12/26/12 Apocalypse

Last night's narrative...

A plague is spreading on the east coast (U.S.). Simply touching the infected (which are both human and canine) is enough to become infected. It's a typical zombie/vampire-like scenario with one difference: the survivors are at war against each other. I'm traveling with people whom I trust. We make our way through broken buildings, rubble-strewn streets, and climb cyclone fences--the only thing to do seems to be to travel; stay on the move.

Day is marked by an increase in light, but the sky is filled with dark green smog--so day is an extended twilight; at night: total darkness.

We engage in various battles that involve avoiding the zombies and attacking the rivals. Both sides try to trick the other into places infested by zombies. (These fight sequences are fading fast now that I'm awake.)

A vivid dream memory:

We are navigating our way through the first floor of an enormous house. I am in the middle-back of the group. One of the folks in front of me turns and shouts, "Code gray!" We're in a narrow hallway--the walls are dirty. A small white dog comes toward us. It shows signs of the zombie plague. We must not let it touch us. I have a short stick in my hand and I begin hitting the dog with it. This is a vivid sequence and I recall feeling just horrible over having to do this. Because the stick is not very large, it takes multiple blows for the dog to die. Each time I hit it, blood appears on its white fur and it groans, but keeps moving. I continue striking it until it stops moving--it lays in a bloody heap on the floor. I feel both relief and disgust.

We move on...

The rest of the dream has faded, but I will expand if any of it comes back to me.

December 22, 2012

Four dreams from last night...

1st

My wife and I saw a small white dog--a cute thing with curly cotton fur--

wandering the neighborhood,

"Is that Chips?"

I wonder the same thing--Chips was a dog owned by neighbors who moved

about six months ago,

"I think it is!"

We go to him.

I hold him firmly

so he cannot get away.

"This can't be Chips," and then I add,

"I just can't believe they would leave him here."

"Check his tags. See if it says his name."

He has three tags--two green, square tags that

list the vaccinations he's had and when.

The third tag is a large, red heart.

His name is not Chips.

2nd

I am driving with my mother in the Pine Barrens of South Jersey.

I want to take her to see the family land in Atco.

(This is something we used to do occasionally when the family

still owned this bit of forest.)

We're driving on a dirt road through a thick pine forest.

We pass tracts of land and homes every two hundred

feet or so; the homes are ordinary--they're nestled in the trees.

Ahead appears an industrial complex. It's about three stories tall,

square, and rusted. Mom insists that the family land is there,

next to the complex.

"No, that's a sewage treatment plant, mom. Our land is nowhere

near that place." The smell is overwhelming. Raw, brown sewage

pours out of pipes and flows in a stream in front of the plant.

I turn left.

The road is flooded, but cars drive through the deep water.

We watch as a small black sedan turns in front of us

down a road on the right. It drives through water

that seems too deep for the car to pass. I expect

the engine to fail. But the car makes it,

and so we follow it.

3rd

A few friends of mine and I are living in a forest hideout

with a violent mafia...or perhaps it was more like a militia--

they're a disheveled bunch: dirty and unshaven.

My friends and I are undercover, trying to help expose the militia.

We're asked by someone I believe is the boss or leader to go

on a "hunt" to find traitors to assassinate. I remember

feeling hopeful that this would be the moment we would

arrest the group--before they can do more harm.

The "hunt" takes us over vast distances, through towns

and cities across the globe. We spend a lot of time

traversing Japan. The leader, Joe, walks ahead of us with

Rob. One man in our group tells me, "Joe is glad

that Rob dropped his quest for Enlightenment."

I am not convinced that Rob dropped his quest.

We're lead to a Zen Buddhist temple. As we enter the temple,

I see a couple of people sitting cross-legged on the other side

of a screen. The screen is about a foot above the ground, which

is why I can see them. I look in through the foot-high gap

and fake disinterest, "Nothing there."

We continue to another temple. We enter the meditation hall and see

that it is filled with monks who are in the midst of a retreat.

