Dreams: By Tag: Crowd

Thursday, July 22, 2010: Schools

He spoke with students from three different esoteric schools, comparing what they knew and what they practiced. Each school gathered in a complex stone or brick building.

In another dream, he attended a school of design. He was presenting a project today. When he arrived at the classroom, he found that they had no projector or screen, only a chalkboard. He ran back to his dorm to retrieve notes for his presentation.

Friday, July 16, 2010: In Search of a Bus Stop

In search of a bus stop, he walked at night on a street in a strange city of low brick buildings, streetlights, and brightly lit shop interiors. Other people walked the streets, some entering and exiting the shops.

He walked into a building, climbing up and down many flights of stairs and through many corridors. He thought in general that he was moving below ground level. He entered a large room with a crowd gathered in a vague queue. He saw a concession stand with popcorn, a ticket booth, and a marquee. He realized it was a movie theater. He walked away in search of the bus stop.

He stood before a large platform open to daylight and a long descent to the ground. His father stood on the platform. A man made an announcement over a loudspeaker. His father shrugged and jumped to his death.

Sunday, June 13, 2010: Apocalypse

As the apocalypse unfolded, to the noisy distress of others inside the concrete bunker, he and a smaller band left.

The sky was dark with clouds and the ground was bare. The giant, squat metal vehicle was overloaded. He and the band climbed the scaffolding, and floor by floor, sifted through boxes, gathering valuables and discarding the dross.

Ash began to fall from the sky. He reached the top of the teetering scaffolding, throwing and pushing everything useless over the edge to the ground below. He opened the top drawer of a bureau. Inside were two jewelry boxes. One was filled with turquoise jewelry; the other was filled with amethyst jewelry. He took both boxes, pushed the bureau over the edge, and descended the scaffolding.

The ash fell heavier and deepened, and those in the compound grew restless, so they started the vehicle and departed.

Friday, May 28, 2010: Calling for Ice Cream Delivery

He stood at a gas station. It was daylight. There were cars and people filling up their cars with gas.

He felt bewildered, not knowing where he was. He was talking on a cell phone to a woman. He was asking her about ice cream delivery. She asked him where he needed the ice cream delivered to. He looked around for street signs, but didn't see any. He asked others where he was, but they did not tell him.

Friday, May 21, 2010: Elements

He stood inside a stone building. Others stood around with him. Through a wide opening, they looked at the water and the light of day.

But something viscous, black, and malevolent surged within the water. It began to bulge and lift itself up through the opening. Panic spread through the others. Darkness fell. He grabbed a thick branch and climbed upstairs.

Already, the sky was black. Trees bent in the wind. He leaped into the air and flew, carried by the wind backwards and upwards. Below, savages with spears pursued him. He pointed the thick branch at them. He expected lightning to shoot out from the branch, but instead, out came a glowing green streamer of energy that remained on the air and floated down softly.

Thursday, April 08, 2010: Black and White Cat

He found himself in an apartment that was not his own. There were many other people in the apartment. He moved from the kitchen into the living room.

A black and white cat began harassing him: scratching him, biting him, trying to climb up his clothes.

He asked the cat, "Are you hungry?" and tried to bring the cat over to his food dish in the kitchen. But instead, the cat continued to harass him.

His dog appeared, and the cat began to harass both of them. He tried to keep the cat and dog separated.

For a brief moment, the cat turned into a middle-aged Hispanic woman. She spoke in English on a cell phone. Then she turned back into a cat and resumed harassing them.

Finally, he picked up his dog and escaped outside.

His wife was there.

They sat together under a gazebo. Suddenly, black and white birds flew down, then black and white cats with wings flew down; then rabbits and other small animals with wings flew down.

"Look at them!" he laughed.

Tuesday, March 02, 2010: Dogs with parachutes, Egyptian party

He and his wife walked along Park Avenue near Elm Park at dusk. Airplanes released parachutists. Their parachutes failed and emergency parachutes were deployed. Still, their descent appeared too swift. But they landed safely in the pond. Now closer, he could see the parachutists were dogs.

He dreamed he was at a party in a lavish house of alabaster and marble. The guests wore royal Egyptian attire. He met his wife there, lounging on a couch, when she was younger.

