I was in a bar with a man who I did not want to be with & was largely ignoring. I went into detail about how I tried to hang myself. For some reason, I fixed the noose to a hook in a wall instead of somewhere that I could jump from. It was very matter of fact. I was talking about measurements and the quality of the rope.

The lighting in my dream was like the dusty cover of an old, sun-bleached book. I don't remember anything else.

I was in the place I was yesterday, near the used bookstore & the theatre, but everything there was made up & rearranged. None of those stores were real. None of those people were real. I was alone & it was the early morning.

My classmate killed someone & came to me of all people; I immediately turned her into the poilce, though I wasn't bothered by it at all. It felt rather mechanical.

My recollection of last night's dream, in my own quick, half asleep scrawl was: "Just wanted coffee."

Later remembered a dream, (maybe the same), where I wanted a s'more.

I've been debating with myself as to whether or not I've been too indulgent in food & drink, but I suppose my heart wants what it wants.

I wanted to go to the desert, but my family was with me & they said it was a dangerous path. I found it entirely necessary, of the utmost importance in a spiritual way. We were in a car, on a road trip to the desert, and they were sabotaging my plans.

This has become a recurring dream: A spiritual back and forth in the desert: My wishes & my heart tugging against another's good senses.

I took an overly long nap & dreamt that I was looking for fruit in the grocery store. I didn't know where anything was. It was labrynthian, but in a mundane way; it could've been a real grocery store. I was looking for taro root.

I was in a boba shop at the front of a crowded line. I bought a drink & bánh mì & sat by a window.

Think I had a dream about ballet. Despite how it appears here, I’ve remembered most of my dreams & simply have neglected to record them. Lately I’ve been springing out of bed.

Two dreams, one innocuous & one wretched:

Innocuous: I was hitchhiking in a loop. I was showing someone the best ways to get picked up, & after getting someone to stop & driving a ways, I would find myself in the same spot on the road again, back to the woods, like those hitchhiking ghosts you read about, or that I read about as a child at least.

Wretched: (This wretchedness comes from the fact that I truly thought that I was awake throughout this dream, more so than what is usual for me. Sometimes I can draw a distinction & be aware that I am sleeping, but this is not what I’m talking about. While dreams often feel real to me, as they do for everyone, in this dream I had the thought, the explicit thought, that I was awake & not dreaming.) I was in bed, locked into sleep paralysis, & continuously struggled to escape but could not. Instead of breaking out of my sleep paralysis, I would fall back asleep again. In this dream of sleep paralysis, it was akin to a panic attack in that I couldn’t breathe, nor could I move or somehow communicate my immense dread & suffering. I would try to writhe around, and would sometimes succeed, but my muscles would not make meaningful movements & I would simply contort my body. Perhaps describing myself as a tetanus victim would be more accurate, because my jaw was barred shut, the first thing that I was "conscious" of. The wretchedness came from the fact that I believed it was real, but also that it would happen over & over & over again. I would “wake up” & suffer until I fell asleep, with the sensation of being strangled.

A few days ago, a friend described to me an attack of simultaneous sleep apnea & sleep paralysis, in which I think she described being face down, almost suffocating on her bed, & that happened once in my dream. When she described it I found it to be horrible, so perhaps this nightmare was just a feeling of intense empathy.

A dream about hiding in a large house, in a wardrobe & a later dream about being some sort of nun or monastic.

A woman killed her child & pretended she didn’t, revelling in the attention, rousing an investigation into something that she had committed. The dream was presented in a cinematic way, as some sort of investigation, either during or after the fact, very close to a murder documentary, down to the interviews with the people who knew the woman & thought she was “normal” or a good mother, how they never expected her to do such a thing. It was grim & the dream felt filthy. There was an inexpressible sense of fear & disgust, dread, from the people knew what she did.

In the dream, I saw several close-ups of my little brother’s face, who was alive & innocent in all of this. It was so perfectly photographic, down to the pores on his little nose.

...

After waking up, I had a thought about a made up dead child whose femur was broken, an indication of many of an inexplicable brutality, (the femur being the strongest bone in the body); & that when the made up child was found, there was brusing around their wrists from being held captive, the flesh raw from tugging against their restraints. I wanted to stop thinking about it.

