In this second sequence of dream journals I am proceeding chronologically.

The first series of dreams is recorded here.

This second series was begun after I started Lacanian psychoanalysis.

3/16/08

A large group of us is travelling somewhere, I believe to a lake for a day of recreation. At some point early in the sojourn I am talking to a friend about dreaming and the different recurring themes we have. I note a medieval motif in mine, and he says, "oh yeah, dragons, sword-fighting, and such."

We park the cars, and I begin leading the group on foot through an urban or suburban area, a tactic which I describe as a "short-cut."

The way becomes steeper and steeper. The road is high in the center with smaller, steeper, "service roads" with houses facing, on either side. I notice that some of the group have gotten off the main road and are down below us to the right. The group down there is my former family: Deb and her mother, and Will and Ben at about ages 6 and 9 (they are presently 28 and 31). They have become marooned on a ledge, the road in front of them so steep they cannot proceed. Ben, in fact, tries impetuously to press on, but simply slides back down the hill after a couple of steps.

I have no idea what to do and don't know how to help, but I try to get down to them by walking along the top of a wall to a rooftop, jumping over to another roof, then going down a step ladder, stepping on an air-conditioner, and jumping to the ground. When I get there, though, they are nowhere to be found, and I've lost my bearings in transit and don't know where to look.

I take off in the only way that is open to me, down, walk a circuitous path between brick walls, and find myself in a large, pastoral clearing above a lake, a place that feels like a private beach. The way I have come down is not a way I can go back; I see that to go back I will have to go through someone's house. Luckily, someone exits the house toward me just then. I ask them if I might be permitted to pass through. The guy says that he called ahead and that is the normal way.

I am very concerned about this because I know that to walk around I will have to go miles to get to the same place, so I implore. The guy and his friend direct me to the gate, where they shine a light on me. I realize there is a video camera and a speaker in the wall. He gestures at the speaker, and I realize I am talking to the proprietor. I beg to be admitted and he mumbles assent.

When I get to the door of the house it is open and an informal dinner party is in process. I pass by a table with 5 or 6 people eating. They say hello but pay me no mind. I pass by several other people until I finally meet my "host."

He appears to be about 30 and has the demeanor of a Hollywood nouveau riche, complete with page-boy haircut and flowing silk robe. I tell him hello and thanks for the hospitality, at which point he draws a toy sword and swishes it in front of me as if inviting me to play, and I realize that my reputation as a dreamer of medieval motifs has preceded me.

I draw a toy sword that happens to be on my belt and banter with him half-heartedly. Then I say, "Look, I have a real one too." I draw from a second scabbard a large serrated knife with a pistol-like handle and hold it up for his inspection. "And the funny thing is, both the toy and the real thing are made to look like guns," I say. He pays no attention to this comment, and I realize that this resemblance is of interest to me but no one else.

He says, though, "I've got the real thing-- check it out." He hands me a pistol, a normal-looking silver automatic. I take it with my left hand, as I now have both the real and imitation "swords" in my right. He also shows me a quite normal looking light automatic rifle. "And this baby," he says, "got me out of many a jam." He puts the rifle to his shoulder and aims it around the room, carefully avoiding the many other guest, who are paying no attention. He pulls the trigger again and again on the empty chamber, making little shooting noises with his mouth. As a gesture of politeness I hold up the pistol and site around the room also, but it is awkward in my left hand and it sways in my grip, now and then aiming at a person, including the host. I start to pull the trigger like he is doing but realize I am not certain the chamber is empty so I don't, but the gun is heavy in my left hand and it feels as if the very weight of it is going to force my finger onto the trigger.

This scares me so I quit aiming and simply hold the gun in front of me to inspect it. There is a paper label on its side that explains that it is a .36 caliber fully automatic pistol, which accepts both shorts and longs. I am surprised because I have never heard of a .36 caliber bore, nor have I ever seen a shell that comes in "shorts" and "longs" except a .22, like the one I had when I was young.

There is music playing, suddenly very prominent. A strange, dark song in a minor key and 3/4 time, something like this...

