I Have Crossed The River Styx

In a large, open, room with very square, concrete-like walls and edges. A canal or river runs through the middle of the room. I am on the far side of the canal, having already crossed it, and kneeling over my backpack of supplies packing up for the next part of the trip. My team is around me. Behind me is a doorway with a stairway leading downwards. I realize that I have a blind-spot up and to my right, that up there is something mysterious and important, but something that I, for now, have to deal with not being able to see, and something that I have to trust will be okay.

Opportunities Missed

Working late. At some point I stop working and start watching t.v., though it's somehow still related to work. A. is there, at some point she starts leaning against me and watching television, too. I'm not sure that what she's doing is okay, but I don't say anything. I am aware that it's late and I should go home. L. calls, she says, where have you been? There was an XTC concert today, she continues, and I ended up going without you. It was awesome, she says. I vaguely remember seeing this somewhere, and now can't believe I forgot about it--XTC doesn't tour anymore, so to see them live is incredibly rare. I am really upset that I missed it.

The Hipster Scene

I'm at a house party with musicians from the local scene. One of them introduces himself to me as Chris or Krist or something, he shows me a routine he used to do where he dances backwards while playing the violin. It is funny and impressive. Later, I am walking home, talking on the cell phone to L. and telling her about the party and meeting this guy. I am wondering if he was actually a member of Nirvana...wasn't the bassist named Krist or something like that? I'm in Bellingham, on 16th, and then walking up the hill to the alley behind my parent's house. I am still talking to L. as I come up to the back driveway. Just as I reach it, a body falls from the sky right in front of me and lands on the cement with a sickening thud. Oh my god, did you see that? gasps L. (apparently watching for me out one of the back windows). I realize it is Amy. Amy, what happened, are you all right? I ask. I move to help her, but she gets up on her own, says nothing, and walks dazedly off the other way down the alley.

Road Trip

In Columbia, New Mexico, visiting the family. We have a free day before our flight home, and think about driving down to Jasper (also in New Mexico) for the day. I get in the car and onto the freeway, but it is crowded and confusing, and I realize I don't know where I'm going. Returning to the house, we consult a map and determine that the drive is two hours, which means four hours there and back. Then confusion, perhaps it will take us eight hours in the car just to get there. This is okay, I didn't really want to go anyway.

Haunted Living Space

L. and I are going to bed in our apartment. It is a space which seems to be like a classroom or office--windows everywhere with metal blinds, and linoleum tile flooring. After we have turned off the lights I think that I hear a noise. I get out of bed and go towards the front door--I see a human-shaped shadow and I lunge at it. But there is nothing there, and I accidentally knock over one of my bass guitars that is cluttering up the space near the entryway. I curse it loudly as I re-tighten the stand that was holding it. As I do I realize that I've left L. alone and that there's someone in the bedroom. I run back--I see someone sitting on the bed right at L.'s feet--I grab him by the legs and yank him onto the floor, hoping to stun him. But again I am deceived--it's just a pair of pants or a blanket or something that was lying on the bed. L. wakes up. She says, why have you opened the windows? I have not, I say. I turn around, and see that the blinds, which were all closed when I left the bedroom, are all now wide open.

Real Estate

L and I are walking into a bank to deliver a large stack of papers comprising a mortgage application. We're having second thoughts about the house, I suggest we go look at it one more time, since it's just across the street. We walk over. It is oddly situated, being the lone house in a business district, but it also overlooks the harbor. Indeed, inside on the second floor there are sweeping views of the water from the main bedroom. We eventually settle down on the floor of the den watching television, while the current owners of the house wander around, seemingly not noticing or caring that we're there. Later we walk downstairs and then outside into the yard, where we discover that we're under a major freeway overpass, and sketchy characters are wandering around. I had liked the house to this point, but now it seems that we should definitely think twice.

Travel Light

In Edinburgh I arrive at a gathering. I soon realize that I might have missed my flight. We check my tickets and see that I have just under an hour to make it. We dash to the airport and I walk up to a deserted counter. The woman there examines my ticket and announces that the particular flight I was on has been cancelled. Not to worry though, it's a regional flight and they leave every hour or so. I can wait in the transit lounge. I take my bags to the lounge, and sit around and wait. There is a little girl running around. I meet her parents just as they are called to report for their flight and discover via that announcement that her father teaches at the same college as my father. He knows him, "He's our provost," he says, and I say yes, that's him, though in fact this is news to me. We get on the bus that will take us to our aircraft.