I had a dream where I was discussing “heart trouble” & woke up with chest pain.

I was at my own outdoor garden birthday party. Many people were there, imaginary people. I was preoccupied with imaginary extended family & accidentally ignored my friend E, who was sitting alone in front of a small artificial waterfall. I apologized & she wasn’t upset.

I was carrying my friend E on my back, but she was not heavy. I kissed her forehead when I set her down.

“In my dream last night, it was a very spiritual setting, it was my bedroom. It was not daytime nor nighttime, but some other time, either dawn or dusk, I think dusk as it becomes evening. Either way, the light was dim. I had a bird living in my room, a pigeon, a dove & someone described this eccentricity as me being "cultish," they said it was like a "Buddhist cult," whatever that means. I had a distinct lack of desire in this dreamscape & in this dreamself. In my desirelessness was treated like an illness; my father took me to get coffee & I didn't look at the thing. I don't even know what it was in the end. I sat on the bathroom counter, slightly damp, in front of the mirror but did not look at myself. In front of the mirror but without looking into it, or at anything, I was seeing but also blind, I took two birthday candles & set them in my hair like small antennas & lit them. Someone warned me against lighting them, because they said I'd light myself on fire, but this didn't deter me. I lit them & while I didn't catch on fire, I felt the wax melt on my head & it hurt terribly, but I still didn't put the candles out. When I finally looked into the mirror, the candles were completely melted to where I couldn't see them.”

My sister & I were going on some sort of out of country roadtrip, through a desert. We stopped at home & I waited & waited for her so we could keep going, but she was holding me back. When I was driving the car, I found my pair of missing sunglasses. I think I was being (consciously) reckless when choosing our destination.

Interesting timing for this dream. I yelled at my sister to "go fuck [her]self" on the phone yesterday & today, I found a new pair of sunglasses at the grocery store. Not as in I bought them but as in they were someone's sunglasses that they had forgotten on a shelf in the Indian aisle & I took them.

My friend sent me a slew of incomprehensible messages, one of which compared me to a remora in a dirty tank.

I was following a white bunny around, trying to find it. It was nibbling on spring onions.

In another dream, the car started rolling because I forgot to put it in park.

“Strangely, I had a dream about being shot in the chest last night, in my heart, but it was not a scary dream. I’d been shot by a large bullet, larger than a shotgun’s. I fell to the ground on my back & started yelling, not in pain, but for tarot cards. I yelled with urgency that someone needed to bring my tarot cards, before it was too late. Someone came & read them over me, placing the cards on my body like a bleeding table. *I think that perhaps this dream was premonitory.”

*I had chest pains & almost fainted at work the same day.

A dream about teaching. Went up a long elevator with Miss [Redacted] & saw the kids again. Kept calling them by the wrong name. I thought I could stay, but I had to leave.

In another dream, I saw “the last pigeon.” I was in a field of birds & there was this bright white pigeon alone among them. There was a flurry of movement around me, but it was sort of hovering amid everything. I saw it & thought to myself that I was seeing the last one, that they were supposed to be extinct. I remembered this as I saw a pigeon on the way to the bus.

I went to see the ocean, we went, as a family. It was dark & what brought us was some sort of natural phenomenon, higher than high tides, they swept over the beach. We had to watch from a cliff, up on a high place. It was like a tsunami, but without the danger. The ocean took on that same color that it does in all my dreams. That deep blue. Normally I dream of treading the water, but this time I was able to watch safe & sound. My family wanted to leave, but I wouldn’t let them, because it was too important to me. Reminds me of how up in Oregon, the only thing I wanted to do was watch the waves & I could only do it for a few minutes. It made me promise myself that I’d become independent & see the waves as I wish.

Dreamt about the Ikea by my house. I wanted to go to the food court, but I was late for work. Didn't even get to step inside. A girl from high school picked me up to drive me to work. The time was true to my real life work schedule too, down to the minutes.

Unlucky, foreboding, bad dreams. I dreamt of the number four, over & over & over again & it didn’t feel right. It feels like a bad sign. I can’t explain it. The fact that it happened across more than one dream in a night makes me even more apprehensive.

In the first dream, I was at work & we were selling every order for $4, hundreds of orders for $4. We were so busy & no one was tipping me, just $4 orders over & over again. It was so stressful.

