33

At record store, beautiful girl behind counter, a group of friends hanging around. Through the window we watch as a weird little man approaches the store. Someone recognizes him for being in love with the woman behind the counter, they are teasing her, and she gets mad. She makes fun of the man who is still outside, saying mockingly, "oohhh, i own a record store toooo, we should hang oouut". The man presses himself against the glass and stays there. She exhaustedly treks outside to confront the man. I'm watching everything intently because I like this girl. There is a heated exchange and she storms off down the street. I run outside as the man starts following her and I follow after them both. She turns into this courtyard where there are people lying in the grass against a fence. The man takes a seat at the opposite side of the court yard and looks on as she bends over to talk to one of the people on the ground and we can see up her skirt. I ask the man, very irritated and sarcastically, "enjoying the view?". He sarcastically replies, "oh yeah, it makes me so happy to see her with him." I look back and she is on the ground now in an embrace with a man who she was talking to. I walk over and crouch beside her. She is crying, he is comforting her. His hands seemingly have free range over her entire body, she asks him "why can't I be gay too?" She is in love with him but he can not love her. I'm watching as he moves his hand wherever he wants to. I touch her too but there is no reaction. I feel her breast and there is no reaction. She is so beautiful but I can't figure where I know her from.

31

In a class room full of young students. They are saying fucked up things and I keep asking "what did you just say?' and telling them not to talk like that. It saddens me to hear some of the things that these kids are saying. There's a little girl that particularly affects me. Teachers enter the room and I try to take them to task for letting children talk like this. I'm informed that this is a gifted and talented class room and these kids are special. Everybody is chastising me and I announce that I used to be special too. I feel upset and embarrassed.

30

With girl walking down street. We get to a steep hill and at the top of the hill I can see a figure waiting for me. I tell girl that she should not walk with me any further. I hide behind a column so that I won't be seen. I am scared. The figure at the top is Nic who I went to high school with and who used to be my friend and who i kind of resent. I don't remember walking up the hill but when I get to the top Nic begins to judge me. As if I'm trying to get into heaven or something. I try to ignore him and stare off into the distance of the valley below. I can't remember what was decided.

29

Girl wants to kiss me. Her face is really close to mine. She pulls away and we are on a bus. She grabs my hand and takes me towards the back. It is night and the only other people on the bus are men having sex with each other. It is alarming to me. We walk past a a threesome involving a fat man who is missing the top half of his head, two men are sucking him off and rubbing his belly. he is smiling. Even though the bus is moving, we step out a back door and into this alley where there are a lot of people having sex, men and women. Another girl greets us, an apparent friend, I think to myself, "huh, so I guess we're going to have group sex." My girl says that she "didn't know that this is what this was." She is mad at the friend and apologizes to me. The friend counts heads, 8 people including me and my girl but we turn around and walk back through the door which we came. The bus is empty now. We go back to the front and sit down. I tell her that I'd heard rumors about stuff like this. We are on our way home.

28

at the store to buy cigarettes. i lost my last pack. looking for a blue pack of cigarettes. I point at a pack and ask the cashier if those are them. He tells me that, yes, they are blue. but is the color important? what kind of cigarettes am I really looking for? I don't know.

27

Just woke up from this horrible dream where I kept passing out and and it felt wonderful, but it kept happening at inopportune times and i didn't want anyone to see it happen. And I'd be walking and i would feel it begin to happen then feel myself falling in slow motion, and blacking out, and waking up somewhere new, I woke up once on a hospital floor. and saw myself leaving covered in blood. Confusing, which was the real me? And I'd get up and walk again but staggeringly and people would look at me, some would ask what was wrong, and I would try to play it off like it was nothing but just pass out in their arms again. And the worst part was, in blacking out, I could tell I was in bed but I felt like I couldn't get up, like I couldn't move, like I was trapped in between dream and reality.

26

I'm at home with my mom and we are going to meet the rest of the family for dinner. She is sitting at a computer reading my dad's secret emails and the drawers either slide open or she opens them and there's all these sex toys inside. "He got these when he started messing around with her," she says. Boxes of dildos and role playing costumes like Elmer Fudd and Godzilla. I'm shocked. I close the drawers. I'm mad because the family is poor and I think about how much money it must have all cost. My mom is very nonchalant about it. She just says "Yeah," dazedly when I close the drawers. We leave and the restaurant is across the street. Its night time and it looks like Orlando or something, some big tourist trap. There's a guy in a dinosaur costume and I run up to him yelling, "Dad! Is that you?? Answer me!" The man speaks with a British accent and says "Sorry, I'm not your dad though your country and mine have been queeny since the 70's" I think it means that americans and english have sex with each other. I think of Freddie Mercury. At the restaurant I ask Parker how it has been going and I expect him to tell me something negative but he says that they're having a good time.

