Sideways Ringwraith

Only fragments; the Lord of the Nazgul appears in my apartment, standing sideways. Later, some photo shoot on a beach, one subject runs frantically to the water and starts swimming out.

The Journal and the Peter Gabriel Impression

Some type of nighttime, huge gym class brought by bus to play softball behind North Ridge Elementary School. I don't want to play, waiting on bus with others, names for players are being called out alphabetically. At some point outside MF is there with two friends. I apologize to the friends for the way they've seen me in the past but warn them that they will again. Later they are with some guy in the back of the bus and he is playing my 12 string guitar. I go back there and take it away. I am working some type of boombox for everyone on the bus, there is a tape in it which I decide against and I put on a dance station.

At some point I "awake" to find I am writing all this in a large black dream journal. However, I have drawn a few pictures and I am surprised at the artistry of them, sketched in the near darkness. One is some type of eye or nipple. The other is a collage with a bed in the middle. I might be showing someone proudly. There is some penciled dream text also.

In my parents' kitchen, discussing something, getting something to eat. Later I am in backyard with guitar, hearing Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" and imagining a solo arrangement. I come back inside through the patio sliding doors, it is kind of difficult since the blinds are closed; I get through. My sister and Jon are watching some type of Peter Gabriel documentary possibly on VH-1, which excites me as I do an "old man" Gabriel impression.

SNL Disaster and Frail Hendrix

Sort of a Saturday Night Live set, I'm watching from the side, Alanis Morrisette is about to perform (though she is unrecognizable by end of this sequence.) It is sort of a flashback so they are going to play "You Oughta Know" so I check to see if Flea is sitting in - he is. I am now playing guitar, but the singer has either forgotten the words, her mic is not working, or she is just scared, or all three. She eventually exits the stage, while the band and I just keep up a simple vamp. Flea remarks to me while playing that teenagers shouldn't be made to sing about sex, because they don't understand it enough. I agree with him, cite some examples of older singers who could pull it off. We don't seem fazed that this conversation is happening during a live television disaster.

I am in a room, daylight in windows, with Jimi Hendrix and someone else lying on a bed near me. I take up Jimi's guitar because he seems too ill to play. The sound of the guitar is very muffled but very warm and crunchy and deep. I improvise on "Purple Haze" even surprising myself with a vocal that sounds like Jimi. I am having a blast. Towards the end I graciously thank Jimi and shake his hand; it is very frail and actually whitish.

Something about the Acoustic Eclectica gigs, I have this idea that CD was a part of the first one and I've forgotten him since.

The Hotel Assassins

On vacation with parents, or something, nighttime, in a high rise luxury hotel. There is a strange group; one big guy wearing a black trenchcoat and hat, followed by 7-8 Asian girls. They are coming out of our hotel suite through a sliding glass door in the back, I am out on the patio.

He tells me to lock that door, he had a problem with it. The sense I get from that is that they are actually coming back to kill everyone and want the door left unlocked. The patio is now a penthouse balcony/fire escape. The man and his entourage are in a large stretch limo down on the street. He begins shooting at me, sort of laser gun/sniper style. I am able to hide behind little obstructions and dodge the rays. I scramble back into the suite and find my mother. I'm not sure how they missed her when they were in there earlier. I am trying and trying to get across to her that we need to leave RIGHT NOW and it cannot wait, but she is a bit slow to get ready. There is some type of music/muzak blasting, I find the stereo and shut it off. There are few CDs - I consider taking like Badfinger's "Straight Up" CD but decide against it, although I do take my sunglasses and a couple of routine items.

Finally we leave the room. At the top of the stairs, I wait to make sure the person standing at the bottom is not the sinister hitman - it isn't. It appears that everyone is evacuating the hotel also, the halls and stairwells are packed. In one central area, as the thick crowds move by, there are some urban teenagers handing out free candy; peanut M&Ms, Kit Kats, Milky Ways. I take a Milky Way but most people seem very skeptical; I try to figure out if they are poisoned or not.

