Dreams

Though it might be an odd choice, my favourite book by Jack Kerouac is his Book of Dreams. I love the idea of taking stream of consciousness writing to that kind of ultimate extreme. Not only is it the flowing text of thought, it's thought about the most uncontrolled thoughts we have.

I've dabbled in writing down my own dreams, for my own interest, for therapy appointments, for the hope that others might be interested in the sick shit that happens in my head all night.

In all of this, there are some recurring themes: hotels, elevators, fire. I've consulted dream dictionaries -- everything from the hippie to the Freudian -- and often it seems that my dreams have no deep meaning to them, or have meanings that conflict with themselves.

So here are the bits I remember from last night:

• Going to drop off a writing assignment at my old office, walking to corner of 7th and 23rd, seeing big ad for french fry place, craving fries and hot dogs for dinner, seeing building closed, with tape blocking second entrance, which had big staircase into building. Walking under tape, scraping face, bypassing line of people waiting to get newspapers, going into warehouse room, where JT looking very old was sat on a table supervising. Went to elevator bank and waited for JT. Realised I had dog shit on the hem of my jeans, tried scraping off with shoe. JT finally gets in and doors stay open for long, we all laugh. Elevator begins to move, we have small talk. Dream ends.
• Walking to some sort of garden centre store, then on bus. See MB on a bike, recall conversation that she had just bought one, pass bike store where new bikes are all matte black painted, and used ones are battered but colourful. Get into store to buy a xmas gift for an office party, secret santa recipient is somebody who is dying and leaving, but I also know that I'm going to quit when I'm next in the office. Feel awkward about buying anything. MB comes into store to buy a book -- trashy mass market novel, which I find weird. She asks what I'm looking for, I don't want to tell her, so say a claw thing, and make gesture with hand. She makes comment about don't cats come with those still. Fluffy grey cat starts walking around in garden display I'm looking at. Rain starts and people come running in. NR is there, looking haggard. We discuss lack of sleep and he says he's been up all night because his twins are in the hospital. I feel uncomfortable because I didn't know he had twins, thought it was just a daughter. He tells of misdiagnosis... of local doctor not thinking anything of the boy's red teeth. On first visit to Dr. H, though, they did belly scans and found that both kids had some sort of heart and stomach problem. Thought it had been cured, but last night they started bleeding and having aneurysms or some sort of attack. He spent all night in the hospital and told me how sweaty he had been there, and how he had to remember to sleep on his side of the bed when he was under the covers there, and not try to sleep on top of the covers on his wife's side. NR wanders off, and I look at tacky frog lawn ornaments. Dream ends.

So those are the two I remember from last night. They usually trickle back into my brain as the day goes on, so maybe I'll add more later.