Mark Allen's Dream Journal - August, 2004
*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.8/5/04
I am in some city that looks european, maybe in Spain or Italy. It's an old city. But I also get the feeling I am in NYC... even though it doesn't look like it. The city really looks like a mix of the old and the new. The sunlight is very bright outside and all the architecture is beige and maroon colored. I am inside some old building in the city that has arched columns all the way around the ground floor. Some of the spaces between the columns have glass, which are windows for apartments. I am inside one of the ground floor apartments with a woman and another guy... I don't know either of them. I have a pair of binoculars in my hand. Outside the window I can see a wide, sunny street... which is not paved... but dirt. Orange-ish dirt to be exact. Real dusty.
For some reason I am "aware" that me and these two people have retreated inside this building because of some kind of weird disaster that had occurred outside in the city earlier in the day. I have these kind of visual memories of being outside in the street, in another part of the city, and me and a big crowd of people were all reacting to these weird clumps of black soot-like stuff that were falling from the sky like snow. They were just kind of silently falling all over everything... just like snow does, and everyone was looking up in the sky and pulling the collected stuff off of themselves and trying to figure out what it was. It was determined at some point that the stuff was very harmful... some kind of weird radioactive fallout or a terrorist attack or something... and I know that the city "stopped" because of it. My memories of this "past" event event within the dream seem to be in black and white compared to the blazing, sunny color of the "present" part of the dream here inside the apartment.
So I'm sitting here in this apartment with these two people, and we are kind of retreated from the outside of the city from the terrorist attack or whatever (although I see no evidence of the black stuff outside on the street). We are all looking out the window, sometimes using the binoculars. The city still seems "stopped" because of what happened.
Suddenly I realize that the two people I am with are James Stewart and Grace Kelly, as their characters (LB Jeffries and Lisa Fremont) from the movie "Rear Window." Stewart is in a wheelchair with the clothes he wore in the film, and Kelly is in one of her outfits from the film. Neither have aged, and look exactly like their characters. Sometimes Stewart uses his binoculars to look out into the street. Also... sometime I seem to be Stewart himself, in the wheelchair looking out into the street with the binoculars, with Kelly by my side. And sometimes I go back to being myself, there in the room with the two of them.
Suddenly... I somehow become aware that the building we are in is going to collapse, because of the terrorist attack and what is happening to the city.. For some reason I simply yell out at the top of my lungs "Oh my God! the building s going to collapse we have to get out of here right now!" and I am able to jump right out of the window (the glass seems to disappear) and run out into the street and far across to the other side (which just has a bunch of ditches and hills of dirt... seems like a construction site). I don't even remember Stewart and Kelly getting out of the apartment.
I am now across the street, and I have the binoculars in my hand. It's still very sunny. I am with a small group of people who have also run across the street from the building, fearing it's collapse. I look through the binoculars at the window of the apartment I was just in... hoping to see Stewart and Kelly come running out. I am hoping they come out before the building collapses on top of them. As I look through the lens... I suddenly see Kelly run out, and Stewart run out behind her (she has a bunch of blankets in her hand, and a picnic basket - he is still in his wheelchair). As they run out of the building... it collapses into dust and rubble right behind them... they barely made it out in time. As I continue to watch them come towards me... I realize that Kelly has now transformed into the Miss. Torso character from the film.
8/6/04
I am in some room that looks old and dirty... like maybe a basement of an old building. I seem to be down on the floor and am looking up an a guy, tall and skinny, with dark greasy hair, slightly Hebrew features. He has on an army green jacket and some kind of white V-neck T-shirt under that. He is acting really flustered and panicky. There is an old, big sink behind him that is very stained with water marks. The whole environment is very filthy. At one point I think I see windows, and they are made of that kind of frosted glass that has wire mesh embedded in it, so you can't break it. Outside looks gray and overcast. I may be in London or europe somewhere.
The guy seems to be pacing back and forth in the room, hurriedly and impatient. At some point... his eye sockets kind of weirdly transform into these two bright orange holes. A bright orange substance starts kind of caking around the holes and clumps of it kind of fall off onto the floor. As this happens, the guy stops moving around and just stands there like a zombie, with his mouth hanging open. I kind of get up and look closely at his face. I realize that his eyes are now gone, and out of the sockets (which have this weird, chalky, bright orange substance lining the insides of them) are flowing crumbled up Cheetos crunchy cheese chip things. They are smooshed and crunched together and look like they might have been chewed up a bit. He just stands there... moaning every once in a while, in a weird trance... the Cheetos falling out of his eye sockets. I realize the bright orange of the Cheetos makes a really striking contrast to the army green jacket he has on. I then notice a bright yellow lighting tube hanging precariously off of one of it's connector wires... over by one of the walls which is painted-white cinderblock (but old and dirty). I notice that it makes an interesting interplay of yellow light and shadow on the wall. Then I look over at the sink, and I see that now there is a mass of extremely bright red paint kind of all over the bottom of the sink. It almost looks like blood. As I look over at the sink and the guy just continues to stand right in front of me, moaning in a trance as Cheetos fall out of his eyes, I watch as the red paint in the sink stars swirling into a red kind of vortex/black hole (with the vortex being the drain) and the center of it becomes very dark maroon. I get the sense that the red paint vortex will consume everything in the room.
