Failed Romance / Hired on the Spot

2:45 this morning, I woke up from one of the slow, mundane dreams that I've been having lately. If not for the weird physical contact during the dream, I might not have remembered it.

    The dream starts out in another club or music venue where the crowd is right up against the stage, close to the action. The part of the dream where I enter with some friends is very vague and I don't know who I am at this point. The stage and surrounding area are painted all black, the lighting from the bar and people coming in from the entryway was the only illumination. The stage lights provided some more muted ambiance. A group gets on stage, they are - you guessed it - dressed in all black, black T's, jeans, and boots and rip into a hard metal set reminiscent of Metallica (I wish that I could remember the words to the song) 

    The lead singer is becoming agitated because the crowd doesn't seem to be into the music for some reason. My friend is bopping and visibly enjoying himself. The leads anger starts to reflect in his voice and seems to grow large and push through the crowd until they realize they should be moving to the song. My friend noticed that I wasn't moving either and said something to the effect "C'mon dance already" as soon as I start moving I'm enjoying myself and notice the crowd is finally into the song. The night seems to fade out and I felt like we leave the party and go to my friends place to chill at his apartment.

    We get there and hang out, having drinks, I get sleepy and somehow end up in bed, I remember falling asleep in the dream. 

    I feel someone kissing my neck, spooning me with a hardon, hands groping on me and wakes me up, my friend is all over me - I jump up out of the bed and yell "What the fuck man?" He's still high and try's to have me calm down by saying "Relax" - this pisses me off. I punch him dead in the face, grab my clothes and leave his apartment. Taking the walk of shame, I couldn't believe that the guy I thought was a friend would take advantage of the situation. 

    My apartment is only on the other side of the road, maybe fifty yards away, I get upstairs knowing that he might come over to apologize or try to start something because I hit him. Wearing a robe from his apartment I go to check myself in the bathroom mirror - I'm not a man... The dream flipped the situation on me, I was certain that my friend was being a jerk, now I felt guilt as the woman - I had feelings for him and must have messed up any chance at a relationship with him. The realization hit me and I begin to cry, sinking down in front of the window that had bars (Bad part of town?) looking down from the second floor over to his building.

    A few minutes later I see him walking over, he's dressed and stops a few yards away. I'm wondering if I should buzz him up, I'm conflicted. I think he sends me an apology via telepathy - He knows that I'm torn whether to accept. He throws up his hands and walks back to his building... this part of the dream fades out.

***

    I'm caught in the grip of the dream, The next scene starts, I drop in to a strangely familiar room, it reminds me of one of my first weird dreams - a sitting room at a mansion. There is an ornate oriental rug of gold and red, Louis the XIV furniture and a long oak table. My mind is trying to place the room at this different angle, I think about the meeting room with the Cabal... A man comes inside the room, he's the boss or something. He's wearing a Mr. Rogers style sweater that reminds me of a bowling shirt, there is some deception trying to keep me involved in the scenario about to play out. "I mean to hire you today" the conversation starts as if we had been speaking earlier for my "interview" - "I want you to give a presentation to the other employees" he continues without missing a beat. My mind is trying to figure this person out, I know he's "rich" maybe a billionaire or something. He guides me by the shoulder, I tell him "What will I talk about, I don't have anything prepared?" with a charming smile he stops me in the hallway "Don't worry, you'll do fine - Just be yourself" Where have I heard that before? Suddenly I recognize part of the charade that is keeping me interested - he looks a little like Patrick Stewart! Before I can ask him about the resemblance or lose the grip of the dream - he brings me into a conference room (been there before) and introduces me - "I would like to introduce your new team member" everyone looks up and greets me kindly - PS says "Go on, they're really nice" pats me on the shoulder and closes the door leaving me to it.

