Dream Log: May 13, 2001

We were travelling through space, I know not how;
watching a metaphorical map of the solar system,
Mars and Earth and Venus,
but Saturn was our destination.

At the base whereon we landed, a strange machine stood;
a kind of strange impression on the ground,
with four identical controls on each side,
whose function no one could understand.

But I discerned the nature of the controls, how to power the machine;
I ran through the steps on all four sides,
and although all had been worked properly,
no effect was produced.

Then I saw what I had forgotten, the one step I had missed;
and gathered amounts of sand and clay and dirt,
and filled the impression in the ground,
as though it were a mold to be casted.

I activated the controls again, and an effect was visible;
the work was half done now and another half remained,
our team setting aside the energized compound,
and filling the mold again to be powered.

Little material remained to do so, but what we had was enough;
when the two halves had been assembled they took shape,
and we had ourselves a kind of golem,
an alien's mind animating our dust.

He could reform himself at will, and his first shape was as a walking grass;
he had a human head like ours but cast in green,
and from our matter somehow learned our culture,
speaking to us as an equal and a friend.

In the time that he was with us, I knew him to have many names;
only the last one remains with me now,
and I will call him by that name throughout:
he was Oceanus.

We all spoke to him of many things, but I know that I was more his friend than the others. I wish I could remember what we said... One time, when we were walking along, I asked him if he could take the shape of Maxim Westman, one of my favorite characters. I don't think he ever got to try, because I never got to show him what he looked like.

Somewhere in the middle of this, the setting changed again to Collegedale or something very similar. We walked through stores and saw many things, and through the dorm where I also saw Jake and spoke to him about I forget what.

The leader of our team, for some reason, never liked Oceanus, or at least felt too responsible for him, and not being able to supervise him. And he made Oceanus leave--I don't know why for certain, perhaps it was something he did--and I ... don't remember anything else.

I would have gone with him, though..

I had an incredibly detailed set of dreams last night. It's amazing I remember them all, and remember with such clarity.

Dream 1
-------

I was on a field trip with some people to a water pumping station. Apparently it was also some sort of man-made river that spanned 50 miles. I remember they tried to get us to walk the distance, but I said 'screw that' and decided to ride a float of some sort down the river. The tour guide followed me, and I ended up on some sort of platform next to, and below the main station. It was metal, and bolted to the wall. Sort of like a platform in the water, with several of them in a line across the water. The water below was murky and green, and there were three dead duck carcases floating by. On my jump from the first to the second platform, something bad happened. Something really bad happened.

I DROPPED MY DIGITAL CAMERA INTO THE WATER.

I was absolutely PISSED. The tour guide behind me said something to the effect of "That's what you get for messing with it now." So I looked at him, got whiny-eyed and said "Can you go get it? Please? Quick!"

And of course, he had to. So he did. He submerged into the water, and returned with my camera. I planned on letting it dry out, and debated in my head what kind of damage water would do to a camera. I took the flash card out and put it in my back pocket. I took one last look at the station to see '50 Miles' stamped on the window in white lettering, and this dream ended.

Dream 2
-------

I was in a movie theater, but I wasn't sure what I was watching. This showing was totally full, and people were talking loud and it was difficult to watch the movie.

Suddenly, almost everyone gets up and leaves in an incredible hurry. I ask one of the people sitting in the row in front of me why everyone is leaving.

"It's the show. They're going."

Apparently there was some sort of concert happening, and these people were in the movie just passing time until it was ready to start. When the concert-goers were gone, there were about ten people left, and the movie was quite enjoyable after that.

Dream 3
-------

My friends and I went to a Grocery Store / Bar called "The Silicon Bar." The bar was a typical bar with stools, a bartender, a jukebox, dim lighting, and people. Except behind where the people sat was a tremendous grocery store - all in the same building.

So we're walking around, perusing the items on the shelves, when most of the staff and all of the patrons leave in a rush. (Deja Vu?) My friends and I find one of the remaining staff members and ask why everyone is leaving. He doesn't know. So we did what any people in this type of situation would do.

