The Alternate Universe of pj

[pj]

(Beginning a dream journal here.  Lucid sections will be in color, comments in parentheses.)

2008 March 27

I am sharing the stage with Johnny Cash, playing my Steinberger. I have never practiced any of the material, but Johnny assures me it is all very simple and I'll catch on, which I do. We are playing to a smallish but very enthusiastic hall.

Johnny introduces Carl Perkins, who comes out for a song. We launch into it and I'm watching Carl's hands to pick up the progression, but we very soon realize that nothing is coming through the PA except for Carl's guitar. We stop, and I start examining cables. We see that somehow our snake got severed. (A snake, for those who don't know, is the grouped cable that allows the sound board to be placed in front of the stage at some distance. It is like the spinal cord of a professional PA system.)

I remember that somebody I came with had a bag of cables and think that maybe we can use them as a quick fix. I start digging around backstage, but every cable I find is damaged. I come across a friends' huge chocolate lab sleeping in back. (In real life, this dog died last weekend.)

In the meantime, Johnny and Carl have found a video game to occupy themselves with as I was looking around, and the crowd has mostly disbursed, so I leave.

[pete]

(A night full of dreams due to not feeling well.  Only the most recent is decently recalled.)

I am on my way to what I think is a guitar trade show.  I drive down narrow streets until I recognize the hall where it is being held.  I slow down in front of it and hear beeping behind me; there is a man in a van flipping me the bird and apparently cursing me, though I can't hear him.  I speed back up and turn left into a nearby parking lot, noting that the guy passes me by and doesn't turn in behind me.

I walk in and recognize the place as a back hallway of an old local mall.  There is a hall here; I used to go to stamp and coin shows held here as a child.  As I approach doors, I see tables arranged to pay admission.  The doors are closed.  There is a large bulletin board showing all the events, and try as I might I cannot see a guitar trade show there.

I then notice the angry guy coming in the doors, staring right at me.  I brace for whatever might come, but the guy just walks up to the table and says, "I'm in the band."  They let him pass.
--
A fragment of a young boy trying desperately to pull up the bricks surrounding a pair of flower beds.  There is something really important about him being able to accomplish this, but I'm not allowed to help him and so just watch.

[pete]

I am in my parents' basement shooting pool. After the table is cleared, I notice while re-racking the balls that they are chipped and cracked.  I realize that this set of balls is about 40 years old.  I take a few of them up to my dad, who is laying on the couch, and show them to him.  He agrees that we need a new set.

(I have the flu.  I was hoping for a lot of remembered dreams and possibly some lucids last night because I spent most of the day yesterday dozing, but I ended up sleeping solidly through the night and only remembered that bit of my last dream.)
--
I am jamming with part of the band, just doing random improvisational stuff.  Looking around a stairwell, I see T.B., an excellent bass player who has jammed with us before.  He's kind of hiding in a corner, out of sight.  I'm playing bass too, so I walk over to him and say, "We should coordinate something.)  I realize I'm wearing gloves, but find that I can use them to stroke the strings in a way that sounds something like a violin bow.  I find a combination of notes that just sounds amazing and ethereal like this and we begin jamming around it.

[Burns]

I slow down in front of it and hear beeping behind me; there is a man in a van flipping me the bird and apparently cursing me, though I can't hear him.  I speed back up and turn left into a nearby parking lot, noting that the guy passes me by and doesn't turn in behind me.

Do you normally have irate drivers flipping you off? It seems to be pretty common in this state.

[pete]

No, not so much.  Not that I pay attention to anyway.  Been living here too long.

[pete]

I am journeying sort of on foot from the far east side.  It is a pleasant enough day.  My mode of transportation is bizarre; it is a toy open-top truck that is self-powered.  I am using it like a powered skateboard.

I head south into an area I am not familiar with and begin to get concerned about how to find my way back to the west side.  I think that it would be no big deal if I were in a car, but if I take a wrong turn and have to double back or make a big loop it will end up taking a LOT more time.  I walk until I spot a huge clock made out of shrubbery and flowers.  It is obviously quite old but still very beautiful.  (There is nothing even remotely like this in Detroit.)  Lots of people are walking around the perimeter of it observing and taking photos.

A man in a white t-shirt with a black mustache approaches me.  He asks if I know the history of the clock, and I reply that I do not.  He tells me something about it that I don't remember, then mentions that he's in the process of walking back to the west side.  I ask if he knows a direct route from where we are.  He says that he has a route planned.  I ask if I might follow him.  He says yes, but he plans on using a variety of transport modes; foot, taxi, limo and more.  I follow after him, wondering if I'll have the money in my pocket to follow him for long.

I follow him down an alley and soon realize we are walking through a laundry room of a tenement.  I ask if he knows where we're going, and he replies that I don't have to follow him if I don't want to.  I follow him out, through a narrow alley, and then we emerge into a street.  Across the street is a gorgeous theater complex.  It includes a set of drive-in theaters and indoor theaters.  The sun is setting on the complex, and I'm wishing I had a camera with me because the way the light was playing on things was just breathtaking.

[pete]

I am a teenage boy, working in a large, modern shop of some kind.  It is my quitting time, but Mr. M. asks me to go in back and cover the compressors with plastic before I go.  I don't understand why this would be such an urgent need, but I do it anyway.

