Dream on the morning of 2/27/2026: The Guitar, the Bicycle, and the Girl.

 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.

 

A Dream of Atlantis (?)

 

 I just dreamed that I read an entire story. I wasn't sure it was a dream until I woke up and remembered it. It felt like I remembered it too deeply for it to be a dream. But now I realize that the dream was a mix of reading text and seeing images that may have been comic book pages or something on TV, and that mix of media in the same experience could only be a dream,

It was parallel stories of several people who believed that they had found a way to get to the underground world of Atlantis. In each case, it involved following someone who said they were from Atlantis into walking into the ocean. The thing is, though, that no one had ever reported coming back from these journeys. But each person in these stories, by different means, was convinced that they had found the way.

There was an old man in a wheelchair, a young man skeptical of the fellow who said he was from Atlantis, and a couple more who I don't remember so well. In each story, the person was led by the "Atlantean" to a place in the ocean where they stood on a platform.

That was the moment of commitment, where those who had no doubt would go forward right away, and those who were unsure had to make their decision.

Once made, the person would walk forward, guided by the Atlantean, and the front of the platform would extend and drop down, like an elevator, but would form invisible barriers around it so that you descended down a rectangular shaftway, like a bucket pushed partway below the surface of a pool or tub.

But as the platform descended down and forward, the water at the surface would start leaking over the top and filling up the shaft, just like if you continued pushing that bucket so that the rim would be just at surface level, but the lapping of the waves at the surface would spill water over the sides into the bucket.

At that point it was revealed that this was a trap. The water would fill up, and the people would disappear under the waves forever, and no one would ever find out the secret of Atlantis.

 The trick of writing this story will be to make the reader buy into the story being about Atlantis, but then throw them that Twilight Zone/Outer Limits twist without disappointing the reader. As the dreamer, I was satisfied with the conclusion as I woke up and tried to figure out if I had dreamed the entire thing.

The picture is from a Reddit post about how a picture of people standing on the bottom of the ocean is "oddly unsettling."

A bit of a dream of which I wish I remembered more

Last night I went to bet around midnight, which is a little early for me on a Saturday, but my GF was tired and so was I. At about 2:30 in the morning I awoke from a vivid dream with a very cohesive storyline. I ran it through my head a couple of times to try to remember it because I intended to get up in the morning and write it down. I fell asleep, woke up again some time later still thinking about it, then fell asleep again, had another vivid dream, and when I woke up the original dream was gone. I have a slight memory of what it might have been about, but the dream memory has been replaced by the later one.

I did feel that the later dream was a continuation of the earlier one, though. Here is how it went:

There was a guy, a middle-aged black man, who was a sort of mentor figure to the heroes of the story (that was part of the earlier dream). He hung out a t a bar like the kind you might imagine in one of those gritty New York City movies from the 1970's where Bad, Bad Leroy Brown might hang out. His enemies, however, had determined that he had interfered in their operations enough.

One day he was in the bar, at his usual seat, and he had ordered a hamburger. As he began to eat his hamburger, his enemies (who also looked like they came out of a gritty 1970's NYC movie) said something insulting to him or about him. He then proceeded to rip a car door off the wall (I don't know why there was a car door hanging on the wall). This proved his strength and how he was not about to take no shit. His enemies, of course, had a plan to attack him in a manner that he woudl not be expecting, but I woke up before actually seeing it happen.

In the previous dream (in my memory, and dream memories are funny, changeable things), there were two or three scenes with this guy in this bar, but there was also some sort of scene that may have involved some sort of quasi-mystical thing involving a lightsaber or something. this mento had a strong role to play in the guidance of the hero or heroes,, (one of whom ay have been me).

I really wish I remembered that dream. Next time I am getting up. To heck if it is 2:35 in the morning! I am writing these dreams down!

Justin Bieber on a Train

Having a day job and a night job some days a week, I have taken to afternoon naps. I just woke from one in which I had this entertaining dream:

I was on a modern cross-country train, like something out of the movies, in which I had a friend who was much like some sort of leading character in the TV show "friends." He was lean, had long-ish hair, and all he wanted to do was to get ahead in the world of celebrity fashion advising. He had an apartment in this train (you would cal is a "small studio apartment" or a "room" in New York, but it would be considered quite large by train standards. This was sort of what I imagine that 1979 TV show "Supertrain" would have been like) and we would sit talking about how life is betraying him.

For my part, I would up in another part of the train suddenly deciding (in a Brendon Burchard-inspired manner) that dammit, I was going to record something in the music studio. I had songs that needed to be recorded and I was going to share them with the world.

But as I started to had down the train to the recording studio, I came face-to-face with Justing Bieber. He said that he had just booked the recording studio for the next week to record his new album (and he was being a bit of a douche about it too).

So I sat him down and told him that I had a friend who could help him out. He had been worrying about declining popularity lately. I said: "I have a freind who can dress you in clothes that will make people stop and task 'who made that amazing thing that he is wearing?"

As I continued to talk up my friends fashion advice skils, I noticed that he was wearing a blue, short girl's top that was tight around the chest, showed his belly, and had short puffy sleeves. He was wearing something equally efeminate on his lower body. I figured this was some sort of retro-'80's madonna/Boy George kind of thing done awkwardly. This boy needed help.

So my friend appeared and stood before him as he sat on a large box or something and linked his fingers with Justin Bieber's, arms outstretched and palms down, as if he was some sort of messiah figure. He looked in his eyes and told him "I will find you the clothes that will change your life. This will be so good for you. People will want to wear what you are wearing and will be talking about it as they scream your name wanting to know what it is. This will be a start of a new chapter for you."

So we took Justin Bieber to my friend's room to discus this. Justin Bieber was totally enthralled. We got there and the room was a mess, the way a man's room can be a mess when he no longer has any care for order or hygiene and the word has gotten away from him. There were clothes all over the place the floor was nowhere to be seen, unwashed dishes and half-eaten food was present, the place was just a big, unholy mess. I explained: "He has been through a rough emotional patch lately."

As my friend and Justin Bieber st down on what I think was a bed, there were large, dangerous insects flying around the middle of the room, and one of them stung me as it brushed past.

I left the room and wound up on the sidewalk where I saw a bunch of comic-con cosplayers in G.I. Joe costumes gathering to wait for a bus. I said "There are insects in there that are big and nasty and have stingers with stingers attached!"

It seems that cosply was a big thing an a neighborhood newly designated as "Helio Sphere," although I was not 100% certain that that was the name of a neighborhod or something else. The neighborhood in questions was dominated by a tall tower with a round flying-saucer-type thing on top, sort of like those rotating restaurant sky-needle type towers around the world.


The crowd of cosplayers got larger, as there was some reason that it was better for them to be here on their way to whatever event to which they were going than anywhere else. I asked "Is Helio Sphere a neighborhood or something else?"

Right about then I woke up.