8/7/04
I am in some house I do not recognize. I seem to be in a section of the house that has two bedrooms... both are very cluttered and messy. They both have a kind of beige carpet and white lacquered cork board shelves and furniture in them. Through the windows I can see that it is night outside. I get the impression that I may be in Sweden or europe for some reason.
There is a guy with me who is tall, skinny, has long, straight black hair and thick glasses. Were are working on some project together that involves listening to a bunch of CDs and doing something on this big, bulky, black laptop computer. We are listening to CDs by some strange Japanese noise artist... and documenting them on a website or something. We keep going from one bedroom to the other while we work on it.
At one point, I am looking at my computer on top of one of the beds. I see parts of it start to vibrate and wiggle. I watch parts of the laptop slowly move... and then suddenly, out of a big usb-looking port (but big and round) on the laptop's side, crawls a small mouse! It had been inside the computer the whole time! I stare in disbelief as I look at the mouse... who's little fur looks all matted and burned in places. The mouse seemed to have quickly chewed around the metal and plastic part of the weird usb port and just crawled out. There also seems to be some kind of sliding black plastic tray that automatically ejected out under the port (kind of like a DVD tray on a player ejects) to act like a little drawbridge for the mouse. As I move closer to get a better look... the mouse quickly scurries back inside the computer and starts moving around inside it again.
I soon deduce that the mouse has probably been living inside the computer for a while. I realize that (in the dream only), I have been shutting down the computer at night and throwing it on top of a giant pile of clothes in my closet. As the laptop had been on all day, it probably was still warm for quite a while... and the mouse, who probably lived in the giant pile of messy clothes in the closet, probably found a way to burrow inside the nice, warm computer that was there every night. And eventually... it just stayed inside.
How many circuit boards and disk drives did it chew through while in there? Can I get it out? I run into the other room and tell the guy I'm working with about it. He seems shocked and in disbelief like I am. Soon... we realize that we can probably play one of the Japanese CDs that we have (one of the ones by the artist who uses super high-pitched sounds, like only a dog can hear) and feed it with a small, super-concentrated speaker into the little port the mouse is using to get in and out. The high-pitched sound will drive the mouse crazy and it will run out of the computer. We start to set this plan into action. I have this little black speaker thing, that looks like a big cable plug-in thing, attached to a long, thick chord. I start to place it near the port of the computer, and my friend is over at the CD player with the high-pitched CD cued and ready to blast a full volume. As I look down at the port I am placing the weird little speaker to... I see that the insides and edges of the chewed-away computer port/tunnel that the mouse is using... the sides and insides of this hole are excreting the same clumped-up, chewed bright orange Cheetos (from yesterday's dream).
8/8/04
I am in some room with one of my 6th grade teachers who I remember was named Mr. Bolcher. The room's floor has various levels that kind of act like tables or seats or window sills. All of the floor and it's level things are covered in a kind of peach/beige industrial carpet. It's a very 1970's look. The walls are white drywall and the ceiling is corked tile with rectangular fluorescent light sections in it. The windows to the outside are very fancy though, and all the windows sills are made of dark cherry oak, which are fitted separately between each pane of glass. Outside it looks like dusk and possibly fall. I get the impression that outside, there is a kind of snowing of the same weird black substance that I dreamed about a few days ago.
I think there may be other people in the room. Mr. Bolcher is kind of directing us... telling us to do something. I think I see some people cutting stuff out of construction paper or something. Mr. Bolcher looks like he always did... tall, slim with a beige V-neck sweater and white shirt under that, and brown slacks and maybe hush puppies. He wore glasses that had no frames... like the aviator style, and they were always kind of tinted. He has a gold wedding ring and maybe a gold chain on, and his strawberry blond hair is kind of fluffed over to one side, parted on the side.
Suddenly I'm aware that my old Texas friend Chuck is in the room. He is wearing a black army P-coat, black jeans and big black boots. His hair is dyed black and sticking up on the top. He is standing in the room and smoking a cigarette and looking at me. I notice in the background that there is an old TV set, which is playing a rerun of "MASH" - which was Chuck's favorite show. Chuck just keeps smoking and looking at me, and suddenly I can kind of hear the theme song to "MASH" playing in the background. Except it's not actually the theme song from "MASH," but a John Denver song. It's like in the dream, that John Denver song (which sounds like the 'MASH' theme but with singing over it) has always been the "MASH" theme. I think to myself "Wow... I guess I never realized John Denver sand the theme to 'MASH!" Chuck just keeps staring at me really intently.
Just then I look across the room and see the back of my long lost Texas/NYC friend Ray. He is sitting at one of the weird level table things and cutting shapes out of construction paper. I only see his back but I know it's him. He's wearing this weird kind of light fluorescent green turtleneck sweatshirt he always used to wear and that I always thought was odd. He doesn't look at me but I get the impression he's aware that I'm in the room. He just keeps methodically cutting up construction paper.