    I begin my talk, not feeling pressured at the least, explaining my expertise and other details that unfortunately didn't make it past my review. Speaking with confidence, I fielded questions from my new coworkers, they seemed impressed by my ability to answer their inquiries clearly. By the time my talk was over, smiles and a few applause from the group made me feel better about the situation. I notice two African American women giving me the eye as we leave - PS says to me "Oh, I see your popularity with the ladies is starting off on the right foot" I blush but don't know who I am yet. Out of curiosity I pull out from the body I'm in, to get a better look from an astral perspective. I'm young, handsome - but not me. Patrick Stewart was not going to let me leave the dream just yet. We exit the offices outside to a park that is supposed to be set up like a baseball field but the dimensions are off and everything is dusty like Africa. He begins to tell me the advantages of his wealth and all the women he has at his beck and call - that he keeps them in competition for his affection - this part felt like telepathic communication, his arm still over my shoulder. I see the women he's talking about, they are on the dusty field wearing tight fitting brown burlap sack outfits with a hooded mask on top to keep out the dust as they played softball. To get Patrick's attention they would hit a softball our way - he tells me "Throw it back, they love playing this game" I pick up the strange softball that looks like a mini tumble-weed but can't make the throw all the way back. The women groan and laugh that my throw was so weak. I try again and still miss the mark - he's found a way to keep me engaged (pun) On the third try I make it to the woman who catches it and pitches it to another who cracks a long shot over our heads past the fence. One woman rips off her mask and runs out to get the ball, she's fast. I recognize her as one of the women that made eyes at me back at the office. 

    Something was off, this isn't right - these women didn't have to be his "playthings". I reconsidered the offer of the job and was about to let him know that my conscious was not OK with this arrangement because of his activities. I turn to talk to him and he's now over 8 ft. tall, bringing his long spindly hand on my shoulder again as if to say "But we have an agreement"...

I'm snapped out of the dream, like a tether is broken leaving me floating in the darkness. Slowly I wake up and check the time. The dream is fading fast and I feel confused. I want to go to the bathroom and just lay there silently... slowly the dreams come back and I try to sort them out.

Recurring themes again - Africa, the conference room, the "Boardroom", the office... 

Touch the Sky

     Every night for the past few days dreaming has been muted; I simply didn't drop into any scenarios - my vantage point was from afar, and not involved in anything that happened.

This morning was entirely different.

    Most of my readers already know me, sometimes when sleep is interrupted around 1:30 or 3:00 in the morning, I will check in on Twitter to tweet the fact that I just woke up. A boring routine at best. Looking at the phone again, I decided not to post, the algorithm has pushed my tweets far from the eyes of anyone who cared. This morning several factors caused me to wake up, I was deeply dreaming something mundane and forgettable. The dog has been sleeping with us for several months, he got up to shake himself off at 2:30, waking me up. Opening my eyes, I could see that the light from my wife's LED iPhone charging cord was flashing, disturbing the darkness. The inevitable bathroom trip was at hand.

    With my head now back on the pillow at around 3:10, I felt like I had at least another 2 hours of sleep, dreams or not - before Leo jumped off our bed to signal it was time to get up to pee. That worry was just enough to light the spark for what happened to me next.

That worry was just enough to light the spark for what happened next...

__________________________________________________________

    Leo was crawling up on my chest for me to wake up but I couldn't move, usually I'll slide my hand down to pat him on the head and scratch his chin, my body was immobilized. Panicking, with the realization that my body was caught in the grip of paralysis, I tried to call out to my wife - she was still asleep. Gaining movement of my mouth I began calling out to her "Babe... Hon" "Leo has to go, but I can't move" her breathing was deep and she didn't hear me, my voice was barely a whisper. The dog had moved up onto my face almost smothering me "I know, I know Leo... wait! Get off my face!" Turning to my wife pleading for her to wake up did not work, slowly parts of my body were waking up and I was trying to call out. Leo had jumped off the bed ready to go. The next few minutes was a struggle to break out of my hypnopompic prison. Finally my arms and legs began to move, but there still was no response from my wife as I thrashed around trying to pull the covers off of me. Frustrated by this epic turn, I whipped the covers off and pushed off the side of the bed, this woke up my wife - she got up with me and I explained what happened. She decided to go with me to take Leo outside, concerned that I might not be in my right mind.