A slightly different zombie dream

I just woke up from a slightly different zombie dream. The big difference was that the zombies were not ugly, non-sensical, shambling messes. They were relatively intelligent and lifelike. Their faces around the corners of their mouths would turn dark and their skins would go pale. With a bit of makeup they could pass for living. When biting, they did not break and tear flesh(apparently). When bitten, the victim did not turn right away, but would go about their business and slowly start to feel the transition from human (wanting food) to zombie (wanting human flesh).

I was in a place where a recently-turned had made-up four of them to make them appear normal. I was even kissed by the gay one. Five people went in to take care of them, and before you knew it, there were now ten of them.

A popular trick among these zombies was to put themselves in body bags and get delivered to places where they would turn the unsuspecting people. I somehow got one of these "bodybag zombies" and tried to take it somewhere.

I'm not exactly sure why I was dragging this bodybag around, I may have been trying to get it to a place where someone could find a cure. I may have been bitten myself and was trying to get a cure before I turned completely. But everywhere I went, to a pool party, for instance, I would tell the people present not to open it. I would up delivering it to a hospital. I told the people there to be careful and not let the person inside bite them.

I think by the time I made it back to the street, the room to which I had delivered the bodybag zombie had been completely zombified and they were starting to spread out.

The Journal of Frankenstein's Brother, Part 2

EXCERPT FROM THE JOURNAL OF DR. NICHOLAS FRANKENSTEIN

as transcribed by Zorikh Lequidre

(part 2 of 2, continued from yesterday)

When I reached the creatures, I was able to see them in greater detail, as if they now allowed themselves to be revealed to me. I was now within their reach and had no chance of getting away, even if I turned and ran with all my speed (a course of action, that, upon reflection, a reasonable man should not have considered unreasonable, but which, for reasons beyond my ken, was completely outside my realm of consideration). I saw that they were not quite human, but their eyes revealed an intelligence and depth of feeling as deep as any man, perhaps even beyond.

My first thought was to introduce them to my creature. I tried to speak, but found myself incapable of aught but the hoarsest of whispers. With only such a meager attempt at verbal communication available to me, I decided to forgo words altogether and gestured to them to follow me, and they did.

When we approached the creature's cabin, I found him standing in the doorway, as if he was expecting visitors. My mind now swims with the implications of this. Were my creature and these beings of the North American woods communicating on a level of which man was incapable? If so, how long had these creatures been standing in the clearing, and what had they said to each other? My mind boggles with the possibilities, but I must get on with my report of what happened.

Unlike the human inhabitants of this region, these beings met my creature with solemnity and restraint. They touched each other on the shoulders. My creature hummed softly, as if attempting to vocally reflect the sensation that had woken me up. I started to feel small and insignificant beneath them, as if this was a moment of great import and significance. To think that such a small, frail, temporary creature as I, a member of a species only but recently occupying this land, this planet, this universe could ever accomplish anything as momentous as this would be an act of great hubris on my part. I was merely an incidental part of the environment, no more relevant than a small mammal in the trees, whose only concern for the creatures now communing was whether they would interfere with his gathering of nuts for the winter.

But still, beneath all this, I felt a swelling of pride, for I had created this creature. With my own mind I interpreted the work of my brother. With my own hands I constructed the being that now stood before me. With my own initiative I had brought him to this place. Without me none of this would have happened, and we humans would have gone on living, concerning ourselves with our petty squabbles, fighting over our metaphorical nuts for the winter, never knowing that the secrets of life and nature lie there before us for discovery, if only we could look past our confounded prejudices and selfish desires to find them.

The next thing I knew I was back in my own bed, the sun leaking through the trees, through the window, and into our cabin. Had I dreamed it all? But the sensation was so real! Sometimes dreams can be so real we accept them as fact until the moment of awakening, and then try to deny their ephemerality in the face of reality. But then they fade from memory like wisps of smoke or ripples in the water with nothing, literally nothing, to prove that they were ever there. In fear of this phenomena of forgetfulness, I immediately sat to write down the experience, which is the only way I can report it now, for it faded from my mind in much the same way.

I chose not to share it with my colleagues. They had come with me this far, had witnessed my success in the laboratory and were accepting of the premise of the experiment, but somehow I knew that to reveal this experience to them would cause them to doubt my sincerity as a scientist. It had been an experience that was unquantifiable, unverifiable, one that bordered on the spiritual. I sought out footprints, or any other visible sign of the incident I had experienced, and found nothing. Was I mad? Were these creatures in such harmony with nature that they could move among it without being detected or leaving a sign? Was there more to the universe than the realm of human experience allows? Are there truly more things in Heaven and Earth than is dreamt of in our philosophy?

On the evening of that day the natives came forth into the clearing by our cabins. It had been less than a month since we had arrived, and it was the first full moon we would experience there, and I supposed that this is what the natives were celebrating. As the sun went down the natives lit a bonfire and started dancing in a big circle. They played music with primitive drums and pipes. As we stood and watched we were invited to join the circle by the natives, and soon we were welcoming the full moon with all our hearts. We were fed with the most delightful of foods and drinks, presumably made from the local fruits and vegetables, nuts, roots, grains, and berries. I thought it curious that there was no meat, particularly considering the animal skins the natives had worn in our previous encounter, but I assumed that these innocent savages had found a way to live in harmony with the local fauna, and resigned to pursue the question of the origins of the hides later. In any event, certainly from the taste and volume of the food at this celebration, they had found epicurean satisfaction in a vegetarian diet.

The festival happened in such a whirlwind of activity that I did not have the opportunity to invite my creature to join, although I would have been concerned at introducing him to so much excitement so soon. But before I was able to collect my wits I had danced, dined, and drunk so much that I had to retire to our cabin to recover.

I must have dozed off, for when I awoke the full moon had risen and the sounds of celebration had died down. I ventured out the door and saw the mysterious creatures from the previous night sitting around the dying embers of the fire. The natives were nowhere to be seen. I approached the creatures with caution, wary lest any sudden movements or loud noises disturb them. They now seemed real to me, almost common place, as if this was a natural way for them to exist in a relaxed state.

I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to bring forth my creature and see if he would commune with them as he had the previous night. If that had been a dream, I thought, what would happen now, in the light of reality? I tried to whisper to the nearest one, but as in the previous night, my whisper was so hoarse it could barely be said to be a sound at all. Yet the nearest creature did hear me, and turned, slowly, to look at me. I felt that the only other sound I could make than a whisper was a full-throated shout, but my respect for the mood of the moment did not allow it. These creatures seemed so large in my presence that the only way they would be able to understand me was if I shouted, but what business had I, a mere human, to do that in their presence? As a scientist, dedicated to observing natural phenomena, how could I do something so disruptive to the natural state of these strange beings?