3/16/08- afternoon

We are in a small town in someplace like northwest Arkansas. I am running some sort of errand when I run across some people singing. I think the singing is lovely, and I recognize one of the singers as one of my sons' schoolmates in their Lutheran elementary school from years ago, S. I speak to her after the song. She is cordial and invites me to come with them to their next concert, as apparently they were travelling by bus from venue to venue, one after another.

We get immediately on the bus and head out of town. I am worried because I left Nanc in the hotel, and we are supposed to attend some other event that evening, but I assume the bus will bring us back after the concert. The songs S's group have been singing have a vaguely Christian feel so I ask her if the group is Lutheran.

She says, "No, I don't go to Lutheran church any more." I ask, then, if they are affiliated with a church group, and she says, "Yes, we are the Temple of the High Way." And she adds further, "Bill, you may think you will find happiness in life in some other way than ours, but you won't."

I say, "Well, I've heard that claim made by lots of different beliefs, and it has always been false. I'll be happy to talk to you about this if you change your mind. Or if you just want someone on the outside to talk to about it or about a way out, just let me know. But tell me; this bus isn't going back to town, is it?"

"No," she says.

At that moment the bus slows almost to a stop for a turn, and I open the door and step off.

I am alone on a country road. Down the hill, across a pasture, I see a larger highway with a lot of traffic. I cross a fence and start down across the field. There are farmers working there on tractors; they wave to me disinterestedly.

At the bottom I find a large ditch between me and the highway, full of clear, deep water. I do not want to get wet so I begin walking parallel to the fence looking for a way across. The fence leads me away from the highway into an area where several pastures seem to converge with fences leading to a central area behind some houses.

The houses are up a hill, and I realize I will have to pass through one of the houses to get to the road. I step over several barbed wire fences. I watch the farmers and cowboys working on tractors and in trucks; they pay no attention to me.

When I get up to the houses I see a young woman coming down to her back gate to greet someone else. I ask her if I could pass through to the road, and she replies with a lovely smile, "Of course you can," and holds the gate open for me.

I go to the front gate, run across the road, and immediately stick out my thumb. The first car-- it is a large sedan like a Trans Am or a Thunderbird-- that passes pulls over, but he was going fast and couln't pull over for some distance.

As I am running up to him, a small wedge-shaped sports car roars up and begins buzzing around him, throwing up a cloud of dust, ramming him again and again, though it is so small-- hardly bigger than a go-cart-- it does no damage.

My ride backs in to a nearby garage to escape this troublesome little bee, but the thing is so tiny and determined it slips under the rickety wooden doors and goes careening inside with him. I come up and open the doors into the dense dust just in time to see the little car slide under a wall and become stuck there.

I open the door of the big car, but immediately realize I am turned around and am opening the driver's door instead of the passenger door. I apologize and close the door without ever seeing more of the driver than his hands on the wheel. I go around to the passenger door and get in asking, "Jesus what's with that thing?" But secretly I know the guy in the sports car is after me.

6-3-08

A group of us is walking over to a friend's house at night, perhaps party hopping. Someone, not me, has a dog with them, a 40 lb (or so) solid black mutt. When we get close to the friend's house, we begin to see police lights flashing all around us. We can see one car plainly just ahead and in the lights we see several cops conferring and pointing around the neighborhood. We can also see lights flashing further down the street and across a little park.

The dog suddenly takes off as if in pursuit of something. It ducks into a driveway and disappears behind a house.

When we get to our friend's house we simply wander in. There does seem to be a party going or at least some kind of informal gathering. I wander through the rooms without finding anyone I feel comfortable talking to. I think I recognize some people but am not certain, as if it has been a long time since I've seen them and I'm not sure how they've aged. But they don't seem to recognize me, so I don't address them.

My son tells me he's going to spend the night, and I say OK, though I find this a bit odd. My son used to spend the night here years ago, as they have a son his same age, but our families haven't been close for almost 30 years.

I go out to the front porch and ask some people walking by if they have seen a black dog. "Your basic solid black mutt," is how I describe it. They haven't. I ask someone else if they have seen the rest of my party, and they tell me they have left. I realize then that I am stranded at this party and will have to spend the night here myself. I vaguely remember where the bedrooms are, but the house is large and labyrinthine and I don't know which bedroom my son will be in. As I stand on the porch I watch the lights go out in window after window on the house. I am very tired and say to myself, "I can't believe I let myself get in this situation."