In my next dream, I was in line at a convenience store where I bought a pack of cherry cigarettes for $4. I was trying to avoid someone, I think from work, someone friendly but someone that I didn’t want to speak to, so I hopped over the cashier’s counter & snuck my cigarettes into the bathroom, smoking them alone.

This last dream in particular seems bad to me. Really bad. I can feel it. I told one of my coworkers today that I was worried this dream would land me in the hospital & that if I didn't show up for my next shift, something awful has probably happened to me, a personal tragedy unknown to me right now, but coming towards me. They were incredulous, but my other coworkers asked me to explain my dreams again in detail.

I went to a doctor’s office in a trailer & the doctor was this punk lady with an orange mohawk & red sneakers that were also Birkenstocks. She charged me $248 for my visit, which made me somewhat anxious & the visit came with a complimentary pair of the shoes she was wearing in my size, which was size 8 ½ to 9 in the dream. I am an 8 ½ in the real world, so I thought the fact that it was consistent was silly. They also sold boba in the doctor’s office trailer.

I was in a dream that was an old cartoon, like Tom & Jerry. There was this anthropomorphic cat called Mayor Cat & he was blowing out cake candles & eating hamburgers. He wasn’t supposed to do that & we scolded him in a storybook way & the cartoon played in reverse.

& it worked.

I had a dream that I was swimming in the ocean, searching for people, with women & my younger brother, who was younger than he really is, still so young that he couldn’t talk. We were worried about being swept away, or that he would get too cold, but they told me that I would be alright, that I would just breathe the water if I needed to. The waves were choppy & dark. The ocean is never gentle in my dreams: It’s usually cold & dark & dangerous & the waves a dark teal that is close to grey or black, waves that capsize. In my dreams when I visit the ocean, it is never on a boat. I’m always swimming through the water. Even in my dreams, I cannot swim well: I furiously doggy paddled, just enough to stay afloat, yet my swimming was simultaneously strong.

In another dream, I bought some old candles in a heart-shaped box, (clear, glass, with a slightly curved lid that somehow still laid flat), with the intention of praying over them: They were red, & some a dusty brown or white. They belonged to an old author. I want to say that it was Rainer Maria Rilke. It felt meaningful.

I don't remember it, but I had a dream about rape.

Addendum: Laying in bed tonight, just remembered: I was in the city, near a hotel & some highways; I think it was daylight. This group of men was looking at me & I felt scared, & as they started walking towards me, I knew what was going to happen. I shook another man's arm for help & he wouldn't listen to me.

I remember beating the palms of my hands against a taxi window until the driver opened the door. I was worried that I didn't have enough money to get home.

I watched a woman kill herself through self immolation & she said happily, “My a-ha moment; My reason why I was here, why it was worth it: I wish there was one!” She said the last sentence with a smile & then lit herself on fire with a match.

Her daughter was there, watching in fear & disgust. She & her daughter were wearing bonnets & old dresses.

From the eyes of the daughter, I saw her fall into a deep hole after she watched her mother burn, like a grave without an end, the earth swallowing her up & the sky becoming more distant. She was falling.

From a letter sent today: "I had many dreams last night; one where I was waiting for my friend E to "come home," another at school but with an imaginary professor, another where I was trying to sneak into a (perhaps haunted) house under disguise of being a black cat, (I spent some of that dream underwater), another where I was at work, making milkshakes, but I kept putting ice in the cup accidentally & having to restart, & finally, a dream where I was trying to hide from some sort of jailor or officer in a library, pretending to study. Other people were hiding with me too & I lent one of them a composition book only to be mortified of the fact that it likely had diary pages inside. (I often have bad dreams, or dream anxieties, about others catching me either literally like an animal, or catching me in the act of doing something rather innocent or innocuous. I think maybe it's a shame thing.)"

A dream about taking notes.

Someone asked me how I was doing so well, & with a big grin I told them "my superpower" was to not act depressed. I felt weightlessly happy.

A dream where I was in a group of women shooting bows & arrows.

Another dream where I was in some sort of futuristic bunker. The only fruit or vegetable that we had to eat were carrots. We had guns. (Made me think of The Road when I woke up.)

