8/1/00:

I've been REALLY busy, hard to find time in the morning to write down my dreams in full. My dream from last night had to do with this (these are the notes I quickly scribbled as I dashed out the door):

With old dancer friend/enemy, met him in closet, made passes at me, went to daytime bar, wanted to be seen by Hedda Lettuce, went on street, saw fantastic building, he had roll-away bags and belongings, he's scaming me!

8/2/00:

I in no way remember my dreams from last night. Tomorrow I promise a full dream report come Hell or high water...

8/3/00:

I've been so busy lately I haven't been sleeping right. I got a glorious eight hours last night (and in turn was late for work). I had a VERY long and involved dream while I slept but, of course, only remember part of it since I'm typing this a good six hours from when I awoke. I can only this one weird thing from the dream, which I think was in the "beginning" part of the dream:
    I think I'm observing something floating in outer space, except the "space" is dark blue rather than black. I'm looking down this kind of floating "tunnel" made up of itty bitty pieces of what looks like Grape Nuts cereal. The clusters of cereal float in the air and form this deep, long tunnel - kind of like the rings of Saturn are made up of clusters of trillions of rocks. At some point I think it might be Just Right Nut and Almond Crunch cereal instead of Grape Nuts. And the pieces of cereal that form the tunnel are slowly undulating. Anyway, I'm looking down this deep tunnel and I keep feeling the sensation to "enter" it, or get pulled into it. I feel like if I get close to the opening I will get sucked in, like a black hole. But I just want to observe the tunnel, not go into it - yet I am aware that that is an option.
    At the end of the tunnel I can see a light, kind of. I'm concentrating on the light - which is a dull blue. Suddenly the light starts pulsing between a blood red and deep black, and something tells me that the end of the tunnel is the entrance to Hell. I temporarily panic and in no way want to enter the tunnel now. Then suddenly the light at the end of the tunnel starts pulsing irregularly like a lot of white strobe lights going off at different speeds. I can sense that this light is "good" - the opposite of Hell. I now feel it would be OK to enter the tunnel but, I still don't want to. Against the pulsing strobe lights at the back I see the black shadow silhouette of something in the tunnel. I'm trying to make out what it is - I think it may have been two of those school desks, you know the kinds that have the chair attached to the desk with that bar on the side so it's all one unit? Sometimes I think it's one of those desks and sometimes I'm not sure. They are at the back of the tunnel so they are very small. The "perspective" of what I'm looking at is incorrect. I can sense the depth of the tunnel by the way the back of the tunnel is more out of focus that the front. But the school desk silhouette and strobe effect are in very sharp focus, even though they are all the way in the back. It's like they are actually little miniatures and are really right in front of my eyes. The tunnel and it's activities make no sound whatsoever.

8/4/00:

    I was in this room that had white walls and lots of desks and colored pieces of fabric and paper and tools all over the place, like it was a design studio of a fashion designer's workroom or something. There was a lot of furniture around and most of it had colored fabric draped over it. One of the pieces of furniture was this "flat chair" that like a living room stuffed arm chair but it's shape was more "flat" - like the arms of the chair only stuck out one inch from the back of the chair and there was no where to sit on it. It was almost the shape of an Egyptian sarcophagus, like the chair back was the head and the arms were the shoulders, but for a midget. The weird thing was that the chair was made of an entirely reflective, hard metal. Like chrome but it was really, really reflective like mercury, but not liquid. It was smooth and was completely like a mirror on all of it's surfaces - you could see it reflecting everything around it like a fun house mirror.
    I was in the room looking at the chair and I started to see my reflection in it - I remember I had a red shirt on. While I was looking at the reflective chair I realized that it wasn't a chair or piece of furniture, but some kind of weird portal or machine that was used for remote viewing. It allowed people to see into other times or parallel dimensions or realities. It was sitting in the room like it was something that every house had, like a telephone or microwave oven. I got the impression, in my dream, that this was an everyday household object and was something you would use or see everyday. And that if I were to point it out to someone else in my dream and say "Oooo...look at that! What is that weird thing!?" they would just be like "What do you mean, that's just my __________ (whatever it's called), everybody has one, big deal."
    So anyway, I'm looking directly onto the front of this object and in the reflection (where I can see myself with the red shirt) I can see two women behind me. They are running around the studio hurriedly, doing work or designing clothes or something. I realize that they can't see me, even though my reflection is in their "reality". I'm thinking like "Wow. this is incredible!"

8/5/00:

    I was in a high school in a strange town. The Principle of the school was the Mr. Blackman character from "Strangers With Candy". There was some weird thing where I wasn't a student there but I was in the school while it was in session and I was trying to blend in because I was trying to accomplish something, something that was secret. I kept creeping along the walls and rows of lockers like a snake and hoping that I wouldn't get spotted by Mr. Blackman. At some points I think I sat in classes and tried to pretend I was a student, then when the coast was clear I snuck back into the hall. I remember one of the classes was a fortune teller who had a crystal ball at her desk and was telling the students their fortunes one by one.
    I think at one point I had accomplished what I was trying to do and was trying to get out to the parking lot and into my car. I made it all the way out to the front of the school and there was this glass-enclosed porch-like/greenhouse-kind-of thing that acted as the entrance to the school. There were a couple of people in this structure in addition to me. One of them was Modernism's Dirty Little Secret. I was in this glass thing, and I could see my car (it was the old 1980 Toyota Corona - yes, CORONA - I used to clunk around in high school!) and it was a cloudy day. For some reason I engaged Modernism's Dirty Little Secret in conversation, always a mistake. He started rambling on and on and I realized I was trapped in the glass structure now with him (the other people slipped out when he started talking) and I would never be able to go out or back inside the school. I knew I would have to be in there with him forever. It's like I was in Hell.

8/6/00:

The dream had many parts but this is the only one I can remember:

    I was in a room with white walls and light blue carpet. Hanging on the middle of one of the walls was a mask. It was made of slightly transparent, very thick plastic and was the shape and color of a human face, with holes for the eyes, nostrils and mouth. I looked at it and realized it was a representation of my brother Craig's face. It was kind of colored crudely, like the lips were painted a little sloppy or whatever. Suddenly a bunch of sparks started to explode inside the mask, like one of those hand held sparklers, and this illuminated the whole mask, made it glow. It was pretty loud and caustic and I was like "That's going to start a fire." But it didn't - and there was no smoke.
    I realized that the sparks thing happened at regular intervals, kind of like a clock. Then I thought that this mask was probably some sort of representation of what was going on in my brother's head in Colorado, like this mask was a gauge or meter of his brain activity. Then suddenly the mask WAS his real face, just hanging there on a wire. It was totally alive and smiling. He looked around to "see" where he was and saw me and was like "Oh hey Mark!" and I was like "...uuuuuh...". Then his real face disappeared and the mask was fake again and the sparks thing started.

