Dream Log: March 27, 2004

I dreamed of :

Invisible tears of concrete angels

A young artist -Sitting in the cemetery drawing headstones. Acres of burial monuments all around her. Detached at first, then overcome with pathos- that familiar warm lump in your chest.

In a corner of the cemetary a single grey angel knelt above a small stone. Her limp wings rose behind slumped shoulders. Both plaintive hands had open palms aimed skyward. Bespeeching- what?

The girl's drawing was pencil or charcoal. Black and grey mostly, but she added a single spot of blue ink -a small pool under one eye. Not overly dramatic, but symbolic

This was the title she wrote on the bottom of the paper:

2 4 78
10 23 78

I want to paint that image and have it sing of beauty, not of depression.

I had this dream a while back but it keeps popping up in memory, and I smile.

I was in San Francisco, in the center, and then I crossed a small stream to the north and was in a rolling hilly landscape with creeks and lots of old buildings. They were mostly cathedrals with a few offices of some kind belonging to them.

The creeks were flooded, or had been flooded and the roads and buildings had become undermined. Suddenly they all started collapsing, all around me, huge mud brick pinnacles splattering down, right next to me, making me dodge. I never felt at risk really, just needed to take a couple of steps to avoid the next huge pile of bricks and bells and whatnot. It was as if the collapsing followed me as I moved back down to the first creek, heading back into town. The bridge I was crossing collapsed, and I was standing in the water of the creek. One last tower spattered down into the creek and splashed me.

I love the texture and the feel of the crumbling bricks, transforming back into clay as they fell.

There is a large nightclub. The dance floor is huge with a series of balconies overlooking it. A band plays on stage, very animated, very alive, and the dancers are writhing about on the dance floor. I am standing on one of the balconies looking down on them. I am dressed in a long black coat with a white shirt and black pants.

Behind me is a small cocktail table with three people sitting at it. One is the "vampire" I met nine years ago, a woman who tried to convince me that those who have died and returned need to feed off the energy of "the living" in order to quicken themselves. The second is one of the red riders who often appears on horseback in dreams, but here he is dressed only in a red, longsleeved shirt, sipping a drink. The third I do not recognize. He is very dark and shadowy.

"You are very tired. Sit down and join us," says the vampire. I look at her, remembering when I met her in walking life. She explained to me how she preyed upon the weak and needy, offering them what they wanted, never what they needed, but taking what she needed from them in the process.

"I cannot rest now."

"You have had a long journey. Sit. Drink with us."

"What do you want?"

"To reward you for your hard work."

I turn and look back down on the dance floor. I feel the energy rising up from it, a ball of confusion, sorrow, anger, joy and madness. None of it is focused. None of it is going anywhere, aside from bouncing around randomly. Suzy over there used to sleep with Rick, but now she avoids him like the plague. James used to be interested in Sally, but ever since Sally gave him her phone number she hasn't called. Ray is trying not to let his friends find out that he is secretly gay. He is part of a group of "regular guys" who would not receive the information gladly, although one of his friends with him tonight is well aware and accepting. He has problems with the others. Amanda is worried that tonight she'll meet Mr. Right because she just started her period last night and this always seems to happen to her. None of them are after much of anything, except for someone to quicken them, like the vampire at the table does. They are just much less efficient at it.

"Join us, it is on us."

"The house always pays my tab," I remark, somewhat disgustedly, but mostly in a show of pride and power. It is what they like to see. They smile.

"And this house that pays your tab here, do you know who they are? Can you frame a face?"

"The Archangel Anastasia looks after me."

"One should be smarter than to put their trust into fallen angels."

"She is only fallen in your eyes. Anyone that honestly questions the truth and finds their own answers is not fallen. They are enlightened."

"The Angel of the Forgotten and Lost, your precious Anastasia, has no real power. She looks after lost kittens and stray dogs. She only concerns herself with the depressed, hopeless and suicidal zombies that walk your frame. She doesn't even notice the truly blessed."

"And who is truly blessed?"

"Those who rise to their potential. Those who reach the pinnacle of their field. Those who consume and embrace power and strength. You can do much better. You could use what you know and what you feel and see for your benefit instead of wasting your talents trying to help those who are already damned. Now is the time for you to rise."

