my black button-up shirt – I had noticed that everyone on the stage was dressed quite nicely.

I am then in a car, presumably on the way to the show, however C.A and E.M are in the car with us for some reason. C.A, in the back seat next to me, is talking about how she is moving out the next day, and how difficult her roommate is to get out of the house. She also mentions that the show is supposed to end at 7:45, and this worries me greatly as I look at the clock inside the car and it is about 7:10. About here is where this dream ends.

II. Fragment – Speeding Over Hills with Miles

At some point last night, I was in some sort of inner tube that went very quickly across land with Miles Davis. We were trying to get somewhere in a hurry. The landscape was extremely hilly. At one point the craft flipped around and I found myself propelling us forward with my feet as fast as I could in a Fred Flinstone-esque fashion.

Monday, June 27th

I. Back in High School

I am younger and living with my parents again, or at least I have drawn this conclusion because I am relying on my mother for a ride.

I am going to a show in Boston (I dimly remember that it might have been Wayne Krantz) with several friends, I remember K.S and C.H but no one else.

I have apparently bought C.H’s ticket and she is driving from her house, about 45 minutes away, to meet me at mine. I become distressed over the fact that all the seats in the car are taken and there is no room for her despite all that. My mother makes some pseudo-prophetic remark about someone changing something (?) and I tell her “No one’s ever changed anything” thinking this to be a statement of the law of conservation of energy. My dad recognizes this quote from a book we have both read (and therefore I assume in the dream is Kurt Vonnegut). This makes much less sense to me upon waking.

My memory skips to being in my old high school, presumably the next day. C.H finally arrives to meet me, in the middle of school. I attempt to apologize, but she says something to me quickly that I don’t quite make out and she walks away. End of recall of this dream.

II. 2 Brief Lucid Dreams Involving Songs

Unfortunately, the only thing I can clearly say about these dreams is that they happened.

I am sitting in my old high school cafeteria, but not at a table, I am in a chair in the corner of one of the hidden bathroom hallways with 2 other girls I don’t recognize who are also sitting in chairs. They are playfully singing some song with a melody unfamiliar to me in weird voices. I become lucid nearly the moment after I become aware that this is going on. I join them, making up my own lyrics about how “this is a dream, I am dreaming right now,” etc. I start trying to stabilize immediately. I’m decently sure that when this happened I had just woken up briefly and fallen directly into this dream and it was therefore very unstable from the beginning. I rub my hands on my knees and look at my feet, then start touching the walls (and I think the 2 girls stopped singing and just stared at me), but I don’t make it more than 10 seconds or so lucid.

I wake up and have this dream right afterward. I am at a house I’ve never seen before that belongs to K.S; it is just the two of us there. I am there for awhile I think, but I don’t remember most of what happens.

The only clear memory I have is standing in the backyard, which has a pond at the edge of it. I look and see a fiddle and some other strange looking string instrument (I think it mostly resembled a cigar-box guitar) floating in the water. I look for K.S to tell him about this, but I see him come outside right after this with a fishing pole.

Not long after this I become lucid again. I am either running around in the backyard, which must have suddenly been stepped, or on his rooftop. I am singing a familiar song to myself (that I did not know I knew the words to) quite loudly, thinking for some reason that this might keep me in the dream. I don’t remember what the song was but I remember that I didn’t make it through the whole thing.

III. Ask More Questions

I remember being in the Jazz rehearsal room of the arts building watching J.C and some other people playing. I walk out, I think I may have been a bit discouraged.

Suddenly I’m sitting with them all in a room, looks like a finished basement and we are watching T.V. J.C says something about how he requires all students to ask questions, and I haven’t been doing so at all (which to him I often don’t; I still have a very hard time not being intimidated, or maybe just cripplingly humbled, around him.)
He tells me that I should ask him more questions, and T.S says something about being more acknowledging in the hallway and not closing up so much. End of recall from last night.