8/7/00:

Cannot remember my dreams this morning.

8/8/00:

Cannot remember my dreams again this morning. OH MY GOD WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME I'M BECOMING A CYBORG!!!! AAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Looks like it's electric sheep for me only. I had a horrible night's sleep last night thanks to me trying to kick my addiction to Tylenol P.M. and a swarm of mosquitos in my apartment (is my brain swelling due to West Nile Virus?). Well, I hope to remember my dreams tomorrow. I've heard that if you say out loud "I will remember my dreams in the morning" when you go to bed, that this will send a message to your subconscious that will force you to remember them in the morning. I'll give this a try. I want to have "guest spots" where I have friends give me their dreams and I report on them when I can't remember them, but my friends are distancing themselves more and more from my webpage, they seem to resent it or something. Any people that look at this page wanna send me their dreams? I'll put them in...  hey that's a good idea (Jerri Blank voice)! Email them to me and I'll put them up.

8/9/00:

Well I definitely had a dream last night. By the way, thanks a lot, a lot, a lot for everybody's dream submissions - keep them coming if you want! I will absolutely be using them in the future.

    I was listening to/watching Sonic Youth perform at some stage setting thing but I couldn't tell if I was watching it on TV or was there. Kim Gordon was on the mic singing "Renegade Princess" and, the lyric where she says "Renegade for the midnight princess..." she said this instead: "Renegade...with the power of __________" except I can't remember what the blank word was. Whatever it was it made me laugh really hard and the audience roared with laughter. I don't know if I can't remember it from the dream or if the fact that it wasn't hear-able was part of the dream, or maybe part of Kim's "concept".
    Suddenly I was back at college I think. I was in this classroom that sometimes changed into a house that I seemed to inhabit with other college friends, the two portions of the classroom - the "class" half and the "home" half - were divided down the middle by a white partition. The whole room had white walls and in the classroom half we all sat on weird stools and it was really cramped. The "house" half of the classroom had white walls and a couch and a desk where I did all my work at home. The desk was covered in papers and books. There was my webcam on top of all the papers and books and the cam recorded everything I did in the "home" half of the classroom. My roommates were hanging around this part of the classroom. I could make out my old college roommates Cathy and Kelly and there were others I didn't recognize.
    I was sitting in the class and I saw the guy who's always playing pool at the Phoenix who I think is so interesting and realized he was in my class. He kept walking in and out of the room and I could see he had facial hair. Then, as I was sitting at my desk, some blond girl dressed all in white with lots of make-up (very 80's Beverly Hills 'teen') came up and started talking to me. She kept engaging me in conversation over and over and I realized there was something really "false" about her persona. I began to suspect she was a robot or spy. As she was talking to me I saw a double image/reality of the guy from the Phoenix's friends telling him what I had been saying to the girl, because they were eavesdropping on our conversation and the guy from the Phoenix had a crush on me and was interested in finding out about me.
    Then I was in the "home" half of the class. The place where the desk was had been suddenly replaced by the old couch, but sometimes it switched back and forth between the couch and a desk. The desk always had papers all over it. We were all sitting on the couch and goofing around and my webcam was behind us recording everything. I looked behind us on the couch and saw the papers all over the desk. I suddenly saw this weird scarab/beetle hiding under the webcam. It looked like a normal insect except it looked, when I looked closer, like an android beetle that had some inanimate object, like rubber band or maybe a staple remover for one of it's "claws". I saw it under the webcam and remembered that I and another student had created the "android bug" as one of the assignments from the "class" half of the room and that both of us had been looking for it because it was missing. I stood up and freaked out and was like "Everybody get out of the way! I have to get this bug!" and everyone jumped off the couch. I could now see my old roommate/friend Shane was part of the group. While my other roommates scurried to find the bug I typed "the little bug I made in class is back!" onto the cam screen so all people watching my webcam would know what it was. I was getting the cam ready to focus on the bug when it was found. Suddenly everyone was like "We can't find it, it's gone away" and I was like "Oh." and so I just pointed the cam at a blank wall. I looked over at the couch/desk and saw that all the commotion had caused one half of the desk to collapse (on the inside, like the 'drawers' fell out) and all these stacks of papers had fallen out, and I could see a little mouse tail sticking out of one of the piles of paper. Then Jim Varney walked in and was just standing there.
    Then I was back in the classroom and I learned that it was the last day of class. There was hardly anyone in the classroom because it was the last day and people were finishing up there exams or whatever and just walking out. I felt sad to leave. I went to my locker, which was gigantic like a storage facility (did we have lockers in college? - no). I was unloading stuff from the giant locker into my bag which I was going to take to my car and go away from the college. I noticed assignments I had done for the beginning of the class looked really neat and well done (and consisted of intricate drawings of weird desks - and these drawings were done on paper that was professionally bound together) and that the later assignments were just kind of thrown together but still had high grades. This was kind of like a weird reminder that no matter what you did you would still get an "A".
    I saw the other student that I had built the "android bug" with and we started talking about the instructor. I was talking to him through a kind of wire mesh gate thing. Then I found these Xeroxed papers in my locker that were something I had copied at the library and forgotten about. It was the score to a film that had been composed by Brian Eno but never used. I was like "Oh yea I want this". As I continued talking to the other student I pictured the highway underpass that I would see at one point as I was driving home.
    As I took everything out to my car (lots of cardboard tubes) I felt this weird kind of sadness and realized I always felt this way when a semester was over. But I noticed that this time I felt more sad and icky, rather than sentimental sad. Then I realized that I was just having a semester in college in my mind and the reason I felt depressed about it was because so much had happened in my life since college, it made this revisit seem small and insignificant. I was like "I've got to stop re-visiting school in my dreams, the sentimental feelings are really just not there anymore."