We put on uniforms and helped out the staff.

Purple shirts with green aprons. In a grocery store. We don't work here and I offered for us to help out. I got the impression that my friends weren't terribly thrilled with helping, but didn't mind. What was I supposed to do, leave?

Dream 4
-------

I worked for Dr. Frasier Crane, alongside Roz. Apparently, he hired on a woman named Laura to do PR work for him. Unfortunately, Laura wasn't as capable has we had hoped, as she constantly screwed stuff up. Not remembering the details, she messed something up to the point of telling the public how to get into the building, up to the studio floor, and to the booth. People were swarming the booth on all sides, and looking in the window to try and meet Dr. Crane. I opened one of the booth doors ever so slightly to let Laura in, and as she reached the door I started to ask "Laura, I was wondering if you'd ever, you know, want to go out sometime?" but she didn't hear me, and only just managed to get into the booth. The people were dispersed by promising them hand-signed autographs of Dr. Crane.

Dream 5
-------

I was in a Grocery Store (what is it with the recurring themes?), but it was a different store than the one in Dream 3.

Anyway, I was in the checkout line. The cashier (a cute, short-haired blonde) were talking about something when the subject turned to the idea of "us". She said something to the effect of "Be direct. I won't call you." and I said "Would you let ME call YOU?" and she said "I think that would be a GREAT idea.", and she proceeded to write her telephone number on my receipt.

She looked up, and then asked me if I wanted to learn C. I said "In the worst way.", and she then told me she was taking a C class the next day and was wondering if I was, or wanted to be there. Of course, I said Yes.

---

Now, most of the time it's really hard to find out why you dream, and where they come from. However, I was able to discover the source behind the 'phone' dialog between the cashier and I.

Yesterday, I was reading an article on "Rewriting the Rules of Dating", and it was geared toward the female audience. One of the so-called rules went like this:

You always hang up the phone first. While we're on the subject, don't call him. Ever.

I scoffed at this "rule", and pretty much thought it to be a load of crap. Somehow, the contents of this article managed to work their way into the dream, and upon waking up, I immediately remembered where that part came from.

Yikes.

I had my first ever dream about E2 last night.

I did a couple w/u's about beloved NES games the past couple days, about their zany quotes and their memorable music sequences.

Well, in my dream I wrote a node called "NES Reefers" or something like that, about NES characters who smoke pot.

This is especially weird since, while I try to avoid politics, I'm anti-drug.

The node got 33 upvotes but didn't get a "C!".

I'm sure this is just the first in a never-ending series of E2 dreams.

Since I do not experience many nightmares, this dream stands out from most that I have had.

I am in my house, and then I realize that there is a force of some kind. And unlike the Force from the Star Wars film series, this force has an actual personality. And boy, is it eeevil. First, it changes the layout of my house so I don't where where the heck I am. I am the only one in the house, so I yell for people to come where I am. I find some members of my family and tell them what has happened, but no one believes me. I get really really scared. Then it makes everything disappear except for the furniture. I figure out that either this thing can control my brain, or can control the physical makeup of the universe. "Oh, crap," I think.

Then I am in a car. No one is driving the car, yet it is moving. We are driving down the street my grandmother lives on, so we eventually approach her house. I see my aunt, uncle and cousins drive up in her driveway. Even though I do not see their faces, I know it is them because they have a North Carolina license plate. I scream at them in vain for them to rescue me from the clutches of this evil, invisible nemesis of mine. They do not respond, and it dawns on me that this guy cannot change the universe, but rather, he can control what I see, hear, smell, taste, and feel.