"Resolve, in the middle of the night, walking away from the park, to really live my life, live it fully, ("to be the lights on fences for somebody.") The park was the exact same as the real, childhood one by my mom's, except its pond had expanded itself into a lake, & across the lake were houses, one with lights on its fence. It was beautiful. I wanted to be like them. As I left the park, I had this new sense of resolve to live meaningfully, to be able to do simple things like putting lights on a fence, to not be deterred or defeated by simple, low effort tasks like that one, to be able to do things with ease again.

"As I was running back, I got a phone call & picked it up, but did not answer it. By the light of my phone, I saw another person at the park who was walking, then running when they saw me running back towards it, in a panic. I was worried that I scared them & slowed down to a walk & was immediately overcome by an awful & intense fear, the fear of impending death; dread as I watched them continue to run towards me. My dream had quickly become a nightmare & I woke up in bed, with my heart pounding, scared to shift under my body under my warm covers. (My nightmares are not normally bad enough to wake up from.) When I woke up, I had thoughts of being raped by this dream person, though that didn't happen in the dream. Maybe it was the dream's progression that I interrupted by waking up. I had this intense fear of someone touching my body & felt very small & very human, my body mortal & felt fully cognizant of the fact that I am vulnerable, that I can be killed. It was horrible. People aren't meant to feel that way. I feel too scared to go back to sleep.

I wrote this on my phone & pasted it here. It took me over an hour to summon the courage to get out of bed & even that wasn't courage, it was fear: I felt afraid of a thunderstorm & hurried out of bed.

A dream about a friend that I am not close with anymore, that I hold a bit of resentment towards.

Another school dream. I wasn't where I was supposed to be & felt anxious about it.

Dreams about horses, again and again: Writing a poem about myself & calling myself a horse, comparing happiness to a filly.

Someone saw me blinking, rapid-fire, & asked me what was wrong with me & I told them it was just a tic & they should've noticed it by now. I think I was talking to my dad.

Sitting in the back seat of a nice-ish old car & a man was laying across the seats & wouldn't get his feet out of my face.

Bleeding heavily from scab, blood coming out of me like a squirt gun. Then bleeding heavily from my period, enough to need dishrags to clean the mess. No concern from me though.

A haunted house that seemed like a movie set. Sex.

Nonsense dream(s): Going through a hotel room with a blacklight; kissing a girl from class on the elbow & tucking her into bed; teaching someone to drive, saying over & over again to merge left until I had to take the wheel; telling someone, "I feel uncomfortable around other people my age;" looking at a woman's stomach after a c-section.

I dreamt that I was looking for a shirt to wear to the school today, but the only one I could find was one depicting a topless Betty Boop, which obviously wouldn't do. (I don't own Betty Boop anything. I do not know why I was dreaming of her.) It depicted a bare woman's torso in black & white, almost like a marble statue, but something felt almost pornographic about the shirt.

Oddly enough, there was a kid wearing a Betty Boop shirt in the classroom today; Betty Boop on a motorcycle.

I shot a dog in the head, twice, with a pistol. It was somewhere between a pound & a zoo. It looked like a shitty zoo with linoleum floors, but I knew it was a pound. I shot it even after it was dead. The dog didn't even move towards me, just its head in resignation. It felt like killing Lizaveta. I woke with a feeling of guilt that couldn't be washed away.

Running over old planks on dark waters, softness under my feet, into an old house. Marshland.

I was an android & I was having nightmares, but androids aren't supposed to have nightmares.

The culprit? I watched Jerma stream Detroit: Become Human.

A dream of cleaning dog urine out of a carpet. Kneeling, spray cleaner. I had a somewhat similar dream this month, about my dead dog. I think my dead dog was in this dream too. I wonder why? It's been almost a decade since I've touched him.

Weird random mishmash of dreams: One about my high school German class, but these girls from my current courses were there. Another where I was in the car, looking at telephone wires out the window, & suddenly everything was underwater, the inside of the car too. It was like a deluge & it was hard to hold my head up- Immense pressure. I saw jellyfish outside the window, white lacy ones.

I pulled out a spoon, which was really a knife & someone asked with fear & desperation why I was pulling a knife on them.