    Opening the bedroom door, we stepped into a nightmare. It has been raining for several days, off and on. This morning the rain must have been constant - the living room just outside my bedroom was flooded, holes in the ceiling pieces falling down and my son and son-in law were just sitting together on the sofa, they were waiting for us to wake up to tell us the bad news. I looked up and said "This much damage in only a few hours of rain?" The boys told us that this was pretty much the situation all over the house that they had come downstairs because the rain had flooded the upstairs bedrooms. The front wall of my house had disintegrated, outside across the street, my neighbors homes had suffered the same fate. The devastation looked as if a tornado had whipped through my neighborhood. I asked the guys about my daughters, what happened to them? Fern and Tina would have been upstairs sleeping - the looks on the boys faces were grim. I started up the staircase to look for them, just as I made it halfway up the ceiling began to fall from the living room above the sofa where the guys were sitting. There was no time left, we had to leave the house before it collapsed!  My wife pulled me by my shirt and the boys ran out of the house.

     Stepping outside the scene changed. My "wife" and I walked up and down the flooded streets of the Bronx looking for survivors of the catastrophe. We searched for neighbors, the fronts of buildings were collapsed. In a storefront a woman was picking up some of the clothing items she sold, I commented that maybe she can get back to business when this was all over. The woman looked up at us and smiled which I thought was odd, she turned and blushed a bit. My "wife" said to me "She's smiling because your naked." I began to blush, how could we leave the house and I not know? The cold rain didn't affect me, I started running back to the house, nude to try to find clothes... My vantage point changed again, I was watching myself running up the street nude at top speed in my younger body. I just laughed.

    A new episode began right away, the transition was flawless. I was looking out a large window inside a craft, or maybe from a high-rise building staring at a bright blue sky - a large white shape that I had seen before was turning circles in the air. This reminded me of the bloated shape of a Tic-Tac UAP! The movement was slow, floating like a blimp but making vertical loops in the sky gracefully. I thought that maybe it shouldn't be out there too long - before military jets arrived on scene. Thankfully the craft kept turning vertical circles as if it were a bucket on an invisible Ferris wheel while slowly fading out from reality. I was astonished that the craft had vanished. A deep familiar male voice chimed in next to me on my left - "Those craft can cross dimensions and simply left this reality" as if he were explaining the workings of his world. Before I could turn to see who the voice belonged to, my head began to fill with visions of craft flying with the same characteristics - as the narrator tried explaining how the effects on mass were not disturbed by this type of travel - he demonstrated by pausing the scene of a female riding a personal transport shaped like a motorcycle. The image was vibrating against the narrators' time dilation. He then went into details that explained how this was possible.

As usual, I missed part of the presentation because my mind was wandering, I was more concerned about the fate of the woman on the sky-cycle who was straining against the interruption. We were on a craft ourselves, probably the same as the one that faded from view, now it was time for us to return to the reality of the narrator - the military craft were closing in to our vicinity - we pulled away and in an instant we were flying in the sky lanes of another world! This looked like a future earth - the unmistakable shapes and insignias of UPS and Fed-ex trucks were flying around in highway patterns with other vehicles - all were large - I didn't know if this reminded me of Star Wars or The Fifth Element. The narrator was now gone, I was the pilot of a delivery vehicle that was much older that the one we were flying in before. The vehicle was landing itself automatically, I had jumped at the controls as if the descent was an imminent crash. All I knew was my trust of this vehicle paled with every trip, my assimilation into this dream was complete. Instead of a nice soft touchdown on a pad or loading area, the craft piloted itself through a back-alley in a rough looking industrial part of town - it figures that I would be a smuggler dropping off my haul. Just before the end of the road a man steps out of a doorway holding up his hand and causes my ship to slow down by skidding on the undercarriage or sled feet underneath. 