Sunday, June 26th

I. Boston

A much more vivid and lengthy dream memory than I’ve had the past few nights. I have the sensation of being in the dream for more than an entire day. I am travelling to Boston, the city I grew up nearest to and visited often, with a group that I believe is a mix of people that exist and people my dream invented. While there, the purpose for me being there changes several times, as does the climate.

My memory starts as the van we are in pulls into a parking deck. I have the sensation of having been on that van for a very long time, possibly all the way from North Carolina where I now live. As we get out I see my old friend E.R, and my mind justifies my being here now as a visit to see him. We talk briefly but he does not appear again.

We are soon sitting in a public place, and somebody tells me that there has recently been a terrorist attack on Boston in the past few days and they blew up the clock tower (I can’t think now of what clock tower he may have been referring to.) Somebody expresses a hope that Fenway Park was not affected as well. I’m confused and slightly offended by that. We are then told that we are no more than one mile away from Fenway by none other than Mr. W, one of my high school math teachers. This excites one of the girls with us who is wearing a green Sox shirt. We talk briefly about the park, and I tell her how even if you don’t enjoy baseball that much (I don’t) it’s still a beautiful building to visit and still an experience worth having. (This is mimicking a conversation I have had in physical reality somewhat recently.)

Soon I am exploring with another person in the group, a male, but I cannot remember who it may have been. I have recently seen a clock that says that it’s about 2:30 in the afternoon. We are both for some reason on scooters and I am riding mine down a flight of stairs. The way that it glides effortlessly down the stairs strikes me as somewhat odd, but before I can think about it I realize I am cutting somebody off. I apologize and my dream memory skips again.

From here on out this dream is a bit hard to explain.

We are suddenly in a semi large crowd that are all gathered in front of a few windows. They are all bustling angrily around (This is mimicking the same physical conversation.) Suddenly there are water balloons being thrown into the crowd and I then find myself behind the window helping with the throwing. (I throw one that I think hits a small girl in the head…) Then I am back to where I was standing right before that, and I think it is C.I exclaiming urgently that we have to be back because it is past 3 A.M. (I now think that I'm here to play my past summer gig, which this week ended prematurely.) I remember this seeming odd to me too, and I wonder how that much time could have possibly gone by (I guess I did not wonder enough though.) This confusion is compounded when I see the same clock that still reads the same time, however that confusion remains confusion.

I think it is now the next day and it is the dead of winter. A group of us are trekking through the snow to somebody’s store, where I believe I stay for much of the day. When we get there I notice how cold my computer has gotten (that’s the one thing I remember having with me though I had been carrying much on my back.) I now can’t really recall anything that happens here except for when I decide to leave. I am completely alone in the store, everyone else has gone and I am expected to catch up with them. I am walking around looking for what I need to pack and preparing myself for being out in the bitter cold. I remember having the thought about how to protect the computer again. Then I hear whoever owns the store about to come back inside and I am suddenly outside the building watching this happen through the wall. (?) I have an idea that I should put on my giant chicken head mask to mess with him, in fact I have a vision of myself telling somebody else about having already done it (?) however I wake from this dream pretty soon after this.

*Since I started typing this dream I have noticed that I got a message from E.R during the night, who I do not hear from that often, AND another friend of mine sent me a video of the Prudential Center tower in Boston being hit by lightning earlier this month. Not quite premonitions, at all, but the synchronicity of it gives me a nice warm feeling.*

Saturday, June 25th

I. Sarcastic Mother

My memory of this dream starts with a family gathering at the house in which I grew up. This seems completely normal to me although I have not lived there in some time. I begin to get suspicious of my surroundings, however, when my mother says something to me that is uncharacteristically sarcastic, something along the lines of “Oh, you’re HILARIOUS!” I walk upstairs into my bedroom and I do a reality check, and the one that has always worked for me fails this time. I look at my hands and they look completely fine. Unfortunately I do not engage my surroundings any more, so I now know what to work on with genuinely questioning reality during the day.