I wander aimlessly a litte, on the sidewalk in front. I can see in through the open door to the house next door. Two men are talking as if making a plan. They abruptly get up and come out, brushing past me without speaking, and go straight into my friend's house. They emerge seconds later laden with cases of beer, which they take back to their house.

6-9-08

We are walking through the city and come to a large event, something like an outdoor concert or festival. I am immediately separated from my companion but this is of no concern to me. I decide to sit in some bleachers, or something resembling bleachers, in the back. It is quite crowded everywhere and I have to walk literally over people to get to a spot in the middle. There the people are smoking a joint and I ask them for a hit and they accommodate. It's too crowded though and I want to move on and begin trying to move down the bleachers.

Directly under me is a sort of platform occupied by a family including some small children. They have a playpen and some other gear set up on the platform. I tell them that I am coming down and will be passing through their space and they grumble a bit and say wait a minute while they rearrange their stuff. I then begin my descent, very carefully, stepping over and around people and down a light ladder. When I set foot on their platform I look out and now realize that it is actually a walled room and there is no place to go from here. "Oh," I say, "I'm sorry. I'll go back up." The tattooed man of the the family tells me that they are performers and I realize that not only is this "platform" a performer's trailer, but the bleachers I was just in is too, and I am actually in a sort of green room area. As I look around I realize all the people around me are performers: midgets, trapeze artists, strong men-- circus personnel.

I apologize to all concerned, extricate myself from the crowd, and walk on down into the grounds. It is beginning to break up; the music acts have stopped. The area, though, is crowded with half-disassembled merchandise stands. I notice large displays of pottery and other colorful merchandise. At the center of the area is a large building in which there seems to be nothing but display after display of Mardi Gras beads. They are arranged in groups by color, so there is an area of red beads and then an area of blue, then an area of a certain pattern, etc. The keepers of these stores, though, are shutting down for the day and cavorting among themselves jovially. One has a long stick raised over his head on the end of which he twirls a bunch of beads.

I go to the back of the building into some smaller rooms with glass partitions, like an old 50's-style business office in a warehouse. I see a woman I know in one of the offices. She is talking to someone earnestly, and I knock on the glass to get her attention. She doesn't hear in the din as the hallway is full of people and everyone is talking.

I walk on a little way until I come to the door that will apparently take me to the room she is in. Just inside the door, however, a group of about ten men are milling about. I attempt to walk through them but am immediately blocked by someone who pushes me back out of the doorway saying "Oh no, no, I don't think so." When he has pushed me out of the room he releases me and straightens my lapel. "You understand," he says, "I have orders."

I realize then that what is going on is some sort of pay session and that the man at center of the group is the manager of this event. He looks like a gangster in a brown suit, cigar in his mouth. I thank the doorman for saving me from an awkward encounter with this powerful and dangerous man, and I start to walk back out into the warehouse. Just at that moment, though, Mr. Big and his entourage decide to leave also and suddenly I am face to face with him in the hallway.

He stops and eyes me up and down. He reaches up (as he is a foot shorter than me) and puts a hand on top of my (shaved) head. "What you got about three hairs up there?" he says. The crowd laughs. I begin to stammer a reply but I am too nervous to think of a jocular comeback. "Check her out," he continues. "She's got feathers." I look where he is pointing and see a woman in his group who has, besides a normal head of hair, two rows of long feathers growing out the top of her head. "That must save on her barber bill," I quip. Mr. Big retorts: "Yeah, she just gets plucked." Everyone laughs.

6-13-08

I walk into the old church I attended as a kid. I have been outside in the cemetery looking at the graves, my parents' among them. There is a service in session as I come in, and I try to get in and sit down as quietly and unobtrusively as possible. This is difficult, though, because the pews have all been unmounted from the floor and pushed over against the walls in disarray, leaving the majority of the room, the middle, empty. The congregation is indeed sitting in the pews but somewhat awkwardly, as many of them are pushed so close together they cannot be occupied.

When I walk in I am immediately in the middle of the room and the center of attention, so I go quickly to one side and attempt to sit down but can't find a pew I can fit in.