He was on the street with his wife and teenage children. Some Christians were trying to guilt his children to return to the church.

Monday, January 11, 2010: Escaping the beast men

He descended the interior of a dark tower, pursued by goat men and wolf men. A wolf man met him on a stair and held him in its teeth. He wrestled himself from its grip and continued his descent.

He climbed down a ladder. A goat man ascended the ladder from the bottom, and another goat man descended the ladder from the top, trapping him. But he simply climbed down over the body of the lower goat man. He jumped from the ladder and stumbled to the floor, against a wall.

There was a crowd of Asian people and among them were goat men and wolf men. There was a camera, lights, and a man speaking behind a podium on the left, and the same on the right. The beast men snarled, waiting for the speakers to conclude before pouncing on him. They were counting on him not interrupting the conference. So he stood up and pushed his way across the lights and cameras and the podiums, and he found two doors.

He opened a door and closed it behind him. He could hear laughing. They were laughing at him because behind the door was a closet, full of junk, and to them he was trapped. He moved some of the junk and found another door, into the adjacent closet. Then he searched the walls of the adjacent closet and found a board high up on the wall. He removed the board and found a window. He climbed up and out the window and escaped into daylight.

Friday, October 30, 2009: Coronal Mass Ejection

He stood amidst a group of people, looking at a flat screen monitor. They watched a live feed of a filtered view of the Sun. An enormous coronal mass ejection shot out from the right side.

Thursday, March 19, 2009: Space Debris

He walked alone at night on a beach along a small body of water. Suddenly, a fiery space capsule fell from the sky. It crashed next to a beach house. He walked over to the crash site. He sifted through the debris. He found a blue metal object, round at one end, square at the other end. He was no longer alone: a crowd of people were approaching. He walked away from the crowd, away from the crash site, taking the object with him.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009: The Race

He was in a department store filled with toys and candy. Many children and parents gathered for games. He was participating in a race. He stood at the starting line along with three other racers, all female, and one was a child. The track was short, no more than several paces. The lines for each racer were not evenly spaced. Another racer tried to change this. But he pointed out that this was normal. Oh, the other racer said. The starter stepped up to the side of the track. The track had shrunk to a few paces. He got set. The starter quietly mumbled, Go. He ran, practically leaping the distance. Another racer was close to the finish line, but he crossed first. She turned to him and said in a dazed tone, You won. He looked back, and one of the racers had not even left the starting line. She just stood there in shock.

Tuesday, October 07, 2008: Carriage, horse, driver, master

A black lacquered carriage drawn by a strong brown horse rolled down the dusty street. Patrick Stewart played the master in the carriage. He lounged across the seats inside the carriage, and spoke to the driver from time to time, giving him direction.

From a nearby pub, a stumbling gang of drunks approached and surrounded the carriage. “Keep moving. Don’t slow down,” the master ordered. “Run them down if they get in the way.”

One of the men passed a mug of amber liquid up to the driver to give to the master. “Compliments of the house to the Master.”

The driver sniffed it. “It’s not piss, sir. It smells like beer.” The driver had gray mutton chop sideburns.

“Throw it away,” the master said. “No doubt it was mixed from mugs left at the bar, or else they had a round of spitting into this one.”

A little beer had spilled from the mug into a top hat inside the carriage. The master flicked the beer from the hat out a window.

Monday, June 09, 2008: Summoning

He was walking down the street of a city at night. He entered a temple. A ritual was being performed on a raised structure before many onlookers. A demon appeared and everybody fled, including him. He could feel its evil presence trying to infiltrate his mind.

This dream recurred over the last two nights.

Saturday, May 17, 2008: Fighting a dragon and a stranger

They assembled within a strong building of brick and steel; still, it had large windows and doors. This place was like a fortress for them. And from inside this fortress, they defended themselves from the attack of a dragon. This dragon had scales of green and gold, a wide mouth of long white teeth, large round nostrils; and this is the part they could see, for the head of the dragon was too big to fit inside the building. One of their number could fly through the air and fought off the dragon with power of will.