But somehow the nearest creature, the one who had turned to me, understood what I was trying to say. He did not respond in any obvious, direct manner, but simply turned back to the fire. Was I being ignored? Thought insignificant? Allowed to leave? The meaning was inscrutable to me, but at least I was obviously not a threat. I got up and ran to my creature's cabin. The path seemed longer and more overgrown than I had thought it to be. I found myself out of breath when I arrived. I opened the door to find the plants that had been gathered to fill the cabin had nearly overgrown it, forming a jungle of almost Amazonian dimensions. The ceiling seemed higher than it had originally been built. His table was in the middle of the room, and on it was a plate with a slice of toasted bread with some form of sauce or preserve spread upon it. I looked for my creature but saw no trace of him. Perhaps he was hiding in the undergrowth, The idea that he could have left the cabin did not occur to me. I picked up the toasted bread and examined it. I noticed a smell on the spread. It was unfamiliar to me as being of any form of spread or preserve of which I'd had experience. Then my eye wandered past the bread, to the table, to the base of a large plant-pot but a few feet away. I saw an...object. A thing, sticking out from behind it. The thing was white and had the distinct shape of a bone, a thighbone, perhaps. I was intrigued by the curiosity of what sort of thing could have that shape and been brought into this cabin.

I approached it cautiously, growing more certain with each step that it was a thighbone, and more trepidatious about what that might mean. I turned the corner around the small tree inside the plant-pot and found a sight that will chill me until the day that I die.

The thigh bone was connected to a hip bone. The hip bone was connected to a back bone. The back bone was connected to a skull, and the skull was resting under a pile of bones higher than my own head.

What have I done?!? What have I created!?! My blood froze. My body chilled. All the cliches of the Penny Dreadfuls came alive in that moment of realization of the abomination that had come forth from my laboratory, from my own hands!

I retched. I collapsed. I crawled to the door and ran back to my cabin. I searched for my colleagues to no avail. I ran out of the cabin and saw the giant creatures of the forest standing near the remains of the fire, facing me. Amongst their number, central among them, was my creature. They started moving towards me. I envisioned my bones on that pile in the cabin. Grotesque images of my creature's mastication of my flesh flashed before me. I turned and ran.

I ran through the woods, heedless of the million bits and pieces, twigs and branches, rocks and stones, leaves and insects in my path. As I ran I had a thought that was terrifying in its comfort to me: That as his creator, my creature wanted me to join them in their abominable, inhuman culture, to be one of them, feasting of the flesh of lesser men! To imagine that I would be comforted by being welcomed into such a fellowship! Was my attachment to humanity, to human virtue so tenuous that I would join a brotherhood that gained nourishment from consumption of my fellow human beings, beings as capable of thought, of feeling, of creation as I?

Sheer exhaustion and the denseness of the undergrowth slowed my progress, but did not diminish my ardor for exit from that nightmare, now too real to dismiss. Dawn came. As the sun climbed my flight continued. Fear and desperation overcame hunger and weariness and I continued to plunge forth through field and wood, across river and stream. Somehow I found my way back to civilization in the form of a fort by a lake manned by soldiers of the British Empire. I dared not tell them of my plight, my shame, my horror, and allowed them to believe that I had been captured by natives and struck dumb by being witness to some inhuman ritual that I now would have thought tame by comparison to my true experience. I write this journal in the desperate hope that it will somehow purge me of these feeling I have, these visions of horror, this realization of my folly.

My only endeavor now is to seek the undiscovered country from whose borders no man returns. My only hope is that I find a dreamless sleep, an eternal forgetfulness that will wipe clean all memory of what I have done. If however, I face some form of eternal damnation, I pray only that it will be my own to suffer, and that Humanity will not suffer from my hubris in thinking myself capable of achieving that which is only for nature or God to achieve. If would-be Prometheii continue to tamper with forces beyond their control they risk not only the ruination of their souls but the destruction of all we have achieved.

These were the last words of the journal of Dr. Nicholas Frankenstein. His body was never found.

On the grounds of a prestigious university in the British Empire stands a monument to learning and the pursuit of knowledge. The inscription is poetically worded, describing how only through the tireless pursuit of knowledge can man ever hope to improve himself.

Somewhere else is a small headstone on which reads the name DR. N. FRANKENSTEIN.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FIRST PART

Here are some more versions of the original story to enjoy:






...and just for fun:

The Journal of Frankenstein's Brother Part 1

A couple of nights ago I had a dream. This dream affected me so much that not only did I feel inclined to write it down (as I have several other dreams in this blog), but to write a short story based on it. This story expands some of the experiences of the dream and builds upon it. I will be posting it in two parts. Here is part one:

EXCERPT FROM THE JOURNAL OF DR. NICHOLAS FRANKENSTEIN

as transcribed by Zorikh Lequidre

I was determined not to repeat the mistakes of my brother.

I and my learned colleagues ventured into the North American wilds to find a secluded spot where we could educate my creature while gradually acclimating him to human contact. I told him that we were going to investigate the local flora, a project that seemed to interest him. With this in mind we built two cabins in the woods a reasonable distance apart. I wanted him to have his own space, to which he could retreat and have the benefit of privacy and the dignity of possession. His cabin was large, and he took to filling it with plant specimens, until it was nearly as foliated on the inside as the outside. I took this as a sign that he liked our choice of environment, and congratulated myself on what I thought was my correct instincts.

After some days a local tribe paid us a visit. They had a curious command of the language, which I attributed to their isolation and limited contact with the civilized world. They were bundled in unfamiliar skins with decorations of long hair and fur, which I took to be of the local fauna. Being as this region was so remote, I attributed my unfamiliarity with them to an assumption that the wildlife of these woods must be uniquely adapted to the environment and had not yet been collected in sufficient quantities to fill the zoologial gardens and natural history museums of my acquaintance.

I informed the natives that I had a friend who wished to met them. Using the broadest of gestures and the simplest of words, I brought forth my creature from his cabin and introduced him to the natives. They smiled at each other, touched hands, and made eye contact with genuine delight. They were quite welcoming to the creature, a far cry from the ironically uncivilized treatment given to my brother's tragic creature by civilized man. I felt this was a very good sign, and again felt confirmed in my belief that I was doing the right thing.

I kept the meeting brief, as I did not want to push my luck, and escorted my creature back to his cabin. His face revealed an amazement, as if he had not expected such an encounter. He seemed almost a little confused as to what to make of it all. I attributed this to the differences between the natives and my colleagues and myself. I expected that he had not realized that humans came in such varieties.

Again I congratulated myself. The species of man comes in a wonderful variety of shapes, sizes and colors, and we must learn to recognize and appreciate the unique values of each of them, or we are doomed to destroy ourselves. The xenophobia of the unenlightened masses comes from lack of contact with the varieties of the world, and plays to the fear of what is different. This is a logical fear, as our simian ancestors justifiably feared the unknown. Therefore we must raise our children in an environment of diversity and understanding. That is the hope of mankind.