It was New Year's Eve and I was having some sort of gathering at my house. Somehow I found my self drinking a beer. My parents came and were disappointed to see me drinking (I'm a recovering alcoholic), but I didn't feel very guilty. Tress was there too..and drinking. We all decided to go to Tress and Al's house. I had been there before, but the way was very confusing and involved cutting through various business parking lots. I got there and realized that I was incredibly drunk. Tress was being really bad, cheating on Al in front of him, and he and I talked quite a bit. I began looking for a place to sleep. Carrie was in bed asleep, and I got into bed with him. A friend of Tress's came and had cocaine. I wanted to do some very badly, and decided that even though I was drunk and didn't know my way home very well, and I was on foot I would walk home. I knew that if I stayed I would do the cocaine. So I began walking. I was in Medford, and when I walked by the downtown park, I noticed crows in the trees. The person I was with and I commented that that must be an incredibly evil place, and we would never go there. As I walked further I noticed that I was dressed only in a very skimpy pink night-dress. My mom came to help me, and she got a piece of cardboard for me to hold in front of me, and she walked behind me.

My interpretation: Hmmm..drinking again...seems to be a very common theme in my dreams lately. I don't think it's literal, I think it's a sign to me that something is amiss. Tress and Al have served at times as an example of a very distant relationship between spouses. The problem is probably with my husband. Carrie is a man who is interesting and interested in me. I think I'm bored, and needing to be admired/wanted, etc. It seems also that unless I do something, I'll go astray..ie..do the cocaine. The crows in medford..hmmm..I did some immoral things in Medford...I don't think I want to do immoral things. Walking in skimpy clothes..I think I need to be careful...my mom might help. or my family.

As for dreams, I am the same. I remember them all, every single one. I dream about the people I love, the people I still have to meet, and places that I will visit years from now. It is strange. I also have bad dreams sometimes, and I remember them as well. My way to deal with them is fill my mind with light and let the things that are worrying me dissolve into it. when the light fades I find that I am alone and the bad things are gone and another dream is coming. It always works, but it is a pity that I can't do that for memory! :-)

I remember my good ones as well: "I am running along the african savanah, there are tigers, and lions, and cheetahs running with me, and I am as fast as the wind. The sun in on my back, but I feel cold because the air is rushing past me, and finally I come to the sea and jump off a cliff and dive into the beautiful blue water. Cold fresh, and come to the surface. I swim to the beach and there the animals are waiting for me and I dry myself as I walk with them in the sunlight..." or

"I am mechanic and I invent the worlds coolest invention, it is called a waynton and you put in your car and the car can fly. It's great because when I was inventing it, and trying it out in my peugeot I got caught driving my car in Belfast at 200 metres above the ground! All the people in the world try to discover how it works but are baffled, but I know, and am happy. I take my car and fly around the world visiting all my friends, and giving them lifts to other countries. Then when I am flying over the Pacific ocean my car gets into trouble and I have to land, luckily there is an island close by. I land and check the car, and discover it has run out of orange juice which it needs to fly. There are no orange trees but there is a rather nice girl who has some fresh oranges which she won't give me for my car. Instead she teaches me how to fly by myself, and together we fly to south america where I meet Markus (a german friend of mine, terribly clever) who is doing maths while hanging upside down in a tree because he thinks it's too easy. :-) We talk for a while and then the dream ends."

Wedding Hurt & Healing

• I am caught on the beach between the undercurrent and the incoming waves. The swift water pulls me deeper and the waves swell higher before crashing against me. As I scramble up the flowing sand I finally break free. Behind me the waves soar vertically into impossible cliffs of water.

• I'm in an old church that looks just like the one from my grandmother's funeral. But this is the wedding of my friend Alyssa (whose wedding I did actually attend last weekend). Some of us have pondered the wisdom of her decision to marry a fellow BYU student after knowing him only a year. She converted to Mormonism a few years ago and we haven't seen much of her since. But today is her wedding day and I sit in the dark wooden church pew, waiting for the groom to arrive. Yet I feel that something is wrong as I watch Alyssa pace at the front of the sanctuary. At first I think I'm going to object to the marriage at the appropriate moment during the ceremony. Then I realize this is a dream and see that something more subtle is going to happen. For a moment I feel like I'm going to wake up but I look at my palm as a technique for staying in my dream body. Then I stand and walk up to Alyssa in her long white dress. "Something is wrong," I tell her. "I'm sorry but I don't think it's going to happen." We wait a few more minutes until it becomes obvious the groom is not showing. "Alone Again (Naturally)" starts playing over the loudspeaker and I sing along with the part that goes "...left standing in the lurch, in a church with people saying 'My God, that's tough, she's stood him up. No point in us remaining.'" Alyssa begins to cry and moan and I run over and hold her as she her body shudders. A few minutes of this and she runs out the side door.

