Mark Allen's Dream Journal - April, 2003
*note: Date of dream entry refers to day before,the date of the night I went to sleep and the dream I had into the next day's date.

4/1/03:

No dreams.

4/2/03:

    I am with some people I do not know and we are in Dallas, Texas. We are walking around lower Greenville Avenue (an area I used to hang out a lot when I was a teenager). Everything is different looking... but still the same kind of. We come upon the Granada Theater (a big, old fashioned movie theater that was a great repertory movie house - I used to go to it a lot - now it's a concert hall). We see that it has been abandoned and has boards over the front doors and plastic sheeting and stuff. There is yellow police tape over everything. For some reason we all go inside. Everything looks the same, but is all abandoned and decrepit and dusty. We walk through the dimly lit lobby and into the big theater area. We are looking around. Suddenly one of my friends somehow gets up into the production booth area. Somehow, he finds a film and is able to get it into the projection machine (which works) and he starts projecting a film onto the screen(!). It's all old and out of focus and hard to see... plus a big part of the screen is ripped. The cluttering from the projector and the blaring audio from the film is deafeningly loud. We all gather around on the balcony and are like "Wheee! This is fun!" and we are ignoring the film and I thinking eating food we brought - like picnic food. We are acting very childish. The dusty beam of flickering light of the film is over our heads.  I am really paranoid that the very loud sound of the film is going to alert someone that we are in here. I'm trying to lighten up but I keep looking around waiting to see cops break down one of the doors. Everyone else is oblivious and like "Yaaaay!"
    Suddenly, I look over at a glass door I didn't notice it before, it's on the side wall next to the balcony. It is a glass door with a metal handle that swings open - like you would see at a store. I look through the door and see a brightly lit office area with beige industrial carpeting and potted plants and offices with glass walls that have vertical blinds on them. In the office I see a black woman walk by in a full police uniform. Then I see another person in a police uniform. They are just walking around in there very casually. Oh my God! It's a Dallas police precinct! The Granada Theater is literally right next to a police station and there is a glass door separating the two that the police can look right through and into the theater! I look over at my friends who are all dancing around and throwing food like "Yaaay!" and are all oblivious. I'm thinking "Why am I hanging out with these people?"
    Suddenly... the cops come through the door and arrest us all. They turn off the film and we all walk in handcuffs, forlornly out of the theater area and into the lobby and outside. As we do... I turn around and look in two of the seats (which are facing the wrong way). I see these two girls I used to know in high school and college (I forgot their names). One of them used to work at the Granada and the other was a friend of hers I knew in college. They are the ones who called the police on us. Somehow they were sitting right there the whole time and we never saw them. They are sitting in the chairs... looking down at paperwork, which they have a lot of. They each have angular bob haircuts and exaggerated black eyeliner in a kind of punk, cat-eye style. All I see is their eyelids, as they keep looking down pretending to read papers. They have these looks on their faces like they are intentionally looking down and trying not to make eye contact with us because the situation is so tense and embarrassing. I am mortified. It's like I can't even say "Hey ____________! Haven't seen you in forever!" I'm sure they recognized me. We walk out and into the street and await a police van to be put into. I somehow know that these two girls are now the owners of the theater and now that it is out of business, they are spending all their time in there looking over paperwork and trying to figure out a way to re-open the place.
    Suddenly a total scenario shift: I am watching a movie that is kind of like "The Big Chill". Julia Louis-Dreyfus from "Seinfeld" is in it, and I think maybe Jennifer Lopez too. There are a lot of characters in the film.  It seems to be taking place in a cottage in the countryside in Europe somewhere. It's late at night and the characters have been eating and drinking lots of wine. They all decide to go inside the kitchen of the cottage and do some dance that is supposed to be the big climactic musical-like number in the film. As the characters run into the kitchen, they suddenly and very gradually shrink down to little mouse-sized people. It's done with computer animation. The characters, instead of dancing... and now much much smaller than the massive kitchen (since they shrank) instead start running really fast across the massive tile floor - set to the theme song. They are able to run up on the side of the huge kitchen cabinets and then up the wall and across the ceiling. They do this as a group and are all going really fast - all running alongside one another like a marathon. They all have elated looks on their faces. The camera follows them... and since the kitchen is lit up with candles only - this creates some interesting visual images. As I am watching the film, I realize that in the film, this happening is supposed to represent the characters feeling completely centered and elated and feel like they have reached some milestone in their lives by being there tonight and typing up loose ends in their longtime friendships (like in 'The Big Chill'). That's what all this computer animation and trickery is supposed to represent.
    Suddenly a scenario shift, slightly: I seem to be in some outdoor area at dusk. It looks like an open-air house in the countryside in Europe somewhere. The film I was just watching is being projected onto a wall in the house. I am outside in the yard of the house (I can see into the living room where the film is being projected onto a wall). The owner of the house... a man I don't know, is talking to me and holding a drink in his hand. I decide to leave and walk home. I walk away from the house and towards "home". Suddenly the lush green trees and grass around me turns into New York City at night time. I see that I am near my friend Gregory's house. I go to his building and walk up into his apartment. I go inside and he is not there. His cat is though. I seem to have some food... with me - wrapped in paper, like picnic food. Some of it seems like coconut covered cakes. I pick up Greg's phone and call him (but I am in his apartment?). I get him on the phone and tell him that I have a DVD of the film I was just watching, and picnic food... and that I am going to be watching it (here at his apartment?) and would he like to come over (to his own apartment? I live in it now?). It's weird because in the dream I definitely feel like I am in Greg's apartment, not mine. But I'm on the phone at his place (which he mysteriously is not at - even when I call him at 'home') inviting him to "come over to my place."