8/10/00:

Well, once again I cannot remember my dreams last night. Maybe I slept too much? Anyway, I'm inserting a dream sent to me by Bob C from Missouri. It involves Brad Pitt and has a nice suburban setting. Thanks Bob! Here's the dream:

 
Haven't been getting enough sleep myself, so I do
remember a brief dream.

I was in a diner (a Denny's type place) sitting at a
booth with Brad Pitt, a friend of his and a friend of
mine. I don't remember who my friend was, or who
Brad's was, though I do remember they were both male.
Brad and I were having a nice conversation. I was
impressed with how friendly he was, since this was the
first time we'd ever meet. We were talking about his
last movie. He had just completed it and he mentioned
that he immediately had to start making the next one.
The next movie required him to have really long hair.
I noticed that he had a crew cut, which had been
required in his last film. So I asked him how he was
going to address the need for long hair problem.
(Guess I forgot about hair pieces. I don't know about
you, but I'm a lot dumber in my dreams.) When I asked
the question, Brad paused, said this was something
that he maybe shouldn't tell me. Then he said he
wanted to consult with his friend about it. I began to
feel guilty about asking it. The end. (I hate cliff
hanger dreams.)

Since I have a crush on Brad Pitt. This was probably
some lame metaphor for asking him if he's gay. (We're
both from Missouri and about the same age. So, he'd
have to like me, if he ever meet me, right?:-))

--bobc

Another submission by someone else. I promise to get my lazy ass REMs in gear this weekend. This is a dream that Luca sent me, thanks Luca!
 

I'm waiting at an intersection on a motorcycle for traffic to pass so i can pull out but the traffic is real heavy.  Along side of me i notice also on a bike is Yoko Ono with some guy on back (not John Lennon). David Letterman pulls up alongside her and proceeds to tell her a dirty joke involving a scotsman (could be Spikeman). All the while Yoko is laughing and talking like one of The Chipmunks.  The traffic abates i pull out and then woke up.

    I was at yet another college/dorm/fraternity type atmosphere. I was one in a crowd of guys that were gathered outside on the campus for some sort of gym/athletics class or program or team. We were all mulling around and I think we were waiting to be told what to do or something. It was Wintertime outside and the grass was dead but the weather was actually not too cold. The campus was really beautiful, very ivy league looking. I saw my friend Bill Henning, and a guy I'm dating Matt, in the crowd.
    I went inside one of the campus buildings to go to the bathroom and had to go down this long hallway to get to it. The hallway was dark and had windows and glass on each side. As I was walking down the hall I saw a man in 18th century clothes walking in the other direction, towards me, way at the other end. He must have been leaving the bathroom. I got into the bathroom and it was really cramped, with red velvet walls and brass sinks and urinals. But everything was dirty and falling apart. I saw there was someone in the stall and I had to use the little urinal. I'm really pee shy so I wanted to use it quick before they guy in the stall came out. I took my dick out to pee and it looked prosthetic, like made of flesh colored plastic. It looked like a robot penis but this didn't seem to alarm me. I started to pee and then the guy came out of the stall and just then another guy in 18th century style clothes entered the bathroom. The 18th century guy went into the stall the guy had just come out of and the guy in the stall came over to the sink to wash his hands. The guy at the sink kept looking me up and down I could tell he was in there to cruise guys. He only had swimming trunks on and looked Spanish or Mexican and was a little pudgy. I stood next to him and proceeded to wash my hands so I could get away from him as quickly as possible. He kept talking to me like "Blah, blah, blah  ...and I just got this new video so do you wanna come over to my house and watch it?" and I'm totally ignoring him even though he's two inches away from me. I leave the bathroom.
    I'm still in the building and I run to the other end of the hall and see a bunch of people standing around the entrance to a big room. I see a woman that looks like Kathy Lee Gifford but it isn't her. I go into the room and it's a giant movie theater and they are having a premier of the new John Waters film. A bunch of my old high school friends are there; Katy, Kim, Sondra, Carolyn, Alyson, Beth and a bunch of other girls. They all have not seen me in a while and are excited to see me and I realize that we had all been planning to meet here for a while but I had just forgotten. There are not as many people at the premiere as hoped but we all sit in our seats anyway. I sit next to Katy and she says "You must see a lot of famous people living in New York City and all!" and to impress her I lie and tell her I saw Kathy Lee Gifford outside in the lobby even though I know it was only someone who looked like her.
    The movie starts and I look over and Katy has disappeared. In her place is this very fat old lady who has a nurse standing behind her. The old fat lady is watching the movie but keeps putting her hand down her dress and trying to masturbate. The nurse keeps slapping her had and saying "Don't do that!" and the old woman keeps giggling and doing it over and over. I'm like "eeeeeewwwuuugh!" and I run out of the theater and go outside.
    I go back out to the area where all the guys are gathered for the sports thing and my friend Bill tells me that they are dividing the guys up to be on either the swim team or the soccer team. He tells me that only the guys with the best bodies will make the swim team.
    They divide everyone up and I find that I did not make the swim team. Out of the crowd of thousands of guys only a handful didn't make the team. We soccer players have to play soccer in this field right next to the swim meet. At the swim meet, which happens immediately, there is a giant pool, arena seating with crowds of cheering people and all that stuff. It looks very "olympics" and is very loud. Me and the other soccer guy strain our necks to look at the swim meet over the fence surrounding the area. We see the guys on the swim team toweling off after competing and they all have great bodies.
    We decide to get started with our soccer game. My team consists of my old Texas friend/roomate Ray Lebeouf and my old high school/college friend Jeff Elrod, and me. The other team only has a couple of guys on it too. It's this weird mutated form of soccer that you play with two balls in play at all times. One ball is a white volley ball and the other one is this big, white, egg shaped balloon that is loosely wrapped in a white garbage bag. We all start playing on our own and there is no coach or anything. I think we are all drinking beer. Ray kick the volley ball at one point and it goes really, really far into the distance and I think "Ray is a really good ball kicker." There is one point in the game that's really intense and the other team is trying to score a goal with the balloon egg and me and Jeff are trying to block it - but to do so we are hovering over the dirt near the goal, and spinning around - digging up clumps of dirt in our hands as we spin around - very strange. At another point in the game I see the other team has little pins and they are trying to pop the balloon but no body cares because we don't even care about the game and everyone's laughing. It gets dark and we play for a little while longer then just stop playing and all go inside.