Next thing I know I believe I am in a different house and I find out that my A.D, my 19 year old ex-girlfriend is engaged to the 55 year old CEO that she is currently living with (The relationship is a physical reality, the engagement to the best of my knowledge is not, yet. This is something that’s kind of been messing with my head lately.) This distresses me in the dream enough that I no longer think about questioning the reality around me…

So when I am suddenly in a car on my college campus near the Arts building with H.M and C.G telling them about what I have just written down (and I'm now remembering that H.M's head was shaved) it does not strike me at all as out of the ordinary. The dream, or at least my memory of it, ends just about here.

II. The Couch

The premise of this dream is based on another physical reality situation. The gig I just got done with was withholding 20 percent of our pay as a security deposit for the house that the band was staying in. The couch I slept on the first few nights made me sick, so for a short while we were contemplating how to remove the couch from the house and keep it outside without getting it so messed up as to lose the deposit.

In the dream, however, I am walking deep in some swampy woods with S.B trying to find a place for this couch – it’s a different couch from the one in the house though. S.B is dragging it deeper and deeper into the woods and I am going along with him while saying (apparently a bit too passively) “I really don’t think we should keep it out here, there’s got to be a better place for it.” This goes on for quite awhile until I say it more urgently. Sean finally stops and turns to me saying “Are you serious?” I get angry. “YES! I’ve been serious this whole time!”

Suddenly Jim Lahey from the show Trailer Park Boys drives up in a cop car. He jumps out and storms toward me, demanding to know who gave me the money for the police uniform. I look down and I am suddenly indeed wearing a police uniform. This shocks me awake quickly. I think this is reflective of how sometimes, with very irresponsible behavior happening all the time around me, simple requests often make me feel like a hard-ass for the “rules.”

Friday, June 24th

I. Vertigo

I remember little about last night. The first is that there is a dream that S.A is in; that is all I know for sure though.

The other is that I spend quite some time having a conversation with 3 or 4 other people (whose identities I don’t remember) while we are all perched on a very high place. There was a central column where everyone except for me sits comfortably in chairs. Around that column is a gigantic drop, how far I do not know because I do not remember looking down. Around that is a wall that had beige vinyl siding like a house with a railing on top. I am precariously perched either on the railing, or a few times I even remember hanging by the edge of a wall, trying to keep on the conversation but at the same time wondering how it was possible to make it down from there unharmed.

We talk about many interesting things, the only one I remember though is the telepathic powers of animals, their abilities to communicate wordlessly and how they can read people.

Thinking about this dream makes me realize this is a somewhat common occurrence in my dreams, I have somehow gotten to an impossibly high place with no way of getting down from it. This is not an altogether pleasant feeling.

Thursday, June 23rd

I. “Everybody Likes to Say Good Morning”

This dream doesn’t make very much sense. Here’s what was notable about it – it was a musical, directed by filmmaker David Lynch (therefore having many surreal and really creepy yet humorous qualities) complete with a song that I’d never heard before with lyrics and all, meaning that another unconscious composition was put into my head. I remember a bit more about this one than last night.

The melody and style of it I can compare only with that song “I’m Getting Married in the Mornin’” and the “Every Sperm is Sacred” song from Monty Python’s Meaning of Life. The costumes and dancing were actually a lot like the Python song now that I think about it. I also remember 3 lines of the lyrics, however none of them consecutive so there’s not any cohesion. The first line of the song was “Everybody likes to say good morning!” There was a call-and-answer part that was sung by one man and a group of women. I don’t remember what the man says, but I will make something up now that would work – it would have been the same rhythm and syllables as “The hair is all the rage now” and the women, I remember this specifically, answered with the rhyming line “Joined in fancy braids now!” There were two different endings to the stanzas. The one that happened most of the times I don’t remember all of but the last two words were “On parade.”

