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I don't know if I'm really dreaming more or more vividly than I was before or if my pandemic schedule just allows me more times to lie abed and revisit the dreams I do have. Last night's was a recombination of mostly familiar elements (travelling abroad, getting lost inside a confusing building, inappropriate nudity, etc.) but with some unusual details and twists (notably hurtling myself at the ground with the intention of seeing if I'd die and missing), enough for me to remember it long enough to set it down here.
I was outside my bedroom door and noticed that the near end of the downstairs hallway was completely blocked with dirty laundry and cardboard boxes. The laundry was mine; it looked like Clint had emptied out the laundry room and dumped everything in it here. I don't know where the cardboard boxes came from. I was annoyed and wanted to charge right into his bedroom and speak to him but I couldn't figure out how to get through the blocked hallway. I looked for an alternative route and when I came back, there was enough space for me to squeeze past the clothes and boxes.
In the real world, the laundry room is located just past the door to the second bedroom; in my dream, it was located just before it, as a kind of anteroom. I stepped inside and became disoriented. I even looked around for the wheeled laundry hamper I knew was now in the hallway. I either stepped into another nearly identical small square room or the room I was in had altered because there were now cryptic signs on the walls. I had a choice of two closed doors. One opened into a short hallway that could have been in an SRO, the other into an identical small room with no other door.
I stepped out into the hallway and soon became aware of a few things: After a few meters, the hallway opened into a large room with a desk in the middle, there were people at the desk, and I was wearing nothing but socks and a pair of white cotton briefs. I deliberated briefly before deciding just to plunge in. Not only did I stride into the larger room, but I leapt up onto the desk itself.
The desk itself was at least three meters on each side; it appeared to be made mostly of steel and glass, as did the surrounding room. The overall impression was of an elite financial firm or a television studio. Three or four people, all men in suit and tie, were working there. Not one of them looked up as I half-slid across it in my stocking feet. On the far side, I could see a glass box with a desk and five or six occupied chairs set slightly below the level of the floor. I went up to it and tried to see if I could find a way in but I couldn't, so I circled back.
A bit to the right of where I remembered the desk being, a handsome mustachioed man in a brown suit and tie with a dark gold dress shirt was talking to what appeared to be a pandhandler. From the way the man was dressed, I knew he was German and I was in Germany. After cheerfully saying something to the panhandler, who I believe was in a long wool coat, he turned and headed up a lane to his right.
With nothing better to do, I decided to follow the man in the suit. I brushed off the panhandler and turned into the lane, which was hemmed in by woods on both sides. It seemed to be a sort of wide path covered in white gravel. At first, I had to pace myself in order not to follow the man too closely, but as we proceeded the trail became steeper and soon I found myself struggling to keep up. The sides grew into steep banks. At one point, I heard people behind me and turned to spy a small party at least twenty meters behind.
When I turned back around, the man in the suit was gone. Even though I could see at least 100 m ahead, I assumed he'd left me behind and began to hurry forward, but I heard a commotion from the party behind me and stopped. When I turned around, I saw them clamouring and scratching away at the gravel with their hands. Apparently someone had fallen into the road. Thinking it might be the man I'd been following, I went back to help them dig.
We uncovered a life-sized mannequin and tossed it aside. Even deeper into the gravel, we found the man in the suit, whose name was evidently "Erla". He wasn't moving and the white dust made him look completely ashen. I grabbed him under the arms and pulled him up facing me. After I gave him a good squeeze, he came to and began thanking me for saving him (which I thought was a bit unfair because the people who couldn't see had done more). I sat on the ground still holding him wondering what was going to happen next.
After a bit, I turned to the two women standing closest to us and asked them if they'd called an ambulance (in German, though the word I used for "ambulance"--Krakenlastfahrwagen--doesn't actually exist). They said no and didn't seem too concerned by this. Even amongst themselves, they were talking in a mixture of German and English.
Finally, Erla and I stood up and began to walk back the way we'd all come as if nothing had happened. The path soon led into a kind of shopping mall food court. There were no food kiosks but there seemed to be quite a range of vending machines. I saw one of the women go up to a soda machine and buy a Coke. I realised I was hungry and began to look over the other machines for one with hot entrees. Instead, I found one that seemed dedicated to a particular brand of chocolate candies and I started looking at the choices in detail.