Strange Retreat

We drive into a small complex in the woods--a road lined with cabins on either side. It's a kind of a counter-cultural hub of odd characters, so I'm surprised when we get out of the car and start to unpack that I look to my left and see J. sitting on the porch of one of the cabins. I sit with him and ask about his new baby and spouse--he says they're inside.

I'm going bald. At first I think it's in kind of an odd way, but then I decide it is just standard male pattern baldness. "Oh well," I think, "I guess it is time to start shaving my head."

It Wasn't A Dream

Standing in a dark bathroom, I am seeing a long tunnel of infinite, ever changing tiny green lights. I feel as if I am opening my eyes, but they are closed. I seem to be slowly spining clockwise, but I am standing on the ground. I feel the same sense of powerful, primal fear, the one I've been trying to overcome. I'm telling myself I will be safe, but I think about L. and don't quite believe it. My heart is pounding. I tell myself, "Don't Die." Keep going, but don't die. Don't die. Don't die.

Tiny Threads

L. is gone somehow, we have broken up. At first I am relieved, I think I just wasn't mature enough to handle the relationship yet. Then this sinking feeling arrives: yes, but what about when I am ready?

I eat a pot brownie and wander the city, into and out of stores and clubs. I decide to get a tattoo. A friend is with me. First they do the outline--it is on my shoulder or my ankle, I'm not sure. I wonder if it will hurt, and will I feel it more acutely because I'm stoned? I see the proposed colors of the image and start to regret the decision. Maybe it will be okay, though.

The Yakuza

We are out in a field next to a large concrete structure. R. is piloting a large military helicopter and suddenly starts flying towards the structure, as if chasing us. We run towards the wall. The helicopter smashes into an outcropping above us. We cower, afraid that the rotors will come flying towards us. They don't, and in the collision, the crew compartment of the helicopter is separated from the main body and falls to the ground, R. remaining unharmed. Later we discover that, in fact, R. was attempting suicide. R. hands out the obituary R. has prepared--it is a stack of papers, stapled. I look through them--they seem a little egotistical, I think. Then, of course, they are supposed to be a celebration of R.'s life, after all.

The team is meeting. As I stand up to give my daily report, I realize there is someone else talking, and I walk down the table to confront her. She seems unconcerned, I say something extremely harsh to her and tell the group that we might as well find another room to have our meeting. We all walk out. Later the team is actually the Japanese Mafia, and by confronting the person talking at our meeting I have brought terrible dishonor to our team. I sneak back into the house to collect the papers necessary to continue my work. One of my co-workers catches me, he is guarding the house and says he has been given orders to kill me on sight. But he likes me and wants to help me, so he lets me go. I thank him and start to leave. But he wants to keep telling me about how is going to let to me go. I stay for a moment to be polite, but then I run off. I am on the grounds of my high school now, clutching the papers. I run into some generic woman I know from high school. She clutches a dagger. I think she will attack me, and she slashes at my hand as I try to grab the blade. But then she plunges the knife into her chest, gives me a sly look, and then screams. They've set me up. I panic, and run away along the sidewalk with long, bounding strides.

In The Water

I am in bright clear water near a steep rocky shore. I turn and look around me and see in the middle distance several large black round blobs, which I immediately take to be Orca whales. I am filled with primal fear, but I can't escape the water and so I try to conquer it somehow. It occurs to me that I too must now be a whale.

That Old Narrative

I am reconsidering a narrative I once thought about writing: an otherwise completely ordinary (and generally untalented) math graduate student stumbles upon a brilliant result that he otherwise doesn't understand--he realizes it's brilliant, but doesn't know how he thought of it, and knows he will never discover anything like it again. I am considering what the fiction of the result will be, and come up with something about a statement of meaning, M, and its self-referential equivalent, M', and showing that there exists a perfect isomorphism between any space made up of M's and the space made up of its equivalent self-referential M-primes. Then I am considering if there actually might be something in that, when I dimly recall some other result that where if I have two functions that are "onto" from one space to the other and vice versa, I can construct an isomorphism. Or something like that, anyway.