The other, which at the end of the song I was supposed to sing in David Lynch’s face in order to startle him awake (?) was “It’s all the same!” Someone cut me off and finished the song as I was about to do this though.

One big reason I became interested in lucid dreaming was to write and practice music in my sleep – I’d heard quite a bit about different bands doing that.

Wednesday, June 22nd

I. “Scared of Doing”

This dream takes place in another unfamiliar location. What really stands out to me about this one is the fact that I am coherently reading music off of a sheet of paper. The lines make sense and everything, meaning that this is a composition that occurred inside my head without my conscious effort. The strange thing is, in the dream it is Joe Chambers (who I am incredibly fortunate to be studying with) that wrote this tune. Unfortunately I can’t remember it, only that the changes are similar to Charlie Parker’s “Donna Lee.” I am trying to solo over it on a piano, and while I cannot follow the chord tones of the II-V’s very well (I’m not a piano player so that’s not surprising) I am playing stuff in F minor over mostly the whole thing (Donna Lee starts off in Ab Major so this is actually plausible) and that works over a lot of it. My part is a harmony part; the part Joe is playing is the melody. T.S is sitting behind me and has my same part.

I think the task in the dream is that everybody present in the room has to try and play over it. After I’m done, K.M (somebody I have not talked to, come into contact with or even thought about in at least 4 years) comes up to me and asks how soloing over changes works. I don’t remember my explanation but it seems inadequate. M.B is sitting next to me, and turns to me and says “You know what it is? I think she is scared of doing.” I'm not sure whether or not I understand the meaning of that.

The end of the dream is J, a classical vocal major, trying to do the same thing and having a huge amount of trouble. She very quickly becomes frustrated and lets out a whole string of ‘fuck this’s and ‘fuck that’s.

Tuesday, June 21st

I. Broken English

My memories of this dream take place in an old school building. I am in a classroom a few times and the rest of the time I am outside in the hallway. I do not remember anything that happens in the classroom but I go in there during the dream at least twice.

What I remember is talking in the hallway with a few peers. I don’t recall who they were. At one point the door to the classroom opens and J.D, the woman I currently work for teaching guitar lessons, opens the door. She apparently teaches the classes going on in this room. She says sarcastically, “You should talk a little louder out here.”

I have a book in my hands and I’m having an in-depth discussion with the people with me, I believe there are two of them. (This is a bit difficult to explain…)

Somebody in the book talks about how when he breaks something, it makes him find the woman he is destined for. It is accompanied by an illustration of a David Shrigley-esque figure slamming his forehead into a mirror, which is cracking outward from the point of impact.

Another teacher hears us talking about this the first time when she walks by. The second time, as we are still talking about it, she stops and says “This again?” She sits down with us and adds another dimension to the conversation, saying that Adam does this in the bible by using broken English to find Eve. (?) The point of this seems to be that it’s a literary device used in the Bible.

All I know is that this made a tremendous amount of sense in the dream however when I woke up and tried to put it into words it sounded very stupid.

II. “100 Yards From My House”


Two different locations and situations in this dream.

First I am driving down College Rd with M.B. I know its College Road but none of the things we see exist in physical reality. There are many tables with people selling things, none of which I remember specifically. There is also a bar/bodega type thing across the street from a small outdoor arcade. I see a small child attempting to play ski-ball but he doesn’t seem to be very good. Later I look over and he’s climbed up to get closer to the holes, and is throwing balls directly into the highest scoring ones. His mother yells at him and he backs off. About this time I see a nugget of weed sitting nearby him that I know intuitively is his, and he blurts out something along the lines of “You need weed when you’re on welfare!”

The other time I am in the band house, except instead of it being on the island where I currently am it is 100 yards down the street from my house. I realize this as I am outside in the rain, stumbling around drunk in the street.

