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DREAMS
In response to a Shedevil question (2/19/92):
Dreams seem to me to be
improvised as they go
along.
Things shift from one thing to another
to satisfy the needs of the current
scene without regard to the history of
what's gone before.
I find that the character's
in my dreams shuffle
around... my late father
will turn into John
McCarthy, or a sister may (I remember one dream in
turn into a girl friend, and particular where I was
so on having an incestuous affair
with one of my "sisters"
except that she looked like
someone else, a girl I'd
been chasing after...
This was someone who had
just been telling me
something about how she was
in love with her brothers
and her problem was she
couldn't find men like
them.)
The setting in my dreams also
shuffle around in the same
way.
In a recent dream, I was
climbing across the high
facades of a "religious mall" (I think this "religious mall" idea
a place like a shopping mall is just beautiful: a great piece of
composed of churches and satiric commentary... no one I've
temples of various described it to seems to get the
religions... joke though.)
But I'm pretty sure the
scene started out as a dance
club, and the nature of the
mall changed as this
"religious mall" concept
emerged.
Dreams are the first drafts of a hack
writer that can't be bothered to worry
about consistency.
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HAIR
Dream notes: (3/21/92)
I had a dream last night, that centered around my image in
the mirror. My hair was cut much shorter than it is now...
in fact it looks like I'm developing a bald spot. This
frightens the hell out of me. I check my image in various
mirrors. It turns out that it isn't just thinning out, it's
coming out in chunks. What kind of chemicals have I been
exposed to? I'm going to look like I've been through
chemotherapy.
I tilt my head When I realize all Consciously, I would
forward to look my hair is falling have denied that
at the bald spot. out, I feel relieved. any of this mattered.
It stretches all I'd rather be a I've kidded guys
the way down the skinhead than just younger than me
back of my neck. another guy with about their bald
It's perfectly a bald spot. spots.
smooth, like an Just at a guess,
inverse mohawk. Fear of they didn't think
growing it was funny.
But you can't see old.
the back of your But then, there
head this way. How conventional. isn't any way that
I'm ever going to
go bald. I've got
incredibly thick,
stiff hair. I could
lose half of it and
it would just look
normal.
(Gotta go. Time for me to go get a hair cut.)
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ATTACK
Dream notes: 7/1/92
I'm in a nondescript hallway. Perhaps the
hallway of the Brenner House I grew up in
in Huntington, in New York.
I'm being attacked by a couch. Long
reddish, 1950's style: it's the couch we COUCH
have on the front porch here in Palo Alto
right now.
The couch slides after me, I lay down on
the ground and put my feet against it.
Where ever it tries to move, up down
left or right, I shift my feet to push
it away. In this contest, it seems at
first that it isn't really any stronger
than me. I can push it back and hold it
at bay without too much trouble. But
then, my legs start to tire. I try to
extend my legs far to lock them and give
them a chance to rest, but I can't quite
make it. After some maneuvering, the
couch flips up its back end and tries to
roll over my legs to get at me. But it
wedges itself against the top of the
doorway I'm lying in. I smile: I'm free
now to move and go on the attack. I
break it's "back", doubling it over, but
I take care to hold it making sure that
I'm killing it, and not just multiplying
my antagonists. It breaks up easily (In fact the pieces look
into small pieces. like they really belong
to the "library" chair
from my old room).
CHAIR
Around the house, I find some odd wires
stretching across walkways in different
places. I gather they're some sort of
sensors for burglar alarms. I hope I haven't
disturbed anyone, which indicates I'm awake
when everyone else is asleep, which isn't
unusual.
Later on, my mother is working on one of
our usual huge Christmas trees (now it's
clear we're in the Brenner house). For
some reason, I have another tree lying on
the ground, already partly decorated. Why
did I buy it? We already have one. My
father thinks I should bring it in with the
other tree, but I decided to drag it down
into the basement to put it up in my room.
I think my father recommends I set up one
of the odd wires I've seen around the
house, saying something about clear
reception? This part isn't clear to me, now
or then.
My younger sister follows me. I'm lying in
a chair in my room (tired?) talking about This is a dream I had
setting up the tree, I guess. She looks at after falling asleep in
something next to me and says something a chair in my room. My
like "Not like that." I look at it: it's actual physical posture
the trunk of a Christmas tree with branches was bleeding into the
stripped off of it. I say "that's really dream.
old." Though I notice it's sprouted some
new green needles: there's life in it yet.
"Why did I do that?" Shaking my head at
the thought of taking the trouble to strip STICKS
the branches and save the trunk. Did I
want to burn it? She says "Because Judy
didn't have a car yet?" (This is cute, but
doesn't really make sense. Judy wasn't
even my girlfriend. I ignore it.)
I get up to bring the tree in. I see that
a corner of my room has been cleared
already. My desk has been moved across the Note: the room is clearly my
room. I ask my sister "Did you move my basement room, nothing to
desk?" She shakes her head like she argue against it: brown wooden
doesn't remember. I warn her to be careful paneling, black tile floor,
of it, because I've had some problems with grungy with dust and crud in
poltergeist phenomena lately. She nods her the empty corner. But there
head. isn't enough clutter in it.
It shouldn't be that easy to
completely clear a corner of
it. And the books that
dominate it are not in
evidence in this dream, though
I don't remember looking in
their direction either.
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