"You Have To Face Your Fears"

L. and I return to the cave where we have stashed our stuff to find that two guys have taken it over. We are incredulous--how can they have encroached on our space? They are nonchalant. I am annoyed—I can tell immediately that these two are a type of guy I loathe. "You have to face your fears," says the more talkative of the two. He comes out of the cave, tosses a loop of rope over his shoulder, and starts rock-climbing up the face. I realize that we are on a ledge on a sheer cliff face--there may be other ways down, but the only way up is to climb. It's not far but it looks terrifying. But the other guy is doing it, so I suck it up and start climbing. The surface isn't rock, but thick tree bark. The climber above me is taking a slow route up, going side to side a lot, but I find a more direct route. I make one last push upwards, grab the top, and the other climber pulls me up. I turn around and the other guy has just climbed behind me. "L. will never make this climb," I think, but then there she is, also throwing a hand over the cliff edge and then being pulled up. We're in a national park, and we walk from the top of the cliff to the parking lot. Each party sort of dimly acknowledges each other as we go to our cars.

Back In The Day

In Seattle in the early 90's, the Posies are recording their major label debut as a low-fi indie record in their living room. I watch them, already knowing that in the future the label will reject it and make them spend a truckload of money recording a new one. Still I wonder where that record is now, can I find it somehow? On Broadway they and their associated scenesters have a diner--at first I don't recognize the building, but then I realize that this was nearly 20 years ago and many things in the neighborhood have changed, and that today this building is a clothing shop or a supermarket or something. Inside, M., my high-school girlfriend, waits tables. She doesn't seem to see me, or else doesn't recognize me. It's morning, I decide to use the shower, which is a totally inaccessible metal cylinder suspended off the ground--you have to stand on a table to use it.

I Live In A Very Big World

We are assembling at the elevators at work to go to some sort of social function together. I take the elevator down ahead of everyone to use the bathroom, then while waiting, wander into the next room. This turns out to be my high school gymnasium, where either the JV squad is playing, or the varsity team is playing an exhibition game. I wander accidentally onto the court, but no one notices or cares, and I quickly walk up to the stands and watch for awhile. A player runs down the court as if dribbling, but he is sorting through his mail, tossing aside junk mail here and there. It is Friday evening. I wander home. I live in on the middle floor of a three-story condo-like structure. In the fading light I drink a glass of Pinot Grigio and sit on the steps and look out the window. I have a great view of downtown Seattle and the water behind from here--how can I have never noticed this before? I walk down into my living room--in fact I have a sweeping 180-degree view of all of this. Strange, you'd think I would have noticed this. The wine I'm drinking is amazingly delicious. I remember that L. has moved from the East Side and has just taken an apartment down the hill from me. I should call her. But I don't want to just yet.

Flight

In a strange sort of junkyard, the proprietor lends me his pedal-powered single-prop plane, and I start flying around. I am flying above the city when the propeller breaks off (it is very flimsy, as it turns out) and I plunge down into a small river below. I remember that I have left everyone at the hotel, and I have to get back to them. I need to fix the plane, so I will need to get parts. I drag the wreckage to a parking lot where my truck is, but it is old and rusted and will not run. I realize it is a dream and transform the truck into a brand new pickup, one of those big American rigs the size of a giant SUV. Now I will be able to drive back to the junkyard and pick up a spare propeller.

Farewell To All That

I'm working a summer at Idyllwild. The people there are shallow and boring and I think, "I'm not coming back."

It's 8th grade, the day I've come back from my winter trip to France. I walk up to my locker, worried that I won't remember my locker combination, but it comes to me, and I successfully open it and start transferring things out of my bag. In class, the teacher remarks as to how the people at Christ's birth were Christians. I say that there were no Christians in the year 0 A.D., and everyone laughs and the teacher concedes my point--she meant they were Jews. Of course. School continues as we go on to tour around and do homestays in random places.

Fear Of Flying

I'm sitting on a plane about to take off. I decide to use the bathroom, as I see other people are doing it, and seems like I have time. I go to the one at the back of the plane, and just as I go through the door, the plane starts to taxi down the runway. I decide that the best thing to do is just sit down and wait until we're in the air. But something seems to go wrong--the plane suddenly goes into a barrel roll (which I ride out by walking up the walls, across the ceiling, and back down the other wall). An announcement is made over the plane's PA system that the plane will be making an emergency landing back on the runway.