9-08

A series of three dreams I had on consecutive nights, and then two more a couple of nights later. I wrote down each of them immediately and posted them, but when I returned to the website to post the last two, the first three were not there. I had, somehow, erased them and had to rewrite them several days later.

1

I am at the old house. Lots of family members are gathered there, as if for a reunion or something. Momma goes out to the back patio at dusk and starts to lay down on the hard stone. I say, "Momma what are you doing laying down on the rocks?" and I hurriedly sweep away the small stones as she lies down and seems to settle in with her head on a stone for a pillow. I lay down beside her, confused. She mumbles a reply but it isn't clear.

Water is dripping from the roof into the rain barrel, and I am concerned it will disturb her, so I tell the maid, who has just come out, to do something about it. The maid is dressed all in white, like a nurse, and she brings out a six foot long glass syringe, places the blunt end of it in the rain barrel, and draws out enough water that the dripping noise ceases.

2

I am at some sort of social or, perhaps, family gathering when I am called away. I have to go check on a house. I am interested in this house but I don't think I own it. I am concerned because I know the house has been neglected for some time and am afraid we may be about to pay the price. But I try to put this out of my mind.

The way to the building is circuitous, not though the streets but through alleys, up catwalks and rickety stairs, over roofs, through windows, etc. Everything is dark, rain-soaked, slick and dangerous. I have to check my footing with every step.

Finally I arrive at the building and enter through the gable. I can hear hammering and such from below and am concerned that renovations are underway on the inside while the exterior is obviously in poor repair and not weatherproof. I peak through a small hole in the floor to the room beneath. The hole is too small for me to see anything so I take my jig saw and enlarge it enough to see that the room is all but finished. The floors are shiny and the walls freshly painted. The room is brightly lit and empty, obviously at the end of renovations.

I walk to the other end of the attic where I can hear noises, but suddenly my jigsaw, which I had left sitting in the kerf, starts up of its own accord and begins cutting a wide circle in the attic floor, which is also the ceiling of the impeccable room below. I run to the saw and turn it off, but already I can hear shouts from below and realize I have been discovered.

Two workmen, dressed in white painters' outfits, come up from below,and one comes, oddly, from above. They confront me in the attic. I try to act cool and say that the saw just started up on its own; I had nothing to do with it.

One of the workmen, apparently the senior, pulls a little injection bottle from his pocket and shows it to me. It has a skull and crossbones on it. I am terrified but pretend to be unmoved.

He then quicky pulls from his picket a syringe and small white mouse. In one fluid movement he draws some poison into the needle, injects the mouse, and throws it at his fellow workers. They recoil in horror, one saying, "My god the skin came right off..."

I know now that I am in serious danger. I pick up a half-full whiskey bottle on the floor and hit the mad injector on the head with it. He sinks dumbly to his knees. I hit him again and he falls. I look at the other two but they are dumbstruck and unmoving. I take out my cell phone and dial 911. "I'm calling for help," I say, and am relieved to see that they are doing nothing. I think they are on my side, that they have resented this man's dominance for some time.

3

I am at a family reunion in the country. It is truly a reunion, as the whole family, living and dead, is there, cavorting in the woods. We are picnicking, eating watermelon and playing games. I decide to take my little granddaughter, who at this reunion is about 10 years old (in actual fact 4 months) horseback riding. I saddle and mount a horse and pull her up behind. We take off at a medium gallop through the woods with Renny (my dog) leading the way.

Renny spooks a small herd of deer and sprints after them until a big buck turns on him, dropping horns and pawing the ground. Renny takes off the other way and we follow on the horse. Suddenly we draw up short in front of a vicious dog on a heavy chain. We do not see the shack he is tied to until coming closer. A man in overalls comes out and drags the dog into the shack, then comes back out to talk to us.

"You must rent this place from my dad," I say.

By way of answer he calls his young son. He gives him a set of keys. The boy goes to the door directly behind me, inserts the key and works the lock to show me that it functions, then gives it back to his father. Apparently this demonstration was to assert their legitimacy by showing they had actual keys.

4

I am talking to my analyst on the phone. He says, "From now on we will talk only about what you do, not about what you imagine."

5

I am at a crowded market, like a Mexican tiangis. A woman I recognize from somewhere walks up to me and hands me a page of sheet music. I look at it but cannot read it. The words are in a language I don't recognize, and the music is too complicated for me to "hear" by just looking at the script, though I try to read and hum it to myself.