In a different dream, he found himself on a city street at night. His parents pulled up to the curb in a car. A stranger holding a hollow steel rod started to threaten him. To defend himself from the stranger, he lied down on the sidewalk, under a structure of strong glass and metal. When the stranger tried to prod him from under this structure, he grasped the end of the rod and pried it from the grip of the stranger. He came out from under the structure, and drove the stranger away.

Thursday, May 15, 2008: Waiting in twilight

They conversed softly while they stood in the parking lot, waiting for a bus, a train, anything to take them from this twilight corner, where the shops have closed and from deep underground the sound of machinery and the light of fluorescent bulbs emanate through the flimsy cover of thin sheets and grates of rusted metal.

Monday, May 05, 2008: Treading water, college dorms

They clung to the balconies of tall buildings for as long as they could. But eventually, the waters rose above the buildings, and they were forced to tread water. He and some others began to swim towards what appeared to be an island in the distance, but somebody warned them that carnivorous fish circled that island. So they turned back and swam in a different direction.

In a different dream, he was returning to college. He arrived early with a few belongings: some clothes, notebooks of poetry, a few books. He and the early arrivals chose a spacious, attractive, clean dorm near the front of the building on the first floor.

Then the late arrivals came. And a voice of authority forced him and the other early arrivals out of the dorm and rush back to try and claim a space. It was not fair, he thought, gathering up his possessions again. He and the others had lost the nice dorm, and were forced upstairs to less attractive, less clean dorms further from the building entrance.

He grabbed a clean towel from a co-ed shower, trying to be as discrete as possible.

He noticed that an older student was on the student roster, which sounded promising.

A witch met him along the way. She gave him her business card and exited as he waved goodbye to her.

Finally, he found an empty bed in a crowded dorm on one of the uppermost floors, full of loud frat boys. He put his possessions down and threw himself on the bed.

Sunday, April 27, 2008: Hunter

He walked along ancient roads, through cities of long past, seeking out men and women whose passions and ambitions and the worship from others had crystallized in them something more than human. They had become gods, haunting cyclopean palace chambers; striding and strutting, demanding and destroying; beautiful, graceful, intellectual, powerful beyond human possession, and entirely mad.

He was nobody.

He saw through their wondrous and terrible mien, which flowed like fire and water and gold and sky. He broke through the spell that put men under their sway, and brought their reigns to an end.

He pursued one of them through darkness along a red path: a road, a river, a rivulet of molten earth. There was a break in the path. He leaped the gap towards his foe and landed in a stream. The stream cooled him and he broke the surface.

But his foe had eluded him. A stone fish lay on the shore of an unfamiliar sunlit villa. He walked into the villa, searching for a native to ask directions. Over a low wall, he saw a young woman. She wore a short red diaphanous dress. Her hair was red gold curls gathered up to bare her long slender neck. He approached her. There was nothing imperfect about her. She appeared to him coy but receptive. But he realized the great, great temptation she represented, and he woke himself up.

Thursday, April 17, 2008: The man who fell to earth

He found himself riding in a shiny metal bus. The bus was floating through space. Neither the driver nor the passengers could control the bus as it floated through space. There was little they could do about their situation.

He could see that the bus and its passengers were floating towards a very bad, very dangerous part of space. Some passengers decided to abandon the bus. He did not know where they went, but they departed just the same. He and the few remaining passengers braved the dangerous part of space together.

Soon, asteroids struck the bus, and the thin metal of the bus tore open. The bus broke apart completely, spilling him and the rest of the passengers into cold dark space.

Alone, unprotected and adrift, he exhaled a final breath. He felt his body freeze solid.

And for a long time, nothing happened.

After some time, the man woke up. He found himself on planet earth. He examined himself, clenching and stretching out his softening hand. He felt warmth entering his body again. He realized what he had endured.

Thursday, February 21, 2008: Race

I had a dream that I was in a race. We lined up, young and old, men and women. When the race started, many rushed ahead of me. I was in last place. But I was conserving my energy and kept a steady pace.

As the race went on, I passed some prizes along the way. Other racers stopped to grab the prizes. But I ignored them.

At the last lap, with a sudden surge of speed, I passed old and young, men and women. I reached out for the ribbon and grasped it. Though nobody else took notice, I had won the race.