4/3/03:

No dreams.

4/4/03:

    All I remember is some scenario in a store or factory where a young girl with long, straight dark hair was rolling out individual pieces of toilet paper - little squares - then she was spreading what looked like raspberry compote on one side of them with a spoon and folding them over like pastries or dumplings.
    There was also something about a girl (I think) in a room with blue industrial carpet and white drywall and glass brick windows. She had on a navy blue business suit on and maybe had blond hair. Her back was to me and she had this strange thing that was either growing out of her back, or was hovering near her back. It was bright orange and long and tall, like a weird stick that got really thick and gnarly and bumpy at the top. It looked like a giant crunchy Cheet-o or maybe like it was made from the same stuff that the Thing from the Fantastic Four was made out of.

4/5/03:

    I am in some giant building that is either in Italy, or full of Italian people. It seems to be some kind of giant film production complex that makes Italian films. Many of the hallways and rooms have white walls and bright, red industrial carpet. The building actually seems very, very old but is well kept. All the people that inhabit the building seem a lot older than me. There seems to be one woman in particular that has big, poofed up hair and dangling metal earrings. Whenever I run into her she seems to be hosting a dinner party in one of the hallways.
    It seems like there is a famous, old Italian horror/thriller/giallo film either happening inside the building (like the action from the film is being played out all around us in real time - according to the film's timeline) or there is a filming crew filming the movie in the building all around us in real time. Very strange. At one point... it seems like I have an "assignment" and that assignment is to make a "coming attraction" for the film that is being played out all around us. In other words I have to take my own film camera and go document little scenarios of the film in different locations of the building as they are happening, and the little snippets I film will make up the "coming attraction". So I set out all over the building looking for scenes from the film (That are either happening for real or are being filmed? But I don't see any film crew? Just the action?) Whenever I come upon a "scene" from the film - I know it.
    Lots of time seems to pass as I film scene after scene after scene. Some of the scenarios I witness and record in my camera are: a little girl in a nice dress and ponytails sitting at an old desk writing something as a bald man approaches her and attacks her (I film this partially through a blurry, pebbled, shower-door type glass window that is next to them), a pretty blond girl in a white leather jacket and bright red lipstick alone in the middle of a parking lot at night - looking around her suspiciously, a fast-moving "shot" moving down one of the hallways of the building really fast, someone walking in and out of an automatic sliding doorway in the building (the person is a woman dressed like an airline stewardess from the 1960's), lots and lots of shots of the bald man (who seems to be some kind of killer) running around stalking people, some scene involving bright yellow ears of corn on the cob and the little girl again sitting at a dinner table. What's weird is that I am able to film these with my camera in my own way... my own angles and stuff - yet I know it's someone else's movie that is being filmed (but I see no one else around) or is a film that already exists in the past and is somehow being played out in the building in "real time" or "reel time" according to the time line in the film's plot. Everyone else in the building, if they see the action in the film happening around them (like the bald guy killing someone) they automatically know it is the film and fictional and not real. Weird. I remember at one point I am filming the action in the building and I am thinking "...this film looks too much like 'The Shining', this director is going to be accused of copying 'The Shining'."
    When I seem to be done, I run into the woman with poofy hair and earrings as she is having a dinner party in one of the hallways. I try to talk to her and tell her that I am finished, but she doesn't speak English very well and I do not speak Italian. I take the tape (looks like a VHS) out of my camera and take it into a weird kind of screening room that actually is just another section of hallways with some television sets along one wall that are up high on those carts with wheels things for TV presentations (like when they wheel a TV set into a meeting room). As I walk into the screening room, I pass through that automatic sliding door that I filmed earlier with the stewardess. I pop my tape into one of the TV set VCRs and start watching it.
    Complete scenario shift: I am in Los Angeles. It is daytime and sunny. there is a horrible disaster happening all around me. There seems to be "fire" that is just appearing in the outside air all around everyone. It is causing cars to explode and making people catch on fire. Everyone is screaming and dying and running around. It is total chaos and death and destruction and very frightening. I am running around, but feel oddly "displaced" from the danger. Like I am amongst it but am also just "observing" it.