Later, in a lawyers office, I am being debriefed about the incident. She says, "There's no way this could have happened unless someone was in the bathroom at the back of the plane at the time of takeoff." It is something about the weight of the plane being out of balance. I say to her, yes, that is exactly what happened, it was me (after all, who could blame me for that? How could I know?). She says, no, if that had happened the flight attendants would have seen the alerts go off. I insist that I was in the back of the plane when we took off. She says no, that is not what happened.

Long Narratives I Can't Remember

A large villa in Mexico with a mysterious woman whose body is entirely painted blue.

Strange Powers

L. and I are sitting on a couch watching tv when I realize I'm dreaming and start exercising my whims on things in the dream. The person on the tv starts saying what's in my head and L. turns to me and says, "Hey, that's exactly what you would have said." This suddenly strikes me as an incongruity: I'm dreaming, but L. is seeing what I'm dreaming, which can't be. We wander through a variety of settings where I try various ways of exercising my in-dream powers, and she experiences them all as if they were real. We wind up in a theater-like setting watching some sort of game show-like production. The host at some point realizes that he is merely a puppet and has no free will of his own, and collapses into existential crisis. I try to placate him by telling him that it's okay, he's just a character in my dream, but he still "exists" in some sense of the word. I realize that this is just making him more upset.

Joke Gone Awry

S. has staged an elaborate practical joke of some kind, the aim of which is to photograph me either holding a wooden stake or appearing to be staked (as if I were a vampire). In aid of this he and an accomplice lure me into some kind of academic office building, where everyone is in on the joke. They chase me around and try to capture the desired photo. When I finally realize the plot, I am indignant and hurt. Why would S. do this to me?

Things That Turned To Dust

L. is working on a presentation of some kind that involves marine photography. We are going through the photographs in a book, and then standing in the water on the shore we are discussing transitions (as if it were powerpoint)--is the music (a Yo La Tengo song) loud enough to cover the ambient noise from the water. I listen carefully and opine at first that it does. Then there's a strange rumbling, I look up and see downtown Seattle across the bay. A huge white cloud is billowing out from around the Queen Anne area, and then I realize it's from collapsing buildings--then I realize all of the skyscrapers are crumbling before my eyes. I hug L. to me, and then a shock wave hits us and sweeps us off our feet. We are momentarily bouyant in the water, and then I wake up, still hearing the Yo La Tengo song in my head.

Things Missed While Sleeping

L. and I are sleeping on a mattress in the backyard of an unfamiliar house. The backyard also contains a baseball field, and a game is going on while we are in the bed. Apparently we have taken part (though I can't remember having done so): the next morning L. shows me a scorecard that indicates that I played in the game until about the sixth inning or so when I fell asleep.

Fragments

Series of images of the Titanic, one flying high above looking at the ship's entire route across the Atlantic, wondering if from this vantage, I can steer it out of the way of icebergs.

The displayed descriptions of the line items in the code I'm currently working on (in reality) come up in all sorts of strange fonts and sizes.

In a music store with L. and some friends, I am offered the chance to buy a short necked, 8 stringed lap slide guitar (like a Weissenborn) that was played on some important album. The guitar looks to be in terrible shape: it's got a terrible, chipping paint job, and the neck doesn't look right. But it sounds fine, and they only want $50 for it.

Common Threads

In dreams, guns don't work.

In dreams these days all my anxiety dreams are school; I am in college again even though, in the dream and in reality, I already have a college degree. I am always doing much more poorly than I did last time.

Big House

L. and I are exploring some sort of old, run down farm house. We seem to be following some sort of path, into the main house, out back, into some sort of old kitchen building, climbing through boarded up and plastered over walls, out into some sort of back garden. We become stuck and aren't sure where to go next. I remember we're playing a computer adventure game and we get out our laptops for hints.

L and I are living in an enormous, modern windowed house. I walk around exploring it, passing a child's car seat--I guess we have a child now, I think (though I never see one in my tour of the house). I go through the upstairs, then the lower floor, and I think, huh, we have all this space now and there's no music room or anything? Where are my guitars? I'm back at the front door, and I realize I ignored a set of steps just off the front entrance that go up to some kind of loft. I dash up the stairs, and arrive in some sort of recording studio with a booth and huge sound board and demo'ing room. Wow, this life is totally cool, I think.