25

On the phone with Allison who is in the process of crossing the US-Canadian border. She is on foot and in line when her phone suddenly disconnects. I wait and she calls me back, it takes a few minutes. She says she didn't realize it had happened and had continued talking though I wasn't there. I tell her I understand because sometimes I'm so quiet. My mind flashes with so many incidents in which my being too quiet had a negative impact. She starts talking again and doesn't stop even though I purposefully stop talking to see if she'd notice. She gets to the border and tells me I have to hold on while she passes through a metal detector, she says I love you and puts the phone in one of those trays. A few seconds later she picks it up and she's in Canada, she tells me she's cold, which is something she always says.

24

katy and I are working the door at some party. three guys come through to leave. there's one skinny guy who doesn't have a shirt on and hits on katy. I say something like, "Hey, you're barking up the wrong tree, pal" and try to get this group to move along. The guy continues to talk shit as they walk down this long hall way exit and then Katy decides to follow them. I'm like What? Then the party organizers show up, a well dressed man and woman, just as Katy walks out the door and want to know where she is. I tell them to wait, that I'll go get her and I follow this string that leads outside and find her next door with that skeezy guy. They are making out and I try not to be seen. I head back inside but turn around one more time and I think that they see me so I start running back to my post. I tell our bosses that she is on her way back. I'm kind of heartbroken about it and when Katy comes back I ask her why she would go for a guy like that instead of me. The party people tell me I need to lighten up, that either of us could go home with anyone from the party that we wanted to, and that we should go pick someone out.

Inside the party there are lots of tables and chairs and it looks like I'm inside an airport. Lots of people to choose from. There's a buffet line. I chat up two girls and get some food and have a seat next to some old man. My uncle Donald finds me and sits across from me and makes fun of the old man. The guy gets mad, and my uncle says something like , "I'm sorry, I thought you just looked like some person," and the guy says, "I am a person," and my uncle says, "No, but like.... a really simple person."

Then I'm walking down the street with a new girl, someone I don't know. There are homeless people all along the street. She always stops to give every person money or jewelry or anything else that she has. I think about how I could also help these people but I don't want it to seem like I'm just trying to impress her. We arrive at this set of three benches that each has a person sleeping on one. The first one is a woman who is overly appreciative. The next one is a legless doctor, an old chinese man who still wears his scrubs, and the girl gives him a gold necklace that she wears. The next man tells us more about the old doctor and explains that he really needs more than anyone else and that he's also blind. I feel very moved by this to give the man whatever I can. I dig in my pocket for all my change and give everything but the pennies (and one quarter that I save for a vending machine) and then also a fat wad of cash. I feel like its not enough.

Later I'm with my nephew Conor watching him swallow pills.

Why I Love the Dream

First of all, he's an album artist at a time, and in a genre, where albums are rarely meant to be listened to as one cohesive statement. His songs are presented in suites, one song leads to another which leads to another and the last song might reference the first song and its all very well thought out and expertly executed. And each song on its own is full of so many concepts and ideas to begin with. I want to say that the Dream doesn't make R&B, but R&P, rhythm and prog.



His music captures so many different elements of the sounds of our time. Obvious Prince/Michael Jackson/R. Kelly influenced songs (the overlord triumvirate of modern R&B) via Timbaland production techniques with a little H-town screw and lots of A-town hollers thrown in for good measure. And at first when I heard "My Love" ft Mariah Carey, it bothered me that it sounded more like a Mariah Carey song than a Dream song. But when listening to the album, and its like there's a Mariah Carey song chunked in the middle of it, it works so well. It's so brilliant. Because it only adds to the sense of transcendence and timelessness that The Dream creates with the rest of his music.



He uses repetition and melody in a way that makes me think there's a mathematical formula to his music or that he cracked some kind of secret code. His songs aren't challenging but they're stimulating. I don't listen to a dream song passively, my brain follows along actively picking apart the different pieces. It is smart music for the ordinary person.

