Dream Log: March 22, 2000

My roommate wakes me up, saying "You need to get up and go to class. You don't want to miss that Sledgehammer class."
"What?" I ask.
"You know, Sledgehammer, that video by Peter Gabriel? He's giving a class on it."
"Why," I ask, "on earth would you wake me up to tell me about that?"
"I thought you might find it interesting."

... Then I *really* wake up, and I missed my first class. Maybe this was just my unconscious mind telling me it was time to get up. WHERE it got "Sledgehammer" from, I don't know. It's a good song, but I hadn't heard it in quite some time. Aah, the mysteries of the human mind.

I had a strange dream. I do not remember any plot, only images.

I was at a chess tournament held in a hotel at a unknown city. 5 or 6 of my friends were there - Strange, as only one of them actually plays chess. For some reason we were all forced to get seperate rooms with our own money. You could pay $35 for a room with one bed in it for 1, or $95 for a room with two beds in it for 2. I'm pretty sure we all got singles.

I went down to a room in the hotel to buy breakfast. I wanted to buy a sausage biscuit but they only had an eclair. When I asked what an eclair was, the lady told me it was just a bigger version of the sausage buscuit.

We were forced to go to church. I stepped in the elevator that led there.. Currently there was only one other of the six also in the elevator. He hit the door close button. This elevator was quite strange -- When he hit the button, first, bars closed across the door, so the others could see we were cut off from them. Then the door closed. The lights dimmed as the elevator jerked quickly upwards -- Then in all different directions! I do not remember much else about it other than it being the scariest elevator in the world.

In the skittles room someone from another team was reading a small little book.. about the size of those 2600 mags. I glanced at it and noticed my name was in it. I asked him to borrow it and he gave it to me. On my way to the next round (I was already late) I flipped through it and tried to find where I saw my name. I couldn't find it.

There was a very dark atmosphere. It wasn't raining, but it should have been. I don't know how else to describe this.

I had tons of free time. There were hours between the rounds.. Strangly, these are all the events I remember. I don't remember playing any actual games or what I did in my free time.

- / +

my old room in my parents' house, looking out the window, watching the water rise outside, feeling panic slosh through me in gradiated waves.

Lucid Space-Time Travel

• Back in high school, back in French class with Madame Newlon's hugs. The classroom is where my chemistry class was, with Steffany and Sara. Steffany has just returned from her year in France and she arrives on a day the school has to take a special test. I hear Hillary Clinton is on campus. The test/survey takes a while but afterwards, Steffany has brought a treat for us: various flavors of preserves from France. We go outside into the Ag field and, with the help of Ethan (DuWitt) and some other hippy, she serves samples in little plastics cups. Yum.

  After school, Steffany and I are walking around campus talking. I see Hillary Clinton and she looks like she's out of her mind, babbling and stumbling. She seems adamant about not revealing some tapes (about her husband, I think), but with a little convinving, she forks them over. We don't listen to them. Remembering that she left something in the classroom, Steffany and I walk to the door that faces the Ag building. She's afraid the building will be locked and, sure enough, when she pulls on the handle, it is shut fast. I become lucid. I tell her I'll open it. I walk to the door and gently pull it open. Steff is a little stunned but nothing compared to her next reaction. We walk into the classroom and it seems we've time-traveled backwards a few hours to when we were taking the test. We are invisible to the students and are able to watch our past-selves filling in scantrons. Steffany bends over herself and reads her own test, pointing out a mistake. She is amazed and mystified at this miracle of temporal translation. Presently, we leave the building. I decide on a change of dream-scene.

  I run towards the Ag building and leap over it. I'm now flying through the streets of New York city. I attempt to transform it into my Dad's childhood Brooklyn but can't do it, not having a clear enough image of what that should look like. Instead I land and enter a hotel. I see slot machines and realize I'm in Las Vegas now. I get the idea of winning big. I then see a $20 million jackpot video slot. There's a small line of people which I join. The slot costs $1 which I realize I only have a quarter of. I look down and find 75 cents on the casino carpet. When it's my turn, I drop the coins in and look away, concentrating. I look back to see flashing lights and sirens going off. I back away as casino officials descend. I walk over to a bar a few feet away but they are closing. The next one has hard cider in a can so I get one. When the bartender asks to see my id, I realize I don't have any. I pull my UCSC id out and lay it on the bar, concentrating. He never even looks at it.

  I'm on the balcony of my hotel room looking down towards the front of the hotel (which looks like the King David in Jersusalem) and call some delivery service downstairs to request something I don't remember. The lady says they have too many calls already and no one is available to make a delivery. I tell her that she should do it, and she protests. I leap off the balcony and fly down to the office, pick up whatever I need, and fly back.

  Escaping the hotel, I'm on a speed boat zooming down a narrow channel with buildings on both sides. A larger speedboat catches up with me. They are agents from the casino and are suspicious of my miraculous winning. I give them another miracle: a huge bolt of lightning strikes right in front of them. I get off the boat and enter the dark, deserted office building on my left. Reminiscent of the deserted city in Devil's Advocate and World Out of Time. Dream ends.