8/13/00:

    I'm in Vail, Colorado. I am outside the town and am in a desolate area. I look over and see the entrance to an old gold mine. I somehow get inside the mine and see one of those little cars on the tracks that were used to haul rocks in and out of the mines. On the cart is a glowing white human figure. I can tell the figure is looking at me even though I can't make out any facial features. He wants me to sit next to him in the car and then we will both descend deep inside the mine. Yikes!

8/14/00:

    I'm in some kind of building with lots of floors and hallways. Most of the floors consist of living spaces and maybe some of the floors are little shopping malls. I am with my friend Gregory and Andi MacDowell, for some reason. We are trying to escape from something, or maybe break into an apartment, or something like that - I'm not sure. Whatever we are doing, we are doing in secret and always looking over our shoulders and crossing our fingers that no one catches us - odd. Our "plan" for whatever we're doing is to open one of the air conditioning vents in one of the hallways (which are immense, with beautiful patterned carpet and many windows) and crawl into it. We open one hallway air vent and look into it. It is running vertically. We look down into it to see where it leads - it goes down about 50 yards and then curves out. Where it curves out we can see through the slits of another vent and into the apartment of a middle aged man. He is sitting in an arm chair reading the newspaper. For some reason we must sneak into this man's apartment. We realize that the only way to do it is to leap down the vent and "pop" open the vent in the man's apartment and jump onto the floor directly behind him.
    We are trying to figure out a way to do this with out making any sound. Hmmmmmm... how? While I'm trying to come up with a way, I look over at Gregory. He has taken off his belt and is literally whipping Andi with it. Andi is totally going along with it and doesn't mind. For some reason this will give us all the magical ability to travel around the building and not make and sound.

8/15/00:

    I was working for the same rich couple as my dream from 7/19/00 but this time it was in their new gallery, not their home. I was in charge of their gallery while they were away. I was in the gallery doing the usual whatever and they "surprised" me by popping in a few days earlier than planned. I was a little nervous that they would see the gallery before I had a chance to make sure everything was "perfect" but it ended up being fine. At one point I had these weird colored folders in my hand - each one a different color, but one side of each folder was made of this bulky, sculpted plastic - each one a different size and shape. This made it impossible to stack the folders like you normally would. I pulled up the folders and showed the woman who owned the gallery how I had made this hole-punch staple thing that went through the corner of each folder. I then had put a rod through all the holes and fastened it. This made the folders "fan" out like a book of color swatches, but when I lined all the folders together, all the bulky pieces fit into place perfectly like a Chinese puzzle or Rubik's Cube. This brought tears of joy to the woman's eyes for some odd reason. I remember the folders all fitting together surprised even me but I acted like I knew what I was doing.
    Then the man who owned the gallery told me to go check out the old gallery space. He wanted me to see what it looked like since neither of them had seen it in a while. He handed me a gigantic wooden key with a ribbon around it. The key looked like something you would see as a prop in a fairy tale play or something.
    I walked down these winding cobble-stone streets with all these fantastic buildings with thatched roofs and wooden shutters with hearts carved in them. It was right out of old-time Holland, or a Hansle and Gretle-style "village". There were watch maker stores and chocolate stores everywhere - very Aesop's Fable. I got to the gallery and went in. There was no electricity so I had to use the natural light from outside, but there were a lot of windows in the front and back so it was fine. There were sheets of colored, transparent plastic hanging from parts of the ceiling (like left over from an exhibit or something) and this gave the space this really iridescent "glow", like the inside of a cathedral. There was a clear plastic sphere about 5 feet by 5 feet handing from a thread from the ceiling in one corner. There was a little bit of dust in the air so the light reflecting everywhere made little beams bouncing off everything. I felt really warm and re-assured while I was in there, like I was visiting an old house I had grown up in or something.
    Then suddenly I was watching this animated cartoon - but the dream itself was animated. I was not in the animated dream but I was "watching" it. I had no peripheral vision to let me know I was looking at a screen or stage or anything. The animated story took place in Australia and I saw an outdoor scene with a lot of tents and little houses. A voice-over came on and said "We need to get all the __________ men out of Australia" (I don't know what the _________ word was). This made all these men get out of the tents and houses and stand in a line right in the foreground. They were all evenly spaced apart and were in the exact position. Each one had a wacky outfit on and some of them were holding babies and baby bottles with liquid dripping out of them. They were really stylized, really characature-like. The "{camera" panned along the line they had formed to show each one.
    The next part of the dream was really odd. I was in the middle of a junkyard or something. Oh and this was like real life, not animated. I was sitting down in the dirt in this kind of cave that was made of crushed car parts and metal and stuff. The cave started to "close-in" on me but I wasn't scared. I just moved backwards and watched the cave form this swirling spiral of twisting metal in front of me. The "closing-in" happened in stop-start fashion and made the sound of crumpling cardboard. It was a multicolored spinning spiral of twisting metal. I looked at the center of the spiral, where it was all concentrating, and I saw Matt's face. But his eyes were closed. I think he might have been "observing" or "looking in" to me from the outside the cave or whatever, with his mind. The spiral's center was the cave's entrance (which was pretty small at this point) and he was looking in on me. Since his eyes were closed and I could sense that he was asleep and dreaming. The weird thing was that I knew he was dreaming the exact same thing I was, except in his dream HE was inside the cave and was seeing MY face through the little opening (with my eyes closed). We were both having the exact same dream except our positions in relation to inside and outside the spiraling metal cave were switched.

8/16/00:

No dreams last night (that I remember).