4/6/03:

No dreams.

4/7/03:

No dreams.

4/8/03:

No dreams.

4/9/03:

    I seem to be in the house of a childhood friend that I had when I lived briefly in Pennsylvania as a kid. It appears that my parents now live in this house. Something very spooky and strange is going on: I am in the kitchen of the house... which contains the back door to the home. I seem to be hiding next to this coat rack near the door - like out of sight of my parents. They do not know I am in the house. It is late at night and very dark. It is also pouring rain outside.
    As I am standing there... I can sense and hear that my parents are in the home's living room watching television. I can ever-so-vaguely make out their reflection in what appears to be the newly painted door to the kitchen from the living room. It is swung half open - and has been freshly painted with glossy paint - so you can sort of see reflections in it. I see that, suddenly, my mother is walking towards the kitchen (the lights are out in the kitchen). I panic for a second and wonder what I should do. For a second I think that I can lean against the coat rack and maybe appear to be a hanging coat, so she doesn't see me. I seem to have a denim jacket in my hand - and I feel that I can kind of "mimic" the jacket hanging on the rack. I see her squiggley, misshapen reflection in the uneven surface of the freshly painted door getting closer... and I hear her voice. Just as she gets to the doorway I, in a panic - lap towards the back door and jump outside and start running through the woods really fast. The rain is pouring down and it is very dark... but I am running very fast and I feel very sad, I think I am crying. I wonder if she saw me? And if she did who did she think it was?
    As I am running through the dark, rainy forest... I am kind of "hearing" this song in my head that I am singing. It is a really slow, haunting, sad song with only voice and piano... the words go something like "I'm running through the rain in grass of your back yard after seeing your reflection in the freshly painted kitchen door of your home... I have my denim jacket that I tried to hide behind wrapped around me like a shawl... I wonder if you saw me at all..."
    It's very sad.

4/10/03:

    I am living in some massive complex - the size of a whole city. It has sections of it with complex-ly arranged apartments with outdoor balconies that look out over a massive cityscape way below. In the core of the complex are enclosed, winding, serpentine configurations of busy, cluttered streets with tons of storefronts and people. They look like they could be in Tokyo or Osaka, Japan.
    I seem to work at some cheesy hotel on one of the streets. It has a french door, double-door entry way (doors made of dark, polished wood. When you enter the doors there is this way-too-small foyer that leads to another set of double doors which open into the small lobby of the hotel. The inside of the foyer is painted this sick cream yellow color - and the worst thing about it is that it has a HUGE chandelier hanging from the ceiling... so big that it almost takes up the entire foyer and hangs about two feet over the tile floor. When people come in they have to work their way around it and it clinks and sways and parts of it maybe fall off and smash on the floor and maybe the person gets cut - it's ridiculous and hilarious.
    My "boss" (a fat, tall bald man with a thin handlebar mustache, old fashioned tuxedo and haughty English accent) tells me and this other Mexican guy that works there to "Go fix the red EXIT sign in the foyer". So we do. It's impossible to get a ladder in there. At some point I am talking to this woman that looks like an older version of Lauren Bacall - but it's not her. She is in the lobby and we are sitting down talking. I look over in the foyer - through the glass of the doors and see that the Mexican guy has somehow gotten the big chandelier out of there and has the ladder up and is fixing the EXIT sign. I go in to help him. We talk about the boss the whole time. I suddenly sense that something awful is going to happen in the hotel in the near future... like a bomb or something.
    Then it is later and I am in another part of the hotel. It looks like some cheap thrift store... it has used, dusty toys and appliances on all these rows of old metal shelves... and is lit with harsh fluorescent light and has musty, rust-colored industrial carpet and un-even floors. I am looking around at stuff. Suddenly Jim is there with me. He is saying to me... "Let's rent movies tonight!" and he points to this row of VHS tapes on one of the shelves. I see that it is a whole section of rental tapes and DVDs that are newer than anything in the store.
    I tell him "Okay" and then we suddenly seem back at whatever living quarters I live in, in the complex city. I am in a bedroom and it seems to be daylight outside. I am sitting on a bed with a polyester, maroon bedspread on it. Jim is with me. I sense that the Mexican guy from the hotel is there too... like he lives in the quarters with me (us?) Jim says that he is going to the deli and asks me if he wants me to get him anything to eat. I think for a long time about what I want. Finally I tell him I want a very large helping of chicken soup. As I tell him this I picture the soup in giant, heated pots with big ladles and with big paper soup cups and lids and plastic spoons and paper napkins next to them. I wonder to myself if chicken soup has good nutrition in it. Jim seems to not approve of my request to eat chicken soup. Suddenly the woman that looks like Lauren Bacall is sitting next to me on the bed. She is giving me a look that seems to say "Mark... you're really not going to eat chicken soup now are you?"