I suggest we head towards one of the smaller stairways, though these are also very crowded. We get to a large lobby area sooner than expected. Someone I am with now spots an acquaintance seated in a foyer area. At first I am afraid it is the hitman, but it is not, though I am still put off by having our escape slowed and our presence announced. Doug is there, seated next to Ronnie James Dio. I ask him how things are in RJD-land, but then let him know I am only teasing.

The Cheese Sandwich / The Dean Martin Story

Some strange warehouse type place; people around. I have become involved somehow with EV in some type of alcove where laundry is being done. In the main room there is a large conference table. CW and friends are there and he sees me. JZ is there. I am wondering if he is going to be upset as we seem to all converge at the "council" table.

It turns out JZ is upset; in fact, more upset than could have been imagined in any known reality. He is so upset, he goes from bulging eyes to actually changing body shape and size - At times he is very small. He wants to kill me. We are fighting in my parents' basement, I don't want to fight at all but I have to defend myself. With him being rather small and strangely formed at times,
I am able to beat him severely, almost into non-existence. All that is left of him is a sort-of bacon bit under the couch. At some point I was looking for help out the back door, but I'm not sure if I wanted help to fight him or help because he was in such bad shape.

Eventually I am nearly weeping, apologizing and explaining my actions to him. At this point, indeed, he is a cheese sandwich or similar, in a sealed piece of Tupperware at the top of the stairs.

I go out into the backyard where some family types are around in the daylight. There are few giant dogs running around, very frantic and vaguely menacing. One races over to check me out, but I move in such a way so that he ends up in the pool. Soon I am also in the pool, the dog
is swimming very deftly underwater, not very dog-like, still oversized though. I am jostled in his wake as he blows by.

Another part, where I am acting in a movie being filmed. It is a biopic of Martin and Lewis and I am playing Jerry Lewis. The scene being filmed is a backstage scene, so I am not slapstick Jerry, I'm serious real-life Jerry. Having suddenly found myself in this situation, I have to improvise. I get into the character
of business-like Jerry and make certain characteristic facial expressions. We are in some type of ballroom scene. Dino (played by Tom Hanks) finally arrives in the scene, with help from
an entourage; he is late for our show and in bad (drunken) shape. Tom Selleck plays the role of Dean's manager. I go up to him to talk. Even though we are probably out of camera/microphone range, I improvise with him some dialogue. I get close to Selleck as we walk and ask him quietly about how Dean is. I say, "He'd better be perfect...", regarding the show. Selleck seems unworried and replies flippantly, "Everyone will be perfect..." Just as I leave his side, I say, dead-pan skeptically, "It'd be a first..." Selleck laughs at the cleverness and smoothness of this improv.

There is one final section of the dream. There continues to be some type of movie still being made, filmed. Some hotel or something, "Helen Hunt" is mentioned but Helen Hayes the elder actress is actually meant. Apparently someone has stolen some money from her. At one point the "camera" catches a shot of the cash hidden in a cupboard just out of the view of the actors. Andy Kaufmann is possibly the culprit, though at this point it is about him as a person; he is not acting a role. The film (dream) is telling his true life story (not true in reality of course.) He is some type of immigrant/exchange student who came over to get his start; I'm amazed to think how far he got from such humble non-English beginnings. (At no point in the dream do I think of, or connect this story with, Kaufmann's Foreign Man/Latka character.)

Family Buffet / Citizen Kane T-Shirt / Refrigerator Journal

Some type of family gathering, night-time, place unknown. My father is laughing, near crying to me about a joke. Reconciliation with certain family members. Unexpected compliments from others. Everyone is getting on a line that goes out the door, for this terribly long buffet. I see the other end of the buffet is where the line is actually supposed to start, I look for a tray and try to swim against the current, and it isn't as hard as I suspected.