Friday, January 25, 2008: Basement apartment, great white cat, man who was a dragon

My wife and I were sleeping in a basement apartment. A friend of our son came knocking at the window, to invite him to play basketball. I said through the window that he was not up yet.

We got out of bed and walked outside. There was a long row of garage doors for parking cars and tenant storage. I spotted a very large white feline. It was trying to get back into a pet carrier that the animal outgrew. A woman came over to the cat and was walking it like a pet. But it was obviously an albino great cat and not a house cat. This made us worry.

We turned around and there was an airplane terminal, letting passengers off.

In a different dream, I found myself in an expansive gray room, filled with strange metal furniture. A man who was a dragon slowly pursued me around the room. Sometimes, I would distract him by drawing his attention to a particularly fine piece of furniture. I cast spells at him and kept my distance until at last, right before he was upon me, he fell and vanished.

Friday, January 11, 2008: Train, cluttered room, costume

I took my son up on my shoulders and caught the last car of a train. We rode the train into a mountain and over a chasm. The engineer saw us; he disapproved of what we were doing, but did not kick us off the train.

We were in a house, inspecting a small room, not much bigger than a closet. It was full of clutter and there was water leaking onto the floor.

We were getting ready for a costume party. I put on hip-hop clothing that belonged to my son.

Monday, January 07, 2008: Farewell, Television

As I took a shower and dressed, I heard the voices of Shake, Frylock, Meatwad, Brak, Harvey Birdman, and Space Ghost. I joined a group of friends who broke into spontaneous Saturday Night Live catchphrases, and reminisced about the earliest days of television that I could remember.

I did not sleep well last night. For some reason, I could only enter a light sleep, broken by the smallest discomfort or noise. Certain lapses in time make me think that perhaps I dreamed that I was lying in bed awake.

It has been more than a month and a half since I have watched television. Part of me misses it, but letting it go has increased the frequency of my dreams and my recall. It has also given me much more time to devote to reading and writing.

Saturday, January 05, 2008: Road through the woods, auditorium, book store

Rounding a bend in the road through the woods, I realized I was dreaming, and became lucid. During this moment, I examined a shrub: on the tip of each branch was an eye. A constellation of moths flew by.

Suddenly, I found myself in an auditorium surrounded by people. I was still lucid, so I made myself slowly rise up from my seat and into the air. As I hovered over the heads of the crowd, I radiated some kind of energy that revealed that the crowd was insubstantial.

I shopped in the store of my friend, Roger. A lot of the books were really old. In fact, it seemed like he had no new books at all. As I carried three books to the counter to pay for them, all of the light went out in the store. I could see only by the light of the open front door. I asked Roger why he turned out the lights. He said it was sundown on the Sabbath.

Friday, January 04, 2008: The office, books

In the office, coworkers were taking down Christmas decorations and replacing them with April Fools Day decorations. We walked in on a meeting, led by a woman in a gray business suit, as it was about to begin, and just as quickly, it ended.

I way lying in bed. A pile of books next to the bed spelled out the answer. But I was too asleep to understand it.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007: Beige Apartment, White Stairs

I had a dream that I was walking the halls of an apartment complex. The walls were brick uniformly painted beige. A couple called out to my friend William to join them, and I think he did join them. My remembrance of the dream at this point overlaps. I was living in an apartment here, a long narrow closet; I was no longer living in the apartment, and I was standing outside looking at the door.

In the second dream I had, I was outside, descending a steep white stair under the stars. I was surrounded by sophisticates on platforms along the stair, wearing ball gowns and tuxedos. The descent was so steep that I had to put down my possessions and climb down on my hands and knees. I met an old friend of mine, Garland, at the bottom of the stair.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007: Giant on the Beach

I was standing by a pier along a crowded beach. A giant tossed a massive ax into the air. As the ax descended, the crowd scattered. The ax landed on the feet of a woman and chopped off her toes. She stared down at her feet, blinking in shock.

Sunday, May 20, 2007: New Club, New Home, John Updike, Kramer

I was invited to a club opening. I arrived early, and sat in a dark corner, alone. Several homeless people sat nearby, here for the free alcohol. I asked a waitress about mixed drinks, explaining that I never drank anything but wine. She brought me a glass of red wine, and I sat, sipping it.