With this revelation warming my heart, I settled in for the night's sleep. This confirmation of my natural inclination was an unexpected result of this experiment. I drifted off to sleep wondering what other discoveries I would make, to what new visions into the human psyche the creature would introduce me.

I failed to sleep through the night, however. Some sensation, like a premonition, or perhaps an intuition, awoke me. There was something present, not quite stirring but definitely present, outside our cabin. I rose from my bed and cautiously peered out the window. The night was brightly lit by the nearly-full moon, and in the clearing I saw about eight or nine creatures, each one a height that rivaled that of my creature, standing perfectly still.

Had I never seen the clearing before I would have assumed they were some sort of stunted trees, or other natural formation, standing, loosely grouped at the edge of the ground, their stillness being so perfect. But there was a sensation emanating from them. It was not quite a sound, but more of a wave, a vibration, that affected me in a most curious manner. One might think that this was merely the natural feelings of fear, uncertainty, and trepidation, but no, I was quite familiar with those feelings already. This was rather more a feeling of comfort, as if I was drawn to them. I approached them and found myself before them faster than I thought I could traverse the distance. I wondered if they were capable of moving without my noticing, or if perhaps my perception of time and distance were being somehow affected.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO PART 2!

Here are some versions of the original story to enjoy:



...and just for fun...

What does this dream mean?

I normally don;t put much stock in "dream interpretation" with regards to fortune telling, and personality profiles, but just for fun, I thought I would throw out the question here, because this dream as relatively brief, and realistic, containing an unusual amount of coherent logic.

Dream, morning of 10/3/2013

I found a sort of folder in which there were 6 horizontal slots in the front cover, arranged in vertical rows of three. In five of those slots (the bottom right one being empty) there were small cards from Christmas of the years 1958 – 1962. My mom said this was a thing her brother Carl did, which was to send an update of his family every year, and wondered what year this was from. For some reason it seemed to be connected to when I was born. We were also wondering when he stopped doing this.

On the upper right-hand corner of the cover was a date, 1968. Also, it seemed that somewhere there was a date that indicated the last time he sent one, that was 1998. This seemed to me that he sent them every year until he died. However, upon reflection, in the dream, I recalled that he died before that.

I looked several times at the small cards slotted into the front cover, wondering why they were from only as late as 1962 when the folder was from 1968. My mom kept wondering when it was from and I kept on trying to show her the date in the corner.

What do you think this means?

Superhero Dream

So I had this dream last night...

I was working in the office of a newspaper, when a paramilitary terrorist (white, about 40 yrs old, hair cut short to minimize the effect of his receding hairline) busted into the office with an assault rifle and took everyone hostage. One of the other workers, one who was new to the office asked what was happening. I told him that this has happened several times before. This guy is trying to make the superhero in the office reveal himself. The thing is, I am the superhero he is trying to expose, but I can't tell anyone, because I have to protect my secret identity.

The fellow office worker takes it upon himself to be the hero. He tries to use a martial arts technique to get the gun away from the terrorist, the terrorist is just too experienced for him, twists his arm backwards and there is a “snap” sound from his arm. “Anyone else?” he says.

There is a Lois Lane-type character in the office, and she asks what he wants. He says he wants to prove that the American press is a corrupt entity that spreads lies, and that he wants to bring down the power of the press.

I explain to him that he wasting his time. The press has no power. Nobody reads the newspapers anymore. Everybody knows there is no journalistic integrity or investigative effort put into reporting anymore. All the papers just print the releases from the Associated Press or Reuters and boom, they're done. If he wanted to get in touch with Superman all he had to do was this...

And then I put my hands around my mouth and yelled “SUPERMAAAAAAAAAAAAN!”

When he turned around to look I ran off, changed into Superman and flew back so fast he didn't notice.

Then I woke up.

Underwater Twlight Zone Dream

Imagine if you will...a dream so vivid, so realistic, so consistent in its narrative logic, that it plays exactly like a "Twilight Zone" episode or a "weird mystery" comic book story by Jack Kirby.

Picture if you will a large nylon bubble. This bubble has clear plastic windows and is opened by a large zippered doorway. Within this bubble are three explorers, a male scientist getting up in his years but still with plenty of vigor, the inventor of this bubble; His daughter, a young and beautiful scientist who believes in her father's dream of exploring the mysteries of the ocean depths, and a third person, the operator of the bubble, who's details are obscure but unimportant. As the dreamer of this dream, you are also in this bubble, a fascinated observe of this simple yet cleverly-conceived device which will allow you and your companions to explore a phenomena that has been detected on the floor of this particular body of water upon which  you are now floating.

You pull down the plastic central zipper of the door, marveling at the simplicity of its seal, and hoping that it will keep the water out. The order is given to descend, and you see the support staff standing on the platform looking at you with concern. After a moment, you realize that the zipper is not completely closed, but the air pressure is keeping the water from leaking in the bubble. You pull the zipper closed the remaining two inches and lock it in place. The final locking of it causes it to visibly disappear into the fabric securing the air-tight seal. The descent continues, everything working perfectly, and he scientist's daughter kisses him n the cheek.

You reach the bottom of the water.  It is not too far down from the surface that you could not swim to the top if you had to, but far enough that the surface is out of sight and light has a hard time reaching you. you look out the windows and see a broad, flat plain. There is not much life under here, it is an eerie desplate landscape. But there has been some phenomena here that requires exploration.

You put on a breathing apparatus and so does the scientist. and step out of the bubble into the water. You go in one direction and he goes another. The pressures are not so great that a diving suit is needed, so you are wearing a simple breathing mask. As you go further from the bubble, a fast moving bright thing rushes past you, like a car on the highway. In your radio earpiece you hear the scientist's daughter calling frantically for him to come back. You start to look for him to no avail. The air in the breathing aparatus will last a long time, but you worry that if you don't find him you may have to surface without him, and then he may be lost forever.

The bubble reaches it underwater time limit, however, and the scientist has not been found. Once on the surface his daughter is frantic. We must go back down, she cries. He is down there and we must find him!

The time ticks by as the wheels of procedure slowly turn to enable the bubble to go back down. After an agonizing wait in which visions of the scientist's potential fate play before your eyes, you return to the bubble to drop to the same location.

Perhaps there was an air pocket underwater and the scientist was able to survive in that? Perhaps there was an underwater civilization, and a beautiful mermaid who had lured him away? He was a widower, after all, this scientist, and a constant seeker of mysteries, never able to resist one in front of his face. Was this bubble he invented not a product of his obsession with a mysterious underwater phenomenon?

You reach the bottom of the water again and you see a glowing underwater creature, on one of whom the pattern of the scales, the fins, the gills on its belly look exactly like the face of a beautiful human woman. It is this creature that the scientist had followed out of the bubble, and a school of these creatures that now swim around his lifeless body, entangling it with underwater plants. The scientists daughter bursts into teas, for she has learned that the human mind will see what it wants to see in the patterns of nature and that you should always look twice at what is found within...The Twilight Zone.