Inside the house, I overhear J.S talking about how when you pull a tick off your skin it means that you are insecure. (?) This has come up because L.P has just left the house with some girl, and since it is raining out he is wearing the only pair of boots he can find, which is a pair of girlish-looking rubber boots. When they leave, somebody inside the house says something along the lines of “She knows how to take care of a tick.”

The dream ends when I am looking for my computer to listen to folk music at the request of A.V. I have just expressed to the rest of the people in the house “I just realized I am 100 yards from my fucking house!” They seem sympathetic.

Monday, June 20th

I. “I’m Leaving All Alone”

This dream felt incredibly real the whole time. Street and store signs were legible, even the labels on bottles. The events in it are even plausible even if not quite likely.

The premise of this dream is that my current gig, supposedly lasting until August but most likely being cancelled in the next week, has ended. I remember a car ride back to Wilmington with some people that I know; I don’t remember who specifically. I am dropped off at a store in Wilmington where I am buying something simple, maybe a bottle of water. I turn around and see S.R, standing at a register but not quite doing anything. I greet her and she looks up at me and her face immediately brightens up. She tells me she’s on her way back home from school and she’s coming through town.

She asks me if I’m walking home, and after brief consideration I realize that I indeed am. She offers me a ride. I remember driving down streets that I thought were familiar at the time but upon waking realize do not exist. We stop at a drive through where the strangest things in the dream happen. First a car at a stoplight hops over a curb and speeds through an intersection, I think to avoid getting into a turning lane. We see this and I laugh, calling it a typical example of how people drive around here. Somebody behind us is yelling at the drive though. I turn around and a dark skinned man is leaning out of his window, yelling “I’m leaving all alone! I’m leaving all alone!” He has a red beanie on.

All of a sudden we’re in another store, and for some reason I’m trying to get a whiteboard for myself and my roommates. I point at a particular one, and exclaim “That’s exactly what I need!” I don’t remember what exactly about it appealed to me. I wake up shortly after this…

To a false awakening.

I am in the bed that I now sleep in, an air mattress under the stairs of an overcrowded house. There is a curtain hung up so I basically have a little fort. Outside I hear C.S talking about the time that I came onto her once. (This is an incident that sticks out in my mind – she turned out to be dating L.P, a fellow musician whom I respect a lot, and am now living in the same house with. He is becoming a closer friend of mine. This incident was awhile ago but I still feel a bit bad about it.) She is talking to somebody else in the living room while I am in my bed behind the curtain; she doesn’t seem to know I’m there. Part of the story she’s telling is true, and some of it did not happen, something about text messages. I listen for a bit and eventually stick my head out from behind the curtain, which surprises her quite a bit, and I say “Hey…look I’m sorry about that.” I don’t remember her reply, only being awake very soon after this.

Sunday, June 19th

(Last night I awoke a bit before 6am with aches in both my arms and legs and no clear dream memories. My living situation for my current gig has me sleeping on an air mattress underneath the stairs of the house so this is affecting my ability to sleep soundly and therefore my dream recall and content. It took me about an hour to get back to sleep and when I did I had a series of brief, relatively harmless dreams that left me with a few memories and impressions. I woke for a short time between them to jot down some keywords.)

I. “Go Home, Please.”

One moment I am awake in my bed trying to get to sleep, all of a sudden I am in a similar bed and sleeping situation, equally cramped, only in the dream I now share this space with my roommate S.B. We have two different mattresses but they are right next to each other. We are in something that looks like a garage and outside there is a group of young girls who are trick-or-treating or something and I have the intuition that they will rush into the door if I open it. I “find my Ipod,” a black nano that I haven’t owned since high school. The screen has come off but I reattach it easily and it has a Resident drawn on the back in silver sharpie. S.B has an Ipod as well. The song playing from his has this line in it, “be my ….” (can’t remember the last word.) As soon as I hear this line, the song playing from my Ipod by a different band says the exact same line. I note the “coincidence” but never become lucid.