8/17/00:

    I'm in a gigantic Las Vegas/suburban-style mall complex with lots of levels and escalators and stores and displays and stuff. I go into this huge movie theater that's a part of the mall. In it, everyone is gathering for what looks like a movie/special event. Like a movie with bits of theater that come from planted members of the audience, like interactive or something. The theater is tiered and there are a lot of seats. Everyone is gathering in their seats amongst the low lighting. Some people have costumes on and are carrying props or signs. The event kind of begins without the movie starting or the lights going down and it takes everyone by surprise.
    It starts with a guy holding a microphone at the front of the theater. He's talking to the audience and he's picking people at random from the audience to be murdered. If he picks someone from the audience, these little trolls that look like those little trolls with hoods and robes on from the movie Phantasm come out and take the person, kicking and screaming, to the back of the theater where they will be killed somehow. When the trolls pick each person out, they sometimes already have blood on them. It really frigtening/scary because the people that are picked seem genuinely terrified. Everyone in the audience is screaming and hollering in appreciation at the game-show style carnage. It kind of reminds me of the Carousel scene from the beginning of Logan's Run, the way everyone is cheering while people are getting killed. It's total chaos because people are screaming and hollering in appreciation and chanting slogans but if they are picked they start screaming in terror and this just makes the people around them scream in more appreciation, like; "Death!!! Yay!!!". It's total mayhem - like a three ring circus of mortality (ugh! so pretentious, I can't believe I just wrote that!). Sometimes the movie is playing on the screen during all this and sometimes it isn't.
    Amongst the chaos I start to see little groups of people walking amongst the aisles with signs. These groups are protesting what's happening in the theater while it's happening. The MC or the audience seems to be paying them no mind, they just add to the confusion. I start to see some of the little trolls in the protest groups.
    I look at the MC and he has become Norm Corpi from the Real World. He's on the microphone and is picking people from the audience. He picks someone right next to me! It's my friend Alan, whom I had come to this movie with but didn't realize it until just now. My friend Alan is picked and he stands up and I'm like "Oh Alan, I didn't know you were here! How are you! Oh you're gonna die now!!" and he looks at me, and while he's looking at me he grabs the microphone from Norm and says into it "I know someone better to pick than me Norm!!" and he point to me! I'm like "Oh my fucking God!" and Norm says "I think you're right Alan!" and the audience roars with appreciation. It's obvious Alan is working for the show/theater and he was a plant in the audience. I'm in shock. I'm pointing to this girl next to us, who's already dead and bloody for some reason, and I say "Pick her! Pick her!" but nobody falls for it. I start to try and slither under the seat and I think that if I just move myself in and out of all the seats and people and confusion, I will get lost in the confusion and they will forget about me.
    They kind of do forget about me I guess because my getting picked for death seems to be forgotten for now. I move around in the theater and keep running into people I know. It becomes this weird inner struggle to me to try and figure out who, amongst my friends and acquaintances, are really people I can trust and talk to, and who are people that are working for the theater and the show, that are part of the performance and charade that eventually leads to my death.

8/18/00:

Can't remember my dreams from last night...

8/19/00:

    I was in Chicago, for some reason, and I was getting ready to go out to a club for a party. It was nighttime and I was getting ready at someone's place. The apartment was really nice, like an old kind of building you would find in San Francisco or something - lots of "breakfast nook" windows and stuff. And it was dusk outside.
    I struck on the idea to dress up as a really dippy, cartoon-y looking Asian guy. Right out of a 60's slapstick Technicolor movie or something. I wanted to wear a black hair (Asian hair type) wig in a Beatles cut, gigantic black framed glasses that had really thick lenses that made my eyes look goofy, fake buck teeth, and those kind of mis-matched, too small, Salvation Army clothes that you see old Chinese men wearing in chinatown. You know, like mismatched old suit pants and shirt, a jacket with a different pattern and black shoes, all too small. AND I wanted to use scotch tape and make up to stretch out my eyes and make them look Asian, all squinty and thin. I knew the place I was going would be loud and festive but that the crowd would be mostly ambitious social climbing types who would look good but would be pretty stiff. I wanted to dress like this to give some hilarity to the proceedings. In the dream I seemed to think really highly of myself, like my stunt was going to really bring these people to another way of thinking or whatever - show they that you didn't need to take yourself seriously and could still be liked or whatever.
    I remember telling the friends I was with about how doing this would help the people there and their reaction was that I was totally full of myself and that I had a Jesus complex. I just kept running around the apartment getting ready while they stood there all facing me and telling me I was full of myself. They told me Asian people would be there and get all mad and this made me want to do it even more. In my mind I see them getting offended and I just keep doing it more and more and they eventually start laughing and eventually see the humor in it.
    All my friends go to the club without me. I'm in the apartment alone putting on my disguise. I'm so lonely while I'm doing it that I call friends on the phone and talk to them while getting ready. Soon my outfit is complete. The glasses are REALLY think and make my eyes look all google-y and magnified (and my eyes are stretched back with tape) and my buck teeth look hilarious. I have the wig on and keep looking at myself in the mirror and laughing. I'm ecstatic and can't wait to get there.
    I arrive at the party/club and it's packed. Everyone is dancing and Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride" is playing. I see all these people I know as I walk in the door and I magically know that they don't know who I really am. I storm in with this dopey expression and gaping, drooling smile like "...aaaaaaaaagggggggggggggt! Duuuuhhh!!!" and I walk right into an umbrella holder full of umbrellas and fall over it all slapstick style then get myself all tangled in it. I try to act like I'm trying to maintain my dignity while people are trying to help me up. In my head I'm laughing really hard and I'm like "I'm so brilliant!". Everyone is pointing and looking like "Who is that guy!?" and I love the fact that people that know me don't know who I am. I feel totally liberated and free and it's a beautiful feeling. I run all over the club bumping into things and spilling drinks and tripping over myself. People really like it and everyone is laughing and I'm really haming it up. Everyone who tries to talk to me I look in their direction and get this retarded big smile and put my hand up and say "Ohhh!! Hewoe Fwank!!!!" no matter who it is. I call everyone Frank. I eventually go to the dance floor and start doing this embarrassing, spastic dance and going up to people I know (but they don't know who I am) and dancing in their face all retarded like and stepping on their toes. This makes everyone laugh really hard. I'm dancing and am the center of attention and everyone is having a great time and I'm being totally insane and acting as stupid and obnoxiously inappropriate as I possibly can and I can do whatever I want and don't half to talk to any social climbers or network and it's the ultimate party and I'm laughing so hard on the inside I think I'm gonna puke and the Steppenwolf song is still playing and I'm thinking, as my arms are swaying up and down out of time to the music, I'm thinking: "I've never been this happy!"