       This ship is horrible, I hate making runs in it. The side door slides open and I jump out mouthing off to the dock supervisor or whatever his title is. "What the hell do you think you're doing, I'm going to crash one of these days!" A quartet of thugs appear around my craft holding tough looking dogs on chains - one guy holding an unusually large brown Chihuahua lets him loose. The dog charges at me catching me by the pant leg, I yell "Hey! WHAT THE FUCK MAN?!!" Kicking the dog off, it decides to latch onto my left hand, biting in deep. Message understood, these guys are not to be messed with. The smiling thug called his dog off and the boss was now ready to do business with me. I can't remember any pain in my hand but the must have been. The dream starts running quicker, as if the reel of film had cut at the end and was spinning...

__________________________________________________

    Inside the building again, there was a commotion going on, people were scattering around as if chasing each other, this was a confusing scene to drop into. A group of my "friends" show up "C'mon LET'S GO!!!" the young woman yelled at me yanking me in the opposite direction down the hallway nearly separating my head from my shoulders. We were after another group of people, there was no time to explain why we had to catch them. Bounding down flights of staircases, the building went through different iterations, changing from modern, to pre-war, to Victorian to the Subway. We exited the staircase in a station, losing our intended targets in the crowd. The lone woman in our group had a quick thought to turn back towards the stairs and the restroom area just beyond. She began banging on the locked door furiously "OPEN UP, WE KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE!!" My "friend" loved shouting at the top of her lungs. The latch behind the door slid open with an audible clack and a booming voice from within was heard "Keep your pants on! There's only one stall working in here!" The door opened up and a giant of a man at least seven foot, steps out from a crouch to exit under the door. He reminded me of The French Angel and George the Animal Steele combined. Hairy and shirtless, dripping in sweat holding a large roll of duct tape he states "There's no more paper, you can use this" handing the roll to our woman friend. His voice tainted with a British/Irish inflection with Acromegaly scared us - he wasn't part of the gang we were after. Dejected that our prey had long gone after wasting our time with this pooping giant, we started our way back upstairs from the station. We said nothing most of the way up the stairs, reaching the modern section of the building we started out from, my "friend" looks down at me from the landing, holding the roll of tape over the rail and says to me "Do you really think that guy was using this to wipe his ass?" I thought the question was funny enough to try and imagine what it would be like for this giant using slim strips of sticky tape on his hairy...

Aware I was imagining something totally hilarious and absurd, the dream started to fade out quickly, leaving me confused as my mind released me into my bedroom. Checking the time on my phone,  it was exactly 5:08AM - my two hours were up.

I lay there trying desperately trying to remember everything as it happened, the sequence of events were jumbled and swirling, trying to disappear back into the void where it was created. I caught onto the clues and wispy threads of information and slowly built the narrative back into view.

The fact wasn't lost on me that I had a paralysis event inside the dream, the Old Hag had imitated Leo this time. The pressure on my chest and I could feel the familiar fur of my dog, but since he was pressed against my face, I couldn't be sure it was him. The first part of the dream wasn't lost on me as well. Before falling asleep I tweeted out my goodnight... "Time to touch the sky...

Powers That Be

Several times this year, I've come to the realization that the dream world is connected, at least in one's own personal dimension, that some scholars would call The Long Dream; this morning felt like a revisit to several themes that keep going unresolved in a previous episodes.

    The drop-in starts off in an apartment, I remembered a recent dream that had me leaving through the very same building I have to look for the dream I am thinking of, written down somewhere which is an approximation of one I used to live in for several years in Manhattan on the upper West Side. Entering the building again, my mind is pulling imagery from a former workplace, the Comfort Inn near John Wayne Airport, back in 1986.

    The side door where I used to enter after having breakfast is how I get in, walking up the stairs to the apartment, and several people are interacting with me, these might be the memories of my coworkers inside one of the rooms as I collected trash and linens from the Maids, I was the Houseman (1986, Sorry for using outdated terms) for the hotel. 

    The location in the dream was somehow combined, I equated it with the abandoned looking building with the dream of Rosario Dawson She may have been M.A.R.T.H.A. or Tricky in the early stages before we unceremoniously split and the hotel and an apartment we lived in on the upper West side of Manhattan. These buildings are part of the ever-evolving Metroplex of locations and destinations in my mind. Sometimes the room becomes my old apartment and other places I've lived or visited. 