I keep looking over at Chuck... who just keeps puffing away at his cigarette and looking at me very intently. His eyes are very focused and intense.
Then I look over at Mr. Bolcher who is still telling people in the room what to do (except for me and Chuck for some reason) and realize for the first time that Mr. Bolcher has always looked a lot like John Denver. I look back over at the TV screen and it's still "MASH," but it's a shot of some army helicopters crashing.
8/9/04
I'm in some suburban town that I don't recognize. It seems like a cross between some northeastern suburb and maybe Brooklyn. I get the feeling that it is actually Manhattan though, even though it doesn't look like it. It's nighttime and I am at some kind of old theater or concert hall. I seem to be there as some sort of co-host to some kind of nightclub event... some sort of gay thing that is being hosted by some old gay nightlife entrepreneur from the 1990's... and this is kind of his "return" to the scene. The place is huge... with lots of big rooms. There is nobody at all there. The host and I and the other hosts are kind of walking around and telling the people that are there how we can't believe no one showed up and how everyone is probably out of town for the summer or whatever... the usual excuses. The whole place has that awful energy of having an event and then nobody really showing up. I actually have no idea why I would ever show up to co-host such an event. The whole time I'm walking around, alone in the big space, nobody around overhearing other people's conversations and wondering what the Hell I'm doing there.
At one point I see an old club friend of mine, Giovanni, and I hear him talking to some girl about how he used to be a massage therapist. He says "I used to do that!" Giovanni and the girl are both wearing jean cut-off shorts. The girl has purple plastic bauble hair-ties, and is sipping from a little red straw out of one of those awful little plastic drink cups they serve overpriced drinks in at clubs and she just keeps nodding her head at everything he says. As they are talking, they are both looking into an empty theater where a movie is projecting on a screen and all the seats are empty.
Soon some guy that I remember from the club scene, but can't remember his name, is talking to me in the lobby of the club about how lame the whole thing is. He is wearing a cream-colored "zoot suit" with a maroon shirt underneath and has gold dangling earrings on. He looks really old and feeble now, and balding, and he says to me "Just collect your coins and press honey!" and I look away feeling kind of embarrassed for some reason. Then, one by one, a bunch of these really fun Latin kids (can't remember any of their names) that used to regularly come to this one club I used to host at Webster Hall in the 90's, start walking in the door and saying hello to the guy I am talking to. I feel this rush of excitement, like the night is suddenly going to pick up and get exciting. As they all say hi to the guy... he always eventually points to me and says to them "Did you see that Mark Allen is here?" and they always open their eyes really big and look shocked and go "Mark! Oh my god how a-a-a-r-r-r-e-e-e you?!" and I talk to them. Soon more and more of these kids show up... but they all look older and look like they have real jobs now. One shows up in a Burger King uniform and I can tell he is the manager of a Burger King. They always look at me and my friend after talking to us about the old days, and eventually say that they have to go home and go to bed so they can get up for work the next morning. I guess none of them are going to stick around.
Then I suddenly seem to be in the street outside the club, and I am standing at the intersection of a really major road, several lanes... and am going to cross the light and go home. Suddenly my family is there... and are all walking along talking about how great it will be to get home. I look up and see that my family is actually all the characters from the Bundy family for the TV show "Married With Children."
8/10/04 - 8/15/04
No dreams.
8/16/04
I'm on a really nice airplane, that is up in the air. There is a kind of living room/lounge inside the airplane instead of seats. I think it even has a fireplace. I am there with some people, one of who includes my old New York friend Mario. Hi is wearing 1970's vintage clothes and a brown sued jacket. He keeps getting up from his seat and pointing out the window. He seems to be making that John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever" pose.
Then some time seems to have passed and I am fiddling with all these papers. I seem to be working on some project with Mario. We keep going over details and stuff. It is then that I notice that the decor inside the airplane is all in blue... different shades. The furniture and rugs and lamps and stuff are this horrible 70's chintzy like of style. The lamb shades have glass chandelier baubles hanging off the shades... which are blue velvet. I also notice that Mario has a small white dog. We are still up in the air.
8/17/04
I am exiting the York street station on the F line in Brooklyn. It is daytime, cloudy. I seem to be watching myself exit the station from across the street. The exit looks more box-like than usual, with just a one-door little entrance out of the station. As I exit, some guy I don't know follows me out of the exit door. For some reason, I quickly turn to my left and go around the right side of the box-like station, where I run into a dead-end alleyway (I thought I would be able to go all the way around the structure). The guy who followed me stops and looks at me, he has followed me into the alley. He has an old brown corduroy blazer on and he reaches inside it and is somehow able to pull a red ball out of it, the size of a volleyball. He tosses the ball in my direction... almost like a game. Then for some reason I see, from a different angle, him throwing the ball at me. I seem to be viewing it from the his front side, and I can only see from his torso down to his knees. He has on these dark black jeans and he has a belt on that has a car safety belt buck as a regular belt buckle. I can see what looks like two partially inflated red balls kind of tucked in between his shirt and his pants, presumably getting ready for him to take out and throw.