I looked away from them, staring down at the twisted and contorted emotions that were swinging on the dance floor. I heard the voice, and I saw her face in my mind.

It is now that they shall test you. Be aware. I am with you.

With that, Anastasia is gone, and so is the cocktail table with the dark trio. I fly over the dance floor. I feel tears in my eyes. They rain onto the crowd. Moments later there is a rainstorm inside the club.

There is pure chaos for a time, after which I find myself on a raft floating down a badly flooded city street. A mangy dog is staring at me from a plank of wood he is floating on. I see no signs of human life.

I step off the raft. For four or five steps I am walking on water, then the surface breaks and I sink to my waist. The water is only three feet deep.*

The water was never any deeper than it is now. Remember this.

---

* This eludes to my death experience, where I was on a tiny raft of a river by myself, unable to help people who cried out to me. This was ostensibly because there was no room on the raft for anyone other than me. However, at no point in my death experience did I ever determine or become aware of the depth of the water in the river. If it had only been three feet deep, then it changes the meaning of those events. "There is more to a glass of water than the water and the glass."

This dream has been repeating for the past week, complete only once, in segements the following nights.

I was sleeping soundly in my bed, when something woke me. I opened my eyes with difficulty, and suddenly I was overcome by a horrible sense of dread from the other side of the room, where my roommates normally slept in a bunk bed, though I could tell they weren't there now. I knew what it was; it was some sort of demon, come back for who knows what hideous purposes. I say come back, because it had a feeling of familiarity, this thing. Like it was an old enemy of mine, though now I have no knowledge of ever having had a similar dream, or another in which it was involved.

I never actually saw the monster, there was simply a feeling of horror coming from that side of the room. I was, however, able to pinpoint the exact origin of this fear: the thing was perched on top of the bunk bed, on the closest side to me.

I could hear, in my mind, its plans for me, though I don't remember them now. Whatever it thought to do both terrified and ticked me off a bit, but then something weird happened. Somehow I became suspicious, I started to realize it was a dream. Remembering techniques to check reality I had heard of, I looked down at my hands in search of distortions, but that didn't work because everything was slightly blurry anyway, which my grogginess accounted for. So I thought of another way and grabbed the alarm on the desk beside my bed; sure enough, I couldn't read the time, and the symbols kept changing.

I exalted in my victory over my own head at first, but it was a limited victory. For one thing, it did almost nothing to lessen the fear. And worse, no matter how hard I tried, I could not wake up. A few times, I would try, and wake up back in the dream bed, that same dread blowing over from across the room. I decided to employ my subconcious in assisting me. I picked up a book, checking first to make sure the words were indeed changing, closed my eyes, and focused on how to wake up, asking the book almost like a kid asking a Magic 8 Ball.

When I opened my eyes the book had answered me. It declared "ARMAGEDDON" across the cover. The monster seemed to laugh at me, but I threw the book down and concentrated on ending the world, and the scene disappeared. I woke up in bed, forced my eyes open once again, and realized I was back at the beginning. It seemed I was trapped by my mind.

Well, I thought, why not take advantage of my lucidity and go experience some fantasies? So I got up and walked to the door, ignoring the fear from atop the bunk bed. I walked out into the hall, which was dark. From somewhere came a white cat, and it decided to follow me. I attempted to make the lights come on through power of will, but they refused, and I despaired for a time.

I closed my eyes and felt my body lying in bed, but when I opened them I was stll in the dark hall. I wandered with the cat, climbing a stairwell only to find it dead-end, then beginning downwards. I got ahead of the feline, and when I turned to look across the stairwell to the stairs opposite me, it had transformed into a man. I ran to the base of the stairs and turned, expecting to have to fight the catman, but it never came. My vision began to fade, and once again I felt myself lying in bed.

I opened my eyes, hoping in vain to truly awaken this time. I was angry, I stood up. And then, from somewhere came a strange narrative, "...and that was how the cat fight began." The animal, which had previously seemed my friend, viciously attacked my leg.

I woke up, drenched in sweat (for it was a hot night in Fredericksburg), with Maynard screaming in my ear about his third eye.