A dream about the movie theatre. Not the one I attend, but a fake one, the sort you see in a movie. Red cutains & a balcony. A snack bar like they had in that episode of Spongebob where they eat sundaes. It was nighttime & it was dark. I was eating Lucky Charms.

A dream that I failed a standardized science test. I ran out of time to finish it & part of the way through, I opened my computer to tinker on my website because I had forgotten about the test. I was accused of cheating.

I was trying to make matcha in a wok of all things, over a fire on the ground, reminiscent of a witch over her cauldron. It started raining & even though I was inside, I was also outside, & the rain was putting out the flame. I kept blowing on it, trying to revive it, but it died. There was something nearly desperate about it...

Another dream about horses.

I had another dream or two that I told myself to record, but I laid in bed so long after waking up that I forgot them. It took me thirty or forty minutes to get out of bed this morning. I slept twelve hours.

I had a dream that I missed an important school deadline. I was desperately trying to avoid consequences for it. This dream bothers me more than most others that I've had because of how plausible it is. There's no symbolism to be found here.

It was a lecture on pigeons.

Dream one: I was watching the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with my mom. I was trying to convince her it was a good movie. I told her it was a Jim Carrey movie, so she had assumed it was a comedy. I think I obfuscated the truth a bit & didn't make any effort to correct her. (I've only seen the movie once & didn't particularly like it. It was good, but I've never rewatched it or anything.)

Dream two: I was trying to drown someone in a bathtub.

I was sitting toward the very back of a plane surrounded by strangers. I felt sick to my stomach. I was having a panic attack.

I had a bad dream where I saw my work schedule & saw that I worked every day next week.

I work tomorrow. Only five hours. I feel like I can barely handle that. My boss asked if I wanted more hours & I told them no. My other boss asked how I was & I said if one more thing happened to me I felt like I was going to quit on the spot. They asked what was wrong & I said I don't know, maybe it's just me that's wrong.

I was being chased, at first light-heartedly & then with genuine malice. Someone wanted to hit me.

As I was running around with increasing desperation, I was invited to a birthday party I walked in on, to which I refused. People I knew were there. My brother was there. I told them no. They asked again. I told them no. I ran away to go hide, running with hands on the asphalt, in the neighborhood, my mom's neighborhood, but the party was not at her house.

Urgent thought upon waking up: "Imagine that you are not able. Imagine that you are not a horse.”

I had a dream that someone printed out my diary, a college admissions counselor or something, & told me it was so well written & all I could feel was immense discomfort & fear at the fact they had connected those thoughts to this person.

I felt ashamed of myself, deeply ashamed.

Another dream: I was playing a game with someone & they said to describe where I am without saying where I am. I said I was in Hell.

I was pulling my teeth out, but painlessly. I pulled out most of my back molars, but still had enough teeth in that my smile wasn't affected. (I realize now that of the teeth I pulled, there were too many canines. So many pointed teeth came out of my mouth, but I left all of my canines in, so that part was untrue to life.) I put the teeth in a cup so I could put them back in later, but someone took my teeth & made them into beads for a necklace.

Fleeing the country with a passport & some other papers. I took my diaries with me & it felt like they were a hindrance, but I couldn't leave them. Someone asked me incredulously if I brought all of them with me, & I did.

I have an upcoming school assignment in which I need to spend a certain amount of hours at an elementary school, volunteering my time in classrooms. Last semester, I had a panic attack before the first one & got sick to my stomach before every single one after that, debilitatingly afraid. Last night, I had a dream that my classroom hours went well, that I got along with the children & the teacher. I'm accepting it as a good sign, & that I'm ready to move on from last semsester's circumstances.

Embarassing to admit, but I had a dream some nights ago, between whenever I last recorded my dreams here & now, that I showed this poem I had written to someone, maybe multiple people, & was told it was horrible.

I really wanted to buy some Snoopy candles, but I also really wanted to save my money: self debate.

I had this dream while sleeping in a Snoopy shirt.

I wish I could articulate the setting I found myself in, distinctly dreamlike, but still mundane in many aspects: I went to the movies, the pharmacy, the grocery store, a small bedroom. People would run up to me, calling me by a different name, & see that they must’ve been wrong when there was no flicker of recognition in my eyes. I knew little about myself, not knowing where I came from, beyond vague inklings & preferences. Despite this I had friends somehow, & a lover, people who cared about me dearly.

