Dream Log: May 2, 2001

• I finally meet the guy who owns the farm and have to introduce him to everyone. This is the guy that owns my farm! I say. Jason is only mildly interested. This is the guy that walked through my bedroom last week - THIS IS THE MYSTERY MAN IN A RED PLAID SHIRT! I am so excited about this I make us banana milkshakes to celebrate.

• My computer stool functioned like a unicycle, rolling down the street easy. I steered like a pro and when I passed Eli who is over six feet tall I was high enough to see that he needed a haircut. I did not tell him, instead I kept it private like a secret hug.

• My bedroom is a storefront on a busy cobblestoned street. Not much for privacy, but terrific light. I keep the blinds up all night, sleeping peacefully in a patch of lamplight that I pretend is the moon.

  On a perfect morning I wake up at 6:58 precisely, (even though my alarm is not set) and look up to see stifling crowds inspecting my dirty carpet, red sheets, yellow posters, myself in rumpled bed mess. I have to lower the blinds for shame.

  Through the slats I see Magic Boy and he is gesturing, We Need to Talk. I tilt my head to the doorway and open it for him, still in my faded t-shirt and shorts. Give us some Privacy I tell the crowd and splendidly they comply so I let him in all sneaky like.

• On another morning I open the door and find my long lost friend from school standing poised to knock. She has turned into a super model and still she is friendly. I loved that spread of yours InStyle featured last month I tell her. Yes she yawns That was fun to shoot. Do you have any Perrier?

It was late at night, and the band director was prepping the bus... although he turned into my father, prepping our family van. We were going to have to return home for the next night, then go back, he told me, as there was no place to stay in the town that the contest was in.

Then he dug a silver mine. There was no silver, just a tunnel underground that broke surface again. One of the hedgehogs we used as ambassadors stood at the end. "Greetings! Greetings!" it called. All of our hedgehogs from the other end came swimming (the tunnel was now filled with water), calling "Greetings! Greetings!" as well, and I was rather sad because we had only dug in a circle, and made no progress whatsoever.

It was 10:07, and marching band contest was at 11:30. We weren't going to make it. I felt like I fell asleep or something; when I woke up, I was inside an empty house full of windows that showed a turbulent rainstorm outside. My mother walked by, she had changed from her safari outfit to a long white thermal nightgown. I followed her, asking whether we'd leave. She told me "It's raining" and I kept telling her that driving at night in the rain wasn't a problem. She went to her bed and sat at on it, drawing her knees up and rocking.

"It's so cold again. Why is it so cold here?" she asked, disconcerted. I wasn't cold, and though I did feel sorry for her, all I could think of was that she was an idiot for not crawling under the covers if she was so cold.

My alarm clock went off: noon. I suppose that's what I get for waking up, eating breakfast and doing a little research, and then going back to sleep. Usually I can analyze my dreams pretty plainly, but this one is confusing. All I can get from it is an insinuation of disappointment, futility, and unsuccessful communication.

I was driving my car to my son's school. I think my son was with me. The wind had started blowing and I realized that it was REALLY blowing hard. Trees were bending down almost to the ground. We were coming to an intersection..a sort of bridge, and I was calculating how much the wind was going to blow me off course and how best to negotiate the intersection. I wasn't afraid and was very aware and proud of not being afraid.

Dimestore interpretation: The phrase Winds of Change keeps going through my head, so I have to assume that the dream is about change. And, as I wasn't afraid and was thinking of how best to go through the intersection and over the bridge (two other very obvious symbols for change and growth and moving on), I take this dream as a subconscious vote of confidence in my ability to negotiate whatever life throws at me...or blows at me. I also find it interesting that I was going to my son's school and he was with me. My son and I are about to partake in a huge change in our eating habits, as he's trying to lose weight to make a football team and I just want to lose a little.

So last night I dreampt that I was in the circus. Now, if you read my daylog, it'll make sense why. However, I wasn't any anybody in the circus yet--I was just behind the scenes--I wanted to be under the lights. Only I didn't know what I could do. I didn't want to be a clown, because people hate clowns; however, I liked the acrobats. I couldn't be a trapeeze artist, because I didn't have the skill. I couldn't be a lion tamer, or a bare-back rider. I settled on being a juggler on a unicycle. OK, kinda weird.

