Specific to vague

In this dream I was creating a certain number of characters, people of representative kind. The clarity of their definition was high, and each was distinctively different.  I could hold them all in my head at once. When I awoke, I had nothing. Not a single detail or even a good way of explaining what I had built in my head.  

Pygmalion

 I was going to play the role of Henry Higgins in Pygmalion. I drove to the theater but realized I had left my costume (a suit) at home, so I dropped the actress playing Eliza Doolittle there and drove back. Then I realized that I had not memorized my lines either, so I never made it back because obviously I wouldn't be able to do it. Later, I was hearing some people  saying they had seen the play with an understudy doing the part, because the actor had flaked out.  I felt really bad about not having done the part, even though I knew at some level I was dreaming. I stayed asleep and within the dream had to take responsibility and hear the actress scold me for irresponsibility.  Obviously we had never rehearsed. Somehow I had assumed I could do the role just by the force of my voice and personality.  

Lazy

 In this dream, with my ex, we had a conversation in which she was insisting on how hard working she was, in comparison with me, I guess. Because I remember my response:  "So I'm lazy, and you are hard working, but we have had equally successful careers... How do you explain that?"  

Singapore

In this dream I was in Singapore or somewhere like that. I had no idea about the local currency, and found an ATM and withdrew, but I wasn't sure how much, so I did it again. I didn't have the address of my hotel, so getting in a taxi wouldn't do me much good. I was unsure of the language, not at all confident of my Mandarin.   

dream of lecture

 I got out of class in time to hear the last part of a lecture by a young woman from Spain. After the QandA, when people had left, I introduced myself to her and apologized for my lateness. Her hand was warm and damp when we shook hands. We started doing someone called 'michi tichi,' or a comparison of personal tastes, like "me gusta," "te gusta..."  I wondered when I woke up whether michi tichi was real thing (it isn't).  

Dream of creatures

 There were these lizard-like creatures that we were taking care of.  They were furry rather than scaly, and the size of small dogs or cats.  They were clingy, but not cuddly, and we had to watch over them so they wouldn't get too close. A lot of moving from one room to another. I was relieved to wake up and find out that this was a dream and I wasn't responsible for these icky things.  

I wrote this poem in a dream:   

Clean beneath the desk!  

A dream the night before classes start

 I was to perform at some literary event, and had no idea what to do. I was holding a large book in my hand. I had a few ideas, but the other performers went before me and I had forgotten what I was going to do. So when my turn came, I began a monologue, which I improvised almost perfectly, with no ers or ups or hesitations, something like

"Once  upon a time there was a man with a book. He carried it everywhere he went, and it became associated with him like a hat or cigarette with certain film characters. He didn't always read it, but he always had it with him. I don't mean to imply that he didn't read it. At times he would read entire 50 page chunks of it at one sitting...."  

I woke up and then the dialogue could not continue. 

Dream

 There was an anti-Trump movie everyone was talking about. I didn't want to see it because I was afraid I would be irritated by the smug condescending people I thought would be talking about him. I was outside in the lobby of the theater, having seen only the first five minutes. I wanted to hold on to my own brand of anti-Trumpism without this interference!  

A colleague came and wanted to borrow my hat. Then we lost sight of him. Later, it was clear he had gone somewhere else. I thought I would eventually get the hat back. 

There was a bird with distinctive markers flying around. It allowed us to get close. I realized that the bird had a pink sticker of Snoopy on his back. I was asking my friend T to help me identify the bird. The other colored markings seemed to be part of the bird, not attachments like this sticker.  

Dream of a family

 We were connected somehow to a family with many members. The main father figure had had three wives, and adult offspring of all them were around in a large house where the family gathering took place. These are not people known to me in real life, though a few real life people were in attendance as well.  My knowledge of the family and their relationships was detailed in a way that seems improbable upon waking from the dream. At one point, the patriarch, "John," was wearing a blindfold as I spoke to him.  

My mother was at the party too. I had brought her from afar, and wanted to introduce her, but this did not happen. Later, I learned that she had made plans with others, new found friends from the party.  

Two dreams or one?

Two interconnected dreams. Thomas was explaining to me a book he was writing, debunking several theorists. He was going to do Foucault, but not Derrida, because Derrida was "self-refuting" anyway.  

A woman was teaching me various intricate rhythms.  One was called  be-thalymidian or something and was played using an instrument of the same name of the size and shape of a pencil. I struggled to remember the spelling of the word as I was waking, so I could look it up and see if it was real.  

Somehow, the instruction I was receiving from these two people was mutually complementary. I needed to learn both things at once.  

Dream of exploding legs

 There was a family we were vaguely associated with who like practical jokes. One was an effect of having their legs seem to explode and startle everyone. No physical harm was associated with this. It was just noise and commotion.  We protested but the explosions continued.  