  I follow her out and we are now at her house by her swimming pool. She's no longer wearing her dress and jumps into the pool. I'm afraid she's going to drown so I jump in after her, still in my clothes. She's on the bottom of the pool and I join her there. She doesn't seem sad anymore and actually smiles and looks relieved. I show her how to breathe underwater and we talk for a while, sitting on the bottom in the blue pool light. When we get out, it's a couple of months later and her house looks like my friend August's property up in the Siskiyou wilderness. Alyssa walks into the main house near the pond while I go over to the music studio. I climb a ladder to the roof where there are chairs set up. Alyssa's younger brother and his friend are there. We smoke some pot and hang out, looking at the scenery. I make a brief trip down the ladder and into the big parking lot that looks like it's from my high school. I return to the studio roof and we smoke some more. I see Alyssa walking along the deck by the house and her father with long blonde hair comes out and joins us on the roof. We smoke a bit more and I wake up.

I'm in the museum. It's seven stories tall, but the sixth floor is off limits and requires a passcode to get onto. Of course, the passcode for the sixth floor can be found by solving puzzles on the seventh floor. I'm on the ground floor watching the field trip kids swamp the seventh floor trying to figure out the code. My friend wonders why I'm not up there, trying to learn the code myself. I assure him that it's not critical that I be the first to get to the sixth floor, and that I didn't even need the code. I was merely waiting for all of the kids to be gone. I knew that the person responsible for the sixth floor was plotting something, and it was most likely evil, or at least not to be desired. I've had dealings with Aleister Crowley before and am aware of his methods.

---

I've been molested. It felt like a dream and looked like some freaky scene from a hentai anime. I've written down the whole experience disguised as a story on a stack of crackers. I get back to the house I have to stay at only to be accosted immediately by the mother-figure who is trying to mold me into the daughter that she never had. I keep the crackers out of her awareness, not wanting to go through the scene that would follow their discovery. She takes me to what is to be my room and shows me all the clothing she had bought for me. It's all bad '70's satiny clothes, but mostly for a boy. I frown at the selection and look at her telling her I don't know why on earth she thinks I'd wear any of that. She acts like she doesn't hear me and proceeds to show me the socks she bought, all girlie fold-downs and I tell her if she paid any attention she'd know that my socks cover my calves and I walk out.

---

I'm flying over the town. I'm invisible so that nobody will know I can fly. I look down and see someone on a bicycle, riding a faint path along the riverside. It looks like some sort of game and I look down, plotting the path of least resistance for the cyclist and am somewhat pleased when the cyclist follows the path I had mapped in my mind. There are still too many people in the museum, so I float around on my back, in the air, with my eyes closed. I have a force shield around me to prevent my running into anything and losing my concentration. When the museum is quiet enough, I fly around it, looking for an entrance to the sixth floor. I find a balcony with an open door and I enter. While I'm snooping around, I'm sensed by a young woman who pins me against a bookcase. I am trying to figure a way out, as she is stronger than I am, when a young man walks by, looking lost. If she keeps me pinned, it will look very suspicious, so she has to release me to help him. As I go, I whisper in her ear, "tell him I said ... thank you." She looks confused, but I know she will relay the message.

I- I was talking to a couple of Yachad advisors/coordinators. And they were talking about a National Council for the Disabled, of which Yachad was a part. And I was walking with them, up the driveway of my school, and they mentioned the director of the National COuncil for the Disabled- Yitzchak something. I asked them to describe him. They said he was tall, had blue eyes, and was jolly. I recognized in this description someone I know, Yissy.