(OK, in my dream there was no narrator, but the telling of the story was just begging for it)

Dream: Bill Clinton stole my boot!

Last night Bill Clinton stole my boot in my dream.

I was hanging out in a city (Warsaw?) with some friends when we ran into former president Bill Clinton who was with a couple of girls and other friends. He said he really liked my boots, the boots that I wore for the Battle of the Nations. He asked if he could try them on, so I took off my left boot and let him put it on.

After he put the boot on, he said it was cool and then he and his friends wandered off, and I was left there with one boot off, with my left foot in a sock and nothing else. I thought that Bill Clinton was being a bit of a douche. He was acting like that obnoxious, alpha, leader-of-the-pack type after a few drinks who drives the direction of the group of drunk friends who wander the streets on party night.

I and my friends looked around around the corner to try to find him. When we did, he was there, continuing to laugh and joke with his girls and friends, but someone said he was not really Bill Clinton, but an impersonator. So I tried to imitate his voice to see how easily it could be done.

The dream ended before I ever got my boot back, but I don't think that was the real Bill Clinton.

Dream: Captain Zorikh: Inspector of Mars

Captain Zorikh: Inspector of Mars

Dream 5-23-2012

I had heard that there was a known criminal in the domed city who was in town to steal the source of a new power. It was a gem or radioactive stone of some sort that could have great destructive power in the wrong hands.

This man was not wanted for any crimes currently, however, so I had no cause to arrest him. I did find him in a men’s room. He was doing his business in a stall, and he recognizes me when he asaw me. He knew that I knew what he was in town for, but he either was inno hurry to get away from me, or knew that it would have been pointless to do so. WE walke dout together in to the night air in the streets of Mars City.

We joined up with two of henchmen-for hire, who worked for a crime kingpin. This was someone who’s identity I didn’t know but was my job to find out. I did not tell them who I was exactly, and they were to be as unfamiliar with me as I was with their boss.

We headed to a lounge/candy store where we stopped to relax and have drinks. The henchmen were waiting to meet with the crimelord, and told me his name and location, which I made a point of remembering,: Anthony at 615. That was the address, 615.

The situation felt rather queer. Here I was, with a couple of men who would be trying to sell something that could be turned into a near-apocalyptic explosive, and might well be used, if their plan succeeded, and all that was around us would be a fine red mist, perhaps in as little as a week. The stakes were high, but the mood was quiet. There was not much talking as the henchmen smoked cigarettes and I and the criminal nursed beers.

As we sat on the cushioned seats in the lounge, I talked a bit with the criminal. I knew he made a business out of stealing things and selling them to the highest bidder, especially things like weapons and weaponable power sources. I spoke quietly, so the henchmen could not hear.

He called me a detective; I reminded him that I was an Inspector. I told him that there are some people who make a living doing anything they can, no matter who it hurts. On the other hand, one can choose to do the right thing, something that helps people or saves people, or at least not to do the wrong thing, and these people make the world a better place. I think I was getting through to him, because he listened quietly and didn’t say a word.

It soon came to me for me to go, but I wanted to get on the good side of the henchmen, have them keep in touch with me. The candy stand sold cigarettes, and I thought it would be a good friendly gesture to buy them some. “Let me buy you some cigarettes,” I said, standing up. “What brand do you like?"

They selected “Marlboro Gold,” a premium brand that was sold from under the counter, not on display. I cringed a little inside thinking of the price, but I knew it would be worth it, for these men could lead me to the big boss. It turned out they were only $5 for two packs, but I was not sure of the exchange rate between Martian and US dollars. It probably was the equivalent of something like $20.

I reached for my pocket, but then realized I wasn’t wearing pants (this is easily explained: I was sleeping in the nude, and this was a dream, after all. I was probably just adding the sensation of not wearing pants to the dream, and it wasn’t some sort of symbolism). This was not a big deal in Mars City, but my money was in my pants. “This is rather embarrassing,” I said.” I’ve forgotten where I put my pants.” Just then my secretary walked in. She had taken them for cleaning when I had left them in the office, and brought them to me there. My money was still in the pocket, so I paid for the two packs of cigarettes and gave them to the henchmen.

They got up and we all prepared to leave. Just about then I woke up.

Dream reminder of high school reunion

Today is an anniversary reunion of my class at Stuyvesant High School. I have never been much of one for reunions before, especially when they are at posh clubs and cost over $100. But this time I was reading all the posts on the Facebook group, and actually getting a little interested. Unfortunately, by income level right now is too prohibitively low to buy a ticket, but a fellow alum offered to pick up a couple of tickets for those of us in my condition

Since accepting the offer, however, Life has gotten in the way of my remembering. I shot a documentary at the Pennsic War, got a new job, performed in the Faux-Real Theater's Oedipus Rex, and have been dealing with trying to get the money owed me by my last job. Earlier this week, however, a Facebook post reminded me.

But what with all the excitement around the NY Comic Con and reprising my role from last year in today's encore performance of "Oedipus Rex" on Roosevelt Island, it slipped my mind again. Then this morning my alarm clock went off (way too early), so I re-set it for two hours later and went back to bed.

This time I found myself in a classroom-type situation, filling out a form as a couple of women sat at the front of the room behind a table. They were advisers of some sort, and we were going over what we did in high school. Then I would go to the end of the table and take a photo of an arrangement. The arrangement included a book with a picture and short piece of text highlighting the alumna's high school career, a book mark with a picture and another bit of text, and some object that fit in somehow (memory getting hazy). There were only about 3 or four alums in the room, including me.

While I was taking the picture for myself, another female adviser, one who was sitting at a desk beyond the opposite end of the table, said to one of the alums, a fellow I knew from my homeroom back at Stuyvesant, "It says here you were present at two homicides in high school and didn't report wither one of them."

"I thought that was taken care of," he replied, in the kind of voice one would expect from someone who got caught in a bad situation that wasn't really his fault, he had to pay a high price for, and now had thought he had finally put behind him.

I said "Come on, that was 25 years ago. Give the guy a break!" As the adviser and the alum argued, I looked down at the book and saw that his page talked about how his life had gone bad. It included a quote form him?:" Yes, I had some chances, but IO blew it." I decided not to include this in the picture.

The bookmark was much more positive, highlighting his good points and not mentioning the homicides.

Then I woke up and remebered that tonight was the night of my high school graduating class reunion.

Dream of being a film PA-turned-time traveller

Dream morning of 7-11-2011

So I find myself on a movie set on location. The location is outdoors, but on the grounds of a mansion or something. I am there with a friend and a kid. Gary Busey is there also, being very Gary Busey-ish with one of the other PA’s


So we are there as PA’s, but I get the feeling that we are from outside the production, since we just arrived. All the production activity is going on elsewhere, perhaps inside the house, so we are just waiting for orders, pretty much.