23

At hospital. I'm walking around and I can feel people looking at me. I don't know where I'm supposed to be or what I should be doing but I don't really care. My senses feel heightened. A very pretty lady doctor smiles at me. No words are spoken but this makes me aware that I have a head injury. My head is wrapped in bandages and when I touch the back of it I can feel warm blood. I sort of start to panic but that doctor is still there and she makes me feel safe. In an exam room I am asked why I am bleeding. There is no reason. I suck a red lollipop and think about the blood and I laugh.

22

at a department store with David and there's a pushy salesman who has these pants for him that he had special ordered forever ago. He doesn't want them anymore. They are red and so are the pants that david is already wearing. So I say, Hey, I've always wanted a pair of these, I'll take them. And the salesman goes away and then instead of David, I'm with my old friend Leslie. I'm looking at the pants and they are button fly. leslie tells me she's got a pair and that the buttons are fucked up and shows me that the top one is backwards. I thank her for helping me see that and I put the pants back and she thanks me for helping her with that salesman.

21

In guam standing on this old bridge and its raining. I'm with this guy who I don't like but he's telling me all these things I didn't know before and making me think I've misjudged him. Like his name is actually an acronym of a bunch of other names, he's really got like ten names and I think that's cool. Then he tells me about how excellent the irrigation in guam is and to watch how quickly the water disappears from the ground. But its flooding. And he says that although the people there seem lazy and crass, we really ought to give them credit for what they can do with water, or something like that. And I realize he's being a dick. And I don't like him again.

20

I dreamt I was on a football team and I scored a touchdown and did a breakdance in the end zone. I knew I was dreaming and even though it was tacky I felt like it was my only chance ever at a touchdown celebration so I went for it. I watched myself from above and thought that it looked awesome.

19

I'm tearing through a cupboard looking for some goddamned zebra cakes and I can't find any. It crosses my mind that I don't even like zebra cakes but I keep looking. I call out to my mom, "who ate all the zebra cakes?!" Her voice replies to find something else. I think I'm in my grandma's kitchen. There is nothing else that I want. There's a lot of girl scout cookies but not any I like. It's all weird kinds like jelly patties instead of peanut butter patties, I try one of those and I like it. Then there's one called charcoal delight which I think no way does this cookie taste like charcoal. It's a gray ring shaped cookie. I take a bite of one and it does taste like charcoal. I spit it out and I can't believe I was dumb enough to taste it because what else would a charcoal delight taste like but charcoal? Yuck.

18

I'm an employee at a grocery store and there is a celebration going on. There are three groups of people; management, good employees, and bad employees. I'm in the third group making fun of people from the other groups. There's a microphone and all the good employees are patting themselves on the back and handing goofy makeshift awards out to one another from the store shelves. It's making the whole party go on forever and I'm just waiting to go home. I dryly remark that I bet the management get on the mic next and started doing the same thing as these stuck up suck up kids.

I'm dating tina fey but learn that she's just using me to seem down to earth and get good press.

17

I'm a really good public speaker and I'm chosen by the New Orleans Hornets to be their press secretary. I ask why me and someone with the team tells me that I'm the best. I can remember standing at a podium and fielding questions from reporters.

16

At a hotel bar, I see my brother and two friends buying drinks. They all look beaten down so I ask what's up and my brother tells me how they had partied all night with this other group of guys, fell asleep in this other room, and when they woke up everyone was gone and they got stuck with the bill. So now they were just spending the rest of their money on drinks. I wrote "WHAT A WASTE" on a napkin and handed it to my brother.

Then I move to this big booth and there's a group of guys in suits there and I realize I'm not in a hotel bar but a really classy strip club, These guys are telling racist jokes, something like if you're blind and talking to a black guy throw your drink at him then lick his face to tell how tall he is. I was mad about hearing this racist joke and so got up and tried to leave. But then a bouncer stopped me, a big black guy, and told me I had to pay my tab. I told him the joke and he shoved me back to the bar where I was handed a bill for 300,000 dollars. I couldn't figure how I had spent so much and refused to pay but the bar tender told me I would have to wait to see the doctor.

So I wait outside for this doctor to show up. I'm in a parking lot and I see him coming, I get scared so I turn around and go back in.

I'm in a grocery store. I'm not alone but I can't remember who was with me. I've got bread in my basket but it's the wrong kind. The people I'm with are checking out but I want to switch my bread. I can't find the bread aisle. I go to the front of the store and find a big pile of jackets and put one on. I leave and someone stops me outside and asks for their jacket back. Now I'm cold and I go in this sauna type room. There's this weird complicated pedal system to get cold water to turn to steam and I try operating it but I end up getting a cold shower. I'm fully dressed though, wearing blue jeans. I give up and soaking wet I go back out into the cold.