She indicates with a jerk of her head that I am to follow her. I follow her to a crowded stand where she elbows her way in and returns with two more pages, apparently of the same music. I look at it more closely. I see one configuration, a sort of trill at the end of a word, that makes me think the song is Irish, and the language Gaelic. In my head I hear a woman's voice singing.

I look at my guide. She shrugs her shoulders and walks on into the crowd.

10-09-08

Driving along a highway in the dusk I come to a place where the road is blocked by an enormous and complex machine. It is as big as a medium-sized house, a huge mass of rusty iron and dripping pipes. An operator sits in a booth and swings a boom around. The enormous hammer on the end of it passes just in front of my windshield. The boom then reaches down, picks up the small bridge in the road just ahead of us, and shakes it as if it were a throw-rug.

It drops the bridge back into place, and the operator gets out and walks away. When he does, I see that he, too, is made of iron, a rust-colored hulk with slits for eyes.

I get out of the truck and continue on foot, since the machine still blocks the road. I have to go through it, climbing up ladders, over pipes and chassis parts.

I am not surprised to find the machine inhabited by small, elf-like creatures. Once they discover me they flock to me and climb all over my body. They are repugnant to me and I want to shake them off but realize, rationally, that they are harmless and the best course of action is to ignore them. But they become troublesome as I continue to climb through the bowels of the machine. I reach up for a hand-hold to pull myself over a large pipe and discover that one of the little munchkins has attached itself to my hand, running its arms and legs through my fingers and holding on for dear life, preventing me from gripping. I drop this hand and try to shake the thing off before I lose my balance, but it only grips tighter.

10-13-08

I am riding my motorycle through town in the snow. It is my old Honda 305 and the town is obviously Fayetteville. I am thinking about the zen of riding in the snow, how you cannot do anything too quickly. I am riding, though, with gusto, popping wheelies and sliding down hills sideways.

I crest a hill and turn down a kind of dirt path or right-of-way. There is no longer any snow on the ground. A large pipe blocks the way, but the dirt has been ramped up on this side so I think I can jump over it. Just in time I notice a chasm on the other side and stop.

Deb comes up behind me with her arms laden with shopping bags, saying, "Is that you?" I understand she is referring to the noise of motorcycle, which she has been able to hear while shopping at the mall. She asks what I'm doing and we chit-chat for a few minutes, then I ride on.

I meet up with Nanc in a rough part of town. She is on her bicycle and has parked it next to a bicycle repair shop. A group of kids comes and parks their bikes there too, then come out suddenly and take the bikes away through the shop. I ask her where her bike is, and she says there, but when I look I see her bike is missing its back wheel. She says the kids must have stolen it. I find what is apparently the bare wheel, the spoke frame lacking the tire and sprocket.

I go inside and hear voices in Spanish. There is one kid standing there, and I ask about the kids who came through, and he tells me that they had the wheel. He points upstairs.

I go to the stairwell and yell up, "Señor, necesito ayuda por favor." A man comes slowly down the stairs, and I begin telling him in Spanish that I want the wheel back. I have trouble with the language, can't remember the word for "tire," and end up telling him that Nanc is a robber rather than that she has been robbed by saying "Ella esta robo."

The guy just shrugs his shoulders and goes back inside. Nanc and I are irate and decide we will call the police. We yell this loudly so he can hear. Before calling, though, I decide I need to change clothes, especially my pants, for some reason. I run down to where my truck is parked, thinking I have a pair there, but I can't find any and remember that I had taken them out last time I cleaned up the truck, though the truck is full of tools and trash.

So I head back to the scene. On the way I have to duck through a narrow passage and find myself being mugged by a young white guy and an older black guy. The black guy holds me painfully by the back. I try to fight but he squeezes harder, and I am paralyzed. I say, "you guys are barking up the wrong tree because I happen to be flat broke." This was, to my knowledge, the truth. I didn't want to lose my bank card but had no cash.

After a little talk, they release me without checking my pockets. I ask the one who had been holding me how he had done it. "Judo," he says.

"Well," I say, "it was very effective."

