DREAM JOURNAL:

I began the process of dream journalling when I was working as a professor at Harvard University in the field of psychology. As my own interests and expertise had begun to focus around oneirology, I began to see the appeal of such a process. Then, when I experienced the first dream detailed in this journal, I began to take such a ritual more seriously. Though that dream is not a formal part of my dream journal, I am including it at the start because of the profound impact it had on my studies and my life as a whole. This dream journal was originally written in a notebook but I am copying it down here on this new website I'm making so that you all can have the full context. The newer entries are near the bottom and are constantly being updated, but the older ones were written before this computer even existed. Funny to think about.

June 21, 1976

My first memory of this dream is of a room draped in red velvet, soft and comforting but alien and uncanny all the same. I entered the room and looked around, only to notice that there was another person in the room with me, who I had seemingly not noticed upon first glance. It was a woman, pale-haired and red-eyed, as though she was afflicted with albinism. She seemed both youthful and timeless, as though she had always been in that room and had just arrived in that room all at once. She was beautiful, captivating, and most importantly, she was surprised at my presence in her room.

I recall that she offered me tea. Cinnamon and lavender. I accepted. There was something about the flavor that has stuck with me. I still find cinnamon and lavender comforting. She asked how I had ended up in her room. Then, puzzlingly, she asked me what the room even was to begin with. I assumed that she would have been the one telling me. How could it be that it was both 'her' room and yet she had no clue what it was or why either of us had ended up there?

I only have a foggy sense of what we spoke about while we sipped our tea. Its more of a stream of colors and senses, rather than a lucid memory of a dialogue between us. There was vivid magenta and delicate pale orange, there was woven crimson and lacey white. I recall only one other strong memory from that conversation and it is this: The woman's face slowly slipping from a confused frown to a carefree smile. And as her smile formed, she became more and more familiar to me until I suddenly knew her name.

Angel.

I believe I said the name to her, but the response she gave me was only one of confusion. I was so sure that Angel was her name but she looked at me like she'd never heard the word before in her life.

The dream continued, but my memories of it are vague and amorphous. As I have become more militant about my dream journalling, my ability to recall dreams has strengthened, but at this time in my life my recall was fairly weak. I do, however, remember how the dream ended.

As we talked, the woman suddenly looked past me. There was alarm in her eyes. I had this irrepressable feeling that she was looking at someone standing behind me. She spoke to someone I couldn't see. She asked them to wait. She told them that I wasn't to be touched. Then her eyes slid back to me. She begged me to leave. She turned my gaze to the wall behind me and suddenly, where there hadn't been before, there was an elevator on the wall. She urged me into it. Then, as the elevator doors slid closed, she gently told me to wake up.

And I did.

My last memory of the dream is that as I left, I couldn't help but feel that Angel looked incredibly lonely. A profound sadness hollowed out my very core.

I ruminated on this dream for months. It was at a time of an important consulting job I had undertaken with a terminal patient. I consider this dream to have planted the seed that formed a lot of my further studies in this domain and helped shape my perspective on the hypnagogic state. It wasn't until years later that I discovered that others had dreamed of this same woman. Her name differed occasionally across countless accounts, but her appearance was always the same: red eyes, red dress, pale hair.

When I learned that others had dreamed of that woman, I gathered as many accounts as I could. I assumed, like with any dream, that the accounts would widely vary. That the room would change, that her actions, her personality, even her appearance and morals might change. But in all of the accounts, from several hundred invidivuals, she has not changed. She is always pale-haired. She is always red-eyed. She is always gentle. She is always kind. She is always lonely.

I commissioned a police sketch artist to draw a likeness of the woman, shaped from the descriptions of the many accounts I had gathered. You can see the result of that commission on this very website, just off to your right. The strangest thing seems to occur sometimes. Occasionally, when I see her out of the corner of my eye, she seems to be moving, as though she is watching me.

As mentioned earlier, I did not start formally dream journalling until a much later date. This dream is the start of that formal journalling. I have not detailed every single dream of mine on this website. I think that some are better left private, for my benefit and yours. Thank you for understanding.

September 13, 1980

Last night I dreamt that I was the conductor of an orchestra. The orchestra seemed to go on forever, with an infinite amount of musicians. There were so many that they flooded out of the auditorium where we were performing and were seated outside in the hall, even out on the street as well, all still playing along with my conducting. The most unsettling part was that every member of the orchestra was me, reflected as if in a mirror. Though the reflections were certainly myself, they were each them incorrect, as though the lens of each mirror was slightly warped. Some were too tall, some had arms that were too long, some had hair that was the wrong color.

