Night of 26th October 2009

{Two dreams, with a short waking interval between them... I had a sharp recollection of the first one, but after dreaming the second dream I only remember a few details of the first.}


At sea, aboard the research platform owned by the leader of the conglomerate - I can't recall who he is, but there is a sense that he is not reputable: he's like some kind of mastermind from a James Bond story. There is another on board although I can't remember much of him either. We're in some sort of crisis situation, and I'm warned that I shouldn't flush the toilet. But I flush the toilet and a huge underwater explosion occurs. The sea heaves and rolls and I see the scene as if viewing it from the hull of a ship: a heavy swell tips the boat and I see the platform straining under the disruption.
Nana and me are in the kitchen of the home I grew up in. I notice a jet black, catapillar like, thing on the wooden beam above the hob. It has very striking thick yellow lines on its back - I count three full lines and one partial line. The partial line is the one nearest the tail, the three above it are full. Nana is scared of the insect (as she is in real life) and warns me not to mess with it. I get in closer for a better look as I think the insect is wonderful, and insects are harmless. The lines are now blue, I haven't seen the change; but I am sure it's the same catapillar. I go to touch it, and as I try to mount it on my finger I see a close up of the insect's head, features are indistinguishable, but I notice its mouth is quite sinister, at this moment blue silk (I only guess it is silk) streams out the mouth. I don't know if this is a defense mechanism or an attack. I'd like to think it was defense but Nana is saying "I told you so", and I am a little shocked by the insect's reaction - I'd like to get rid of it now. I go to throw it out of the kitchen window on my left, but as I do more and more of the blue silk streams out of the catapillar, and the silk is attached to me - I can't get the catapillar off me (by connection through the silk). I think the catapillar is dangerous and desperately try to un-attach myself - to no avail. I wake...


I watch a panning shot of the base of a tall building - I sense it is some sort of research building again, although this time it's on land - there are green shrubs all around the base of the building. The panning shot is just like a dolly shot in films, and we are tracking the shrubs along what I somehow know is the right hand side of the building: the side right of the entrance side (if you were walking toward the entrance it would be the side on your left). The shrubs are small, only shin height, but the building seems to be several stories high - made of brick and glass, not a modern design, perhaps something from the 70s. There are many palm sized, thick, square glass blocks in the walls - as is popular on some californian houses. Some of the glass surfaces (windows I think) are dark glass, I think there is a tint of brown in them. I somehow know that the building is in the middle of nowhere, away from population centers, other buildings, etc. As the dolly style shot reaches the end of the wall the scene changes.
We are outside another building. This time an apartment block: tall, thin, not very up-market. Again, I'm looking at it from what I seem to intuit is the right hand side. There is an open entrance space, doorless, on my side, and one (identical design) on what I have intuited is the "entrance" side. Both openings are rectangular (height longer than width), in unadorned, grey, concrete. The car pulls up outside the "entrance-side" opening. A tall, late middle aged, man steps out wearing jet black aviator sunglasses. I notice he has a large belly - just as an executive may have - I notice his height again. He is wearing a sweater - not a sports seater, a wool or cashmere sweater - with cotton pants. All the colors are muted and dark; but I think there is dark green and a kind of overcast grey in there. A woman is with him. She seems quite glamorous for him: slim, younger (but not young), and I think she wears red. They make their way toward the entrance for what I can only guess is an affair or sexual encounter. I notice now that he seems quite hurried. As he is taking the first step through the entrance, he trips, and I see him fall and strike his face on some steps (leading upward). His hands do not come out to break his fall - he seems to fall over flush on his face. It is now, or just previous, that I notice the leader of the conglomerate (from the previous dream) heading into the same building - he has come from behind me and on my left, and is heading toward the entrance closest to me. It seems implicit that he was hunting, or after, the man in aviator sunglasses. The leader of the conglomerate is a short, fat, bald man; but has young features for a man as old as he is. He appears from the entrance pulling the woman by her hand - however, she's no longer in red. She is a birdy woman, and reminds me a little of Sondra Locke - but she has short hair. The man in sunglasses, I no longer notice if he has them (they may have been broken in the fall), is behind them and wants the woman back. The scene changes.
Inside the elevator of the apartment block - it is red lighted, or painted red, I'm not sure now - the leader of the conglomerate is ravishing the woman. They both, however, appear as different people. I can't really be sure if the woman is the same woman, she has black curly hair and seems less skinny than before; but although the man is younger and leaner and taller, I sense he is the same person, he still has a suit. His clothes are ripped off, he's almost naked, and hers are less so. He is between her legs, although paradoxically I see she wears a long grey skirt. I sense that the man is having sex with the woman, although I see no image of this - I now see only small details in close up shots. The man seems to be doing it from the ceiling of the elevator (which is going up): he has his arms and legs pushed out with great force against the elevator car walls and is holding himself and the woman up by this effort. I see he has tribal tattoos over his legs, and am shown a close up of his right foot and ankle - pressing against the closed elevator door as he holds himself up. The metal surface is moving (we're going up) and I'm scared for a moment he will be injured (his foot in the doorway) but it turns out to be OK. The surfaces are all red, and his black tattoos look like maori patterns - simple linear decoration. I wake up.