The club filled quickly. A man asked me if I should be drinking wine. They asked if my religion permitted it. They said that if I did not know, that I should ask a religious leader if it is permitted. I said that I did not believe in religions that required one to ask another what their own conscience should tell them.

I dreamed that I was living in a new house. The house contained a menagerie of animals. At bedtime, I herded the animals into a single room, and closed the gate. As I got into bed, I noticed that my wife was sleeping on a different side.

I had a dream that the author John Updike was showing me around his house. It was full of books. He was searching for a particular collection of stories he wished to lend me.

Finally, I dreamed that Kramer, from the TV show Seinfeld, was loudly humming a song, whose lyrics, should his companions recognize the song, would inform them about a person at another table.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007: Volcano Restaurant, Nude Yard Sale

I walked down by the renovated Heywood Building at night. A new restaurant had opened up. Wavy neon lights in red and orange ascended the brick face of the restaurant, culminating in what appeared to be a volcano. There was a takeout window and a main entrance, both with loud bustling queues. I saw a menu taped to a door. They appeared to serve Indian food: kebabs, curries, and I saw a man eating a piece of naan. I noticed that they were only open until 10 PM, and thought that they closed far too early.

In another dream, I was walking up the street from my house, carrying a wooden tabletop. I was bringing it to the house of my friend, Stewart, who was holding a garage sale. As I approached the house, the sky grew dark, lightning flashed, and heavy rain began to fall. I saw Stewart; he was naked, preparing tables for the garage sale. I told him to put some clothes on; there is a dangerous storm approaching.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007: Stone Form, Bombed

We were in cramped barracks, fending off the brutal attacks of a martial artist made out of stone. A boulder was launched at him, but he deflected it. He raised his fist to crush me. I closed my eyes. I opened my eyes again, and his fist was still over me. “Do it quickly”, I told him, and closed my eyes again, as he brought his fist down.

We were running down a street as planes dropped bombs around us. At a fork in the road, a bomb fell close to us. Everything went dark and quiet, and I was aware only of my thoughts.

Sunday, December 10, 2006: Too Close Shave, Strange Toilet, Dog Bite, Ice Cream

My wife gave me a facial hair trimmer for Christmas. I performed a test shave in the bathroom mirror. The trimmer shaved too close; it shaved off the skin on my chin in two places.

In another dream, I was hanging out with my old friend William, at his radio show, with a couple of well-known but much older rappers. We were discussing Rap Theory, the rise and decline of the music genre.

I had a dream that I was at a party. People were dancing, talking, drinking. I fondled two different women; they didn't seem to mind. During the dream, I found that I was describing the dream to somebody in a second separate dream. In the second separate dream, I was in a group therapy session, led by a husky, middle-aged black man.

In another dream, I was in my basement, examining the toilet in the bathroom. I noticed that there was a blue plastic skirt around the toilet base. I removed the skirt and discovered that there was nothing under it but a deep hole, to a sub-basement, with a blue pool of water. “Somebody is going to fall into that,” I thought to myself.

I had a dream that I was in the ice cream section of a supermarket. The ice cream was gourmet quality, in various delightful flavors and shapes. I selected an orange cream flavored gelato.

In the last dream I can recall, our little silky terrier was having a panic attack. He was lashing out, growling and biting at everything. I got his attention, to protect my wife, and to calm him down. He leaped up and latched onto my thumb with his back teeth. It doesn’t hurt; he doesn't even break the skin. His jaw jutted at an unusual angle. I held him in the air for a while. He seemed to ponder the situation and calmed down, releasing my thumb.

Sunday, December 03, 2006: Gathering, Sabotage, Flying, Restaurant

There was a gathering taking place. My friends were there; ex-church members were there, too. We were going to verbally dismantle the church. We rehearsed, but I cannot recall what we rehearsed.

Afterwards, I spoke with Will about our writing and gaming. We were pleased with our progress. We flipped through a book of pencil sketches of Lovecraftian subjects.

I drove a car into a parking lot late at night. I discovered that the other car tires had been flattened. No doubt it was church saboteurs. But my early discovery of this plot could be easily undone in time for our coup with the church.