4/11/03:

    I am in my apartment here in NYC with Jim. Everything looks just like my apartment. We are just hanging out and soon we go to bed.
    The next morning... we wake up and Jim is acting very strange. He just gets up and walks out of the apartment without saying anything to me. I get up and put my clothes and shoes on real fast and follow him out of the apartment. I am going "Jim? He-looooo!? Jim! Jim? What's wrong? Are you okay?" I don't know whay he is acting so strange... it's like he's sleepwalking or is a zombie. I follow him out of the building. He definately seems to be going somewhere - like he has a specific destination in mind. Outside my building, the terrain looks nothing at all like Manhattan. It seems like we are in a kind of half urban/half rural area in a small southern U.S. town. We seem to be walking along the edge of a freeway overpass... with lush green grass on all the medians... maybe a neighborhood of small houses nearby... some people around. I see lots of lush, open green valleys and tree areas next to power lines - both engulphed in kudzu. The air is very moist and sweet - it's Springtime.
    Jim just walks along the over pass... over the freeway. I keep following and wondering what's up. I remember thinking that I had not had my coffee and I was wondering if I was going to be okay because of that... how long would we be gone? I keep following Jim past the freeway... until he reaches this strange, quaint row of shops and cafes that is kind of set back amongst the kudzu-covered trees. He goes into a coffee shop and goes to the back, side room of the shop - where there are tables and chairs set up. The place seems really half-assed - like a kind of pathetic attempt to create a kind of bohemian coffee shop atmosphere in a rickety old building, in a nowhere town. There is hardly anyone in the place. The walls are painted yellow and the furniture is falling apart - like it was gathered from a junkyard. There are lots of windows that look out into the lush, green, sunny trees outside. All the doors and windows are open so the breeze just blows through. When we passed the main room... behind the counter there was an old coffee maker and a tray with some stale danish on it. The staff look at us really shocked - like shocked to see customers. The whole aura of the place is "sad". Yet - the setting is also kind of pleasent the way it is so open and breezy and totally relaxed.
    Jim sits down at a table next to some really strange girl with long, stringy hair who is making little designes with string interlaced in her fingers. Jim sits down and I sit next to him - the girl doesn't acknowledge us at all. He is still saying nothing -like in a trance, staring forward. Soon I see that the girl next to us is hand rolling her own cigarrettes - not playing with string. Soon I realize that this place is a place that people use to come buy heroin. I suspect that Jim is here to buy heroin.
    Soon this really ughy, old transexual waitress dressed in a really dirty yellow 1950's diner waitress outfit comes over to our table and half heartedly asks us if we want anything. Neither Jim nor the girl say anything. Her/his face is really ravaged by years of bad plastic surgery and silicone implants and hormone treatments that have obviously been stopped. What's weird is that after the waitress asks us if we want anything... she then says something like "All's you guys gonna gettin' in the halls!" and then she sits down at the table next to ours (with some other people) and stars gently slapping her tray agains her laps - staring at us. She then says something else... stands up, and adds something like "Yo-yos what you guys gonna get you bo-bos!" Soon I realize that this is a weird nervous tic the transexual waitress has. Every time she says anything... she has to follow it with a made-up sentence where the first and last words rhyme. It doesn't matter if the sentence makes sense or even contains real words - just as long as the first and last words in it rhyme.
    I look over at Jim and he is just staring forward, kind of leaning to the side, and the weird girl is still absorbed in her cigarette rolling. I get up and walk out... I'm like "Fuck this shit!"