Night of 23rd October 2009 - Partial...

...My father is showing me around town. We make our way to a bar. The bar is a large oval shaped room with a high ceiling, but quite narrow with sharp ends. It feels something like a bar in an up-market hotel - a boutique hotel, modern and designed. The ambient light is purple. An image of the word "VIT" (pronounced V-I-T) is the next thing I see, the only thing. The word is captioned in Japanese speech marks: 「VIT」. I think it's something to do with value-added tax, VAT; but this is not correct. I have the impression that my father knows, voices in the bar are heard debating what VIT is...

Night of 20th October 2009

Nana and I are walking home at night. We're close to the final stretch of the walk: before the small park and crossing the river over to the back streets that lead to our apartment. We're still on the main road, almost exactly the spot where I found a lost passport on the ground in waking life the previous day. But the main road is dark and there are no signs of traffic. The group of yobs and hoodlums are just ahead of us. They are not black, but seem to be hispanic, asian: brown-skinned, youngsters - teenagers and kids. I know they are bad, and are looking to start something. We walk past and I make sure Nana is on my right side, to be furthest from the group, who are on my left. As we pass them, they fan out from the shade of the buildings. I don't know what they did, but it is clear they started something, and it is Nana they threaten. I shepherd her on, past the danger zone; I hit one of the yobs. Somehow one of them has tried to grab at Nana - I find and strike him very violently. The yobs don't fall back, but stop pursuing us. I catch back up to Nana, and turn around to them. I want them to know that I'll attack again more than to know I'm checking if they are following or not. But this seems to provoke the group. I'm running back toward the mass of them and pick one out, I hit him, he falls and I kick him, with all my might, in his face. I'm making my way back. A small boy from their group seems incensed and runs out to me, screaming he has a gun, he seems very cocky. I think I'm scared, but I know I'm more incensed than him, and scream back that I don't give a fuck, and start to attack him too. He shoots me many times but I don't go down, or feel pain, or feel inhibited by the wounds; I know I'm bleeding but I continue the attack. I punch him very hard in the face and continue to beat him, I think I kill him. He collapses under the attack. I want to out crazy him, and show him he is weak, make him afraid of me.
We are sitting in the hospital, waiting for treatment of my wounds. I'm aware of a blood-leaking hole in my shin. My condition is critical but I don't feel weakened or in mortal danger at all. Two of the yobs appear at the hospital, sitting in the same waiting room, for treatment of the injuries I've inflicted. They start up verbal abuse again. I'm standing over the youngest one, he is very young, maybe only 7 or 8; but he lashes the most foul-mouthed insults at Nana, and I can't let him live. I smash him in the mouth, and he starts to cry quietly. Someone feels sorry for him and gives him a picture book to look at. He reads the book and suddenly I'm aware of a pure adolescence in him. I'm squatting down, looking up at him read the book with heavy tears welled in his eyes, but not running down his cheeks. I'm not empathetic or sympathetic, yet. I'm looking very hard at him, trying to judge if he is acting or not - I'm still not sure he has turned over a new leaf, but I'm prepared to believe in it.
I see the other yob, he's the one who shot me - I'm behind him as he still sits in his chair. I have to hurt him, I have to make him sorry and inferior. I strike him, or pull his head, either way his head is over the back of the chair, I am using all my force. I overpower him as roughly as I can. With his head clamped, trying to break his neck over the back of the chair, I lean in and bite his nose hard, biting out a thick curl of flesh. I wake up.