Things start to break down, dream-wise, when I am looking at the trays and see mashed potatoes, then look back and they are gone. I get confused, understandably, realizing that's "not possible." I continue walking down the street away from the buffet line. EM is walking down the street, wearing a T-shirt. I ask him to stop so I can read it. All I remember of it was something on the bottom about "Kane", I make the mental reference to Citizen Kane and there appears to be some connection.

There is another part where I seem to be writing down a now-forgotten earlier part of this actual dream into a large black journal. But I realize how boring and brief it was. I cross out a word and recognize it is the first time I am making a messy correction in the journal. Somehow, this changes so that I am writing not with pen in journal, but writing using my finger, in icy frost at the bottom of the refrigerator. There isn't much room to write so I make a joke of it, and start
to draw strange symbols in the frost. I am surprised to see the fridge overstocked with beer bottles.

Hole In My Head

Very long sequence, with few parts remembered now. At one point, in high school class, joking around. The class empties; I remain. There are some of my clothes on some desks near the door, I am retrieving them. There is a note on them from the teacher to the custodians regarding room cleaning or something, but it doesn't relate to my clothes. A substitute teacher comes in and I have to try and explain why the note is torn. Teacher comes back and
class begins again.

Later, at my parents' house, I have an injury on my forehead in some scenes. I eventually take a bandage off, and looking in the downstairs bathroom mirror, see that I have a very small hole in my forehead, maybe ball-bearing size, though irregular in shape. There is no skull bone behind it, I can see directly through to brain and other organs - pulsating with life. The brain is slightly exposed, pale and veiny, while another little area resembles corn being brought to boil (though not with heat.) I am simultaneously amazed and excited and worried. I think about telling AL about it. But I realize how vulnerable I am now, so I try and find something and somewhere to plug up the opening.

Falling Towers

In my apartment building, but different and larger than my own, with friends. They recognize an old music teacher they had, leaving the building. It is guessed or believed that she is headed for the airport. I draw/find a map to show my friends how close I actually live to the airport, which is why this all makes sense. On the map, in a strange peninsular location (an amalgam of real NYC geography) situated not so far to my building, are the twin towers. They are impossibly tall (the map is some type of 3-D rendering) and swaying and teetering. I begin to suppose that if the towers fell right over, sideways in the direction of my building, my building would definitely be crushed. But since they are so tall, there might be enough indication and forewarning to evacuate the area, though I wonder how the impact blast and debris would affect even those that got out of the way of the actual collapse.

Gang Violence

Wandering around unknown city with AS. "Low-income area." Many unsavory types abound and increase in number. AS seems to know them, or where she is, but gradually, moving back and forth from one back alley to another, she admits aloud that she is lost and doesn't know these people. Bad idea, I tell her. We are attacked. I'm not sure what happens to her. Instead of me being attacked, I am able to stand and watch a third-person male get surrounded by the gang. It is the most vicious assault on a human being ever witnessed anywhere. 20-25 men stand around the fallen body and pummel, pulverize, spear, and maim him repeatedly for some time. When the crowd clears, there is little left recognizable as human flesh.

I have opportunity to escape. There is a window, and my joy is incalculable when I see there is another roof in jumping distance from the window. I go for it. I am chased by one male individual down some rooftops. I end up on the street, it is daytime, he is across the street looking my way, I hide behind someone else as they walk, but it is a laughable attempt.

Clandesting Meeting / Borders

Clandestine meeting with x. At my parents' house, in my upstairs bedroom. x is eager to fool around, I grab her face and kiss it but mouths are dry and parched and is not as enjoyable as we'd hoped, for the moment. She gets up, we begin to discuss fear of discovery, but she leaves bedroom door open and smiles; seems she likes the danger. I agree we would have good warning if someone comes through the front door, but I also realize that we won't know who it is at the time - it could be my parents. She admires the walls and moldings. I peer out window (it is nighttime) and indeed my parents are coming up the driveway, back from store. There are maybe 3 large dark dogs out there too, guarding, they bark but do not attack.