Now, the reason I wanted to be out in the spotlight? Why did I want to perform? Aside from the obvious that I love performing in general, my professor had something to do with the circus (in my dream, not in real life, unless you count the play I saw him in, which had to do with a philosopher who runs away and joins the circus). I almost got to kiss him.

Yeah, well, what dreams may come... must give us pause.

What an incredible trip I had last night! As I laid down to sleep, I had an image of an old Paramahansa Yogananda sitting under a shady tree. I gave a silent prayer for a particularly vivid dream, hopefully a lucid dream conversation with Yoganandaji himself. Though my specific request wasn't granted, the more general one was. I awoke at 5am, very alert and clear. After drinking some water, I lay back in bed and fell into an extraordinary series of visions.

• I'm with many of my friends, Mario, Genery, Allen, Nicole, Lianna and others. Some of us eat psilocybe cubensis mushrooms but it seems like I am the only one who experiences any effects. We are outside in a sunny wooded area when reality begins to transform in profound ways. As the changes occur, I remain supremely calm with no fear, and I describe what I am seeing in detail to my friends, every step of the way. We are standing near a large rock in which a large passage opens up suddenly. Now I see a small stream flowing swiftly into the rock as if it had always been there. From out of the passage come multi-colored insects which land on my body. I distinctly remember a ruby red and emerald green pair sitting on my arm as I describe them to my amused friends. To them, all this is hallucination, though to me it is absolutely real. Then the whole scene transforms and I am inside a cave with an young Indian man. He is distressed and says he must put his baby sister into the underground river in order to escape across the India/Pakistan border. If he does not, men will kill her. I ask how long she will have to be underwater and he says 5 minutes. I beg him not to do it because that's too long for her to hold her breath. He is desperate and puts her into the stream. I run out of the cave and find myself on a boat, traveling serenely down a wide river. I think I'm in Egypt on the Nile, and I am talking to Lianna, telling her my vision. We also talk about some old memories but I don't recall what. After this, there are many multi-colored transformations of my reality. I don't remember all the changes but towards the end of the dream, I suddenly find myself indoors in the hallway of Porter College at UC Santa Cruz. By now, the reality changes have happened so swiftly and convincingly that I don't know which one is the real one where I am with my friends and which is hallucination. I go into a dorm room and sit down, trying to figure out how to get back to reality. The people with me seem to be in a very depressed mood and I don't understand why. My girlfriend, Genery, seems to be angry at me that I am tripping on shrooms at such a bad time. I don't understand and when I ask for explanation, I'm told that Mario and his girlfriend Chela were just killed in a car accident. Strangely, I'm not bothered by this because I realize that this must not be reality. I go out into the hall and lie down on the floor against the wall. Someone makes a comment about the "adjacent room" and this triggers a thought in my brain that I am in a parallel universe and simply need to go next door to get back to my home reality. I begin to laugh at my situation and the simplicity of my predicament. I laugh myself right back into the true reality, back with my friends outside. I ask and they say they've been following the whole ride with me, listening as I talk to imaginary people and visit imaginary worlds. Their talk starts me laughing again until I realize that even this is not the true reality. I awaken in my bed. My body is in the yogic tree pose (Vrksasana) with both my palms over my heart.

I've never written a dream log before, I rarely remember my dreams but last night was different. Maybe it was the stress of my impending exams, I'm not quite sure, but I woke up twice in the night because of nightmares.

The first nightmare I now have no recollection of. Not a clue. All I can remember is waking up and thinking "Fuck, I haven't woken up because of a nightmare in a long time".

The second was different. I can vaguely remember what it was about but the emotions are still vivid. I was in a vehicle, perhaps a car, plummeting towards earth. I was alone and I'd already concluded that this was the end. I knew in only a matter of moments I would be dead and, being a non-believer, that truly would be it.

Before when I've thought of my death I always imagined it would it would be a moment of fear and pain but in my dream there was a serene calmness. I had already decided that there was no escape from it and all I could do was wait for the inevitable. In fact, I looked forward to it happening.

Maybe this is a reflection of my life? Maybe I'm speeding towards impending doom and there's nothing I can do about it? I don't know. In some ways I'm glad I don't usually remember my dreams. They get me thinking and that can be a dangerous thing.