II- I was at the Hillcrest Yachad shabbaton, though the Young Israel of Hillcrest looked different than it really does, and the shabbaton wasn't hige like it usually is. Everybody was leaving, because the shabbaton was over, but it was only the afternoon. And I was crying because this was my last shabbaton. I went outside, stood on the steps for a while, walked around the synogogue- I was waiting for a ride. Then I went back inside to phone my mother and ask her to pick me up. When I got inside, it wasn't the Young Israel anymore, it was a resteraunt just closing up shop- the waiters were sweeping. I asked to use a phone and one of them- a Mexican man who I don't think spoke English- led me up an open flight of atairs to where a small loft-office and a telephone were. He tried, showing not speaking, to show me how to use the phone- it's numbers were screwed up, some numbers were repeated twice, some were blank- and I indicated I could figure it out myself.

III- I was going to my cousin Aliza's Bat Mitzvah and I realized I had "nothing to wear". So I put on a grey suit with a huge stain on the back, and I got my face all clean, hoping that on the way to the bat mitzvah I could buy I dress I liked better. And I was worrying about this until I realized that the bat mitzvah couldn't really be on that day, because it was really the next week. So I ran out of the door of my mom's house and down to my father's car, which was parked down the street, not in front of the house. My father and my siblings were already in the car and they had been just leaving.

IV- It was a hot summer day. My brother Yaacov and I decided to take my littler brother Kivi out. So we went to a mall/movie theatre complex but none of the movies (which were on the ground floor) were good. So we took the escalator down into the mall section in the basement. We were standing on a circular mosaic at the foot of the escalator and Yaacov said he wanted to go home. I said OK, and hoped I could find something to do with Kivi, though I didn't have any money.

V- There was a wedding, of some relative of the BIllets, and I was in the Billet family. We were running out the door to get there. Shira BIllet and I were rounding up little kids and putting apples in bags for them to eat later.

VI- I was watching an army scene, something like a documentary. There were a lot of soldiers camped out. Some were children, some babies. And the point of the documentary was the exhibit tender homosecuality in World War Two armies. So I saw a bunch of soldiers, including the children and babies, all shirtless, sitting around a campfire sucking each others enlarged nipples. The soldiers were on a mountain top. They had to get to the bottom really fast, so this is how they did it- one of them would fasten a chain around his waist which was connecte to a metal ring hammered into the mountainside. Then, as if bungee jumping, he'd leap down. So I saw one soldier do this to get to the bottom. And then another person, it might have been a woman, jumped the same way, only into the mountain, as if down the core of a volcano. Inside the base of the mountain there was a huge chamber under construction. The woman landed on a metal net that was the chamber's roof. The chamber was lit with torches, it was for playing a game, a sort of Risk, with human gamepieces. So we were playing that, and the woman who had bingee jumped into the chamber was winning. She had the rest of the players, which included me and Tali Fuss and some other people, lined up in front of her as if before a firing squad. She asked us, what is the most important song in the world? I asked her, can one of us guess, or do we need to choose together? Meaning, if I chose, would my team be liable if I was wrong. I was thinking of some Simon and Garfunkel song. Then Tali started to name a chemical- there must have been a song named after it. And the woman- she would've killed us if we were wrong- misheard Tali as saying "supercalafragilisticexpealidocious', which was the right answer, She cheered, You're right! And I sad, congratulations, you're now the ruler of the world. And the game was over. We (the game players) were standing in a lit yard. It was nighttime. To our left was a basketball court, which the lights were for, and to our tight was the back exit of a resteraunt. A sign gav the resteraunt's name, but the letters weren't all form the English alphabet. My grade from school was coming ot that exit, they had had a dinner there. Those of them on the basketball team went onto the court to practice. There were two hoops on the side of the court closest to me and they lined up in front of them to take practice shots. Dora Chana Soslovich was their coach.

VII- i was talking via IM to Ari Schulman. He said he was on the track team in his school. I was impressed that HAFTR had a track team. He said he gave all his old, little trophoes to his younger brother, because this year he was going to win big ones. Then he said something that was syntactically all wrong, and I couldn't decipher it. The fabric of the dream was falling apart and I decided that it was time to wake up.