Monthly Archives: July 2009

talk run

The only thing I remember of dreams from last night, the first back from Europe, is that I was talking to a friend on a sidewalk, on the west side of a north-south street that sloped up to the south, and with a building right next to the sidewalk, and then I ran up the slope on the street, to the south. The sun was maybe to the northwest, and the surroundings seemed to be gray in the main.

limestone stairs

The only thing I now remember from last night, which itself has now lost detail, is that I was in an old city, built of limestone like Avignon; it was late in the day, with low, maybe partially-clouded sun, and there were some stairs going down toward the south from a street that was curving but running east-west at that point; there were walls near the stairs but not necessarily of buildings, maybe just retaining walls. I went down the stairs to a landing; that’s all I remember.

French cooking

Frustratingly, I remembered another scene besides the following one when I woke up, but it faded before I started the post. Anyway, the scene I still remember is that, on a dark gray midmorning, I was going to a French class, the classroom having windows to the west, and there were a number of people I knew there too. I was cooking a savory breakfast in a pot, maybe containing a cheese sauce with ham or sausage, and possibly each other person was cooking something too.

island talk

The only thing I really remember is discussing Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, maybe their languages and location, with some people, and besides that being in maybe a concrete building, somewhat open to the weather, making deep shade, with a solid wall on the north side, seemingly with a ruddy tinge?

sky walls

As I was waking up and trying to recall my dreams this morning, I instead halfway fell back asleep and dreamt some more, so what I remember is a vague collage of walking through a place with concrete walls on both sides and some sort of partial brise-soleil or pergola overhead, maybe a couple instance of this, one being orthogonal and the other with concave walls and an arched, maybe splitting, pergola, with blue sky and angled sun above.

mountain steps

Back from Amsterdam, where lack of computer and busyness prevented me from updating; from last night, in Barcelona, the only thing I remember at all vividly is being on a south-facing mountainside on a maybe partly cloudy day, with roiling cumuli, and the sun high toward the southwest. There was some sort of structure built into the mountain, as we were standing on steps or floors, which were open to the weather, but there was some sort of partial superstructure as well. It was a Mediterranean, quasi-desert landscape around and beyond.

loft kitchen

The only scene I remember much from last night is going into a, I guess, restaurant or restaurant kitchen, in the evening, that was in an east-west wooden house with the entrance on the east side and the kitchen up on a loft floor on the south half of the building, overlooking the entryway and lit by fluorescent light (like a modiification of the RL boatshop). I was bringing in dirty dishes (from a meal nearby) and putting them in the sink, and the restaurant owner, who looked maybe like Bobby Jindal, was appreciative. I know there was more to the scene, like maybe a second restaurant that I also brought dishes to, but it’s become vague.


  • I was writing practice copy in large letters (for a website? maybe a pamphlet? related to the place) in a shortgrass slope with stick; the grass parted just slightly. There was a flat grass way extending ahead to the right toward the south, and there was a higher bank of land on the left toward the east, possibly separating the area where I was from body of water. I talked there also with one of my friends about some classmates’ trip from northwestern Turkey through the Balkans and toward northern Europe. It was maybe partially high overcast but with some blue sky.
  • I was chatting with Helsinki classmates seemingly in the kitchen in Hancock.
  • Members of a largish band, maybe also documentary narrators, were practicing a scuzzy bluesy tune on a stage, from my fairly near POV partially obscured by curtains, then two or three of the bandmembers went to sleep on parked motorcycles in front of a low wall in a dim room lit diffusely by a brightly illuminated incandescent light area at the southern end of the room.
  • I was walking west through a city at night to an exhibit that I wanted to see maybe for the purpose of research; at a street corner or maybe a hallway corner inside the building (it was brightly lit), I went around a scaffolding-like pole to avoid some oncoming Yiddish speakers, who were saying a short phrase, that I’ve forgotten, in English. I got to the slightly sunken level of the exhibit entry and asked one of the receptionists when the new exhibit would be going in, since I had found that the current one was the one I’d already seen. He seemed quite pleased that someone would be e repeat customer. It was somewhat odd to hear him speak American English in such a situation, after a long time in Europe.

hypnagogic states

I didn’t remember anything from last night’s short sleep, nor from this afternoon’s long catchup nap (except for a vague recollection of palling around with friends), but I engaged in a rather rewarding new exercise while I was listening to other people’s reviews during studio final review today. To wit: every time I snapped back from momentarily drifting off, I wrote down in my sketchbook what I had started dreaming about. (When I drift off involuntary like that, I’m usually dreaming even while partially conscious.) Here follows the list of things, copied nearly verbatim from my notes [or maybe elaborated a tiny bit]. In some cases I guess I was still too woozy to write clearly, and in those cases I’ll just write down what the letters look like. Each item in the list is from a different driftoff.

  • Nazis
  • deaf people activism
  • old New Orleans jazz family [dynastic intrigue]
  • Ted Kennedy
  • home machinery accident
  • White Stripes
  • gardening (threats)
  • Barri Xino streets
  • wnding abna
  • despact discount store l dlk . .
  • Newt Gingrich
  • fast food restaurant
  • sdbrnurngwlstik, bez
  • a webcomic
  • Ephtown
  • gym cles lob ot vwt .
  • 9/11 and other disasters body count
  • Black Sabbath doing a cover
  • Animal Collective/Grizzly Bear

dark day house

Didn’t retain much of last night’s dreams this morning because it was one of those loopy post-work-night wakings, but one thing I recall, part of a longer scene, is being part of a gathering of people (WU people, I think) on a dark cloudy day, maybe in the fading light of the early evening, in a meridian-aligned house with a southeast extension forming the entrance; there were few windows and the low-ceilinged, open first floor was lit by sparse incandescent lights, rather like the RL garden shed but larger. I also had an impression when I awoke of wandering through Barcelona streets with high, light-colored walls, but that may have been feverish hypnopompic thoughts and not a review of the dreams I’d just had.