Schooled

We're walking out of class on Wednesday (a WWU-like school again); a student tells me the Friday exam has been cancelled. We decide to walk across campus to see a movie. On the way there I stop and help a young girl who's sitting at a picnic table trying to figure out how to multiply and divide with fractions.

L and I are playing chess. The board, instead of being made up of large black and white squares, is made up of many smaller ones--it's still a checkerboard pattern, but the squares are only a few millimeters wide, and a piece will overlap many of them. The rules seem to be that pieces move roughly as they do in normal chess--a castle, say, will occupy a space that's 8 x 8 checked squares, and can move side to side or back and forth in lines drawn out by those 8 squares. A piece can take another piece if it overlaps it on even one square, so in the first move I take L's queen with a pawn or something. I think (smugly) that I will surely trounce her in this game, but as it goes on she seems to be taking as many of my pieces as I am of hers.

As Seen On T.V.

Mental fervor/brain lock manifested as computer coding problems, something about interlocking squares and software solutions.

In a hospital, first in the TV Show Scrubs, and then Grey's Anatomy. In the latter I am one of the new interns. A gurney rolls by with a crashing patient and they ask me to help, but I beg off saying I'm not actually a doctor. There is a roll call as one by one physicians call off various specialties, and the interns interested in that specialty line up and go off with that instructor. First is surgery, and half the interns follow. Then pediatrics and another half of so move off. Finally I'm left with three other students, having chosen nothing so far. Apparently the last physician leads the remainders--he asks me what I'm interested in and I say, "immunology." This seems to be a reasonable answer, and I'm going to go off on rounds with him, but while putting on gloves I get my hands wet and contaminate myself, and they leave me behind.

Deep Shame

I am in the Brandt's living room in Bellingham, playing large, deep bodied, guitar-like instruments. As with most dreams, I am able to play the instrument with minimal effort or knowledge of its workings.

I standing in the shower and the water comes up to my ankles. I step out and start masterbating. I realize I'm standing in front of a window, and the light is on but it's dark outside. I draw the shade and look outside--a family of three has seen me and is snapping pictures, even now that I've drawn the shade. Can they still see me?

Repeated thoughts, quasi-dreaming, of how I might parse a particular string to get only the portion of it that I need for display.

Nightmare

I board some sort of passenger ferry that takes me to a bombed out city. Soon I'm being chased by unseen pursuers who are hunting some other band of people through the city. I hide, inside an abandoned store front under the sash of broken window. I hear gunshots and a woman's voice shouting. After they've passed by I run, eventually reaching a truck loading dock in some kind of warehouse. I search frantically for the ferry terminal so I can get back on and leave. I wind up in another loading dock. I try again. This time I find the ferry and jump on deck just as it's pulling out. I resolve next time I will observe the correct rules and ratios, just as the end of the dream is waking me up.

Out of body experience, walking on the street outside our house, through the front door (without opening it) and back to the bedroom. Vision is not very clear, I stop on occasion to try and make it clearer, with limited success.

I have a tiny pet chihuahua that I can hold in my hand. I'm worried about the responsibilities of owning such a dog.

I am reading a book for class. It is a famous work of literature, but it's mostly gibberish, until I realize that the key to reading it is to hold the page up to the light--some of the words on each page are printed backwards, and if you read them from behind, you can read the story.

One

I find myself working as some kind of therapist, even though I have no degree and haven't been advertising as such--I just seem to be attracting patients. Vivid flash of turning the pages of my appointment book and scheduling someone for a 45 minute session on a Monday night. Later I'm sitting in a car with L. talking, and I realize I'm 15 minutes late for an appointment. I run up to my office to meet the fellow, apologize for being late. He seems unconcerned. He reveals in the session that he's a Mormon, and that the angel Gabriel sent him a song or something in a dream, and that the client recorded it and posted it online, but now he's finding his faith shaken because he didn't as a result become famous. I ponder analyzing this, but decide it's better not to shatter his beliefs. Instead I just nod and take notes in order to have something to do.