Dream Images From Some Weeks Ago

I can't really remember my dream from last night, but these are some images and symbols that seemed important to me in recent dreams:

(1) The Beast

A hulking great ape of a man is sat down in the laboratory. He seems like a human gorilla (a hairless gorilla with a human face), very similar to Mr.Hyde from the motion picture "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." He has a ripping musculature, and looks very dangerous - just as an uncaged wild animal may seem. But I am not afraid, I'm in awe of him. He has jet black hair, I think. My eye is drawn to him because his face seems distressed and sweat is flowing in a torrent all over his body, as if he were under a running shower head. I notice the streaming water more than anything else. The doctors have syringes in his left arm (the arm visible to me), although they are not stuck "in" as much as slid under the skin - I know because I can see the flesh of his arm tent up as the beast-man is scaredly struggling. There are four needles in his arm, in a square formation, each needle forms a corner of the square, the needle points all point inward in an "x" like manner. (What I suppose is) Sweat continues to gush down him.

(2) Stones from the Cellar

The girl and me are in the cellar of the home I grew up in. I'm not comfortable down there at all, and am in a rush to get up the stairs and out. But I have to do something first. The girl is not scared at all, and waits for me at the foot of the cellar stairs, as if to say "what are you worried about?", whilst I dally on the steps - choosing between escaping or doing what she wants. I am in one of the cellar rooms and have to take four round disc like stones up stairs and out the cellar. I carry them one at a time - not remembering anything past ascending the stairs; as I reach that point, I'm back in the cellar room getting the next stone. The stones are grey, rough, coaster sized and shaped. They look like something a caveman might have made, very imprecise and basic, dusty. I have the last stone at the top of cellar stairs, look down, the girl is waiting for me at the bottom - I know she wants me to come down again, it should be clear to me now that there is nothing to be afraid of. But I'm afraid. I shut the cellar door. I wake up.

(3) Picture at the Museum

The girl/woman (I can't distinguish which) and me are at the museum. We come, or she has shown me, to a huge painting - twice my height tall, twice my height wide, square - in an intricate and classic frame. The picture is a circular explosion of red and yellow colors - like a frozen image of a bomb at the instant of detonation. The paint is roughly daubed, I can see the texture of it. We look silently at the picture together. Although it is a huge and impressive work, it seems a little disappointing to me: the picture tries to depict an explosion, yet is very static - in a museum, not moving, the dried paint daubs, etc. The dream ends.

(4) Red Lettered Message

It feels as though I'm lying in a hospital ward, but it's my room. I know because the bed is a mattress on the floor. I see my desk in front of me, and I see a colleague from my former work. He was a creative director. He's walking on crutches, I see a close-up of his swollen toe. The woman appears next to me on the right, laying in bed as I am, propped up against the pillows against the wall. She's middle aged, but I can't make out her features. She smiles and talks to me, although I can't now remember what she said. I remember I spoke to her in very formal Japanese, which betrays our intimacy, though she is not offended. She asks me something about "Akagi" and I say, deferently, "ah, Akagi-san." She points her red nailed finger to a page in the baseball almanac I have in my hands. The page appears like a diary, or ruled, ordered, page. I see the word "Akagi" in red lettering. The dream ends.

{ "Akagi" could be a compound Japanese word: the combination of "red" ("aka") and "skill" ("gi"); or it could refer to the title of a Japanese Manga story about a character "Akagi" who gambles with his own blood, siphoned off by a drip, at Mahjong. These seem the only possible interpretations of "Akagi" to me at the moment }

Night of 14th October 2009

The girl, I think it's Nana, and me are walking toward the Tsutaya at Roppongi Hills. I am wrapped in a towel as I've just been swimming in the sea - I'm still dripping wet. I am naked underneath the towel and would like to wear something. Although the real Tsutaya is a DVD rental store, it is here an up-market clothing mall. I walk ahead of Nana, anxious to get in the shops and find a pair of adidas tracksuit bottoms that I've been thinking of buying recently in waking life. I enter Tsutaya, Nana is not with me anymore. It's still early in the morning, Tsutaya has only just opened, and there are few sales staff or customers. I'm relieved as I'm sopping wet, naked, and wrapped in a towel. I look for the pants I wanted but the store only seems to sell ladies garments... I see a pair of adequate size for me, although not the color I wanted, and feel relieved. I want to get them before being discovered. Now I realize that being naked and wrapped in a towel, I have no wallet. I wake up.