Then I seem to beck inside the station. The walls are made of white tile and I am looking down a wide, concrete, fluorescent -lit stairwell . The handrail of the stairwell is painted bright yellow. On my right, the stairs go down, and to my left, there is a hallway that has un upward incline. Suddenly I can see what looks like a red and yellow comforter blanket kind of levitating vertically along the side of the stairwell wall, alongside the handrail (about one foot from the wall) upwards toward me. One side of it is bright red and the other is bright yellow, the yellow side is facing the wall. It comes up to my level, then turns along the wall and starts to go up the inclined hallway, like it's on a track. Right as it turns the corner, just a few feet from my face, the edge of the blanket spits out what looks like a fax. On the fax is a badly Xerox-ed photo of the guy who threw the ball at me, it's a picture of his head turned slightly to the right.
8/18/04
No dreams.
8/19/04
I am with my father, mother and brother in some state and town I don't recognize, it is daytime, summer, nice out. We are all getting together to go to this family reunion or wedding or something where all the relatives will be there. In order to get to the family reunion, we have to travel on this really long bridge/tunnel thing that is very, very long, and is constructed miles high above whatever town we are in. It's huge, and very long... and is kind of like a tunnel that is open at some parts... but enclosed at others. It also acts kind of like a time travel machine, or a location transporter... I don't know, very metaphysical. You enter the tunnel/bridge in one part of the town... then walk through it, as it kind of arcs high above the city, it takes a long time, and when you come out the other end you are in another time and place. For some reason, we are all going to travel to this tunnel thing to go to this family reunion.
We enter on one side, and start walking. I am shocked at how some parts of the long tunnel are filled with horrible snakes and bugs and stuff... it's awful. We keep walking along and soon we are high above the city. At one point I run into Dave Doorknob. He is coming the other direction in the tunnel. He has on some strange backpack that is shaped like a hastily constructed model of the Death Star or something from "Star Wars." He talks to me and tells me about all these Star Wars-themed models he is working on at home. He is standing by one of the open parts of the tunnel/bridge, and I can see the city way below him as he talks. Almost like the view from an airplane. Then he continues on his way. At some point after this exchange, I realize that my family has moved on without me. I look around as I walk to try and catch up with them and see that the snake and bug problem in this part of the tunnel is very bad. It's literally swarming with horrible, slimy snakes of all types and sizes... and all kinds of awful centipedes and roaches and giant spiders and things. Some parts of the tunnel get really, really slim, like only a foot in diameter... so you literally have to squish and squeeze through while snakes and spiders are slithering and crawling all over you. The walls are slimy and gross so it's easy to squeeze through but horrible. It's like something from Hell!
Soon I realize that every inch of distance covered in this tunnel is excruciating and I just sit in one part of the tunnel and look out of one of the open parts onto the city far below. I keep also looking forward at all the snakes and stuff ahead of me and I soon realize that my family has indeed not moved forward ahead of me. Somehow I know that, when I wasn't looking, they got off the tunnel thing via some giant ladder or helicopter or something, and descended down to the ground. Just then get this "message" from my family, like a cell phone call inside my head, it's from my mother and she tells me that they are now in the future, at the family reunion, and that they made it through the tunnel fine.
Then a scenario shift: I seem to be in that future, and at or near the location of the family reunion. It is nighttime and I am in the parking lot of some strip mall driving around in a red compact car with Patrick Swayze. He is driving. For some reason, I am worried about how my hair looks. It is very long and I have suddenly decided I want to cut it short for the family reunion. Patrick is telling me that he can drive me to a place that will cut my hair perfectly. He reminds me of this Supercuts I used to get my hair cut at as a kid, in some strip mall in Plano, Texas. He tells me that he can "drive" me back through time, to that Supercuts at that time in the 1980's, we can get my hair cut, and then "drive" forwards in time to now and attend the reunion. I decide to do it. Whether we will be taking the bridge/tunnel thing I don't know.
8/20/04
No dreams.
8/21/04
I am in some room, that looks similar to the one in my recent 8/8/04 dream. Farrah Fawcett is there, and she is wearing this weird kind of 1960's mod-design couture dress, a weird kind of poncho-style dress with feather collar and sleeves... all white with patterns made with sequins which are different shades of white. Her blond hair is pulled up into an elaborate bun hairstyle... and I think she has giant black fake eyelashes on. Her fingernails are painted white. She kind of looks like a drag queen. She looks like she's kind of on display and performing. I seem to be the only one in the room with her. She isn't saying anything but she does keep pointing in different directions.
I notice this weird long puddle of what looks like cooked oatmeal of over-cooked Ramin noodles. I realize that it's a railroad track, made of this slimy material, that leads out of the room through a passageway.