I wonder if there is any food available. I notice craft services, and go over there. The fist thing I see is a few slices of carrot cake and some chocolate cupcakes, about half of which have been crumbles. I pile up some of this on a plate and pout another plate on top, to save for later. I then see that there is the regular buffet, which might not have been for me and my friends, but it looked like everyone else had taken their share and they were about to pack it up.

Some guy went over and picked up a fork out of the tuna casserole and ate some, then put the fork back. I thought that was disgusting. I thought about saying something loud, but decided against it. He walked away, and I went around and picked up the fork, went over to the silverware tray and looked for a clean one. There were no dinner forks left, but there were salad forks, so I selected one of them and brought it back. The craft services lady explained that the guy was one of the greatest guys in the world, that everybody loved hi. So here I was thinking he was an asshole, but now looked like an asshole for thinking so about this guy.

Then there was a scenario shift, though the location stayed the same and my friends and I were still there in essentially the same social roles: outsiders in service to the authority. Now we were servants at a wealthy person or noble person’s household in the late 19th century. We were in our late teens or very early 20’s. One of the other servants, who had slightly more seniority but was stationally equal (and had been one of the PA’s) really didn’t like us, and was trying to do things to get us into trouble. He most especially had a trick where he would flick his hand at me and say “when I do this, you just stand there.” But I was to smart for that. When he did do it, I parried his hand-flick and struck him in the chest.

He continued to try to get us in trouble, though. My friend in this scenario turned out to be Robert, my best friend from Elementary school. The guy was whispering into his ear, trying to screw with him, and I was in his other ear, telling him so, and the thee of us were jostling each other.

It came to the point where, I don’t remember what the guy said, but my response was “Look, you’re Christian, I’m Pagan, no, atheist, he’s Jewish, and we all know Pagans! Don’t you think we know that’s not true?”

I turned out that we needed to get back to our own time. The guy tried to tell us that we needed to go down the river to the “twenty-first point twenty-third waterfall.” He repeated that number as I visualized the spot. The kid, a 10-12-year-old boy who had been with us all along, said “That’s not true, I’ll prove it to you.” And got out a pencil and paper and started doing some mathematics.

“How do you know that?” the guy said.

“It’s Math.” I replied.” We’re from the 21st century. We do that.”

Then I woke up.

Dream of Julius Knipl in a dystopian farm collective

Dream on the afternoon of May 17, 2011.

I was drawing superhero pictures for a play to be performed at the Brick Theater in June when sleepiness overcame me…

A middle-aged woman works in a near-featureless square building, raised on a platform, on a farm. She is in overalls-jump suit. She goes to the central collective where she meets with me and another friend, an older black woman. We pick some papers up from a clerk at a raised kiosk/desk. The woman talks about how things are going well with the Collective. The older black woman talks about how she used to fly all over the world doing something that she would get paid $5,000 a shot for, and how she owed a half million. I talk about how things from the past fascinate me, how I enjoy looking at printed things from the past, like posters from the “Vans.”

What are “the Vans” the older lady asks.

“They were a youth-oriented concert series sponsored by a sneaker company” I reply. Then the first lady gives me a present. It is a paperback edition of collected works of Ben Katchor, particularly his “Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer” work. I exclaimed with glee “This is the work of the guy who created Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer!” (I could not remember his name) This makes me so happy!” Tears started welling up in my eyes.

I went on to explain why this was important to me: “What fascinates me is the transitory nature of the printed media. Someday this will all be dust. So when I find, say, a sealed package of corn flakes under a shelf in Hoff’s Supermarket, or something like this I treasure it greatly.”

Note: At this point in time, there has been a breakdown in society, perhaps an eco-disaster or global war or revolution or some combination thereof. Hoff’s Supermarket is a crumpling ruin in the forgotten city that no one goes to, and I actually envisioned a square Tupperware container in which someone packed some corn flakes a very long time ago.

Today's dream: "If anyone has any free will left, follow me!"

Dream on the morning of Saturday, Jan 8, 2011

I’m out in the woods on a day-trip holiday. About 3-4-5 people and I decide to jump in a pond. It’ll be fun! We jump in. One of us (me?) drifts towards the edge of the pond and goes over a dam/barrier. About 4 or 5 of us wind up drifting down this small river, going over falls and barriers. One of us is a semi-hapless guy who has lost a “thing” in the water and we all go drifting after it. That “thing” will become the McGuffin of the story.

Soon we slide down a water ramp and wind up indoors in a structure of sorts. We are in a gray stone corridor and there is a sense that it is underground. We are being led by fit, young, black-clad security guards who keep on asking where “it” is.

We walk through a particular section where the corridor is a little wider and makes a turn when one of our number decides to do a forward roll. We wind up in a spot where the questioning gets particularly intense. The semi-hapless guy manages to whimper/mumble “Red Hook” and “Waterfall,” which was where the river was and where the “thing” got finally separated from us. The questioners are angry and don’t seem to understand. Very frustrating.

We go back to walking through that last section of corridor. At the section where the guy did the roll, now the two people guarding us (both female) do forward rolls as if it was part of their routine to do so at that spot. They begin to engage in a hand-to-had combat training routine and seem to forget about us. We pass by about a half-dozen security guys doing routines with each other using assault rifles. The guy who originally did the forward roll (Me? But he didn’t look like me. But through the rest of the dream I was “playing” him) thought about taking one of the guns away from the guards. There was the constant clamoring of the boss of this facility as to “where is it?” and the constant thought by me of “We were in the river, we lost it in the waterfall, we don’t know where it is.”

Then I entered a room where more of these guard-types were training on special apparatus. They were training drone-like, like mindless robotic soldiers with now free will. There was a doctor type (who was like a particular black doctor I think was on a sci-fi TV show) who was checking them out one by one. I happened to know him and asked what was going on. He said things were going great and he expected to begin his procedure (become one of the guards) soon.

So it seems that the “thing” turns people into these combat machines that serve the powerful guy who probably wants to take over the world or something. At that point I seemed to recall reading a capsulized description of this movie before it began.

The doctor started getting a little edgy, nervous, repeating himself, like he was hypnotized or brainwashed or something. I headed out of the room and found in a dark corner a bunch of normal-looking people cowering in the shadows. There was a middle aged/old lady, a small boy, and other normal, average people in dirty street clothes looking stunned, I said “who has any free will left?” One guy, the semi-hapless guy, who was now a portly, balding, bespectacled guy in a Hawaiian shirt clutching a tall potted plant, said he did.

Apparently these were people who got caught up in this complex and training system who were not perfect enough to be soldiers, so they wound up drifting into dark corners and cowering. It was quite possible that they might not get out of here alive. I said to the semi-hapless guy “Let’s go” and headed for a door at the end of this dark corridor a short distance away. About 3-4 people seemed to respond, but somehow they didn’t make it to the door. I think a guard or something may have come in and started to hustle these people away or threaten them. When I got to the door I turned around and whispered loudly “anyone who has any free will left, come with me!” Only the semi-hapless guy with the houseplant was with me.