The teacher sits on cushions on the center of the wall to my left;

he has an enormous head, a thin beard, and wears a

navy blue teacher robe. He looks at me as though he's

perplexed as to why I'm there, but he does not get up or

say a word. I walk to the back of the meditation hall and

sit cross-legged on a square cushion. I am directly

opposite the teacher. The head monk gets up and shows various objects

to the group. A few monks try to respond to the head monk,

but he rejects each of their statements.

He holds up a medium-sized bronze bell.

I say, "Ring it without striking it."

He nods and then sits down.

I'm clearly interested in staying with the monks,

but I fake disinterest so that I don't blow my cover

with the mafia/militia. I get up and return to the group,

which is standing near the entrance way.

Suddenly, I see a floor board that is much lighter in color

than the other floor boards. I remove the light-colored board

and reach my hand down. I reach deeply under the floor

searching for something--I have no idea what.

I feel a dirt floor and begin digging.

The mafia/militia are hopeful,

but I find nothing and we continue on.

We're back in the U.S.--we're in a forest again.

My friends and I secretly communicate with the FBI

and help set up a sting operation--our task

is to lead the mafia/militia to a specific location
where we'll arrest them.

We rejoin the group and take a walk with Joe and Rob.

Joe has gray stubble on his face.

His clothes are old and dirty.

He tells us he'll shoot anyone in the face, and I shudder.

4th

I'm living in a post-apocalyptic world:

once majestic cities are reduced to rubble

and twisted steel beams.

Thick, gray clouds block out the sun.

It's impossible to avoid dirt.

I'm traveling with three others--one man and two women.

One woman tells us she had a dream that she betrayed a friend.

We travel far and wide over this blasted landscape--

mainly just trying to survive.

We come to an enormous dome that collapsed, but

still maintained it's basic shape.

It's made of enormous steel beams that once

held large panes of glass.

The woman who had had the dream of betrayal

slices the other woman across the belly with her sword,

blood pours from the woman's belly and she looks

at her attacker with a confused expression.

The man with whom we're traveling encourages

the attacker--"Do it!" he shouts.

The attacker then lifts part of the dome

like it's the trunk of an enormous car,

and kicks the woman she cut down into a deep pit

that is the footprint of the dome.

I continue on with the group,

but suddenly my POV changes. I'm now

seeing the betrayed woman in the pit under the fallen dome--

I'm not with her, I'm just seeing her as though through a camera.

She's standing, holding her belly, but otherwise physically fine.

Then she says, "Above or below the earth, you cannot escape my wrath."

December 18th, 2012

Two Dreams...

The first is simple, I'm eating steak and enjoying it. (Note: I haven't eaten steak in about ten years.)

The second dream...

Two thugs--
and I do mean thugs; the stereo-typical skinny,
muscular, dirty wife-beater-wearing, short haired, guys--
tossed me into a dirty motel room.
I lay on the floor in a heap where I had fallen.
They began throwing food at me:
1/4 pound of Provolone cheese
sausage
tomato sauce in a small container
a torpedo roll
human flesh.
One thug pointed at me,
"Now, eat that or we're gonna' come back
and kill you!"
The two left and slammed the door.
The door was huge, made of metal plates
riveted together
and painted pale blue.
I began shouting and heard voices at the door;
thinking the two thugs had returned, I
grew defiant as I shouted.
I opened the door and my family entered the room:
mom, dad, sis, bro, and my wife.
I showed them what the thugs had given me,
and told them what I was supposed to do.
I held up the human flesh.
It looked like a large summer sausage
with deep crevices--like thick tree bark.
"Do we even know if this is real?
I mean, if it's just chicken, I'll eat it."
But if it were actual human flesh,
eating it would mess me up for life--so I feared.
One of them--I think it was my brother--had
the idea of cutting the flesh into deli-sized slices.
We did that, examining each piece carefully,
sniffing them, wondering if it were chicken or pork
or anything besides human.