8/22/04
I'm with my friend Brian and we are sitting at a table in a diner. It is late at night. I notice on the street outside are a lot of slow, blinking red lights, like car hazard lights. While we are sitting there talking, I at one point put my head in my hands and kind of press my cheeks together so when I talk "...it thowndth luk thus." Brian keeps telling me something and I keep talking and pushing my cheeks together and sinking my had lower and lower between my hands. Brian starts laughing and then I say the word "anesthesiologist" except it sounds like "un-nu-thu-thu-uh-lu-dust" because of the way I'm stretching my cheeks. And as I say the word all of these weird, animated (like a cartoon overlaid on the reality of what we are experiencing), Peter Max-looking, colorful swirling shapes come out of my mouth and hover over the table and we both jerk back and go "Wow! Did you see that! Oh my God!"
Then I suddenly jerk my head up and realize that I had fallen asleep with my head in my hands and I had actually dreamed that happening, even me squishing my face between my hands. I look over at Brian and say "Oh wow I just fell asleep for a second and had this dream where I was squashing my face and I said the word 'anesthesiologist' and these swirling shapes..." and Brian interrupts me and says "Yea I know I saw it!" and I look down and see that he has all these wires attached to his hand and arm, stuck on with those round Band-Aid things... and the wires lead to this aluminum napkin dispenser on the table and I know somehow that the napkin holder is some kind of machine that can read my thoughts. I also know that this diner supplies every table with one of these napkin dispensing/mind reading devices that the customers can take turns reading each other's thoughts with.
Then Brian starts to "project" this black and white image of a woman with long hair kind of floating in space, and next to her is a photograph of the numbers on a football jersey and the numbers say "06." And I'm like "Ok... ok... wait I know what film this is!" and then I kind of "see" the two of us sitting at the table from across the restaurant, and I'm wearing a really cheesy looking virtual reality helmet.
8/23/04
I can kind of "see" this weird, fleshy thing that looks like raw chicken. It is kind of the shape of a fish, but a fish that has been skinned and is just raw flesh. The thing seems to be alive somehow (although whether it is alive as a singular entity - like a fish, or part of a whole - like a muscle that is part of a larger body... is unclear). I see this thing hovering or swimming over some sort of aluminum cage or something... a machine or device (perhaps it is a blender) and it is moving around and swishing... like fighting or struggling, like a fish out of water or something. I kind of "hear" this voice telling me it is a very good thing to make sure this thing is made to struggle as much as possible... so it can build up strength. I hear the voice tell me that the more it is made to struggle and "break down" the stronger it will rebuild. I then kind of see this muscle/fish thing getting pulverized with a meat tenderizer while it continues to struggle. Then I know some time has passed and I can "see" the muscle/fish thing "sleeping" and it is soaking in soy sauce. I know somehow that it marinates in this stuff every night as it "sleeps."
8/24/04
I am looking at what looks like a small statue of a pineapple. It is the size of a normal pineapple, but it is carved out of stone. Someone's hands (maybe mine?) are holding a blender sideways, with the open end pointed at the stone pineapple. It's like they are trying to fit the stone pineapple into the blender but it won't go. Soon, they start to run the motor of the blender and then knock the top of it into the stone pineapple... so maybe it will break it up and the pieces can fit into the blender. All this does is chip little pieces of the stone pineapple off... but just off of it's surface. I can see now that the pineapple sculpture is made up of hundreds of little layers... like cast layers of plaster or something. It looks like the deeper you go into the layers, the older and dingier the layers become.
Then I am looking at something that looks like a styled photograph from a food magazine. I am seeing a woman's hand (with bright red manicured nails) pour this bright red liquid (like a daiquiri) out of a long, tall glass pitcher... into a tall, stemmed wine glass which has a drink stirrer with a twist of an orange slice already in it. In the background is this translucent/foil wallpaper that is many shades of green. The pattern of the paper looks like a tessellation of interlocking peacock feathers. The center "eye" of the feathers are the darkest green. The wallpaper has a kind of textured surface made out of foil and reflective stuff so it shimmers. As the woman pours the bright red liquid into the glass, suddenly the centers of all the peacock feathers on the wallpaper pattern begin to "fill in" with the same color red... in correspondence with the glass getting filled up.
8/25/04
I am working in a large office, where all the offices are divided by particle board dividers - separated into cubicles. The floor is maroon industrial carpeting and the ceiling is white cork board with fluorescent rectangular light fixtures embedded in it. My desk has a large computer monitor on it, among other things. There is also a very large, old fashioned rolodex sitting next to it. I have a black office swivel chair. For some reason I am able to "hear" the central air conditioning in the office more than I probably should.
I keep getting up from my seat slightly, and looking over the top of my cubicle wall. When I do I look out over the maze of the tops of cubicles. People keep popping their heads up all over the landscape of particle board dividers, from their own office cubicles, and saying "Hi Mark!" and "Hey there Mark!" and then disappearing again, like targets in a video game. Every time I get up and look, the other people seem to know and start popping their heads up and saying "hi" - in every direction... it's weird. They always smile when I see their faces... but something seems rehearsed about it, like a game.