Morning came, the sun lighting green leafy trees along a street. I saw a young black girl playing. As I walked down the street, I leaped into the air, and floated down. I repeated this several times, until I was able to stay aloft by flapping my arms. The young girl was amazed.

My wife and I got into a blue Dodge Charger. I needed to go to the bathroom, but I said that I could go at the restaurant. We drove to the restaurant. There were two restaurants, actually, both with crowded al fresco dining areas. One restaurant was called The Ghost in the something something. I cannot remember what the something was, but we guessed it was an Irish pub. We walked over to the other restaurant. I was barefoot, despite the cold. I thought that I should go back to the car to put on shoes, but I did not go back. Katherine Helmond was our waitress. We exclaimed, “Mona!” She seated us in a far corner, near the restrooms.

Saturday, November 11, 2006: Depressed Neighborhood, Waterfront, and Finally, Vermont

I walked in an unfamiliar neighborhood at night. The apartment buildings around me were crumbling apart. The few people I saw wore shabby clothes. Numerous large dogs roamed the streets, and I imagined they converged upon me. I stood in a playground that was used as a dumping ground instead. I climbed between a jungle gym and a stack of miscellaneous construction debris, to escape the dogs. I was high above the ground.

In another dream, my wife and I were living in a house that was built next to the ocean. This made me very nervous. I moved from window to window, searching for any sign of weakness in the house. It was day, so I could see that the foundation was stone. The house was covered with white aluminum siding. The tide appeared to be rising, and the waves rolled into our foundation higher and higher, but never reached above the foundation.

There you have it, two of my phobias: deep bodies of water and large dogs.

The house itself, from the outside, resembles our own house, which has a gray stone foundation and white aluminum siding.

In my last dream, my wife and I had arrived in Vermont, on vacation. It was night. We were in downtown Burlington. We walked along Church Street and Main Street, and on the nearby college campus. The streets and shops were bustling with activity, people of all ages and walks of life. We wondered aloud what we should do first. Half-joking, half-seriously, we both replied that we should look for jobs.

My wife and I are going on a vacation to Vermont soon. Vermont is a dream to us.

Saturday, October 28, 2006: Road Trips, Pet Injured

A co-worker and I were driving down a long well-paved two-lane road. It was windy and raining. Apparently, the car was a convertible, but the top was so flimsy, I had to hold it down to keep it from flying off.

In another dream, I was in a chartered bus full of passengers. We were driving down the same road as the previous dream, but in the opposite direction. There were many obstacles on the road, some frighteningly difficult to navigate, including large patch of eroded road that threatened to swallow up the bus.

As we neared the end of our trip, we pulled over for a stretch. A passenger and I went for a walk with our dogs. We climbed down the embankment into a wooded area. We let our dogs wander far, but still on leashes. Suddenly, a blue car rolled down the embankment and struck our dogs. I don't know the condition of the other dog. My dog returned very slowly, as if he were injured. Indeed, when he approached me, his face appeared to be swollen. I immediately returned home, to take my dog to the vet. Before I left for the vet, I took my dog in our fenced-in back yard for a walk.

Sunday, October 22, 2006: Church Intrusions, Fatherly Extortion, Demonic Seduction

I stood next to a long heavy wood dining room table. Seated around the table were members of the church I left years ago in real life. The phone in the middle of the table began to ring. Those seated at the table looked to me expectantly. So I answered the phone. It was Malcolm David Kelley. He spoke to me about church-related things. I stopped him after a minute or so, saying that I no longer attended this church, and that I don't even know why I am here, then I hung up.

My dad, my sister, and I were driving at night. My sister dropped me off at a mall. I was going to see a movie in the theater that was in the mall. But when I got to the theater, it was full of members from the church I left years ago. This annoyed me, so I waited outside for my father and sister to return.

After my father and sister returned, my father was telling me that he needed to borrow money. He had two sheets of paper. One was a list of items totaling the money he needed to borrow. The second sheet was a list of insignificant things that he believed he had done for me that entitled him to money from me.

In a different dream, I was being seduced by three demons, and I let them seduce me.

In a dream I cannot place chronologically among the other dreams, I was coding my website. I added a CSS effect to title text to make it look blurry.

