March 26; 10:30AM

I went on an anniversary date with a friend a few days ago. He is a nice man, successful in his own right, and we've remained friends for years even with all of my moving. We decided that, after coffee, we would go to one of the bars down the street and have a few drinks since we rarely ever get to hang out. We had a ton of fun and met some new people visiting from out of town, but he decided to leave before it was too late in the night. He confessed some things to me in parting, revealing truths about his perception of me and of our relationship, which mostly I just found shocking. I had never heard anyone give me such a candid perception of who he or she sees me as, or how I effect their life. It was alot to digest. So, I returned to our little crowd and proceeded to drink. And drink. And drink. That night, I fell asleep just before the break of dawn and jolted out of my slumber at the end of this dream.

I was outside, the sun was shining, the field beyond me was a rich golden yellow. It was beautiful and majestic. I wanted to take it all in, enjoy it fully, allow myself freedom to run around and frolic, but there was a piercing pain in my stomach, shallow beneath my skin. I turned around in search of something, and it immediately was night and I was standing in the front yard of a familiar house. I entered (the home being the residence of a close friend) into a room filled with fictional friends and people that I was very close to. And him.

He appeared in front of me, beautiful in a beam of yellowy-lamplight. His face, pale in olive-toned skin, his dark, narrow eyebrows cradling hollow, black eyes. Though his beauty captivated me, it was his smile that always tore my heartstrings. He smiled when he saw me and the group parted away from him. He was always so graceful and angelic. As I walked over to him, my thoughts raced, my stomach clenched with a stabbing pain; I knew this was the moment. I had to risk the pain, the potential heartache, and let him know how I truly feel about him. Once I reached him, he grabbed me by the waist, looked me in the eyes and said, "I've been waiting for you all along."

Later, we are lying next to each other on a couch, naked, in a nondescript room, and I am tracing the lines on his body. I notice that the pain in my stomach has increased and when I sit up, I find that a large, albino snake has broken through my abdomen and has begun wrapping itself around me.

From this point on, until the very end of the dream, there are frames of action where the snake continues to grow as the evening progresses. My beautiful new boyfriend sticks by me unaware of the monster coiled around my torso. I confess to him that I love him, I always have. I kiss him on his face, on his shoulders, on his chest, bathing him in the affections I have waited so long to give him. However, by the end of the dream the snake is so large and terrifying that I cannot reach him, and am no longer touchable.

When my new love reaches out to touch my face, the snake lunges out and bites him in the ribcage. I wake up to the image of his eyes slowly closing and his body going limp in my grasp.

March 21; 9AM

Think: 1920's pulp adventure fiction

The actions were all portrayed in frames, like a comic book. It had the tone of "Little Shop of Horrors", but less comedy. Set in Chicago, the graphics were of a mysterious plant, something of alien origin, that would grow beneath the homes of common evil-doers (thieves, rapists, embezzlers, etc) and kill them in a way that was apropos to their crime.

I am a private investigator, hired by the State of Illinois to uncover the truths in the mysterious deaths of a rising number of politicians in the metropolis.

Frame 1: I enter the home of a potential victim. A darkened living room and fear surrounds me. Something is not right. I hear a scream from another room.

Frame 2: In the dining room, on the window seat perched a large man in a suit. A vine, greener than any living thing on earth, clutched him as if a device of torture. Certain parts of the plant had thorns that ranged from the size of a pin to pencil-width. Since this politician was known for molestation and sodomy the vine was attempting to slowly torture his whole body so he could experience the pain his own victims felt.

Frame 3: I was able to release him from the grasp of the vine by chopping it up with a machete, but we both knew it would return. My fear was in the idea that now, it was in multiple parts and could become more destructive because of this. He was grateful at the chance to continue living, however I wondered if my heroism was worthy in having saved a rapist and alleged child molester.

Frame 4: The next day, he was dead. The newspaper read that he was strangled, stabbed, and dismembered in his office earlier that morning. I wondered if the plant would avenge me for trying to save him. I wondered if I would forgive myself for not killing him with my own bare hands.

Frame 5: An image of the vine growing beneath my bed.

Frame 6: While asleep, it clutches my ankle with a strength so intense my leg went numb within seconds. But the green vine wasn't grasping me to kill, but to scare me only. In a rush I began to realize that the plant was trying to maintain order and justice by it's own means. It made me see that nature cannot rely on humans to maintain order because we are all driven in some ways by evil intentions. It was then that I realized the ruling force over the plant: Fate.

Dream Quote

I'm currently reading Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". In the sixteenth chapter, Tereza (the wife of the protagonist, Tomas) explains the impact her dreams have on her reality.

"The dreams left nothing to be deciphered. The accusation the leveled at Tomas was so clear that his only reaction was to hang his head and stroke her hand without a word.

The dreams were eloquent, but they were also beautiful. That aspect seems to have escaped Freud in his theory of dreams. Dreaming is not merely an act of communication (or coded communication, if you like); it is also an aesthetic activity, a game of the imagination, a game that is a value in itself. Our dreams prove that to imagine-to dream about things that have not happened-is among mankind's deepest needs. Herein lies the danger. If dreams were not beautiful, they would quickly be forgotten. But Tereza kept coming back to her dreams, running through them in her mind, turning them into legends. Tomas lived under the hypnotic spell cast by the excruciating beauty of Tereza's dreams."