8/20/00:

    I'm in Central Park with Matt. He is talking to me and I am ignoring what he is saying. I am thinking of this drug that can extend time for your mind to the point where a second literally is like a whole day inside your mind. But you are normal on the outside, it's just that your mind is moving x 1,000,000 faster than other people's. Would you be a genius or a blubbering mess I wonder? I think people should watch really bad films on this drug because their mind would be forced to theorize the film to the point where it would seem like a brilliant work of art and then they could write a zillion word book on the film on how genius it is and this could boost the sagging video and DVD sales.
    I look at Matt and wonder what it would be like to look at his face for a second and have that second extend and freeze for a million hours. What would all the thoughts that would go through my mind at that time. Then I see he has a booger hanging out of his nose. Have my thoughts changed?
    Then I look over at the bright green grass and see this line of pink and blue and (mostly) milky translucent white plastic objects in a row. They are long like big oval cigars and are flat on the bottom, and they are all hovering perfectly still in a row about two feet off the ground. I see a truck nearby and realize that the workmen at the truck are unloading them for a "Coffins of the Future" showcase at a building in central park. They are space-age coffins.

8/21/00:

Too busy today to write my dreams down today. Then I forgot them later.

8/22/00:

    I was "observing" this meeting of Republican presidential election planners and organizers. They were discussing their strategy to get George Bush Jr. elected in 2000. One of the younger Republicans asked the group to please explain the difference between Republicans and Democrats to him. One of the older Republican looked at the younger one the way a "wise" grandfather would look down at a child before he shares something enlightening and says; "My boy, Democrats ooze a green, jelly-like substance from their pores. They consider this jelly ooze to be waste, and dispose of it. Us Republicans have learned the secret to supressing our green jelly oozing, our pores are clean!"
    Then I can "see into" an identical election planning meeting on the other side of town. Except this time it's Democrats talking about getting Al Gore elected. They are telling a young Democrat there about the difference between Democrats and Republicans. An older Democrat is saying to the younger one who asked the question; "You see my boy, Republicans, because of their lifestyle, stopped producing the green jelly slime out of their pores that all humans naturally secrete. They stopped producing it many, many years ago, and this threw their bodies all out of whack, and eventually their minds went with it. Now I know we hate our slime, and throw the smelly stuff away the very second we scrape it from our skin, but believe you me - those Republicans are very envious of our slime deep down inside. They want to learn from us the secret to getting their own slime glands back in working order. They'll do anything to lay their hands and noses on smelly green goo again!". This makes all the other Democrats laugh with approval.
    Then one of the geeky Democrats speaks up and says "OK boys, we have a strategy to raise funds for this year's election. "We are going to bottle our own slime and sell it to desperate Republicans at an inflated price. We'll be rich!!!"

8/23/00:

    My dad takes my family and I along on an errand. My mom, my brother and I all get into the "car" and take off. It's nighttime and we are in the Plano, Texas suburbs. We are driving along and suddenly I realize we are not on a short errand at all - but on a very long trip to Los Angeles, California to pick up Steve Tyler of Aerosmith! I'm really pissed. I'm like "Why didn't he tell us this when he asked if we wanted to come along?!?!". No one says anything and I remember that's how my parents do things, they don't talk about them. I look over at my brother to see what he thinks of this and he's like, an infant.
    We are now in a small plane (that used to be a car) that is very claustrophobic and is made of thick glass. My dad is flying the plane and keeps wiping the condensation off the window so he can see. It's still night and there is a bad rainstorm. At one point I think Steve Tyler is in the plane but I'm not sure.
    We all stop at some woman's house along the way to LA to spend the night. She's a fat lady with a nice big house, it has a cool fireplace. This lady wears her hair in a bun, but she only has about four strands of hair and is almost all bald - so the "bun" looks pretty weird as you can imagine. I am "observing" both my brother and me on the floor of her living room (we are on sleeping bags on the floor). We are both HUGE fat! Like 400 or 500 pounds each. We look totally porkers and hilarious and we are fighting over a dessert or cake or something. My mom is trying to control us and she has a real bored look on her face like she would rather be somewhere else.

8/24/00:

    Dreams...dreams...dreams...c'mon remember. Well, there are some images floating around in there. A wooden cigar store Indian figure with car keys resting on his head. Richard from Survivor. Um... someone walking around a carpeted living room wearing only kelly green shorts. I think I dreamed about Greg from Survivor's audition tape - where he has a wig on. So sparse - my brain didn't seem to be in the right mode this morning to remember anything concrete....

8/25/00:

    I'm living with a group of friends, but I've never seen any of them before. We live in this real junky area. Lots of abandoned warehouses and run down houses and stuff. I think it's Wintertime but it's not that cold and always sunny. We live in a warehouse. Everyone is always wearing down jacket vests and blue jeans. There is "another" part of the city we live in, or maybe another city itself, which lies on the other side of this big body of water, probably a river. This part of the city is very nice and new looking. This newer city carries a lot of weight with us. We treat it with a lot of importance and always talk about wanting to go over there, like it's really fun and special or something.
    There are several bridges leading from our city to the new one, across the body of water. Every day, me and my friends figure out a way to get to the newer city. But these ways always involve really elaborate, harebrained schemes. We never just walk across one of the bridges.
    One day we literally "float" across the water, just above the surface, to the other side. I'm holding my Pendleton blanket (the colorful one on my couch). It takes a lot of concentration to float like this and it's really hard. At one point my concentration breaks and I dip into the water briefly. This makes everyone, including me, laugh. On our way back from the newer city we stop by the side of the dirty, snow-y road in our part of the city. We are exhausted from all that floating. We see a yellow school bus go by full of people coming back from the new city. Why didn't we just take a bus like them? None of us have an answer.
    We get back into our warehouse and I am folding my wet Pendleton blanket. I see the parts that had touched the water have changed color - but in a nice way, like the colors bled like a watercolor painting or something. I show everyone and they're like "Eeeewww!!! The water in that river must be really toxic to change a blanket's pattern like that!" They all want me to throw away the blanket but I want to keep it. A talk about how dirty and diseased ridden the river water must be ensues. This alters our plans to cross it the next time.
    That night we all want to go back to the newer city. We get all ready to go. I'm under the impression that this is illegal or something because we're being all hush-hush about it and trying to figure out ways to go across the water in total darkness. All our ideas are really dumb and Three Stooges-like. Everything is a recipe for a slapstick disaster fiasco.
    We get to one of the bridges and come up with the brilliant idea to take one of the walkways. We try to find the walkway but see that it is under construction and hasn't been built into the bridge yet. We're all disappointed and start wandering around the desolate, late-night part of our city. It's all lonely stoplights and 7-11s (I love this).
    At one point we are near some trailer homes and I am repairing a drinking fountain for some reason. I am talking to a nerdy-looking blond guy with glasses. As I am talking to this guy and repairing the water fountain, my friend Manny Parrish walks into our area. He is behind me while I am fixing the fountain. Suddenly he pulls away from me and starts laughing maniacally. He had been holding a lighter under my crotch (I had been crouched down) and had lit my jeans on fire! What an asshole! He's laughing like it's hilarious and I actually think it's pretty funny though because we're all so bored. The blond guy says to me "I can't believe you used to date that asshole!"
    I'm away from those two people now and in the middle of this field of reeds. Or those tall "cat tail" plants or whatever they're called. It's night and I am looking at the bridges that lead into the newer city way in the distance. I can see thousands of silhouettes of people crossing back and forth on each of the bridges. They are casually walking all over the bridges, some in cars and bicycles. "Gee they must have finished the walkway!" I think, but deep down I know it was there but we just couldn't see it. How can all those people just walk across the bridge like that? How come we can't just walk across the bridge?