When I finally stop doing this and sit down to my desk for good, I keep looking at all these video clips I have access to on my computer desktop. All the clips are of really, really overweight people (always from the shoulders down - their heads cropped out) walking around out on the street or sitting on benches or whatever... always out in public. I start browsing through clip after clip after clip. Each one on my desktop is under a minute long and is always of the same thing: a really fat person walking around or sitting in public... their heads and/or faces always cropped out by the camera. Soon... after looking at what seems like hundreds of these clips, I realize what it is that I do for a living:
I obviously work in some video clip library, that is used by a network news channel. My specific job is only clips of fat people. These clips will be used for any story that involves obesity or reports on studies of rising blood pressure or fat-ness in Americans. The reporter will always be saying "A new study at Stanford University has shown that those who eat high-calorie foods before noon, are ten times as likely to develop heart disease or thyroid problems before the age of 50..." or something like that, and one or more of my clips of a random, face-less fat person walking or eating in public will play along. I have any and every variation of head-cropped fat person doing any and everything in public imaginable at my fingertips. I literally have millions of these things in my hard drive, and more are always being given to me. I know that the camera people just film fat people on the street (always cropping their face) at random, and these people never know they are being filmed... and have a chance of ending up on national television.
I realize that I haven't felt the urge to look up from my seat for a while... so I turn my attention over to my rolodex. I start thumbing through it and notice that it doesn't have names and phone numbers or addresses in it... instead, on all the cards, are individual handwritten messages. All of them are in different handwritings and pen and pencil types... and some of them look like they were written a long time ago, while some look newer. They seem arranged in no particular order. As I look more and more through it and start turning the rolodex more and more... I realize each card has the exact same sentence written on it: "You'd better not pick me!"
8/26/04
I'm in some kind of giant, metallic cylinder... like the inside of a huge aluminum can. It is quite dark, but the top of the can seems to be cracked open a little bit so a little light is peaking through. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I make out that there seems to be some kind of elaborate glass sculpture that is in the center of the can... and is connected to both the top and floor of the giant can. As I look closer, I see that the clear glass sculpture is made up of all kinds of hollow tubes and little deposits... all intertwined like tree branches or an octopus' tentacles. I see that there are a lot of these tubes and little bubble-like tips at the end of the twisting tubes, which extend out of the center part of the sculpture... which is kind of like a tree trunk. Even though it is quite dark, I can just make out the edges and surfaces of it in the reflecting dim light from the top.
Suddenly... the top of the can slides off quickly and the entire can quickly floods with bright light. The glass sculpture seems to disappear. I see a group of people, many of them kids, poke their smiling faces over the edge of the top of the giant can, all the way around it's rim, and all look down at me. They all look kind of bored and blasé... but seem to be watching me intently. I can kind of make out what appear to be stage lights high above them. One of the adults in the group (who is bald, with glasses, and has on a bow tie and a white lab coat) says in a really loud voice "I bet you'd never think to wake up and find yourself inside a giant aluminum can at a chicken soup canning factory now did you?!" There is something theatrical about his voice... like he's Willy Wonka or something and these kids he are with are watching a show or are on a tour. After he says this all the kids keep looking down at me very intently, but don't say anything or move... and I hear what sounds like a giant studio audience way in the background go "YYyyyaaaayyyy!!!" really loud.
Just then all the kids look up and over to one side, at a giant piece of machinery that looks like the back of a cement truck, which is being rotated and moved with a big crane over the top of the can. There is a lot of steam coming out of whatever is in the machine. The bald adult guy says "OK! Are you ready for us to fill up the can with hot, steaming, boiling chicken soup and vacuum-seal you with it in the can FOREVER?! HAHAHAHA!!!" and all the kids keep looking down at me and back up at the machine (which seems to be getting ready to pour hot liquid onto me) in anticipation... and I can hear the distant studio audience cheering and yelling... and the guy goes "Here it comes... ready or not!" and the machine starts to tilt.
I get totally scared and start to back up against the inside rim of the can and get away from the hot liquid. I hear the bald guy yell "I guess you can just become part of chicken soup and feed some starving kids in Ethiopia!" as the hot, steaming chicken soup then pours out of the machine and starts to cascade down into the can. It pours really fast and I can feel the heat before it even hits me and I'm totally freaked out and feeling like I'm about to die. But the hot soup, which pours like a waterfall into the center of the can and splashes all over the place, doesn't touch me for some reason. It makes a wild splash and then... like stop-motion photography... it all just freezes in space... the drops and tendrils of hot liquid frozen mere inches from my face, one going right between my legs. It's all just frozen and I'm still moving... unharmed and dry. I hear the audience cheer and cheer and I look up and see all the dour-faced kids applauding.
Soon I realize that what had happened is that the glass sculpture I could see earlier in the dim light was actually a complex, hollow vessel with an opening at the top. The hot soup poured into it and filled it up quickly. The glass sculpture was made to look like a quick-freeze frame photo of liquid splashing into a can... so when it filled up it looked just like that... stopped... but I remained outside of it and unharmed. It was an elaborate prank. I can still hear the audience laughing and cheering way in the background. I look down closely onto one of the organically shaped glass tubes and see heat condensation forming on it from the hot soup inside.