When I looked up, I realised that I'd lost track of the others. I tried to head back to the centre of the food court but suddenly I was in an auction house and all I could find were large galleries of antique furniture for sale. Pretty soon I realised that any attempt to find my companions would be futile and just started looking for a way out. I went upstairs to find another storey much like the one I was on. Then I found an enclosed staircase. Two young white men were mounting the stairs and I caught enough of their conversation to realise it was some kind of right-wing trollery. I made some kind of crack to let them know what I thought of them and expected it to lead to a confrontation, but it didn't. When I reached the room at the top of the stairs, they were no where in sight. I went up another short flight and found myself on the roof.
It was hard to say how high I was above the ground--probably at least nine storeys up. Below me there seemed to be mostly pavements. I decided I was tired of all this pointless pursuit and was going to hurl myself off the building to see what happened. At this point, I was fully aware I was dreaming because I recalled how--despite what people said--I'd died in a dream before and simply continued dreaming afterwards. Would that happen again? One way to find out.
I felt my clothes flapping as I fell; apparently I was wearing some sort of jacket or coat though my chest was still bare. Instead of plummeting, I began to soar. I was losing altitude the entire time, but the building seemed to be at the head of a long slope so it was a while before I got close to the ground. I flew over a huge empty parking lot and then over a twisting rural road. The signs on either side seemed to be in a mix of Spanish and English. Finally I saw an anti-Trump sign entirely in Spanish and decided I must be in the southwestern US.
I finally swooped into a kind of large ornate cage which seemed to be used for animal fights, bullfights maybe. I tried to climb to the top of it in order to take off flying again but I discovered that the upper side, which I thought was open, was actually covered in a fine wire mesh and I had to climb down again and slip out near the bottom. There were a couple of Latinx around but they seemed not to notice me. Then I noticed a heavily-laden truck and decided to climb on top of that to use it as a launching point instead.
Almost as soon as I'd gotten a handhold, the truck started moving. Undeterred, I kept climbing. It was piled so loosely that it was like climbing a pile of laundry or the inside of an impossibly tall clothes closet. I kept worrying that one of the stacks would collapse and send me plunging to the ground. Before that could happen, though, the truck stopped to take on more good, apparently some kind of cheap plastic containers. I jumped off and found myself inside a sort of small warehouse and, looking for another way out, stumbled into a closet-sized room and decided to wake up.
I was outside my bedroom door and noticed that the near end of the downstairs hallway was completely blocked with dirty laundry and cardboard boxes. The laundry was mine; it looked like Clint had emptied out the laundry room and dumped everything in it here. I don't know where the cardboard boxes came from. I was annoyed and wanted to charge right into his bedroom and speak to him but I couldn't figure out how to get through the blocked hallway. I looked for an alternative route and when I came back, there was enough space for me to squeeze past the clothes and boxes.
In the real world, the laundry room is located just past the door to the second bedroom; in my dream, it was located just before it, as a kind of anteroom. I stepped inside and became disoriented. I even looked around for the wheeled laundry hamper I knew was now in the hallway. I either stepped into another nearly identical small square room or the room I was in had altered because there were now cryptic signs on the walls. I had a choice of two closed doors. One opened into a short hallway that could have been in an SRO, the other into an identical small room with no other door.
I stepped out into the hallway and soon became aware of a few things: After a few meters, the hallway opened into a large room with a desk in the middle, there were people at the desk, and I was wearing nothing but socks and a pair of white cotton briefs. I deliberated briefly before deciding just to plunge in. Not only did I stride into the larger room, but I leapt up onto the desk itself.
The desk itself was at least three meters on each side; it appeared to be made mostly of steel and glass, as did the surrounding room. The overall impression was of an elite financial firm or a television studio. Three or four people, all men in suit and tie, were working there. Not one of them looked up as I half-slid across it in my stocking feet. On the far side, I could see a glass box with a desk and five or six occupied chairs set slightly below the level of the floor. I went up to it and tried to see if I could find a way in but I couldn't, so I circled back.
A bit to the right of where I remembered the desk being, a handsome mustachioed man in a brown suit and tie with a dark gold dress shirt was talking to what appeared to be a pandhandler. From the way the man was dressed, I knew he was German and I was in Germany. After cheerfully saying something to the panhandler, who I believe was in a long wool coat, he turned and headed up a lane to his right.