    When I exited the building I noticed the wire cage balconies encircling the building. Above, the sky was a nice muted blue and there was a harbor alongside with a river walk This is another leftover from several of my earlier dreams a helicopter was flying over the river to towards the building, it was towing a yellow rescue raft aloft at the end of a long cable. Wind started to pick up, I felt the unmistakable rush of air that comes with my tornado dreams.

This wasn't going to end well.

    My familiarity with the location sparked another angle that reminded me of the rooftop apartment the security guard lived in from yet another dream. The copter was a big military style rescue vehicle with the open sides, painted in drab green. All around the gale force winds were wreaking havoc, pushing the whirly-bird around the opposite side of the building as it tried to avoid collision. The pilot must have been straining with the controls as the pitch of the craft went from almost vertical on it side and down. The copter caught an updraft and pulled straight up and over the roof too close, nearly clipping the edge before disappearing over the side and I lost sight of it. From my vantage point on the ground I couldn't see but knew the yellow raft would catch onto one of the balconies. 

We heard the zip and clatter of the cable catching the boat between floors, the whine of the helicopter engine increased as it was trying to climb. With one last effort the pilot tried pulling away from the building but a gust of wind pushed it over the top of the roof again. A split second silence and then the sound of a crash with smoke billowing off the top of the building. I had to see what happened, the strongest urge to help any survivors came over me.

    Running back up the stairs all of those flights would just slow me down. 

I took flight!

 From somewhere inside I just knew I would begin floating, the wind was terrible, holding me stationary as I tried forcing myself against it, there had to be another way. Trying to gain control, I was in a struggle against the wind - just like the helicopter. There was only one choice left for me. 

Summoning all of my inner power and ability I let go of being physical and willed myself upward, the sensation was like pushing your hands against a soft chair to extract yourself. I moved like a superhero upward. Usually this much stress and effort inside a dream would eventually wake me up. Not this time. I shot up the thirty or so floors to the roof and saw the downed helicopter on its side, badly mangled with fluids leaking out of the side. The passengers had pulled themselves out and were huddled under a metal staircase to a higher level of the roof area, taking stock of their wounds. I landed near them, aware that there might be an explosion soon if we didn't hurry out of there. Calling out to the group was almost futile, they were in shock, hardly responding to me, I crept up under the stairs and tried reassuring them that there won't be an explosion Sometimes the thought inside the dream would cause the event to happen, as if it were a prediction. This time there was no explosion when I mentioned it.

    The man and woman came to, snapping out of their hysterics, their teen daughter was still convulsing in fear and I spoke calmly to her using some sort of mental power to drown out the sounds of sirens, screams from below and the wind so she could hear my voice "Calm down now, there won't be an explosion - we're putting water on the crash now..." Mentally I had pulled the hose from the stairwell and pointed it on the helicopter, it hovered over the wreck like a cobra swaying side to side as the water gushed out wetting the entire area. I had to repeat myself to the girl - pushing deeper into her mind to unlatch her from the fear "There's no more danger, we're putting water on the wreck - everything is fine now." This finally broke the shock. I led her down to the waiting arms of her parents and they entered the stairwell going down...

After accomplishing this many feats, I was ready to wake up and slowly the dream faded out almost entirely. It took me a few minutes to remember it all.

I was able to change the conditions of fate, as it were. Inside the dream there usually is almost a psychic-like knowledge of what's about to come, The other day I tried to help the man rescue his daughter but the bridge was swarming with attackers and the dream ended without closure. This dream might have been in response to that disappointment, using my power and stepping outside of the normal dream conditions that seem to follow a television script. 

Now I know what becoming astral or being lucid inside the dream entails, sheer force of will. 

This time... I saved the girl.  

 

 

 

Turn the Tide

 This morning I woke up around 4:41. Carefully placing the phone down on my side table, thinking to myself, if only three more minutes had passed... 