8/27/04
I am inside the icy cave of the character Box from the movie "Logan's Run." It is very cold... and ice and mist are everywhere. Ice-covered stalactites droop from the ceiling, and frozen tunnels go off into the distance. Everywhere is blue and white with sparkly surfaces. The floor is very flat (just like the set in the film). I see Box's frozen sculptures of animals all over the place... walruses, fish, seals, birds, etc. All made of blue ice. Except I notice that the penguin sculptures are their actual real color, black, white and yellow... not made of blue ice, yet are indeed frozen like the others. They are the only one like this.
I wander around and wonder if the robot Box is there. It seems like I'm the only one around. It's very quiet and I can hear the tiny crunch of ice crystals forming and wind whipping through the far cavern tunnels. I am freezing... but I can't exactly tell if where I am is real... or a set.
At one point... I come across an ice sculpture of two human figures embracing in a kiss (which I identify as a set piece from the film, I have seen photographs of; it depicts the figures of Logan and Jessica that Box had sculpted... it was made for the film but the scene was cut out of the final print). I start to look closer at the sculpture... which is made of blue ice. It's hard to tell if it's really ice, or is plastic. I look closer at it and realize the figures are not Logan and Jessica at all, but are instead Ruth Gordon as her character Maude from the film "Harold and Maude" as the female, and then the robot Box as the male. The resemblance's are unmistakable. I wonder why Box would have carved an ice sculpture of himself kissing Ruth Gordon. I notice that Ruth's sculpted arms have a hard time reaching around Box's enormous rectangular frame... but their mouths are indeed lip-locked.
I keep wandering around the cave and start to notice that I can see my breath. I notice more penguin sculptures that are in full color... contrasted to all the others which are blue and white ice. At some point... I wander to the back of one tunnel and see that indeed I am on a set. The ice walls and floor just stop, and I am in a weird little hallway made of plywood and wooden two-by-fours.. garishly lit by bare light bulbs. Next to one of the walls is a working toilet and a bathroom mirror. Suddenly I look up and see Ruth Gordon, in the flesh, standing there adjusting her skirt. She is wearing her clothes from "Harold and Maude." She looks at me and says "You need to use the toilet? Well... it's right there!" with her crackly voice and she points with her hand in a wide-eyed gesture I remember a lot from her films. I look over at the toilet again and see that the lid is down, but that the inside of it is stuffed with wads of dry toilet paper... like jammed with it, poking out. I can see that some of the wads of toilet paper seem to have feces on them. It really grosses me out.
Then suddenly, a really weird scenario shift: the set piece backstage at Box's cave with Ruth Gordon kind of "blips" off from my field of vision and hearing... like it stops, and slows down as it stops in the same way a reel-to-reel tape slows down and goes "dwoooop" right before it stops, right when you hit the off switch. I then have a completely different field of vision and perception. I am sitting up in an airplane seat. I must have had my head down in my lap or face-down on the pull-out tray in front of me... as I am catching myself in the motion of sitting up. I look around me and see that I am indeed on an airplane that is quite crowded, and is up in the air. There is a flight attendant standing right next to my seat (she is wearing an old fashioned, 1960's, stewardess uniform) and she looks down at me and says "Sir, are you connected properly?" She is holding in her hand this little device made of beige plastic. It has two wires attached to it and then a larger piece that looks exactly like one of those plastic security devices they attach to clothes at stores and then remove when you pay for them. I see that the device is made to be plugged into this little slot in the back of the seat in front of me. Then the wires connect to this weird little glass dome thing that is laying flat on my fold out tray. It is about the size of a record album in diameter, and about two inches high. It appears to be made of semi-transculent clear and blue glass. I look closer at it and realize that it is not made out of glass at all, but is actually kind of jelly-like... like a Jello mold dessert or the top portion of a jellyfish. I start to lean down and look closer and closer at the weird thing, and soon I feel the tip of my nose touch it's cold, jelly surface. I press my face further into it's squishiness and suddenly *blip* I am back inside the Box ice cave. I seem to be back at the starting point of that part of the dream. Like I'm starting over. I then kind of "will" my head to "pull back" and *bloop* I'm back in the airplane seat, with the flight attendant standing next to me. I then place my face into the round jelly thing again and *blip* I am back in the reality of the Box cave. I'm amazed at the difference in sensations of each reality... both so real, sound, feel, temperature, sense of space... everything. But both are easily transferred back and forth by just placing my face in this jelly disc. The jelly disc is some sort of virtual reality entertainment device used by passengers on airplanes to bide time during the flight.
The flight attendant adjusts the wires attached to my jelly disc and then checks the connection in the seat in front of me, and then walks away. With the wires plugged into it and streaming down off the side of my tray and then connecting onto the plug in front of me... I realize how much the whole device really does resemble a jellyfish. I also look down at myself and realize I have a business suit on.
After the flight attendant walks away... I can see all the other seats on the plane, almost all of them full. Every single passenger on the plane is bent forwards and has their face buried in one of these devices. They are all motionless and I guess each "experiencing" virtual realities. Somehow I know that each one is different... each virtual reality scenario kind of relates to that person's personality. I look over to my left and see that there is a woman with dark hair, dressed very stylish with a colorful scarf and some kind of bright red Chanel suit and big gold earrings on. She has bright red lipstick and red nails and her hair is kind of 1970's-style. She's kind of older. She is reading what looks like a paperback romance novel, and seems to be the only passenger not using her virtual reality jelly disc, which is right in front of her on the fold-out tray. I look down at her disc and see that instead of being blue and clear glass... it almost looks like smoky brown/black glass.