I get to work and my boss tells me that next time if I'm cold, I can ask to borrow her jacket.

15

I am part of a group of soldiers or fighters of some kind. Inside a warehouse, men enter with missing or damaged arms or legs and I control a stockpile of replacement arms and legs. I cannot see the fighting but I can hear it, rap music plays in the room that i'm in. It feels good to say encouraging words as I attach new body parts and send guys back outside. I'm unshaven and wear a white coat like a doctor's but I keep it unbuttoned, my shoes are untied. Katy is there at a computer. People check in and she tells them where to go. She's wearing thick glasses and a pearl necklace. I try to talk to her but she just tells me where to go. She points to a sad family in an isolated corner. Her wristwatch is hot pink and I feel dejected.

14

Sitting at my room mate's computer, he's in the kitchen talking but I don't know about what. I'm watching a movie but I don't remember which one. Or I'm listening to all the songs in his itunes and making fun of him. And he gets mad and tells me to get up, he is standing in his door way now, and I very arrogantly tell him that I'm not going anywhere.

13

My family has adopted a black urban youth. I watch him and my brother trying to get along but fighting over my dad. the black kid says, "he's not just your dad anymore, he's our dad now." My brother looks like he's going to kill him. They leave and I start to look for my other brother who I find under a couch in a room that my grandmother is cleaning. I ask him if he wants to go see a movie but he tells me that he's helping our grandma. So I go to my mom and she says that she'll go see a movie with me. We pack some snacks in her very big purse.

12

As I was falling asleep, I could feel myself moving faster and faster until I imagined myself a passenger in a driverless pickup truck. It kept running red lights until it was hit by an 18 wheeler which didn't take long. Then I opened my eyes and rolled over and fell right back asleep and I thought I was in that truck again, I started playing with the radio. No music, talk about the weather, lots of static and I could hear birds, and then I found that TI and Justin Timberlake song and I watched them perform it, through the windshield of the truck, it was dark and rainy, every thing was in grey tones underneath the street lights.

my favorite Dream video

This video recreates a beautiful acid night, wearing those fireworks glasses I like to buy around the fourth of july, maybe getting a little drunk and dancing in a parking lot while Rockin' That Thang plays on a car's stereo.

Celebrity look-alikes:

C bear and The-Dream.

11

In a dark room with my friend Priscilla, possibly underground. There is a wall of monitors playing security video feeds that keep changing. One of the monitors shows a concert. A band is playing and there's a mysterious woman watching from the side of the stage. I recognize the band, Less Than Jake, and the video changes. Now a group of young girls in the back of a car, one is my friend Allie but younger. They are talking about the Warped Tour. The video changes again to show that I am driving the car and it is raining. This makes me uncomfortable so I leave the room.

I come out inside my parents house and its christmas. I see my dad sitting on the floor, opening a gift. I'm standing next to my brother. My dad's gift is a new mattress. He appears happy but I say frantically to my brother, Oh God, but they're getting divorced! My mom is watching from the door way of their room and I think How could I have been so stupid?

10

I catch _____ in my kitchen trying to steal food. I sneak up behind her and see her grab a cereal bar. I surprise her, causing her to drop it when I say "I don't think you'll like that, it's all natural and made with real fruit." She picks it up, looks at it and says "Eww, really?" and hands it back to me. She leaves my kitchen and I'm surprised, but not too surprised, that that worked.

9

The new president of the United States is not Barack Obama but a big intimidating black man with a presence like Michael Clark Duncan's. He is pacing back and forth and making everyone in America extremely nervous. I am standing in the oval office, part of a small group of reporters. Nobody has any idea what is going on.

8

In a comic book store with Lanneau and my friend Peter from high school. I am surprised to see them there. Peter shows me a comic I've never heard of, Pulse Star. Its cover is black with a big pale face, eyes missing. Lanneau's phone rings and I see the name on the display screen says DonnaLee, my aunt. He laughs nervously, says "that's weird. she never calls me,"and ignores the call. Peter says she probably sat on her phone. Then his phone rings again and he doesn't take it out of his pocket. I start looking for Umbrella Academy comics and try to ignore it. Then it rings again and I can tell by the way he looks at me as he answers it that they are having an affair.