4/12/03:

    There is this strange area of NYC that I have never seem before that looks like a series of railroad tracks with long roof structures that run over them. There is an area next to the rails that is flat and covered in green grass. I and a friend that I don't even seem to know are having some sort of event in this area. It's a kind of party/interactive performance thing that we are organizing and renting a bunch of equipment for. It seems like we are inviting specific people to the event. Two of those people are people I know... Neshom and Carrie. Me and the guy are renting these strange contraptions that you strap onto your body and that allow to to kind of hover above the ground... they also have these hand-held hoses that shoot out massive amounts of white foam (like the kind that was popular in discos in the 1990's). These machines are supposed to be really "fun". Me and my friend rent and set up all the equipment. We also rented some other strange interactive outdoor "games" and stuff like that. We also drew white powder chalk lines on the grass area - like making a playing field. All the people we invited arrive. We hand them little Xeroxed brochures we made that explain the "rules" of the event. There is a table set up near the field with soda and cups and snacks and food and stuff. We try to get everyone really excited about the strap-on hover/foam things and the other games. We leave them alone and tell them to "Go for it!" and then leave the area and go somewhere else.
    We go to some ultra-modern, beautiful loft apartment where everything is white - even the furniture. There I am sitting on a white couch where my friend is making out with some girl, and I am making out with some guy. At one point when I am making out with the guy... my lips have become these weird plastic pegs instead of human lips. For some reason... I sense that the game/performance thing we organized is related to this loft and these people we are making out with.
    We then leave the loft and go back to the game area. We see some remnants of foam on the grass. We also see a woman dressed like Vampira wandering around the group. It appears that the participants kind of tried to "get into" all the games and foam levitation machines and stuff... but found it boring. It wasn't a success. They are kind of wandering around and eating stuff from the table... bored. Carrie shows me a piece of paper with pencil markings on it that shows a record of the "game" they played with the foam machines. It looks like one of those football play diagram things.

4/13/03:

No dreams.

4/14/03:

No dreams.

4/15/03:

No dreams.

4/16/03:

    All I remember is seeing a phrase written down on a piece or paper or posterboard... it was two words and said something like "EVREEY A'RIGHT" or "EVEREEG RIGHT".

4/17/03:

No dreams.

4/18/03:

    I am in this old space that used to be on Avenue B and third street in Manhattan - a converted weird junk yard venue space called "2B". It was a place I always thought was really neat and was torn down sometime in 1995. I am there with someone I don't know. It is daytime and cloudy and a little cold. There are some other guys out in what appears to be the front yard of the space (which it never had). Someone who looks like a very young Seth Green is one of the guys. He is very cute. the guys keep looking at me and my unknown friend and telling us to do stuff - it's like we work for them or something. The Seth guy keeps giving me the eye. The guys tell us to "weed" the yard... pick out dead weeds from the dead Winter grass. We start doing this. It is raining. The Seth guy seems to kind of "float" over to where I am picking out weeds and is able to levitate, with his back to the ground... and land down under me so whenever I reach for a weed my hand lands on his crotch. He is cracking up the whole time.
    Then it seems to be much time later. The Seth guy and I are boyfriends. We are in this very sleek-looking, stylized interior of a spaceship, deep in space - far in the future. The inside of the ship is all white. Seth and I spend our lives in space now and are happy.
    The a total scenario shift: my client Rick is walking out of a doorway, away from me. I look down at his foot and see that his left foot is turning into un upside-down, dirty, pink, old, stuffed children's toy (an elephant). When I notice this - Rick "freezes" in space. I realize that what I am looking at is two photographs superimposed on top of each other... one of Rick exiting a doorway (in black and white) and the other of a little girl's room (in color) where there is a pink stuffed elephant on one of the shelves. The little girls' room photo has been turned upside down and angles slightly at 45 degrees so the place on the photo with the elephant is directly over the top of Rick's foot (but upside down) so if you squint your eyes it looks like the elephant is "appearing over" or "replacing" or "growing out of" Rick's foot. The two photos are each "wavering" in their intensity and the realization that I am looking at two different photographs or realities is very kinetic and starts to give me a headache (in the dream).