Saturday, October 21, 2006: Duet, Toughs, Needles, a Train, and a Moose

I was walking in the middle of the street in an urban area in bright daylight. I passed a college campus. A young woman joined me on my walk. She started singing, and I joined her singing.

As we continued walking and singing, night fell. We stopped singing. We turned down a street. We passed a news stand, and then the street came to a dead end. I noticed that the young woman was no longer with me. I could not find her. At the end of the street were a gang of children, six or seven of them, no older than twelve. One of them looked like Malcolm David Kelley. I asked them if they had seen the young woman who was with me. They laughed, and surrounded me. They grabbed me by my arms and legs, but I shook them off.

In a separate dream, I was walking on a road again, at night. I fell on an open box of acupuncture needles. I lifted myself up, and found several dozen needles sticking out of my left elbow and right knee. As I pulled them out, one by one, some nearby people laughed. I said it wasn't funny.

I also dreamed I was in a brightly lit mall of gleaming metal, glass, and white plastic. I stood at the top of an escalator. I was writing something down, and talking with a man who was standing nearby. I dropped the pen on the escalator, but quickly fetched it. The man warned me of an oncoming train, and just then, along a narrow pair of shiny metal rails, a mini-train passed us, carrying a single passenger per car.

In my last dream, I was standing on a snowy hillside. I saw Royal Canadian Mounted Police standing around in the snow, looking at something. I approached where they were standing, to see what they were looking at. A moose was lying in the snow. It appeared to be dead. I asked if it was dead, but I saw it lift its head slightly, then drop its head back into the snow. The mounted police sang a sad low song for the moose. They said that it was a traditional song they sung for fallen mounties, and that all moose are considered honorary mounties. All but one of the mounties rode off to get help. I asked the officer who was still there if the moose was injured; I could not see if the moose was hurt or sick.

Tuesday, September 14, 2004: Leak, Dogs

It was raining outside. There was a leak under the sink. I checked the leak and it started gushing. All of the wood in the pantry became saturated with water. It was so soft, it gave under a little foot pressure.

I had a dream that I was preaching to a crowd of dogs. I was quoting scripture from a dog bible.

In the last dream, I was taking my dog for a walk, outside of the fence around our house. A gang of roaming dogs approached. I picked up Pippin to protect him from the dogs, and made my way back to the house.

Monday, August 23, 2004: Edge of Dreams

Lately, I've been experiencing a new dream state. Just as I am falling asleep, I am aware that my thoughts have begun to wander. A dream begins to form, a half-lit vision. I can still feel my physical body, and still perceive the dream. I can only maintain this state for a short time before I fully wake up.

One of the brief half-dreams I had was a crowd of cheering, happy people carrying signs.

Sunday, August 01, 2004: Poetry Recital

I was invited to recite poetry before an audience. I was having trouble finding the location of the recital in the large hotel I was wandering in. I was running late. I wrote four short poems, only filling both sides of a single sheet of paper. I also had not realized how large an audience I was reading poetry for. And somebody was hurrying me.

I opened the auditorium doors. The auditorium was filled with people. I was reminded of the church I had attended; some of the audience members could have been church members I’ve known in the past. As I entered the auditorium, a man on stage announced me. As I reluctantly approached the stage, I realized that I was very thirsty. I asked the announcer to give me a moment. My wife was seated nearby. She gave me a water bottle, and with a giggle said, “Attention to detail.” The water bottle was empty, so I looked around for a water cooler. I spotted one in the far right back corner of the auditorium. I walked over to the cooler. It was filled with Kool-ade. I filled the bottle and headed toward the stage. I made myself wake up because I felt afraid.

I don’t remember the poems, except one had the name Carl Jung’s name in the title.

I recently started writing again. I’ve also been reading about dreams and dream theory, especially Jung.

Tuesday, July 27, 2004: “Fall-aways”

I had a dream of an old friend, Ray. We used to go to the same church. He said that he was doing better. I remember there were other “fall-aways” around us.

“Fall-aways” is the term my former church used for ex-members, similar to backsliders or apostates, except that it included members who left that church to attend a different church. Yes, they were that dogmatic.