8/26/00:

    Well, once again I almost made it to Big Lake Park in Plano, Texas. And once again I realized, in the middle of my situation, that I was a few miles from it and could simply get in a car and drive there, and hence was totally overwhelmed as I dropped everything and tried to get there. And, of course, as I was driving there, approaching it and wondering in my mind what it was like now and getting really excited about visiting again and thinking about all the times I had wanted to visit and having trouble believing it was actually happening...I woke up. I always awake while I'm on my way there and the dream ends with me on the road getting closer and closer. I never even make it far enough to recognize any identifiable landmarks.
    However, the reoccurring dream is becoming so common to me that I think I knew I was not going to make it and that I was about to wake from the dream. Not that I necessarily knew I was in a dream, but I think I knew that I was not going to make it in the reality I was in and I started to scream "No!" in the car I was driving. As I was driving along my "dream camera eye", or my point of view inside the dream started to rise upwards and to the left in the sky. And I started to notice the dream landscape was changing drastically. Lots of empty fields and giant water tanks and railroad crossings - the terrain that surrounds the outskirts of Plano (meaning I was still far from the heart of the city, and far from Big Lake Park. It was Wintertime and the sun was out.
    This time I was with my family, but they were different people. I lived in a house I didn't recognize at all. Sometimes the house was a school for boys or something. We figured out this way we could get out of our windows at night and make it look like we had not escaped at all (this was important for some reason). We would sneak out and mull around the town, and I think we were young. Sometimes we would go to this club in town. The club had black walls and was run by my friends Scott and Neshaum. I remember there were television sets in the club.
    It was during all this that I suddenly realized I was in Plano and was like "Oh my God I can just get in the car and drive to Big Lake Park!". I think I told my mom I wouldn't be there for dinner and my brother was standing there.
    When I did get into the car it was daylight but by the time I started driving it was night. I remember thinking "I wonder what it will be like at night in the Winter?" and then I thought "Wow! I can go walk around the Plano Senior High School campus - it'll be all deserted and spooky!". Then as I was driving along I realized the same reoccurring dream loop was about to occur, it became daylight and I began to see the outskirts of Plano terrain and started to float up into the air.

8/27/00:

No dreams last night.

8/28/00:

    Woah...totally weird/frightening dream last night. I was at an opera and was sitting in the audience near the front of the stage. My mother was attending the same opera and was sitting in the back of the audience. During the performance I heard a loud crash in the back of the hall and the show stopped and everyone turned around to see what had happened. A piece of the balcony had collapsed on the people sitting below it and had crushed them. Everyone's running around like crazy freaking out and screaming and I'm freaking out because I know my mom was sitting back there and I'm wading through the ruble to get to see if she's OK.
    Suddenly I'm in the lobby of the theater and there are lots of ambulances and doctors running around and people on stretchers. I still can't find my mom. There is a note on a wall with a list of people that died in the accident. I run over to look at it and don't see my mom's name. I'm totally relieved. Then a nurse comes over and asks what I'm doing. I tell her I'm looking for my mom's name on the list of the dead and it's OK because I don't see it. She says "Did you also look at the additional list stapled to the bottom of it?" and I look down and there are all these paper napkins and paper plates stapled to the bottom of the list, like additions of people's names as they identified them in the ruble. And I see my mom's name on one of the paper plates. I totally freak out and the nurse is grabbing me saying it's OK and tells me to go to so-and-so hospital to see her because that's where she's being treated.
    I get to the hospital to check on the condition of my dead mom. But it's so weird because all these doctors there tell me she's going to be fine and "We think she will be able to return home after one nights stay in the hospital" and "She's gonna be just fine!" but in the dream it's like I know she's dead. Really strange and creepy. It's like I knew she was dead but also knew she was alive and everyone in the dream was acting like she was dead but also acting like she was alive and just fine. It's almost like I got the feeling that I wanted sympathy from people that my mom was dead but deep down knew she was totally fine. Really odd.
    Then it's two weeks later and I'm waiting in line at one of those drive-in doctors offices they have in suburban areas, like quack shacks or whatever. I'm waiting in line to make an appointment for my "dead" mother to come in and be checked on because the doctors "...want to see what her condition is like since she's been dead for two weeks!" (hahahahaha!!!) There is a long line of people waiting and I am at the end of the line. Outside the large glass window of the office I can see it's Wintertime but that the sun is out. It's a suburban area with concrete roads and sidewalks and curbs and grass medians between the four lane roads and everything is clean and sparkling new.
    Two young guys are behind me in line now and seem to be plotting something, like they're gonna rob the place maybe. As soon as the nurse behind the desk disappears for a second the two guys race to the front of the line, over the desk, and into the area where they keep all the medicine. They are robbing the place for drugs. Everyone is just standing there watching like it's nothing and then the nurse and a doctor run out and are like "What do you two think you're doing? Get the Hell outta there!!!" and the two guys freak out and try to get away. Behind this other glass wall in the office we watch the two guys break through two walls and go through three separate rooms as they try to get out of the place. It's like we are all watching them in a zoo, or maybe a performance or a play, and behind the glass wall is the "stage".
    They make it out the front door, but before they do one of them holds up a little bottle of something and is like "Fuck yea!!!" like he got the drugs he had come for and it was all worth it. That's all they ended up taking. It's obvious that what was in the little bottle was, like, rubbing alcohol or something equally insignificant. Everyone is kind of laughing and the nurse and doctor are smiling and cleaning up the mess and shaking their heads. I am thinking in my head "Wow! All that effort just for a little bottle of alpha hydroxy" and then some guy in the line says "All that for a little bottle of hydrogen peroxide!" and everyone laughs. I realize that as I was thinking alpha hydroxy I actually meant hydrogen peroxide. Everything in the office goes back to normal.