    Another restful sleep for me this morning, and there wasn't much to remember as far as dreaming was concerned. My head hit the pillow too high up when I lay back, and scraped the wall behind me - we don't have a headboard. Scooting down to find my comfort zone, the dark room welcomed me back from the bathroom, since I was far from ready to give into wakefulness. Closing my eyes and assuming my "Casket" position, the swirling mists that usually come into view, began forming in my mind - something else began churning out of the peripheral of focus. This feeling usually happens when I am consciously trying to remember a dream that is just off to the side in my memory.

    The dream started recalling on its own, images flashing like the twinkling of stars, in different parts of the sky. I gave into the sequence, trying to contain my excitement, measuring my breathing and carefully relaxed. This time the dream started playing out in longer parts, strips of film that needed to be connected on the reel so that I could watch. I was able to reconstruct only a few parts; perhaps the transitions in each section were what confused me.

    I was with a group of people, we jumped into a brand new vehicle, a Jeep that was colored a deep wine. I could remember the shine and relative flawlessness of the paint reflecting the light. The plot wasn't clear at the time, escape wasn't really our motive - more likely it was rescue that was involved. The driver was reckless we had to rescue his daughter, it wasn't clear if we were in pursuit or just had to make it to the location she was being held quickly, to put our plan into action. This was a Caribbean island, maybe Puerto Rico and we were driving on mountain roads until we reached a particular section close to the sea. Our driver pointed us down the hill and rode us into the beach and into the water. Our destination was across the bay, if we had stuck the to road we wouldn't have made it past the defenses. The only option for our group was to swim across, using the car as our float.

    Surprisingly the car was a great assist in getting us far over the deep portion of the sea; the fort was manned to the gill by land, but there was nothing defending an approach by water. The dark moonless night aided in our stealth, the car took on too much water and began to sink. We swam the rest of the way, at least several hundred yards to the rocky base of the stone brick jetty, climbing up to use the cover of the lower walkway to gain access. The crack of rifle fire above meant our cover was blown, hastily we entered the darkened halls only to realize there was an ambush waiting at the top of the stairs and in several corners. Our group scattered, several side rooms provided cover but without our own firepower we would be pinned down quickly. A shout from above called an advance on our position, noting we had not fired back - that was a big mistake for them.

    One of our crew overpowered the first man, taking his rifle and cracking his skull with the butt and whipping around to take out two more that were headed down the stairs. We all joined in now, having three weapons amongst four men we were able to make our way topside to the rampart. 

The dream faded out, the fate of the young girl unknown.

Checking the time it was almost an hour later, I wanted to remember as much of the dream as possible. Satisfied that enough detail was firmly gripped in my conscious memory - I fell back to sleep.

The darkness was thick. I was walking on a path blindly, no light to guide me except for a faint knowledge that I had to keep going forward. There was a chill in the air, more like the breath of stones in a crypt. I felt lost, as if this was the literal end of creation, where nothing could exist without consciousness. There was a tree with a low hanging bough just ahead on the path and then another on the opposite side; they were barely visible, and I imagine that whatever message was meant for me created the trees on the path, marking a boundary. Unaware that this was the point at which to stop, I moved forward and a spiderweb caught me across my forehead; this slowed me and then I walked into another, swiping them away from my face. 

    Becoming annoyed at the strength of the web when I tried pulling it away, finally stopped my momentum, more webs appeared, as if spiders were continuously spinning them in the darkness from within each tree. When pulled tight, they shone briefly, illuminating each strand for a second. I was sure that this was an attempt to snare me so I tried to launch forward again - but a single strand was attached to the middle of my back and yanked me back with the tension of the recoil. My body then froze, like sleep paralysis and I began falling to the ground in slow motion. The ground gave way or I fell off of the path into eternity - the slow motion disoriented me and I anticipated the ground below me and jumped mid-air but kept falling into darkness...

    Before I lost "consciousness" I looked up and could see off in the distance an orange sun, glowing in the dark "sky" and thought to myself that the sun wasn't bright enough to light the night sky... or was it something else. 

    I passed out in the dream...

    I woke up finally. It was 6:20 AM