Dream from last night: 10/24/2012

Two enormous planets float
in tar-black space.
One planet has a thin, green halo.
The other has a thin, blue halo.
The green is the green of a firefly.
The blue, the blue of a violet.
On each planet, strands of white clouds.
Dark shadows below--land.
A third, smaller planet swings in view.
This one has a thin, yellow halo.
The yellow, the yellow of blonde hair in sunshine.
A voice, "You have two choices. You can either link the planet in orbit between the two giants, or you can smash it into one, merging it."
I feel that I can control the orbit of the small planet.
I pull (What? I don't know. An invisible chord? A string I cannot feel?)
And the small planet swings precariously between the giants--
it is nearly crushed between them.
I keep pulling on the chord--the energy-field that is linked
to my hands. The planet orbits faster...feels more stable.
"I don't want it to collide," I say to the faceless voice.
As the planet makes another lap, I slacken the chord.
It speeds toward the green-haloed planet.
I fear they will collide, obliterating the smaller one.
At the last second, I pull the chord tight,
and the planet settles between the two
in a gravity-lock.

Dream narrative, 10/18/12

I am driving in my 2001 green Honda Civic.
The ceiling fabric droops down, partially covering the rear window.
Splashes of dried glue pock its surface--failed attempts to reattach it.
(Why put fabric on ceilings anyway?)
I am driving on Route 130, heading North, but I'm on the left side of the road.
I am driving with traffic, even though it seems we're driving on the wrong side.
I pass endless strips of stores that sell stuff I don't need:
Doughnuts, car parts (except perhaps a new ceiling liner), Metro PCS, and a farmer's market.
I see a souped up, red Honda Civic in my rear view.
It has a whale tale and racing stripes.
A woman in her late 40s or early 50s is driving.
She has long blonde hair that probably hasn't been washed in weeks--some of it blows in the wind.
Bam! My body is flung violently forward.
I stop the car and see that I've been hit by the woman in the red, souped up Honda.
I pull into the shoulder and she follows me.
When I get out, she speeds away.
"Damn!" I shout and try to get her license plate number, but I just can't make it out.
The plate was white--I think she's from NY.
I look at the damage and shrug.
It's not really that bad.

Dream from 10/2/2012...

I'm in Philly. 
It's raining and dark. 
It must be about 9pm. 
I enter a large row home. 
Looks like a brownstone near Rittenhouse Square. 
It's filled with well-dressed people. 
Servants come out with platters. 
Each is placed on a separate pedestal in the center of the room. 
Human heads are on the platters. 
"Do you eat the brains," asks a female guest. 
Looks like she's in her 30s and she works out. 
Someone holds up a heart.
It's a cooked heart.
It's gray. Not bleeding.
"I like the heart myself." 
He begins eating it. 
Folks are slicing off parts of the heads as if they're lumps of deli meat. 
I approach a head that looks like Ted Kennedy. 
His eyes seem about to open.
His face is pink and needs a shave.
I try cutting a slice off of his left side, but I just can't do it. 
Suddenly I think, "Wait! This is cannibalism! 
This is how mad cow disease started. 
We can't do this!" 
But I see that I'm out-numbered. 
I leave.

Dream from 10/17/12

My neighbor, Bob, found a dead body in his bathtub. 

Bob calls me over to help him and his son move the body...they're not sure how it got there. Like the good neighbor that I am, I agree to help. 

The dead man is bald, shirtless, wearing wire-rimmed glasses, and electric blue pants. He's mostly submerged in water. "It'll stink," says Bob. Bob's son, Bob jr. covers his nose. 

Later, I'm helping them put the body at the curb for garbage collection and my main concern is, "Will the trash men take a dead body?" This really worries me, so I cover it in a blanket and tie its legs so they don't dangle all over the place--I recall that the township wants us to bundle sticks for garbage collection, and so I bundle this man's limbs. But I'm still worried and I get Bob to help me put the man in a cardboard box. That's better. Now I'm just wondering if the trash men will be able to pick the man up. I burn several sticks of incense around the boxed up body to conceal the smell, but also to honor his passing. Bob tells me the reason he decided to throw the body away instead of reporting it is because the state of NJ charges you $20,000 if you report finding a dead body in your tub.

interpret...