With nothing better to do, I decided to follow the man in the suit. I brushed off the panhandler and turned into the lane, which was hemmed in by woods on both sides. It seemed to be a sort of wide path covered in white gravel. At first, I had to pace myself in order not to follow the man too closely, but as we proceeded the trail became steeper and soon I found myself struggling to keep up. The sides grew into steep banks. At one point, I heard people behind me and turned to spy a small party at least twenty meters behind.
When I turned back around, the man in the suit was gone. Even though I could see at least 100 m ahead, I assumed he'd left me behind and began to hurry forward, but I heard a commotion from the party behind me and stopped. When I turned around, I saw them clamouring and scratching away at the gravel with their hands. Apparently someone had fallen into the road. Thinking it might be the man I'd been following, I went back to help them dig.
We uncovered a life-sized mannequin and tossed it aside. Even deeper into the gravel, we found the man in the suit, whose name was evidently "Erla". He wasn't moving and the white dust made him look completely ashen. I grabbed him under the arms and pulled him up facing me. After I gave him a good squeeze, he came to and began thanking me for saving him (which I thought was a bit unfair because the people who couldn't see had done more). I sat on the ground still holding him wondering what was going to happen next.
After a bit, I turned to the two women standing closest to us and asked them if they'd called an ambulance (in German, though the word I used for "ambulance"--Krakenlastfahrwagen--doesn't actually exist). They said no and didn't seem too concerned by this. Even amongst themselves, they were talking in a mixture of German and English.
Finally, Erla and I stood up and began to walk back the way we'd all come as if nothing had happened. The path soon led into a kind of shopping mall food court. There were no food kiosks but there seemed to be quite a range of vending machines. I saw one of the women go up to a soda machine and buy a Coke. I realised I was hungry and began to look over the other machines for one with hot entrees. Instead, I found one that seemed dedicated to a particular brand of chocolate candies and I started looking at the choices in detail.
When I looked up, I realised that I'd lost track of the others. I tried to head back to the centre of the food court but suddenly I was in an auction house and all I could find were large galleries of antique furniture for sale. Pretty soon I realised that any attempt to find my companions would be futile and just started looking for a way out. I went upstairs to find another storey much like the one I was on. Then I found an enclosed staircase. Two young white men were mounting the stairs and I caught enough of their conversation to realise it was some kind of right-wing trollery. I made some kind of crack to let them know what I thought of them and expected it to lead to a confrontation, but it didn't. When I reached the room at the top of the stairs, they were no where in sight. I went up another short flight and found myself on the roof.
It was hard to say how high I was above the ground--probably at least nine storeys up. Below me there seemed to be mostly pavements. I decided I was tired of all this pointless pursuit and was going to hurl myself off the building to see what happened. At this point, I was fully aware I was dreaming because I recalled how--despite what people said--I'd died in a dream before and simply continued dreaming afterwards. Would that happen again? One way to find out.
I felt my clothes flapping as I fell; apparently I was wearing some sort of jacket or coat though my chest was still bare. Instead of plummeting, I began to soar. I was losing altitude the entire time, but the building seemed to be at the head of a long slope so it was a while before I got close to the ground. I flew over a huge empty parking lot and then over a twisting rural road. The signs on either side seemed to be in a mix of Spanish and English. Finally I saw an anti-Trump sign entirely in Spanish and decided I must be in the southwestern US.
I finally swooped into a kind of large ornate cage which seemed to be used for animal fights, bullfights maybe. I tried to climb to the top of it in order to take off flying again but I discovered that the upper side, which I thought was open, was actually covered in a fine wire mesh and I had to climb down again and slip out near the bottom. There were a couple of Latinx around but they seemed not to notice me. Then I noticed a heavily-laden truck and decided to climb on top of that to use it as a launching point instead.
Almost as soon as I'd gotten a handhold, the truck started moving. Undeterred, I kept climbing. It was piled so loosely that it was like climbing a pile of laundry or the inside of an impossibly tall clothes closet. I kept worrying that one of the stacks would collapse and send me plunging to the ground. Before that could happen, though, the truck stopped to take on more good, apparently some kind of cheap plastic containers. I jumped off and found myself inside a sort of small warehouse and, looking for another way out, stumbled into a closet-sized room and decided to wake up.