Fragment where my bedroom is actually situated over a piano store in a mall. The idea is that I would hear soft classical piano music if someone were playing. The name of the store is French, possibly La Ciel.

I need some type of cover for this whole secret, and I end up at Borders Books. I am filling out the job application as part of my "cover"; I have the option to be "the boss." The application forces me to list the first 5 things I would do as boss. My first answer is a web site address, similar to this blog site's address but with "newyork" in there somewhere. Second, I write I would immediately get to know the store layout, new store policies.

Kay is working at the store. She is approaching the desk and muttering to herself, disgusted by the management. She makes some comment to the effect that they could lose control of their bodily functions and not even notice, "just keep going." A tall male who is in charge sees me and starts ordering me around; it appears, even as I hold the application, I am already hired and on the schedule. He not-so-gently reminds me that on the schedule I am supposed to be back up at this desk every 6 minutes. I'm thinking that is the most outrageously stupid way of scheduling people because they won't be able to get anything else done. Every 6 minutes?

This turns into complete disgust with the place and I tear up the application and make some loud negative comments. I walk towards the main entrance to leave. I see Tom P working there and I feel bad for him, for what everyone goes through there. I am almost out but there are these step-type display shelves blocking the exits. I remember that they were working on the entrance and that only the side entrances are open. But my defiant energy is in this direction and so I walk up the steps and force the large wooden doors open. There are some tables on the outside but they are easily moved and I exit through the crack on top of them. I am very proud that I did this, leave in the physical manner in which I chose, in a rebellious manner that no one else had before, a "working outside the box" feeling but exaggerated into a near-miracle.

Welcome

Quotes from Carl Jung (1875-1961)

"I have no theory about dreams, I do not know how dreams arise. And I am not at all sure that - my way of handling dreams even deserves the name of a "method." I share all your prejudices against dream-interpretation as the quintessence of uncertainty and arbitrariness. On the other hand, I know that if we meditate on a dream sufficiently long and thoroughly, if we carry it around with us and turn it over and over, something almost always comes of it. This something is not of course a scientific result to be boasted about or rationalized; but it is an important practical hint which shows the patient what the unconscious is aiming at. Indeed, it ought not to matter to me whether the result of my musings on the dream is scientifically verifiable or tenable, otherwise I am pursuing an ulterior-and therefore autoerotic-aim. I must content myself wholly with the fact that the result means something to the patient and sets his life in motion again. I may allow myself only one criterion for the result of my labours: does it work? As for my scientific hobby-my desire to know why it works-this I must reserve for my spare time."

"The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego consciousness, and which will remain psyche no matter how far our ego-consciousness extends. For all ego-consciousness is isolated; because it separates and discriminates, it knows only particulars, and it sees only those that can be related to the ego. Its essence is limitation, even though it reach to the farthest nebulae among the stars. All consciousness separates; but in dreams we put on the likeness of that more universal, truer, more eternal man dwelling in the darkness of primordial night. There he is still the whole, and the whole is in him, indistinguishable from nature and bare of all egohood. It is from these all-uniting depths that the dream arises, be it never so childish, grotesque, and immoral."

"Dream psychology opens the way to a general comparative psychology from which we may hope to gain the same understanding of the development and structure of the human psyche as comparative anatomy has given us concerning the human body."

"No amount of scepticism and criticism has yet enabled me to regard dreams as negligible occurrences. Often enough they appear senseless, but it is obviously we who lack the sense and ingenuity to read the enigmatic message from the nocturnal realm of the psyche. Seeing that at least half our psychic existence is passed in that realm, and that consciousness acts upon our nightly life just as much as the unconscious overshadows our daily life, it would seem all the more incumbent on medical psychology to sharpen its senses by a systematic study of dreams. Nobody doubts the importance of conscious experience; why then should we doubt the significance of unconscious happenings? They also are part of our life, and sometimes more truly a part of it for weal or woe than any happenings of the day."