I conducted for what felt like hours, until my arms were sore and I tired of the music. I can't recall what song I was even conducting, just that by the end of the dream I was sick of it.

If I were to try to analyze this dream, I think perhaps it might represent an exhaustion with work. A sense of spinning endless plates, for what feels like eternity. My work as a researcher and a professor has overwhelmed my plate a bit and perhaps this dream expresses the attrition that a busy life like that might cause.

Maybe I ought to take a vacation.

November 5, 1980

I dreamt, last night, about a firetruck on fire. The firemen were running around like chickens with their heads cut off, all of them experts on extinguishing fires, but none of them sure how to put out their own blaze. The phrase "Physician Heal Thyself" is brought to mind. Medice cura te ipsum. Greek dramatist Aeschylus refers to this in Prometheus Bound. "Like an unskilled doctor, fallen ill, you lose heart and cannot discover by which remedies to cure your own disease".

I stood on the opposite side of the road. I think it may have been snowing, but the memory is hazy.

None of the other bystanders did anything to help, but they all turned to me in unison and asked me to extinguish the blaze. I stood there and floundered. Eventually I tried to walk over to the firetruck and I believe I reached my hand right into the fire. The pain of the flames licking up my arm was severe enough to wake me up.

My hand hurt for the rest of the day.

July 20, 1981

I had a very long spell between this entry and the last entry in which I did not manage to recall any dreams. Well, that is not entirely true. There were two dreams that I could recall but they were both erotic in nature and I am far too shy to recount them here. Anyway, this next dream is the first one since that.

This dream was an unusual one, but I found it oddly charming.

I dreamed that I was on a beach and I was watching a miniscule little figure wander about, almost like some tiny homunculus built by an alchemist of old. The little figure would gather up sand from the beach and then proceed to build an extensive scape of sandcastles with it. I watched for quite some time. Or at least it felt like that.

The longer I watched, the more it became clear: the little fellow was wasting his time. He would scuttle about building castles, then slowly but surely the sand would slip from its foundation and the castle would collapse. The little figure would continue undaunted, merely gathering up the fallen sand to repurpose it back into a new castle.

I remember that I had an instinct to help, but when I reached out toward the sand, the little fellow cried out at me in outrage. I withdrew my hand. This little action puzzled me for a while after I awoke, but I think I understand it better now as I write this. To aid him would be to insult him. To extend pity. It was more noble to observe him, to watch as he continued his endless, pointless plight and to admire his determination. I also wonder that perhaps by lashing out at me and stopping me from aiding him, he stopped me from meeting the same fate as he.

This dream brings to mind the tale of Sisyphus and his boulder. The eternal pointless task. We often think about Sisyphus as a tragic figure. Though we have also considered how that perspective might change if we imagined Sisyphus happy. I had a slightly diagonal thought that strayed from that. To look upon a Sisyphean effort as an act of noblesse oblige. To shoulder a burden you are capable of carrying so that no one else might have to do so.

Perhaps, though, I am reading too much into this one. Maybe the little king just liked making castles.

December 1, 1981

Last night's dream was a fairly odd one. I found it to be quite unsettling and it rattled me for the rest of the day.

This dream started in the warehouse of a sprawling rusted factory. For a time I wandered the twisting maze of corridors, not really sure where I was even going. Before I really realized it, I was on the factory floor and figured out the factory's purpose. The workers were harvesting teeth. The teeth would be plucked from the mouth and then placed onto a long factory line where they were slowly forged anew into enamel-colored keys. I was not sure what the keys were for or what doors they opened, but an endless stream of keys were created nonetheless.

The workers themselves were blurry, as though they didn't quite have a concrete shape, and I do not recall any specific features except for the same navy blue coveralls that they all wore.

It bothered me for quite some time. I am writing this entry a week after the dream actually occurred and it still sort of bothers me still. I really wanted to know what the keys were for. And yet there was no sign at all of any doors or treasure chests. Frustrating, but then that is the nature of dreams.

April 20, 1982

I stopped journalling for a while after the last entry. Not because of the content of that dream, but because my work life took over and I found little time for it. This return to journalling was mostly because I wanted to become more conscious of what was ailing me and it seemed healthy to spend the time examining my dreams.

I dreamed, last night, about an endless train. Well, it was more like a loop, I suppose. The train circled around onto itself on a circular track so that there was no engine car and no caboose, just one long ring of passenger cars. When you looked out the window, you could see the same train you were standing inside in the distance, headed the opposite direction as it was the far side of the loop. I walked forward inside the train, through compartment after compartment, but evidently, I did not get anywhere.