In someone’s dim bedroom, myself a visitor in the place, I was overcome with a flash of remembrance: I’ve killed myself 99 times & have come back each time. I need to reach 100. I need to kill myself again. I don’t mention it to anyone, but get a sick feeling in my stomach. It must’ve been important, to remember this fact across lifetimes, to have killed myself over and over and over again, to have been reincarnated that many times, giving up my memories. I think about it, but I don’t want to do it, even though I think I should. I feel like I should, that it’s deeply important, a crucial mission, that if I do it, I’ll understand everything. It should be easy, but I hesitate. There are people who care about me in this place, people I care about in return. I have a life where I can use the word “love” freely. I don’t think in any of my previous lives I could express love in any capacity; never a visitor and only a traveler with no attachment to my existence. Maybe I’d lived that way on purpose, but love makes you forget things, & so I forgot.

In light of this revelation, I don’t mention it to anyone, because of this feeling of shame, & of being fraudulent: What would they think of someone who’d killed themselves 99 times over? Would they see this reincarnated self as a counterfeit one? I stay quiet & then I wake up.

I think I had a dream about Ancient Greece, but I don't remember very well. Someone talked to me right after I woke up, which I hate, because it gets in the way of me remembering my dreams.

I was an inventor & created a smallish box, maybe the size of a toaster or so, that could duplicate anything its size or smaller. I spent my dream running around hallways of a school, trying to keep it from being stolen. I could use it to duplicate money & never have to work again.

Swimming through dark, choppy waves, night sky above. People yelling at me*, but I'm not hearing them, or not heeding them: Trying to warn me, trying to tell me that I'm being chased, though there's no hope. Being pursued by a giant sea serpent, brightly colored, like a poison dart frog- neons on black. First it's behind me, then ahead of me. Being eaten, but it's not a nightmare.

*I often have dreams about people who are not really me, but who I refer to as me, because I know what they are thinking & because I am not present in the dream. I'd compare it to being a third person narrator, sometimes omniscient, but more often than not following an unfortunate figure, normally with little control on my part, just observing, like a ghost.

As I was laying down for bed, I suddenly remembered this beautiful dream I had: Snow, beautiful snow. Pink & lavender & periwinkle, a reflection of the sky above. No words. So scenic. So idyllic. I hope I can go back tonight. My little brother was there.

It reminded me of this painting by Nicholas Roerich: And let us not fear (And we're not afraid) 1922

It's probably because I've been reading Greek myths lately, especially before bed, but I had a drea that I had hoodwinked Death himself: Without realizing that it was Death that I was following, he'd taken me up to a space station, & as we were looking down over the Earth, I told him that I'd like to go back now. He told me I couldn't & then I realized, ah, I'm dying. This is what death is. I told him that I'd really like a souvenir, what with it being my first time in space & all, & talked him into taking me back down to Earth, so I could buy some stupid touristy T-shirt. When I was returned to Earth once more, I was alive & well again & he had realized what he had done, but didn't try to kill me a second time. Life went on like usual, though in my hours cavorting with death, I had missed school. I realized my dad was probably waiting at my school to pick me up & here I was, on the side of the road, miles away, & that he probably wouldn't believe me if I'd told him I had died & come back to life.

I spent the last hour of sleep in this weird half asleep half awake state where I had fallen back asleep & didn't realize time had passed when I finally woke up again, but anyways, I had a dream that I was eating an elk & it seemed important somehow... Huge hunks of red flesh in a pot.

Someone came really close to accidentally burning my childhood stuffed animals with a candle. My long dead childhood dog was there & peed on my carpet, to which someone started laughing, but I told them it wasn’t funny at all, it just meant my dog was getting old.

I had a dream that a man had crawled through my window & was standing above my bed, ready to kill me. I held my breath & pretended to be asleep, telling myself that I should scream, I should lunge, I should do anything else. I woke up intensely afraid after such a simple, generic nightmare, the most scared I’ve been in a long time. Something visceral. The silhouette of my old chair made me think there really was someone in my room, & I peeked at it from under the covers like a child. I wished that I could shake someone awake, so they could tell me it was alright, but I’ve reached the stage in my life where I can no longer wake my parents up & have no one laying beside me at night to wake up. In short, I am alone. I also think that I’m more prone to nightmares than the average person.