I look back at the passengers in all the seats. Everyone is so motionless, bent forward with their faces buried in these things. All you can really hear is the loud hum of the airborne plane. It almost looks like all the passengers are little kids asleep on individual mats in a nursery school during nap time.
8/28/04
No dreams.
8/29/04
I am walking into some unknown room with two people I do not know. The room looks like a large apartment, with drywall, white walls, hardwood floors, light fixtures embedded into the center of each ceiling, and centralized air. It appears to be on the upper floor of an apartment building. The woman is blond, mid-height and a little chunky. The guy with us is tall and slim with black hair and buggy eyes. We all walk into the apartment together, like we are all returning from something. I get the impression that it is late at night.
We all walk into the apartment together and set our stuff down. In one of the rooms, up on a shelf, is a small, old, black, cast iron safe. It looks to be about two feet, by two feet, by two feet... and has a combination dial on the front door which is round and silver. We are all three in the room with the safe, and are talking about it. Suddenly, for some reason, the girl says "Oh here I will show you how I can fit into it..." and she gets up on the shelf, and wiggles her way into the safe, and shuts the little door behind her. Then her muffled voice from inside the metal safe says "See? I can fit! Even when it's locked shut!"
Then it soon becomes apparent that she thought she would be able to open the safe from inside, once she had locked herself in it, but now realizes she can't. She starts telling us, in her muffled voice, that we need to open the safe from the outside using the combination lock. We ask her what the combination is (we don't know for some reason) and she says "...uh, oh God... you know... I can't remember!" Me and the other guy mull around trying to figure out what to do. So the girl tells me to go look in her bag for a particular magazine. She tells me that she was recently interviewed in that magazine, and the interviewer asked her a particular question, and she answered the question by giving the combination of three numbers that was the combination to this safe. I find this odd, but I go to look for the magazine. I find her bag and start ruffling through it, but the magazine is not there. I am talking to her from across the apartment with a loud voice, so she can hear me inside the safe. I'm like "It's not there! Where else would it be?" As I am doing all this, the tall guy is just standing near the safe with his hands in his pockets, looking at the wall. He isn't helping to find the magazine or get her out at all.
Soon I find the magazine and I thumb through it and find the interview with her, and look for the question with the answer that is the combination to the safe. She keeps asking me if I have found it yet, and telling me to hurry because she's not sure how much air she has left in the safe to breath. The other guy is still just standing, staring at the wall. The interview in very, very long... and I'm having a hard time finding the particular question and answer. I read the entire thing quickly, from beginning to end... and don't see what I am looking for. I tell her that that particular question and answer don't seem to be in the interview and then I tell her that I am going to look again. I start looking again, and feeling very weary from reading so much. So she says "OK Mark... Mark... just forget it. I think that the editor of the magazine may have edited that question out of the interview in the final edit. Why don't you call him on the telephone and have him look up the original transcription from the interview? Then he can find it and read you the combination answer over the phone!" I agree and walk down to a lower level of the apartment. I see that the other guy is still just staring at the wall.
When I walk down to the lower level, I see these sliding glass doors that open up into a NYC subway station. It's a brand nw station... all white tile and clean. For some reason our apartment is built with direct access to it. There is a pay phone in the station and I use it to call the editor of the magazine. I reach him at his office and explain to him the entire situation. I keep having trouble speaking to him because the train track is right next to the phone and is very loud and rattling. He goes to find the interview transcript and eventually gets back on the phone and tells me he can't find it. He looks several more times but eventually gives up and tells me it's nowhere to be found. I hang up the phone and walk through the glass door back into the apartment... wondering what to do. I hope she's still breathing!
As I walk in, I find the girl out of the safe, sitting on the couch, putting lipstick on while looking into a compact mirror. The safe door is wide open, and the guy is standing next to it with his hands in his pockets, looking at me. I ask them what happened and the girl tells me that the guy was able to get her out of the safe while I was gone. I ask how he was able to do it, and the guy says "You know... a simple psychological trick... it was mind games." I am baffled and amazed. The girl, still looking into her compact and putting on make-up, then says "The editor of the magazine called... he told me you bothered him and he could barely hear you over the phone because of all the noise in the background." I tell her that I had to use the phone in the subway station attached to our apartment. Her mood seems hostile and accusatory.
Then me and the guy leave and go and get on the same subway. It turns out neither of us live in that apartment. We are taking the subway to our own individual apartments. I look out the subway windows as the car rattles along through the tunnels and see that we are not moving through a subway tunnel at all, but the car is moving through the inside of an apartment hallway... past all the individual apartment doors. I know that the car will stop and let me off right at my apartment. The guy, who is sitting kind of far away from me, looks at me and says "Mark... do you mind if I ask you something? What do you think of our marriage?"
8/30/04 - 9/2/04
No dreams.