8/29/00:

    Whoa...last nights dream was totally pornographic! And I only remember bits and pieces of it. I don't even think I was in it!!! Hey! I actually remember pits and pieces but it's like I was watching a porno tape and wasn't in it. Very voyeuristic but TV screen voyeuristic, not there voyeuristic.

8/30/00:

    I'm with my grandfather on my father's side, who's passed away now. His name was Page, but we used to call him Papaw. We are with my whole family and we are all joking around and like, having dinner or something. It's night time and we live in this big, old fashioned, two-story house. There are lots of houses all next to each other in the neighborhood. It kinds of reminds me of New Orleans. Papaw and I are kind of bored so we walk around different "abandoned" parts of the house and look at all these old things and machines and stuff that are in our house. Everything is by candlelight. I see lots of those oval "ring" rugs everywhere, whatever they are called. Eventually I say to Papaw "You wanna sneak out and go walk around?" and he's like "Yea".
    We walk out onto the street and are walking down an open strip. We are in Las Vegas now, on the new strip. Sometimes it is night and sometimes it is dusk. I stop in this record store and am like "Do you wanna go in here?" to which he seems genuinely interested. We are shopping in the store, looking around, and he is asking me about some of the record covers.
    We leave there and are walking down the grass median of the road. I see a restaurant shaped like a tee pee on the right. I point to it, but by the time he turns around to look at it we have passed the part that looks like a tee pee and it just looks like a normal International House of Pancakes.
    We eventually get to this old log cabin-style restaurant. It is shaped like an old log cabin and the food they serve is really great. There is now snow all over the ground and it's Wintertime, and it's day time. I somehow remember visiting this restaurant before in my dream during the night. I say to Papaw, "Oh let's go in here it's really neat, you'll like this!" We go inside, and it's much bigger inside than outside, like Dr. Who's Tardis. There is this circular fireplace in the center of the room and everyone sits around it waiting to get a table, which are all in another room. There is this slightly overweight blond woman in charge, she has on a great Pendleton sweater and is always carrying canisters of food.
    She tells us there are absolutely no tables available and that you have to make reservations months in advance and I'm like "No way - my grandfather is here and he has to see this place!" and she's like "No." and I still argue with her and am like "What if I wash dishes!" When I offer to do this her mood suddenly changes and she drops what she's doing and walks slowly into the kitchen without saying a word. What is she thinking?
    I follow her into the kitchen and she has turned around with a tray with champagne glasses and a dish of melted butter on it and is walking back into the dining area. Is she ignoring me? I think she might be.
    I see this clear Tupperware canister of, like chicken with rice soup or something like that in it (maybe it was chicken and dumplings now that I think about it). The canister is cold and the food looks old and I think there is soap in it. I pick it up to pretend I'm gonna wash it and I carry it out to the dining/waiting area so the woman can see me. She sees me but is pretending she doesn't. Papaw is like "Are we going to eat here?" and I say "Hold on a few years." (odd). I see the circular fireplace's mantle has turned into a round sink filled with water with dishes soaking in it. All the way around the burning fire.
    The woman walks over to me and looks at the canister of soapy chicken and rice soup. She takes it from me and looks at it and wipes part of it off, I think she thinks it's newly cooked and is ready to serve. She seems impressed and I can tell she is going to give us a table. She starts to place the canister of soup onto the buffet. I know that the food is old and dirty and has soap in it but I want to impress her so we can get a table, so I say nothing. I smile at her and she smiles back and says "Come right this way!" as all these people in the restaurant gobble up the dirty, soapy chicken with rice soup.

8/31/00:

    I'm on a rickety, ramshackle train...like the kind hobos travel on. I see that Rex from ReXcam is sitting in the corner of the cart I'm on. He is talking to Pam Grier. Suddenly I have replaced Rex and I am sitting where he was, and I am talking to Pam. I say something like "Oh my God I am such a fan of your films like Coffey and Jackie Brown and all those and wow oh my God what was it like and I can't believe I'm sitting in front of you..." and I'm totally stumbling over my words and making a fool of myself. She starts to talk about all the projects she is working on now and I start to be able to tell that she doesn't want to talk about her Blaxploitation film past and wants to talk about some new thing she's in.
    As she's talking, I see that there is a piece of skin hanging off her cheek. As I look closer, I can see that Pam has had really bad silicon and cosmetic surgery done to her face. She has that un-movable "chipmunk face" a lot of the trannie prostitutes around Port Authority in NYC have. Total plastic surgery disaster. The more I look the more I start to notice how bad her face looks, and I am in total shock.
    I turn my face to the side and look out the open door of the car at the outside moving by really fast. But instead of a landscape or buildings or something moving really fast by us, I see a tie-dye pattern, really vividly colored, moving and rumbling past us. It's moving really fast and looks like a close-up that is being recorded by a video camera. It makes no sense spacially...very odd. I turn to ask Pam about it and her face has now changed. It's totally smooth and beautiful except: her perfect face is now shrunk slightly, and is right in the center of her head. Like there is a circle of blank flesh around her face because her face is like a little doll head in the center and the rest of her head and hair is normal size. I'm like "Aauuuuggggggghhhhhh...yikes...iiieee'll see ya later Pam!" and she has a little chipmunk face and says "Bye Mark!". It's really odd, but at this moment I know I'm dreaming...kind of.
    So since I know I'm dreaming I think of all those dream books I've read that say once you know you're dreaming you can "control" what happens in the dream and make it really fantastic. So I look at the wall of the train car and shout out "I want a giant wormhole to open up in the wall of the train and the inside of the worm hole to be a pattern of tie-dye and Rex from Rexcam's face with bleached hair!!!" I actually shout this in the dream!
    Nothing happens and the train is just rumbling on and on and I'm waiting for the wormhole to open and it doesn't. I look over at the corner where Pam was and she is there but she is asleep and is in the same position I am usually in when I sleep on my cam (under the blue blanket). I am Pam? Huh?
    I look outside the open door of the cart and the rushing tie-dye pattern is gone and it's night and I see streetlights rushing by and it's really a lonely feeling.