Dream of Wallace Stevens Convention

 I was at a Wallace Stevens Convention, though Wallace Stevens didn't come up very much. I was in bed with a woman, but it wasn't sexual at all; those were just the sleeping arrangements. We were back to back. She told me about a citation to my book, in a book called Discourses of Modernity or something like that. 

A dream

 I was taking a dog for a walk but without a leash. When another dog approached us, I lifted up ours in my arms and crossed a street. The dog berated me, saying "bad dog, bad dog" and "bad Prince of Hearts!" Apparently "Prince of Hearts" was my name as far at the dog was concerned.  I told someone about this, but was more surprised by my new name than by the fact that the dog could talk.  

Scrambled dream

 These dreams were scrambled. I was sitting in the back row of a comedy award show, squeezed in among famous comics.  They all decided to go to one of the front row, and I felt two women on either side almost on my lap. The comedy show, though, was mostly music.

***

I was at a rehearsal, and did not have my car. I asked my friend Joe if he had a car there. He looked surprised and said "yes" in an inexpressive way. Then I asked him for a ride and he said "no" in an equally neutral tone, with no apparent emotion. I was thinking to myself that I would have given Joe a ride if the situation were reversed.  Maybe Joe doesn't like me?  So I began to walk home. I was dressed in a bathrobe and boxer shorts. (Joe had also been oddly dressed.) I was at my home town high school to begin with and was going west, the direction of the sun in the evening, but everything looked unfamiliar, with tall buildings where none had been when I was growing up. When I got home I told my family about a "ballet" rehearsal, though earlier in the dream I had been in the music department, looking for a piano to play in an unused classroom, where our choir had rehearsed. 

***

Other parts of the dream were too scrambled to remember.   

A dream

 This dream.  I was writing something, like an exam, trying to find scratch paper not used by someone else already. I kept running out of paper, because not that many words fit on each sheet. 

My essay was called about a game that I called "academia." I explained that it was a game in which one developed projects, like cataloging every instance of phenomenon X, or memorizing a certain amount of information.  

Dream of father and aunt

 My aunt had been working for a winery in a significant role.  I argued with my dad that this was inappropriate,  because my aunt had never tasted wine. He argued that this was irrelevant, did a cancer doctor need to have had cancer? Similar nonsensical arguments. I couldn't get him to see my point at all, nor could I understand his, and the argument turned quite heated. I guess you could work as an accountant for a winery without drinking wine, but her role there seemed more crucial. (Of course, both my father and his older sisters are no longer among the living; none of them drank,) 

Dream of a school / movie

 

I was in a school. The headmaster was stern, and fired a teacher for coming late. Then we were sitting at tables. I was a student and listening closely to what he said. I asked at one point if we were going to have classes or whether we were just sitting around talking all day. He said there would be classes. He had some aphorisms, like "Don't wait any longer" or "Do it now." We discussed it and I guessed the meaning was don't procrastinate. Another was about saying the best thing last, and I said that was about "recency." 

I was eager to know what movie we were in, because in this dream I was a participant in a movie, as myself. I wanted to watch the movie later to get all of the headmaster's ideas. There was a sticker on the door that said "Dark Sabbath," but that didn't seem the right genre. I went out the door unto the street and tried to ask people about what movie featured a school and charismatic headmaster. Nobody could tell me.

Toward the end, I realized I had to catch a train or bus in 15 minutes. I started sprinting down the street. A teacher, a woman in uncomfortable shoes, also had to catch the bus. I was wondering whether to slow down my running so we could go together.  Then I realized I was waking up from the dream and didn't have to rush. 

The pedagogical method seemed a good one: talk to people about ideas. Find solid general principles. The dream seemed to last a good part of the night, and I was making a solid effort to learn and to remember what I was being taught.  

Dream of chess, Beckett, Proust...

I was in a library; I found a suitcase and in it a book titled British Chess.  (I don't play chess in real life but I sometimes try to solve the "checkmate in two moves" puzzles that appear on my Facebook page.) I took it out and went to the desk to check it out, though I knew it was wrong, since the suitcase wasn't mine.  The library employee was giving me the side eye. There was something about the game shown on one page that had held my attention and was to be the basis of some fruitful idea later.  

***

There were a series of misunderstandings about books about Beckett and Proust. I knew I was dreaming so I tried to retain the narrative in my mind, but at the end there was only a book devoted to one of these authors signed by the author, that my father was showing me. 

***

Later, I had a pet python, with large diameter. I was gentle and I had no fear of it, but I resented having to carry it around. 

Sister dream

 There was another sister dream last night.  I was in bed with family, and sister got pushed out on the opposite side where I was. (Next to my brother or daughter?).  She had a black eye from the fall from the bed. Then I remembered she was not alive any more.  

I've had many father dreams after his death, more than 20 years ago. It's not surprising to have dreams about my sister too.  Usually, they are about trying to reconcile myself to their death.  (Unsurprisingly).