In the very back of the shop is a huge, complex transfer machine of some kind.  As I split open big plastic bags and drape them over the compressor and drier, another worker comes to thank me.  He explains that they are about to paint this machine and don't want to get paint all over the compressor.  I ask why Mr. M hadn't just said that in the first place - that I would have had no problem with it at all if he had just told me what was going on.  The worker replied, "That's pretty typical of him.  I can't explain it either."

We finish up together and I walk out of the plant's back door.  It is evening, but the building is lit.  It is surrounded by woods.  I am looking for my vehicle, which I expect to be a white SUV of some kind.  I cannot find it, as I walk around to the front scanning the lot.

The front of the building is a showroom for a variety of off-road vehicles.  They range from things that are so big the axles are over my head down to a range of bicycles.  The last bicycle is very unusual, with a wide belt that wraps entirely around the back tire - like a bicycle with a tank tread.

Sitting in the far corner near the last bike is an elegantly dressed middle-aged woman who seems to be a sales rep.  As I pass, she scowls at me and says, "You aren't man enough for THIS bike."

[Burns]

Sitting in the far corner near the last bike is an elegantly dressed middle-aged woman who seems to be a sales rep.  As I pass, she scowls at me and says, "You aren't man enough for THIS bike."

ugh, DCs can be such bitches sometimes! Not a good attitude for a sales rep, anyway.

[Oneironaught]

Did you actually go to coin and stamp shows as a kid? I did for a few years with my Dad. Had got me interested in collecting both. I still have a bunch of coins but don't go out of my way to buy any these days. But my stamp collection was given to Dad a long time ago.

If you're still sick, I hope you stay away from me get better soon.

[Moonbeam]

I know he's gonna dream up a useful invention someday.  If he hasn't already. 

[pete]

Did you actually go to coin and stamp shows as a kid? I did for a few years with my Dad. Had got me interested in collecting both. I still have a bunch of coins but don't go out of my way to buy any these days. But my stamp collection was given to Dad a long time ago.

If you're still sick, I hope you stay away from me get better soon.

I am doing WAY better, thank you!  It's been a touch-and-go week though.  It's been nice to have a "couch activity" like working on Mortal Mist!

Yes, I used to go to stamp and coin shows.  I have a huge stamp collection that was started by my father in the 1920's, but haven't maintained it since I was a kid.

We did anything for entertainment!  If it looked even remotely interesting and was a good way to blow a half a Saturday, we'd go.

I know he's gonna dream up a useful invention someday.  If he hasn't already. 

Yeah... I probably already have.  You'd be surprised at the things I solve in my sleep.  I solved the scrolling problem here in my sleep the other night after being completely stumped by it.

[pj]

(Just an administrative note here; while my alter-ego has done a commendable job, his work here is done for now and I'm taking my dream journal over from here on out.  If it isn't obvious, 'pete' is a user account I have for testing and shaking things down.  After a few comments at DV about how different I seemed to be as an admin, I thought it a good idea to reserve the pj account just for admin stuff and make my presence here 'pete'.  I don't like it, and now that we actually have some membership it seems silly to be confusing anybody.  So we'll call that experiment a 'fail'.)

[pj]

(A night full of dreams with a moment of lucidity.  I won't recount every detail of every dream - there isn't time.)

I am at my parents' house in the old neighborhood.  I am in the garage with my two sisters, and I pull out a big old Evans bicycle.  My two sisters get on with me, one on the seat and one on the rack.  As I start peddling slowly, I hit patches of ice and soon my sister P., far in the back, falls off.  She shouts a few angry words and heads back to the folks' place.

M. and I continue on, circling a couple of blocks and chatting as we go.  Soon we find ourselves dead-ended in a big corn field that I never remembered being there.
--
I am at my parents' neighbor's house, sitting at their basement bar.  I have a 'dream memory' of a big party of some kind the night before that was raided here.  Looking around, I notice big glass jars full of old-fashioned ball candy, but each jar has a sticky note on it with a price.  The cheapest was $12.  I realized that these candies were a way of distributing drugs.
--
I am driving in my '66 Lincoln Continental, pursuing somebody in a compact car through an inner city area.  The streets are narrow and he makes it worse by often heading down tight alleys that my Lincoln will barely fit through.

He makes a sudden turn into a huge building of some kind.  I follow and find we are in a paved tunnel, just barely two lanes.  Behind me now is a semi-driver, tailgating me.  We come to a very sharp descent and the guy I am chasing doesn't even hesitate.  I stop at the top, knowing my brakes are soft and sometimes unreliable.  The truck driver pulls up alongside of me and asks if we should go look it over before trying it.  I am concerned about having blocked the road off completely but agree.

As we walk down the steep incline, the driver talks about how many years he has been driving this circuit, and how he'd be rich if he had chosen a different route going through Oklahoma.  We eventually get to the bottom and find a mechanical shop.  The car blasting through had scattered tools and toolboxes about in the way, so the two of us clean that up and make a clear way through.

We walk back to the top and I'm still concerned about my brakes, so the truck driver goes first.
--
I am on a rooftop of a tall building in an inner city.  I see something cross my vision and shoot off into the distance.  I run to the edge of the building and look down on a beautifully groomed courtyard and out on the skyline and become lucid.

. . . and wake up almost instantly.

[Raklet]

(So we'll call that experiment a 'fail'.)

Agreed.  Both pete and the avatar are :thumbsdown:  I like pj much better.  And the nose wiggling dog is the best!

[Moonbeam]

Well, a lucid moment anyway!  I have so many of those high building and inner-city dreams, in fact I did last night...

maybe you were in the same neighborhood as me.    Next time, we'll run into each other!