It may be because the group outside is becoming loud, but eventually I open the door and they all rush at me. I fight them back and yell “Can you all go home, please?” All of a sudden I begin coughing quite hard and actually taste phlegm in my throat. This coughing wakes me up.

II. “That’s a Cop”

I believe it is still Halloween, or whatever festivities were going on in the previous dream. I am sitting on the porch of an unknown house with some people. One of them is Z the soundman. He is sitting off of the porch, on a lawn. Possibly the same group of small girls has apparently just left from the front of the house and have walked down the street to the right. Suddenly a cop car pulls into the gravel driveway as Z is simultaneously sparking a bowl. He walks over and starts to hand it to me as the officer is walking toward the porch. I start whispering to him “That’s a cop. That’s a cop. That’s a cop” but he does not hear me. Somebody else eventually leans over and he seems to get the message right as the cop approaches.

The cop starts talking to us in the exact same whisper I was using and I cannot easily make out what he’s saying. The gist of it is that the group of girls that just walked down the street have “information” about us. I wake soon after this and begin to write it down; however this turns out to be a false awakening and soon after writing it I wake up for real with most of the memory of the dream erased. It returns later after I focus for a bit.

III. “Skylar”

I am with a group of my friends on a street at night. S.B tells me that a car full of kids, who have mistaken him for somebody they have a vendetta against named Skylar have pulled a gun on him. The car is right in front of us and the people, none of whom I recognize as people I know, are extremely drunk. I tell him to call the driver of the car an idiot or something, and he tells me this is probably a bad thing to call somebody with a gun (good point.)

Suddenly I’ve apparently decided to take this matter into my own hands. I’ve also switched the identity of the gunpoint victim to my friend M.B. He is standing next to me as I approach the car. Beforehand I see them sitting on the hood making immature ‘gay’ jokes. However when I reach the car they’ve all somehow gotten back inside. I yell at the one in the drivers’ seat “THIS IS NOT SKYLAR. HIS NAME IS M.B.” I look over at M.B and at the driver again, their expressions somewhat confuse me – they are both suddenly calm and it’s not until I awaken that I realize the people in the dream know that I have made a mistake in the identity of whoever had the gun pointed at them. I remember that both of their eyes were glowing with incredibly vivid color, M.B’s a magnificent shade of blue and the driver of the car a shining golden brown. I wake up for the remainder of the day right around here.

Saturday, June 18th

I. “Basketball Game and/or Melon Suit”

I remember this dream being quite detailed and vivid, however I woke up having to urinate very badly so I did not write down enough reminders. All I remember is that I was playing on a basketball team with E.D, who was the “star” of the team. I have not been on a basketball team in physical reality since the 8th grade. It took place in a combination of the AHS field house and the gym of the same school. I remember a remark being made during a time-out about my lack of skill/height.

I cannot determine if this is a different dream or just a non-sequitur. I have just been driving in a golf cart with Z.A, and we pull up at a house. I cannot remember if it’s a house on the island where I’m playing my current gig or if it’s the house I grew up in. It’s nighttime. As I get out of the golf cart I ask him what he’s going to think of my melon suit. I phrase the question in future tense like that, but I observe at the same time I’m already wearing this “melon suit”, which seems to basically just be me somehow completely covered in watermelon. It’s in my mouth as well, and it causes me to talk with a heavy lisp. He laughs, seeming to think it’s a funny idea but not overly excited about it.

Right before I wake up there is something going on concerning the same gig. I need to either find or make something for C.I but I really cannot grasp the image at all. End of recall.