I had a dream that I was discussing art with someone, & I told them that the important thing about art is that it stirs something in us.

I don’t remember my dreams from this morning, but I do remember that I had several dreams within dreams, like a matryoshka. The only dream from last night I can recall is that I was admitted to some sort of fancy college & was feeling as though I didn’t belong with all of the rich people who surrounded me, out of my league, inadequate. Rococo style architecture. I saw my old English teacher. I blame it on reading The Secret History for two or three hours before falling asleep. I’ve found that my dreams are pretty malleable, easily influenced by my readings. When I was reading Crime & Punishment, I had a dream where I was wandering Petersburg in a haze of self loathing.

Two dreams, mundane & silly: 1) I went for a walk with my sister & took a Sonny Angel with me, I think my tiger one. I was dressed in an outfit silly by even my standards, wearing a lot of different gingham prints & a giant blue fur coat. It was snowy outside, but not real snow, as close to snow as we get here, which is just patches of ice on the ground. She broke my Sonny Angel beyond recognition & I was so angry I cried.

2) We went boutique shopping or something, to which I said “I don’t have the money for this” in every shop we went into. Eventually though, after a strange elevator ride & a walk through some underground hallways, I stumbled into this clothing store that had a box of used Sonny Angels for very cheap & I was very happy, & then I woke up & realized it wasn’t real.

Not sure why Sonny Angels are consuming my subconscious. My only guess is that I was pondering something my sister said to me a few days ago, telling me I was like a monk but with naked babies (Sonny Angels) now that I’ve given my things away & now that I’m going to shave my head. It was nice to have some harmless dreams.

I had a dream that I had a rash, that I was allergic to something in the woods, I think a plant. I was insistent, telling my family, my father, that something was wrong, that I needed to go to the doctor. They wouldn’t listen, till I lifted up my shirt & found that the flesh underneath looked as though it belonged to a burn victim. I couldn’t tell which part of my torso was which; It was just valleys & folds of red flesh that looked moist & glistening, weeping. It hurt to peel my shirt from my skin, like peeling yourself off of a leather seat on a hot summer's day. It was disgusting. I only remembered my dream as I was laying in the bath, looking at my body.

I had a dream where I was very happy so I kissed my friend E on the cheek & squeezed her shoulder, excited about something. I wonder if she's going to receive some good news soon? That's how the dream felt to me.

I am staying with my family in Oregon right now & I had a dream that they were planning to cook & eat me. We weren't here, we were somewhere else, in a city with streets & stalls, & I think something hit me on the head, in the face. Maybe it was them & they did it on purpose. It was a gash on my forehead & my eye, I think the left one. Someone grabbed my han & pulled me away from them & we ran & ran until we reached somewhere underground, but still a city, an underground city & it was filled with people with battered faces like me. I was dazed & in a stupor & the person who grabbed me & dragged me away said I'd need to hide down here where no one can find me. My benefactor was a man, which is odd, because I don't normally dream about men, let alone touching one. The scene panned away from me us as if it were a movie & my aunt & uncle were saying that they'd have to go look for me, or hoped that at the very least someone put me out of my misery. It was as though they were talking about a dog.

I was wandering the streets of some European town, city. It was a city actually. A big, historical one. I think that maybe it was in Russia, only because I was thinking of Crime & Punishment as I fell asleep. I wandered the streets aimlessly, full of self loathing. I wandered into an art school & found that I knew someone there. My throat felt itself close in jealousy when I saw these art students & their friends. I left the art school & continued to wander the streets.

A lot of scrambled dreams. I had two very distinct ones, but can only remember one right now. Lisa & I were classmates & we were going to see a movie together. Because I don't know what she looks like or how her voice sounds, I did not see her, didn't conjure up a fake dream version of her, & she spoke & I understood her but heard no voice. We were going to see The Boy & the Heron together. I suppose I dreamed that because we were talking about it in our emails together. As we made our plans, I realized that I'd have already left for my trip when we were planning to see the movie. Some other classmates, some of them actual ones from last semester's classes, invited us out & I was worried that now Lisa would know my real name.