There was a lot of play in my mind at this point about “Free Will” as I woke up.

Today's dream: A View to Die For.

I have been a little under the weather for the past week, and I have not gotten very much sleem lately as I have been working and out of the house a lot for the past four days. Today, after getting home around 8:30, then putting on m,y armor and walking around Manhattan for a photography student, then getting home around one, I stayed home, slept for 3 hours, then worked on editing videos and watched the Giants beat the Vikings (football, not mythology). I got to bed tonight at about 2 AM. I woke up about 4:15 from the following dream:

About a half-dozen men are in a large, round room with large windows at the top of a tall tower near the southern tip of Manhattan. The view includes NY Harbor, New Jersey, the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn, the East River, and the bridges there. The men are all people who have done something morally repugnant, ethically wrong, illegal, or just plain shameful, but have somehow gotten away with it.

Aside from the window, the room has a domed ceiling of rich , dark-colored wood. The window frames are likewise of that rich wood, as are the walls, which are about 6’ high. The general air of the room is of a library in a wealthy Victorian mansion.

The men are there at the invite of the owner of the place, an old man sitting on a red velvt couch at one end of the room. When one of the men asks what this place is, he explains that it displays panoramic views of great disasters, but always ends the moment before you would have died.

The men wonder why they are there, and each try to avoid talking about the various repugnant things they have done, although some people in the room recognize others for who they are. The old man watches knowingly, with a half-smile on his face.

At one point the conversation turns, and it leads to discussion about what a person’s favorite time to have lived would be. One fellow says “The 20th century, a more elegant time” and the view in the windows starts to change. The city appears older, the buildings more ornate, and shorter. “I’m talking about the nineteen-tens!” he says. The ceiling disappears, revealing a spectacular sunset.

“Wow! Now that is gorgeous!” he says, looking all around at the sky. The sky is a deepening blue and purple with clouds that are highlighted in magical tones of orange. There is also a yellow-orange glow on the horizon where the sun has gone down.

“Or the 1890’s! The Victorian age!” The walls disappear, although the window frames remain, extended all the way down to the floor now. “That’s what I’m talking about! Look at those ships! Not a steam engine to be seen!” Suddenly there is an explosion among the tall-masted ships docked in the East river. “Except that one.” Sparks like fireworks shoot out of the now-burning steamship. The man thinks it must be for the sake of a spectacular fireworks show we will now see in this panorama. He looks around to NY Harbor, and sees a fire with black smoke pouring out of it into the still-spectacular sunsetted sky..

The old man interjects, “Yes, the ironic thing is, the stem engine ended the steel industry in New York.”

“Wait! This is the great fire! This is ’99!” the previous man cries. Then realization begins to dawn on him. This fire burned New York City to the ground with great loss of life. “This room shows great disasters of history!” The flames grow higher. Panic starts to set in among the guests.” We see a view as if we were in, say, the 5th story of a building, so we can see in the windows of the top floors other buildings as the flames overrun them. In one window we can see a portrait of someone who might be famous or familiar burn up. The flames are now a raging inferno in the windows.

“But wait, you said it ends right before the moment we would have died, right?” The man is panicked. He looks around. Suddenly there is an image of a small flame leaping from a smoking pipe into a lighter. The man looks around the room. The windows are now dark. The walls and ceiling have re-appeared. Everyone appears dead, even the old man. He says, with curious fear “So, what? Do we now just…expire?”

And then I woke up, saying “Faaantastic!”

A postscript began, in which we say three people walking down a long transparent corridor or elevated tunnel through a futuristic New York. But I could not drift off to sleep enough to finish it.

Today's dream: I married Princess Di. I don't think she was into it

This morning I dreamed I married Princess Diana. I don’t think she was really into it.

We were in a private civil ceremony, and while she was dressed in her usual conservative elegance, I was in an over-sized sweatshirt and shorts (what I happened to be sleeping in). After an official said a few words, we were to sign a book. She signed first, very carefully caligraphing the letters, scratching them out several times and writing them over. Someone said she was doing her “chancellery hand.” I mentioned that I had several calligraphic hands that I could write in, but the fellows there said that it was traditional for it to be a Roman hand, which I knew to be big bold capital letters. I opted for a modern signature, but I didn’t want it to be my current illegible scrawl, so I drew it carefully. It wound up with oversized vowels, making it look like a child’s signature.

Also present was Prince Charles, Diana’s ex-husband, looking a lot younger than he does on the cover of that gossip paper with the headline about him being gay. It made me think that the picture was of Prince Philip, the Queen’s husband. Being as Diana was no longer wife to the Prince of Wales, I thought her title now was Duchess of York.

She did not speak to me, and barely looked at me during the ceremony and procedure, and quickly went of to lunch with a friend at a nearby café. I followed her there so I could suggest we get together sometime over the week to get to know each other a little before the big wedding that would take place a week later. Neither she nor her friend really seemed into it. Her friend even said some ostensibly polite but blatantly dismissive thing to me. I said some quasi-sarcastic thing about being sure that she would be a nice person if she wanted to.

I think I was selected mostly at random for this marriage, like she had to be married to someone for some reason, which was why I was unprepared for it.

Most of the rest of the dream has faded now. I think it may have been inspired by recent interactions with women I have met that don’t quite seem to develop into dates or relationships. This is all part of getting “back into the swing of things” after a particularly effective dismantling of my social life through the course of a recent relationship.

My dream this morning: Going up on a line in a movie shoot

So it seems that I was given a small but important part in a movie, and I was doing pretty good at memorizing my lines. We were shooting a scene in an empty lot next to a tall, blank, brick wall. I was supposed to wait a couple of beats, then say a line, then cross to another person in the scene while the main character said her line. We shot this a few times, but on the 4th or 5th take, I said some lines later in the scene to the person I had crossed to. But on that take, I did not get my first line right. When I tried to remember it, I couldn’t. My only explanation was that I had done the line so many times that I just went up on it. So I asked if anyone had a script handy, and no one did.

I went back into the room, which was adjacent to the lot (a somewhat good-sized room with a very high ceiling that was empty of furniture save for one corner where a whole office set-up, including desk, filing cabinets, bookshelves, printer, etc were located), where all my papers were on the floor. I had used to live in that room, but had recently moved out of it because it was being turned into an office. I gathered all my papers into a pile, but could not find my script in the pile. At the same time, the guy sitting at the desk (who happened to be the son of Tom Dolan, an English and acting teacher at Stuyvesant High School who directed the first two musicals I was in there) was trying to figure out how to run the printer (which was printing pages that looked like ditto machine prints) so that in would print a negative image. I didn’t have time to help him because I needed to find the script. I went back out into the lot, and right about then I realized this was all a dream. This was pretty surprising because I thought I could remember the weeks of rehearsals on this project.