Sunday Morning, February 21st

I had a dream while I was in Los Angeles the morning after the Andrew Bird show. The dream felt like a silent film, with no audible dialogue, against a soundtrack of songs by Andrew Bird and was broken up into short vignettes. It is a story about D.

"Quiet, quiet down she said, speaking to the back of his head."

She was telling me to calm down and that everything was going to be fine. I was worried about the time. I'm always worried about time. I was making her rush and she was frustrated with me. She questioned my anxiety, quieted the noise, but she couldn't put out the flames inside.

"Now I'm just another split in your seam; the I in your team."

It all became darkness and it was suffocating. I heard the hollow notes of music playing in the distance, as if on the other end of a long corridor. It was haunting me. He was haunting me. Slowly, a white light grew in the distance.

"I'll do anything you want but I won't be your glass figurine."

She decided she wouldn't do it anymore. No longer was I a person, but morphed, like a Kafkain concept, into an emotional burden. She needed to let go of me but I struggled to be the burden in her heart. Without that, I am nothing.

"'Cause when it comes to misery, when it comes to misery, when it comes to misery no one competes with me."

Without her presence my existence became lifeless. So when strength came to take her away it was all over. The room was bright but the darkness I had become was impenetrable. I was left as a thick, black, hovering cloud lacking a form to inhabit.

"So will you come to burn my effigy? It should keep the flies away. If you long to burn an effigy it should be of a man who's lost his way"

February 14; 10AM

The dreams I have been having the past week are very hazy. Maybe it's anxiety. I've had one recurring theme in about four of my dreams which does not appear frequently for me: flying.

This morning, I was flying over a highway. Trying desperately to win the affections of my stepmother, it was of dire importance that I get to the service on time. I knew that this ability was extraordinary and that I would lose the power to fly once the spark of ambition either blew out or the mission was accomplished. The journey from my car to the church was arduous; flying over mountains, rivers, various lands, and overcoming battles with other flying creatures. Once I made it there, I immediately found a seat while the choir was singing a solemn gospel piece. I looked around at all the people and wondered why they chose to find solace in god, this god, and why I am not able to. I wondered why there needed to be a dark and light. I wanted to fly again. Suddenly, this bitterness bubbled up inside me. It was an enmity that felt like shackles around my wrists and send venom through my veins. The anger paralyzed me. Just then, my stepmom came up to me and she was radiating with happiness, wearing a yellow-striped dress. All of the rage within me halted as she came up to hug me. When she pulled away I looked down at her dress. She was covered in a thick, rich maroon liquid. Blood. Perhaps it was my blood? When she stepped back, I mentioned the chaos on her yellow garment and she looked at herself in horror, then raised her eyes to me and ran off. My shoulders slumped, I exhaled, I felt defeated. I looked down at my shirt and there was not a trace of blood.

January 31; 7:30AM - 11:20AM

This morning I had a dream four times, all with separate endings. It was very mundane and all the characters were fictional, but something very significant came up when I awoke.

It was the bed.

He stared at it for

– how long?

The thoughts rolled in his mind

Of all the emptiness it carried.

The empty people, the cold barren sheets.

What would he do if the emptiness

Lasted forever?

Why would it have to? Yet,

His heart did not seem empty;

Filled to capacity by his companions,

The rapid beating, the pulse

Of their lives within his own being.

Perhaps the only love he’d know would be

The gift of a love stronger than that which he’d settle for

In his bed.

Maybe that was all he ever needed.

January 25; Sometime between 5AM and 7AM

The recess above the casino was hollow and black against the red and gold of the rooms below. I was crawling in the attic of the casino on iron grating, which served as the ceiling of the room I was above. My instructions from my boss were to observe the poker games being played below, taking note of anyone that was cheating. There was one character in particular that seemed very suspicious and I watched him intently, following his hands, eyes, and the movements of his fingers. I noticed he would take a long time showing his hand in the end, doing alot of fidgeting with his legs. What I discovered was that he would hide stolen poker chips under the table and, if he were to reveal a winning hand, would slide his foot out of his loafer and grab extra poker chips with his feet, placing them on the table with his cards without the other players noticing. Just as he is about to make his move, I punched through the grating underneath me and fell on top of him. I yelled out to expose his trickery, but he picked me up and threw me across the table, moving around all the cards in play. As I slid across the table, the man who hired me rolled under the table to the other side in order to dodge my fall. When I was getting back up, I saw my bosses cards and found out he had a stash of Kings in a small crevice underneath the tabletop. I yell out, "You made me a fool!" just as I see him reach towards his belt and grab a revolver. Slinging his arm, he shoots three times. I try and duck from the shots, but as I slowly wake up from sleep I feel three pulses in my neck, and I'm curled up in the fetal position in my bed, my entire body shaking from tension.