We are saying goodbye, and they are turning to leave, but I demand that I be shown the way out, as I have forgotten it. Grudgingly, but seeming to feel it is their duty, they agree that the young one will lead me. He sets out walking very fast, and I follow at a trot. He leads me to a chain-link gate. Some other men are just entering, and the gate keeper says, "Oh yes I knew you were gonna be right back out. You're not cut out for this work."

The kid tells me to go inside a door nearby and change clothes before I go. When I go in there the gate-keeper-- some sort of foreman, apparently-- follows me in, continuing to tell me how certain he was that I was not cut out for that job.

There are several of us trying to change clothes in this changing room, but the room is tiny, wet, and filthy, like a cave. I strike up a conversation with someone else changing. I say, "The difficult thing is finding a place to stand," and he agrees.

I am stooped over, trying to find a way to take my pants off without getting my socks wet. I take off my shoes and stand on top of them, balancing precariously.

"You want to see something," says my companion. He pulls at his collar and shows me a cut wound on his throat. "Yesterday morning I just drug the razor right down to my arm. Got more than a hundred stitches. Hurts like hell."

"I bet it does," I say. "All those stitches."

He grins at me but looks worried also. I realize that, while he is trying to cast this as an accident, the wound is probably self-inflicted. He is looking for something to kill the pain, probalby heroin, and I am trying to think of a way to distract him and keep him off drugs.

10-14-08

I am in pursuit of a woman who is some sort of criminal. We are in a vast department store or mall, and I am chasing her through the crowd, but trying to be unobtrusive about it. She stops at a coffee bar and goes through the line. I follow a few customers back, and then I buy a coffee like everyone else. I haven't noticed while in the line, as I have been paying attention only to her, but the men behind the counter are naked from the waist down. They nonchalantly grab each other's phalli as they pass each other in their work.

I follow the woman, just keeping sight of her, up the escalators to an attic level and out onto the suspended ceiling, very high above the floor. It is very dusty and dark here. I have some sense of being watched from the floor, and I think the scene is reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. I even collapse with feigned fear, trying to remember how Jimmy Stewart acts in the film. Theme music plays vaguely in the background.

Finally I move off the rickety ceiling onto a solid-feeling metal duct. This duct is located near some gable windows so it is well lit. The duct isn't big enough to walk on buy I can straddle it an pull myself along easily. There are oddments of things stored on or near the duct that I must move out of my way or go over, as if someone had used the attic to store memorobilia. One of them appears to be a musical instrument case. This piques my interest and I look inside.

It is indeed a saxophone. It is so small I think it must be a toy, but it is obviously crafted like a real instrument of shiny brass inside a plush case. But a noxious smell emanates from it, and I notice that the bell is full of black liquid. The liquid begins to move, and I quickly close the case. Not quick enough, however, as three slimy gray creatures bubble out of the liquid and onto the floor. I realize they have been dormant in the darkness for years, waiting for this moment to be released. They metamorphose quickly into some sort of aquatic bug, with pincers like a crawfish or scorpion, segmented bodies and wiggling tails.

I leave them behind in disgust and move on. I can now get off the duct onto a solid floor and enter a large room where a number of customers are shopping. I know, somehow, that she is in that room. I pick up a small club, like a billy club, and twirl it in my hand as I enter the room.

"Come on out," I say. "Come on out and face the music." The customers look at me, but I am beyond caring what they think. I hear a fart. "Come on out you little pootin' whore," I say.

Then I see her, not in this room but coming down the hallway outside. She is walking deliberately toward me, as if for a showdown. I walk up to her and hit her with the club. She is unfazed, simply stares at me with a defiant smile. I hit her again. The club is light plastic, like a wiffel bat, and has no effect on her.

10-16-08

I am sleeping in a sort of dormitory or camp situation, in a room with several beds and many other people sleeping there. When I wake up I am erect. A woman I do not know, who is apparently the proprietress of this place, comes by and begins fussing with my sheets. She sees my erection and surreptitiously strokes it, glancing around the room to make sure the other people don't notice. This is inordinately pleasurable; I try to shift to make it easier for her to continue.

But I move too far, the sheet slips off, and everyone can see. She is mortified and quickly moves away. Everyone is laughing. I am so embarrassed all I can do is pull the sheet up over my head.