4/19/03:

    I'm in some giant complex or warehouse or office space or maybe giant modern home, with a bunch of people I don't know. It is night time and I am outside the front of the building. The front has all kinds of big weird windows and open doorways and balconies that allow you to see into the front of the structure - on all floors. There are a lot of rooms with living room furniture in them and people kind of lounging around. Somehow... I know that I have a jeep or a van or a vehicle or something like that... parked nearby. For some reason I get the impression that this is my parent's vehicle... and I am borrowing it. At some point, the "main guy" or "boss" in the building (an older bald guy) instructs me that I have to drive mt vehicle to some location in the giant structure and park it near some kind of indoor animal wildlife area, or zoo (which the building seems to have). I get in my car and start driving around the inner hallways of the building. Everything is white with gray lacquer tiled floors. The hallways almost look like the streets of an old but up-kept little town in Europe. I finally find the animal area. I think I see some lions laying by some rocks or something like that... maybe some fake grass... it looks pretty lame. I see the "boss" guy standing there and I wave to him from the driver's seat of my car. Then I drive away and out of the building.
    Suddenly it is daytime and I am driving around Plano, Texas... the place I grew up in. I seem to have the day off and am driving around just looking at things. I am excited about going to all the places I grew up in and just looking at everything. I keep telling myself that I need to park in each area I want to explore and walk around... not just drive by it.
    Suddenly I seem to be on the grounds of my old high school. The buildings are the same but the landscape has more hills and new trees planted with strings attached to them to hold them up on all the hills. I seem to be able to "levitate" and fly in a straight line past the front... through one of the courtyards... down the big outdoor stairs of the General Studies building... and then down a giant hill with trees on it towards the pond and Drama building, past the kiosks and into the big parking lot. I pass all kinds of obstacles... like weird little lattice work hallway things with lanterns hanging off of them and new sapling trees and more hills... and weird little down-hill wooden stairways with passages... I also pass some girls going into the building. I seem to almost be attached to a rope... like a clothesline that is just pulling me along a straight line overhead. The "rope" seems to end at the very outer corner of the parking lot. Right where the rope that allows me to fly ends is... my car! I get "off" the rope and open the door to my car and get ready to leave. School has obviously just let out because the lot is jammed with students trying to leave. I suddenly see some people around my car. I get out to see who it is. It's all the people that I live with in the giant building from the beginning of the dream. They are just "hanging out" and "saw my car" and now they "want a ride". I'm disappointed because I wanted to drive around by myself. I walk back over to the driver's seat of the van... I see that the old bald guy and two others are already in the front seat. I see that the window to the driver's seat has been smashed and there are a bunch of red Kool-Aide spilled all over the front seat. The glass to the window looks very thick... all broken. The bald guy tells me that I was taking to long talking to the others near the back of the van and that they had to break in to just sit down. Somehow I know that the van is now broken and will not go anywhere. I am worried about what my parents will think. I am really disappointed too that I can't drive anywhere.

4/20/03:

No dreams.

4/21/03:

    Rough, nightmarish night's sleep. Kept waking up thinking there were killers breaking into my apartment.

4/22/03:

    I seem to be on the back of Trucker John's flat bed 18-wheeler. I am with my old college friend Shane and my friend Nathan Gluck, and some other people I don't seem to know. It is nighttime and we are driving down a series of freeways in America. There are lots of lit-up strip malls and gas stations and car sales lots along the freeway lighting the way. Even though we are driving fast... the weather is nice enough that we are comfortable in the back, with the wind whipping around us. Trucker John is driving. I think that we seem to be driving from New York all the way to Los Angeles... then back... all in 48 hours. I think it was a last minute decision for us to just join Trucker John on this trip. Nathan is sitting there with his walking cane and his gray hair whipping around his head and at one point he says "Mark? I thought we were just going on a little drive... we are going all the way to LA?" I kind of share his feelings - for some reason I can't believe I decided to just join a cross-country fast trip on the back of a flatbed truck at the last minute. We just keep driving and driving... and having a good time.
    At one point... we seemed to have stopped at some giant mall in some midwestern state. It is night outside (but sometimes from inside the mall I look out and it is sunny day time). The whole mall is very complex and has lots of stores... much of the mall seems to be decorated in a kind of Christmas-y way. The whole place seems to be kind of bathed in golden light and rust and brass-colored decorations... kind of a sepia tone thing. The mall is pretty crowded. I don't know where Nathan, Shane or Trucker John are. I am at the perfume counter of one of the department stores. I seem to be talking to a girl I don't know. Out of the corner of my eye I see Shane off out in the mall... in a dark corner just kind of standing there. Suddenly I hear over the loudspeakers a woman's voice saying "Paging Shane please! Paging Shane! Would anyone who wants to see Shane please pick up a white courtesy phone located in the Mall's food court... or speak to a mall security person located in the west wing of the second level. Thank you." I look up over at shane and see him. I walk over to him and say "What's going on?" He tells me that he feels neglected and kind of lonely and that he had himself paged because he felt like no one was paying any attention to him. I kind of console him.
    Then I am in another section of the mall with the girl I was talking to. The area is a big indoor courtyard on the first floor, with plants and big Greek style sculptures. There is a coffee bar. One giant wall of the place is a giant wall that looks to an outside, grassy area of the mall's land. It reminds me of a coffee bar place that is very similar in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC (who's giant wall window looks out onto Central Park). It is daylight and sunny outside. We see there is a work man outside the window... wearing a work jumpsuit. He is holding what looks like a massive hose - the kind the fire department use to spray water. He is looking in the window and kind of smiling. He reaches up and opens one of the twist valves on the hose (the hose is pointing down at the ground). A bunch of brown chunky water flies out of the hose and all over the place. Everyone inside the mall courtyard is watching and kind of gasps. Soon it becomes apparent that the "brown water" is actually a massive amount of bats... big ones. They are flying out of the hose at a really fast rate... millions of them. I kind of get closer to the window and see that the workman is holding one of the bats upside down and licking it's little teeth with his tongue and laughing maniacally as he does it.
    Then I am suddenly back on the truck with Nathan and Shane. It's night again and we are driving. We still haven't even reached LA. I am wondering what the Hell I am doing on this trip.

4/23/03:

No dreams.

4/24/03:

    I am here in my apartment with Jim. We are just waking up, sitting on the couch and maybe drinking coffee.  It is very early morning and it is raining outside. The darkness from the rainstorm makes the morning all dark and sleepy. There are workmen working right outside my hall... repairing the plaster on the walls or maybe emptying the apartment across from me or helping someone move in. Because of the workmen... my front door keeps opening and shutting because they need room to work or something. Suddenly... my way downstairs neighbor (the one who stopped the music on the roof of the building next to me in my #1 entry of my 9/23/02 'Top Ten') has walked into my apartment. I have told Jim about him but I don't know if Jim realizes the guy. The neighbor seems to have some kind of strange agenda... like he's not just visiting. I actually have no idea why he's in my apartment as he has never been up here and I hardly even know him at all. I think he's a little crazy. At one point he sits down on the couch next to the dim blue early morning rain light and leans way back. Jim is next to him. I am sitting on the floor with the TV behind me (which is off). I kind of "see" what's going on in the black glass reflection of the off TV set. The neighbor looks over at me as if he has something important to say but is too nervous to say it. He says (looking at me) "Are you trying too..." and then trails off... like his nervousness prevented him from completing his sentence. Jim is just looking at me like "What?" Then the guy gets up and kind of leaves. It was weird.
    Then I go into the kitchen and see what looks like this giant metal refrigerator... like made of thick gray steel or something... but the metal was roughly cast... it's all bumpy. It almost looks like one of those medieval torture devices... an iron maiden. It is laying back on it's back... blocking the door from the kitchen to the living room. It has a darker metal trim on it. I guess the workmen had nowhere to put it so they just put it in my apartment, on it's back. I look closely at the surface of it and there is all this graffiti etched into it with a knife... like lots of it that has been added over the years. I see that all the names that have been etched on it are Spanish names... so I assume it comes from one of the Spanish family's apartments. A Latin woman comes into my apartment and looks at it. I tell her "I looked at all the names so I know it's a Spanish refrigerator." She leans down to pick it up and repeats what I say and nods. She seems to be able to lift it with ease and as she does I see that it's actually just the front shell, made of cheap aluminum sheeting. She lifts the whole thing up and carries it out my front door.
    Then a scenario shift: it is daytime and sunny outside and I am at this little restaurant in my neighborhood on Delancey street (it only exists in my dream). The front of the restaurant looks like a bank. The inside is made up entirely of polished aluminum surfaces. I seem to work there. I am just hanging out. I get into a conversation with one of my coworkers about "germs" on the surfaces of things. I start to get paranoid about germs. At one point I have this aerosol can of Lysol and I seem to be spraying it all over these two metal lawn chairs that are inside the restaurant.
    Then it is closing time and I am going home. It is late afternoon outside. I go home and get this antibacterial hand gel that I have. I go back to the restaurant. Only the boss and some woman are there. I go all through the restaurant and start smearing the antibacterial gel all over the door handles (inside and outside ones) in the place... also anything I can think of that people touch a lot of... like handles on anything. The gel is clear and gooey but has a lot of alcohol in it so it dries quickly. At one point the boss asks me what I'm doing and I tell him. He seems disinterested. Then I leave - it is still daylight.
    Then no time passes... but I seem to have slightly changed scenarios. It is night time and there is tons of snow all over the ground everywhere on Delancey street. There is lots of traffic... being slowed down by the snow. Traffic guards are having to direct traffic. I am crossing the street and as I do I see a black new VW Volkswagon skid out of control (slowly) and spin around and bang against the curb (facing the wrong way). I can hear the drivers of the car laughing as it happens. Everyone in the vicinity is going "Uh-oh!" and "Whoaaaa!" when it happens. All the reflections of the store neon lights and traffic lights reflect in the night time city light against the top black surface of the VW.