I think part of this dream may have been inspired by the fact that I need to memorize a lot of lines for the Faux Real Theater Co's "Oedipus Rex" that I have just been cast in.

Disturbing dream about America

I just woke up from the following dream:

I was looking at a map of the United States, and it seems that a few years ago, a chunk of middle American states (mostly the ones stacked north of Texas extending all the way up to Canada) have been defined as areas which should belong to Native Americans. In fact, a big chunk of central Oklahoma and all of Kansas and Nebraska, as well as chunks of Missouri, Iowa, and maybe a little bit of Colorado have been defined as "B. B. B." I'm not sure what that stands for, but they are now an autonomous region administered by Native Americans.

So I was sitting in the window of the kitchen of my mom's old apartment on East 61st Street (only it was on the first floor in this dream, not the 4th floor, as in real life), and there happened to be a very large map of the US on the wall of the building across the street. There was a fight going on in the street over the situation represented by this map. It seemed to just be fistfights and grappling, and no one was getting bloody, so I stayed out of it. But then I saw that one guy, who had his arms held by three others, was just stabbed in the chest with a knife. I actually saw the knife being pulled out of his chest. That's when I reached in my pocket for my phone to call 911. But a police car pulled up right at that moment.

The people fighting started to scatter. I opened the windows so I could tell the cops which way they went, but one guy started advancing to the window, and I closed it, not knowing if he was a plainclothes cop or not.

Eventually I figured out he was, as a cop in a suit came to my window, which I opened. I told them I saw one of the guys who was fighting run around the corner, and that I witnessed a stabbing. The cop in the suit pulled out some papers saying they needed authorization to check my apartment for fingerprints (that fingerprint bit may have been inspired by something I saw in "Rules of Engagement" tonight). Then another guy reached right through the open window to grab something out of the kitchen. I smacked it out of his hand, and it turned out it was Woody Allen.

There was a little bit of discussion about checking the apartment, as I was sure no one came in from the street, and I wasn't comfortable with cops tromping through the place.

The theme of this dream, the fighting over the situation in America where a big chunk of it is given back to the Native Americans, was probably inspired by a debate I have been having on Facebook. It seems there is a guy who got an advertising circular from a used car dealer that included the words "Se Habla Espaniol! Trabajamos Con Tax ID!" He posted a picture on his FB page of the circular with that phrase circled in red and a yellow sticky that read "Bob- We live in America! We speak ENGLISH! 'NO BUENO!' You have permanent (sic) lost my future business."

This picture was followed by a bunch of supportive remarks, leading to accusation of a "Socialist Agenda" by the Obama administration, etc, etc, etc., and saying that this car dealer was not "pro American."

I found this quite disturbing. What's the big deal? So the car dealer speaks Spanish. In my America, we have the right to speak whatever language we want, and it is simply good business to be able to speak the language of potential customers.

Apparently there are bunches of people (some who call themselves a "silent majority") who really don't want people to use languages other than English here. Spanish seems to be the biggest target around here. Some of them are spouting a psuedo-Aristotlian quotation, "Tolerance is the last virtue of a decaying society" (which sometimes appears as "Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a decaying society" and sometimes it's "...decadent society"). Most of them are hollering "You're in America, SPEAK ENGLISH!"

They are actually taking offense at advertising and public signage that is not in English. They say that anything that makes it easier for someone who doesn't know English to get around and get along is hurting this country. They are calling for boycotts of businesses that speak Spanish (and presumably other languages). Some of them even admit, proudly, to defacement of advertisements in Spanish.

Another common theme among them is the stories of immigrants who came to America because they wanted to be Americans and learned English right away and assimilated. Assimilation with American society is a big thing among these folks. They claim that all these "push #2 to hear this message in Spanish" stuff is coddling lazy people who don't want to be Americans.

They claim that because the Founding Fathers spoke English, and the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were written in English, that no other language should be used in this country. They point out that a common language help commerce and gives a sense of unity.

Now I grew up in New York City, a multi-ethnic town with lots of neighborhoods loaded with non-English signage. I never saw it as any sort of threat to American society or as something not "pro-American." Heck, thanks to the signage, I know that "no se apoye contra la puerta" means "do not lean against the door." I had bi-lingual friends, and went to school right near Spanish Harlem. Half my high school was Asian. There was always a Spanish TV station or three on the dial. So to hear objections to businesses that speak Spanish and non-English signage and advertisements is to hear objections to the world in which I grew up. It sounds like they are objecting to my friends.

It is not a very far jump from boycotting businesses and defacing billboards to throwing rocks through windows and attacking store owners. Should restaurateurs refuse to serve people who speak Spanish while they are eating? Should Telemundo, Telefutura, and Univision be shut off the air? Should foreign-language newspapers be banned? Should we have education camps for non-English speakers?

This sounds like fascism. Yes, I am saying that, Fascism. Does Krystalnacht ring a bell? To get rid of all non-English advertising and signage would take an effort much like that. There are too many people in this country, citizens, immigrants, residents, visitors, and tourists, who enjoy speaking their native tongue or the language of their parents and grandparents to make the enforcement of English possible through boycotts and nasty letters alone.

If anyone wants to get ahead in this country, they are going to have to know English. But if they want to increase their customer base, it won't hurt to learn any other languages that happen to be in use in their neighborhood, or for that matter, the languages of any tourists or foreign visitors (such as students) that may come through their neighborhood. Market forces will lead to a common language being used. That is the history of language. Sure, we could force English Immersion on them, but the vehemence with which this message of "English first" is being spewed does not convince me that it would be done in a helpful and supportive way.

Furthermore, language is the preserver of a culture. Different languages, and different cultures, have different ways of seeing things, different values, different tastes, different aesthetics. Having a variety of cultures gives us a variety of ways of looking at the world and a variety of choices in dealing with the world. Just as you would want to eat different foods at different times of the day, it is beneficial to have the availability of different outlooks on the world. You may find one day that what you have learned is not helping you with your current situation. If there is someone else who has a different outlook with you, they might be able to provide a solution.

I find that permission and support of variety and diversity is a strong unifying influence. It is the promotion and effectiveness of that ideal that has carried these United States through a Civil War and a couple of World Wars (despite the hypocrisy of the sentiment at the time, what with things like Jim Crow laws, Japanese-American internment camps, Indian reservations, etc). There are few things that will anger a person like saying they cannot do something that they enjoy doing. One's right to say something, in any language they choose, seems far more worth fighting for than forcing people to speak only one language.

That psuedo-Aristotlean statement above does not hold true when you notice that ancient Rome, a society that was very tolerant and diverse, lasted for a thousand years, while the 3rd Reich, a society defined by its intolerant unity, barely lasted a decade.

So it's quite possible that this debate inspired my dream of fatal stabbing in a fight under a map of the US in which several mid-American states were given back to the Native Americans. I have no idea why Woody Allen was in there.