I went to bed shortly after 1 AM. I had meant to hit the sack earlier, but I kept on remembering things that I had to put on my "To Do" list for the day.
I looked at a thing or two on youTube before closing my eyes, mostly a fascinating young influencer with some intersting informatn about dinosaurs and politics. The dicnosayr stuff was funny, the politics was serious, but told in in a fascinating, can't- look-away style.
Then I turned off my phone and tried to casually put it on the nightstand to my right. the one that was reallly a cardboard boc, but with a tapestry over it, so it was just a few inches lower than the level of the mattress. and there was a thing or two on the spod I was going to lay the phone, so it was a minor bit of comedy tying to just lay the phone down on a flat spot or on top of a flat hing, involving a little extra reach of my surgically repaired, torn-rotator-cuff right shoulder. AS I finally got the phont into a resting place, I realized that this was comedy, and imagined it as a scene in a movie, and when I pulled my arm back and closed my eyes I whispered, "Ow, my shoulder."
But that was not my dream.
Neither was the realization of how easy it was to go from eyes open, watching something, to eyes closed, ready for sleep tonight. I did recall how in the morning, after I had woken up, I hadlain there with my eyes closed in the bed, watching what looked like a TV showing some guy in an aprtment doig something. I don;t remember what it was he was doing, but it was as real as watching a TV could be, and I marveled that ehre I was, lying in bed awake, but visualizing something as real as real could be.
So i was now lying in bed remembering that, trying to recreate it. I couldn't, but I saw a large, not-quire-bright phallus-shape, with what appeared ot betwo eyes and a mouth, kind of confused, inthe darkness behind my eyelids. I opeend my eyes to see what after-image I was seeing, and it myst have been the shadow of a cceiling beam from the difuse light comeing in from the lughts sis stories below.
I closed my eyes to find the shape again, and it was there, but the "face was less obvious. I openedn and close dthem a couple of times more, then left them closed...
When I awoke from the dream, the earliest art of it I could remember was me running late, needing ti fo across a street that was one block away. The trouble was, though, that the street came to a dead end with a chain link fence at the edge of a cliff. The street itself was oneor two stories down from this level.
I remembered having been here before, and I am pretty sure now that it was earlier in the dream that I had made this trip before and got caught at this same dead end. In the dream I had forgotten to make a left turn before going down this dead-end street, and now, once again, I was caught in this same dead end. There were two women there, separately, and I asked if they knew any way out, down and across the street. they said no, so I turned around to go back to the street I should have turned left on.
The next streeet over, downhill from where I was, did go down to meet the street, where it could be crossed, but though I remembered going that way, I stopped just a little way back, because I saw an entry to the building that I knew was a shortcut. I went into that entryway.
As I went though, I noticed on my right was a large room or hall with high ceilings that had been repurposed as a rehearsal space. In this dream I remembered being there, perhapos the day before, having just disccovered the space and thinking how it would be perfect for some sort of show I was working with.
In my recall of the dream, I now remember that I had been there, and I rememnbered the basement tunnel-like hallway that I had gone down to get out the other side of the building. From the entrance I had just used the hall went down a bit and came to a metal door. but at that point also widened before that point, so that the door and watever chamber was behind it only blocked the left half of the hall.
But now (in the dream) the right half of the hall had been walled up, and ran right smack into the wall that had replaced the metal door. There were the signs of new cinder blocks and plaster over the hole where that metal door used to be.
So I somehow found my way out of the building in a side street going down a hill, and it was daytime. There was a place on the rightthat seemed to be a sort of businesswith a couple of people inside, and things piled and scattered in the space and hanging on the walls.
Just inside this space was an intance to another space, a sort of workshop, where I thiought I could ask a fellow how to get across the street. As in intered and moved into the space, and approached the guy in there, I realized I was holding a bicycle's handlebars, but there was no bicyle attached. I realized that my bicycle had been separated from the handlebars (I did not have a bicyle when this dream began. you know how dreams are).
As I turned around to search for the rest of the bicycle, I realized I didnot have my guitar with me, and i knew I had brought my guitar in (again, not before that moment did I have a guitar with me. Dreams).
The I looked, and to the left, right outside the entrance to the workshop, was a fellow holding the neck of the guitar with the strings dangling, like he had just detached it from the body. I ket on looking and found the body (a red electric guitar, with some stickers of pick furry cartoon characters, I think), hanging on the wall.
I tookthe guitar neck and he said something about the repair work being $100 dollars. I said it didnt need repair, just set it down for a moment. Then some kid took the body and started running away with it, deeper into the place.
I quickly realized I was in one of those "high crime" neighborhoods where you are lucky if you can get out with your skin intact and only lose whatever you didn't hold onto tightly enough.
I started to follow the kidand he went out a back way. in front of me, though, were a few young peole, reclining on soft furniture or on the big woven carpet on the floor. One pretty young white girl (all the peopl ehere were white), long straight brown hair, likely not more than 16, came up to me and put her hand in mine. She told me not wo worry, and started to lead me to the reclining people, away from the exit through which the boy with my guitar body had run.
I did not want to be rude, but I did not want to get in trouble, but I wanted to know where this girl would take me. I let he hold my hand, fingers between fingers, but kept my hand open, so I was not holding hers.
Somewhere in tehre I said to someone, "Look, you can keep the guitar, you can keep the bicyle, there's not much in my wallet, I just wnat to get out of here." I realized that bit a bout the wallet was not true, because I remebered having taken money out fo the bank earlier that day, in real life, and thought the money was still there. (In real life, I had simply re-deposidted the money in a different account and never put it in my wallet, but in the dream I had put it in the wallet, and it was still there).
Right about then I woke up. I never found the kingpin or top man in this sort of inner-city enclave of retro-70's hippie life. that was starting to have a slight sci-fi edge. But the narrative was so strong and clear, the experience so lifelike, I had to get out of bed and, despite my plan, and need, to get a full night's sleep tonight, had to open up my computer and write this down.
So now it's about 4:30, as I needed to take a few breaks during the writing of this to collect my memories and make some soup. I probably would have forgotten a this if I had goen back to sleep, and at least I have it down here if I decide to buuld upon it and expand the story.
Maybe I will combine this story with some of the other dream stories and fragments I have written here in this blog, and would otherwise have forgotten.
Posts