4/25/03:

    I can kind of "see" this unreal situation where there is this giant red plastic room that looks like the inside of a giant, oddly shaped funnel or pipe thing - that has a kind of conial/oval shape. It is huge - big enough for people to be in... and it is made of red plastic. There is a little opening at one end - like a tube... there it gets real small and goes into kind of a sewer shaped thing (made of the same red plastic) and also one like that at the other end. The whole thing looks like a giant red plastic replica of a stomach. The red plastic is thick - but you can kid of see light on the other side of it. As I am "watching" this... suddenly a big crowd of celebrities... a crowd of people, all famous, appear at the far end of the giant red room, near the first tube opening. I recognize Lauren Bacall and Gary Shandling and some others. They are just kind of standing in a big group... all facing the same way. They kind of... without moving their bodies or legs... all as a group instantly kind of appear to get to the other side of the room somehow... near the far opening tube. The floor is of course organic shaped so as they change locations in the room... the group gets taller and shorter... since the floor is all hilly. In fact the points where the tube openings are are much lower than the middle of the room. It's like they are just a mass that is being "flushed" through the room. As I witness this I "hear" a voice over about how enemas and hi-colonics are very popular in Hollywood amongst celebrities to promote good health.
    WEIRD WAKE UP THING: This is not a dream but a strange and creepy wake-up scenario that happened last night too. At one point at about 3 am, I was awoken from my sleep by what sounded like a girl screaming outside in the street... kind of far away. Her screams sounded violent and totally desperate... like she was getting raped or murdered or something. I could hear that she was screaming at a regular pace... like she would scream... stop... scream again... stop... like clockwork. I kind of sat up slightly in bed and looked out into the dark room and (in a blurry, half/awake state) thought "I need to get up and see what that is!" The screams sounded so scary that it really creeped me out... and I wondered if it indeed was what had woken me up. I turned my head and looked over at Jim. He was sleeping on his back. As I looked at Jim more and more, I realized that what I was hearing was not far-off screams... but the sound of Jim's nose breathing! Every time he exhaled there was like a booger or something in his nose that made this wispy, faint raspy whistle thing that really sounded like a far off screaming in terror woman. Like "Heeeellllp meeee!" Weird. I kind of was like "Oh..." and I turned around and looked at the door to Domenic's room. His light was still on so I guess he was up really late doing homework. Now this is the scary part... as I turned back around to face Jim again... he was suddenly awake and his head was up off his pillow and he was looking right at me and laughing! It was totally scary! I thought he was laughing because maybe he was doing the nose thing on purpose... but he just kept laughing quietly and I said "Why are you laughing are you awake?" and he stopped laughing and said "That was a funny face." and smiled. I said "Did you do that nose thing on purpose?" and he said "I was laughing at the funny face." and I said "I didn't make a face." then he stopped for a second and put his head back on his pillow and closed his eyes and said "I dreamed about the funny face." For some reason... the whole thing seemed like some creeped out Night Gallery with Rod Serling episode. I was so disturbed by the weird chain of events that I actually got up and checked the door. I don't know why it all creeped me out so much. Weird.

4/26/03:

No dreams.

4/27/03 - 4/30/03:

Very busy and no dreams really.

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