I was in this game show kind of thing, and I was a young boy by the way, but also Vashti. Anyways, it was a game show where you break into another contestant’s house to find things before a time limit. It was one family against another. This was a holiday themed episode, so we had to look for Christmas decorations in the other family’s house. The other family was up first & the other boy on the team was asking me for hints before they ransacked our house, but I just smiled, because I hid one of the decorations, a snowflake, under my shoe. I think I was cheating. I woke up after that. I have a lot of dreams about thievery & stealing.

I had a dream that I slept in until 1:00 PM & was very late for work. I didn’t have my phone, but I somehow contacted them & they said that since my shift ends soon anyways, I could just stay home. I relaxed & got comfortable & then I actually woke up & realized that was a dream & I have to go to work.

Just remembered the dream I had last night: Someone used my stamp collection! They took my stamps off of my favorite Hello Kitty stamp sheet & used them to send mail & I was fucking irate.

As I was taking a walk tonight, I suddenly remembered a glimpse of the dream that I had last night. I wonder if that's how other people remember their dreams? A lot of the time it's after I've woken up, quite a while after I've woken up.

In my dream, I was holding a woman's arm. I had my hands wrapped around her bicep & we were walking together. I think it was dark & I think I was afraid. It was romantic though, I think.

I was talking to someone about Banana Yoshimoto’s work. We spoke about her by name, so I remember it. They said they didn’t like Moshi Moshi. I was a bit annoyed by this, but acquiesced. Then I asked if they at least like Goodbye Tsugumi. They said they liked Goodbye Tsugumi, but didn’t like Kitchen. I was shocked & thought that they had bad taste, but I was happy that they at least liked Goodbye Tsugumi. I think I would’ve ended the conversation if they’d said otherwise.

I had a dream about zombies, but the zombies were barely the main focus. We, (my family?), went to hide in a comic book shop of all places. Despite it being the apocalypse and all, they still had clerks & a manager & were taking money & the lights were on & functional. I think they even were hosting a board game night- It was business as usual. Over by the cash register, they were selling my favorite sriracha chocolates. I thought I deserved some considering the end was upon us & all.

I have work in a couple of hours & I had a dream that I was at work, a very angry dream. I woke up clenching my jaw. All I really remember is the feeling of wanting to beat a customer with my fists

Before that dream, I think that I had a nice one, because when I woke up this morning, I went back to sleep to keep dreaming that dream, but now I can’t remember it. It’s right on the edge of my memory, right outside being visible, like movement in the corner of your eye.

I had this dream where I was at this library, well kind of a library, kind of a museum. You had to pay to enter, but I didn’t. I was with this girl & she grabbed my hand & we dashed through the door so we didn’t have to pay for tickets. We sat somewhere upstairs & there were lots of windows in the building, but it wasn’t very bright. We sat at a small table with books, which led me to believe that it really was a library.

My friend, my actual friend from my actual life, came & I introduced her to the girl. I think she was my girlfriend, maybe. I felt like she was my girlfriend when she was holding my hand. I don’t know if I’ve ever conjured up a dream girlfriend before, now that I think of it. My dreams normally involve people from my waking life or if I do conjure up a dream person, they tend to be older women. I don’t know why.

My friend was in a nun’s habit, complete with a cross necklace. I think the reason I dreamt of that was because last night, I saw a picture of a Calico Critter wearing a custom-made nun outfit. I think that was the one that my friend was wearing.

I had my friend sit down with us & talk to this mystery person. I was affectionate with her- My friend, not the imaginary dream girl. I think that I was worried that the imaginary dream girl would get jealous or get the wrong idea. In my dreams, I’m normally really affectionate with everyone. I hug & kiss everyone regardless of whether or not we have that relationship in my waking life. When my friend sat down, I wrapped one of my arms around her. I’d tell my friend, because I normally tell people when I dream of them, but I don’t know. I’m not sure how to broach the topic of kissing her in my dream, you know? It wasn’t like it was sexual or anything, but even though she’s my best friend, maybe some things are best left unsaid, yeah?

I’m not sure what else happened. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant or unpleasant dream. I suppose that it was nice to visit with my friend in my dream, but normally the dreams I remember are extremely good or bad or confusing. This one was just a dream, a meaningless one I think. I'm suprised that I remembered it.