7

Putting on a sweater, it gets stuck on my belt as I try to pull it down. One of my arms is stuck up in the air while I tug at the sweater with the other one. I think I look really funny and ask people walking by to stop and look. I ask if it would work for this stage show that I'm developing called Dumb and Dumber and I have to explain to everyone that I would be alone on stage, it's just a one man show, and nobody thinks its funny. That new fat guy from SNL was there and I thought he would laugh but he didn't get it either. 

6

I am running around a familiar apartment complex at night with my cousin and my brother. We are climbing walls, running up and down stairs, and sliding down rails, having a good time. There is a possibility of trouble so we try not to be too loud. There are white cats in the well lit parking lot. My brother starts shouting to me. I run across the parking lot to meet him behind a small building. He asks me about an email address, postalservice@yahoo.com, says that I'm using it and he wants it. I know this isn't true but I think about it and I start to remember having set it up. A light comes on in the small building, I say Just take it!, and we run away in opposite directions. I can see my cousin standing on the roof. He's safe. I hide behind a car.

Dream Fragments

1/22/09 

Freestyle rapping in a record store

1/23/09 

I might be a robot. There is a feeling of imminent doom.

1/24/09 

Superman pulls my blanket from me, causing me to roll off the bed. I wake up before I hit the floor.

5

I'm attacked by a coworker but we aren't at work, we are in a very nice living room. He gains the upper hand and injects a yellow mixture into the bottom of my foot that is supposed to make me become more like him. Things calm down, I'm on a white couch, there are red pillows, he's sitting on the floor.  We are catching our breath and I tell him not to take it personal, but I'd much rather be me, than be him. He looks defeated and I feel sorry. 

4

I am at a mall with Shawn and Lily. We are in an alt. clothing store. Lily tells me that the shirts there remind her of shirts that Jenna designed.  I know that Jenna stole the designs for her shirts from someone else but I don't tell Lily. I need a sweater and think about buying a Red Hot Chili Peppers hoodie but am worried people will judge me for wearing the logo of a band that I don't like. Then I think I see a Pavement hoodie but when I look closer it says Peachment. I've never heard of them before but I decide they are probably a metal band and I don't like them either. There's also one for Stray Cats, which seemed funny to me. All the hoodies are gray with black print and I have to reach real high to pull them down. Shawn is talking about some designer. Rocco or Coco B., and how he's really impressed that the store carries that brand. I roll my eyes because I think he's acting stuck up.

3

I am cleaning up my aunt's house by pushing things around with a long stick. There are two dogs asleep against the far wall. A big neon sign hangs over them that says Sleeping Dogs Do Not Touch or something like that and I'm afraid of what they might be dreaming. As I'm thinking about this, my aunt appears and thanks me for cleaning but asks why I didn't move the dogs. I look back and the sign is gone. 

Later, I'm standing at a toilet and I have to pee but I can't pull my shorts down. I try to pee through one of the legs of my shorts and I make a big mess. There's a sign on the wall that says not to make a mess. I feel embarrassed. I hear someone coming and now I'm naked. I rush to put some clothes on.

2

I'm a child and I'm with my dad, at the front door of our house, he's putting a jacket on me and we're about to go outside. I'm looking at the dining room table. There's a very brightly lit chandelier hanging over it. I ask about my mom and my dad asks sarcastically, "Are you going to take care of your mom? No, that's for Billy Joel." When I wake up, I'm asking myself, Billy Joel?

dream fragments

1/13/09

Fat boy, looks like a potato, makes me feel angry

1/14/09

a diamond ring,  beautiful, awe inspiring

1/16/09

bald man wearing khaki coveralls, name tag says Penis, is a bully

1

I am somewhere desolate and I've been put in charge of rationing foods. There's another guy there who doesn't like that. We argue about it inside of a broke down bus. He says he'll be back and he stomps away. I go to Target. I'm buying basketball cards. My friend _____ is there. She is younger, thinner, and better looking. I recognize that I've been here before. We are in the toy section when I grab her hips from behind to determine if she's fat. I think I'm being sneaky. She asks what I'm doing and I take a picture of her.  I tell her that I could get some better pictures if we could leave Target. She agrees. We leave and it is sunny.

A Dream Within a Dream

A dream within a dream can represent something in life we feel no control over or it could be our self conscious trying to wake us up. I recently dreamt that I was floating in a swimming pool, awoke to find myself in a falling airplane, then awoke again in my bed and late for work. 

Hakeem Olajuwon only dreams of waking up.