Friday, June 17th

I. “Koresh”

It is difficult to tell if in this dream I am a person or an omniscient perspective. Only one time that I remember does somebody talk and seem like they are addressing me. The setting of the dream is that I am inside David Koresh’s Waco compound. Upon entering I see a bearded white man dressed in white robes like the Anglo-Saxon “Jesus.” He is motioning wordlessly and looks rather odd. I think for a moment that this is David Koresh, but I soon find out that there is a man in the corner of the room, naked and in a 69-type position with another man who is sucking him off. He is a bit chubby and balding – it turns out that this man is in fact Koresh. Memory of the dream is extremely spotty, but I believe that this dream taking place during some sort of upheaval in the compound, either the beginnings of a rebellion or the beginnings of the siege by the ATF. Aside from this first rather odd scene I have two other memories of this dream:

There is a young boy speaking out against Koresh’s teachings. I remember nothing specifically except at one point he seems to be talking to me with a wide enlightened smile saying “we can’t go to hell!” Koresh comes up unexpectedly behind him and asks “Who’s not going to hell?” The boy is lost for words and before he can even speak Koresh does something that looks like he’s casting some sort of spell. He curls the fingers of one hand inward and then flicks them out at the boy like one might do with droplets of water. The boy falls to the ground motionless.

At another point, I cannot definitively say if it was earlier or later, Koresh and another member of the cult are testing walkie-talkies. He walks down a hallway, and the other man says through the line “is it safe?” Listening closely to something, perhaps the static on the line, Koresh thinks for a moment and then says “no, it’s not safe.” He begins walking around trying to find a device that is interfering with the signal or perhaps taping the conversation and he does indeed find something. There is another walkie-talkie taped to a wall, with a chord plugged into it that runs into what I can only guess is some type of battery operated recording device. He triumphantly tears it off the wall. There is a young girl nearby watching this, who has been in that spot awhile and would have seen somebody plant the bug. I remember predicting in my head that Koresh is about to sneak up to the girl, play real nice, and ask if she’d seen anybody do so. I worry a bit for her safety, especially as I remember what I have heard about what Koresh allegedly did with young girls in his compound. I do not remember if he actually did what I predicted though. End of recall.

Thursday, June 16th

I. “Gemstone Heist”

S.B, A.L and I are looking for weed (although I have quit smoking for the past 10 days or so) and we are headed to the house of somebody we know, though I don’t remember who it is. This is the premise, yet nothing that happens really has much to do with this.

The unknown person’s house turns out to be a large mansion, and my memory of the dream begins as we are rushing down a large staircase and out of the house. I have five large gemstones in my hand that we have apparently just stolen. I believe three of them were pink and rough and two of them were smooth and blue, and all of them had spots in them that were a color I can’t recall now. As we make it outside a group of men in suits come rushing at us. Our car (a 2-door dark gray vehicle that none of us actually own) is sitting in the entranceway that looks a lot like that of a hotel, an ovular cement thing in the middle with a driveway around it under a roof. As we see them come running at us, I drop most of the gemstones as I try to shove them into my pockets; I get only one or two of them in there.

As it looks like we are going to be caught everything suddenly drops into slow motion but my own mind and movement. S.B is apparently going to be the one driving. I throw the drivers’ side door open and wait for him to pull the handle and the seat goes forward. I leap into the backseat. I see that A.L can’t get into his door, and it turns out this is because it is locked. I quickly reach over and pull up the little pin and he gets in the car. As soon as we are all in there everything begins running at the same speed. I am not sure who is driving the car when we begin moving, this may have switched for no reason but it’s either S.B or A.L. Somebody is telling the driver to turn left and break through a barricade of cars, but instead they turn right and get stuck in some slow moving traffic. The last thing I remember seeing in this section of the dream is the tail lights of a car ahead of us.

The dream jumps and we are inside the mansion again, hanging out with people I do not recognize. Apparently we are no longer on the run from anybody. I am tapping out the rhythm of a Flogging Molly song, a band I have not listened to in ages, and a girl recognizes it merely from the rhythm and puts the song on. She makes some comment about that band being good.

Another jump and S.B and A.L are both swimming with people in a very nice, large pool. I am fully clothed and do not wish to join them. End of recall.