There were no other passengers on the train, which made the atmosphere rather lonely, even though the train's interior itself was rather lovely. The red velvet seats felt familiar.

I have been reading a lot about the nature of something called a 'chemical ouroboros' lately, in medical journals I was given by a friend. The concept of chemical molecule chains circling back on themselves like the snake eating its own tail. Perhaps that reading is what influenced this dream, the endless train consuming itself.

December 28, 1982

I have been having difficulties at work lately. The school's board of directors are investigating me under claims that I personally feel are rather inaccurate. I am not much of a lawyer or an accountant though, so it is possible I am mistaken. I will nevertheless insist on my innocence, though. I think it might be important to keep forcing myself to journal like this. Even though sometimes we'd rather turn away from examining our own brains, I think that urge just makes it all the more vital that we analyze ourselves anyway. I try to remind myself that these things are a process and that Rome wasn't built in a day. Little steps are what is required for large scale improvement, as I have told countless patients of my own.

I dreamt about whales last night.

They were massive, as most whales are, but instead of swimming in the ocean they were flying in the sky. As they flew, they trailed paths of clouds behind them, writing in the sky like natural calligraphers.

February 14, 1983

This has been the worst few weeks of my life. The investigation has resulted in my termination from Harvard University. To make matters worse, I have been informed that they have legal precedence to redact my published papers. So pretty soon all of the versions of my academic work that exist will incur forced addendums and have important information struck from them. Legally, I am probably also not allowed to repeat any of that redacted information here. I stood on a bridge for a really long time today. I'm not really sure what I was planning. I like to think that I lack the constitution for drastic things like that but all it takes it one bad day. Anyways, before I ramble away like this is a normal journal, let me address the dream I had when I went home from that bridge.

This dream started like a normal dream. I was in a diner, I think. It seemed rather unremarkable, just eating breakfast to the tune of a jukebox. But then, as I finished my pancakes, I noticed that there were no waitresses. There were no other customers either, no chef in the kitchen.

Then the diner began to flood.

The water very quickly reached my ankles. Before I knew it, I was up to my waist. I tasted it and realized that it was salt water, then looked up and found that the diner was gone. I was standing in the middle of an endless pale ocean. The waves were all tainted a pastel pink, perhaps reflecting the sky above.

Perhaps this description paints the picture of a placid, peaceful scene, but it was more unnerving to experience in person.

In the distance, I could see someone else standing on the waves. At first I thought maybe it was my own reflection, but then I blinked and they were closer. I blinked again and they were even closer still. One last blink and they were standing right in front of me.

Where I was waist-deep in the water, this person stood atop the waves like they were made of glass. The figure wore plain, drab clothes, a suit and tie that looked like an accountant's. Over his face he had a sort of burlap sack, emblazoned with a painted symbol. I couldn't recognize the symbol but it looked runic, perhaps occult, in origin.

There was this painful, wavering aura that surrounded the figure, as though he burned with invisible flame. I cannot recall his voice when he spoke. Each time I try to remember it, it sounds different. Sometimes its deep, sometimes its reedy, sometimes its not even a man's voice at all.

He asked if I was happy. I answered honestly.

He told me that he could restore what I lost, if I followed his instructions. I asked what he needed me to do. He told me that there was something he needed to find. Someone had gone missing. He needed help finding them. He leaned in closer and my skin burned as though I was bathed in chemicals. I felt like I was going to die, but strangely, the pain didn't wake me up. Typically pain startles one out of a dream but in this one, it was like I was stuck. Like nothing I could possibly do could wake me up until I gave the figure his answer.

I wanted the pain to stop. Both in the dream and in real life. I almost said yes. But then, I remembered red velvet. I remembered a gentle smile. She didn't want me to do it. I knew that in my heart.

And then I woke up.

July 17, 1983

I took another period away from the journalling. Life just sort of gets in the way. I've been pretty down for a bit so its hard to find the energy to do anything, even just writing down what happens in your dreams. But strangely enough, you also feel guilty for not doing the things you said you do, which only adds to the pain and so I am trying to use that to motivate me.

I dreamt about a flock of birds today. They were like an amorphous school of minnows as they floated and twisted in the air. They came closer and engulfed me and I realized that every bird in the flock was headless, with just bleeding stumps at their necks. They seemed unaware of their own state, as they navigated effortlessly in the air despite the lack of eyes.

The flock tore at my clothing and skin as they passed me, their talons drawing blood.

I'm not really sure how to analyze this one and I'm quickly losing the energy to assess it. I'll do better next time.

January 1, 1990

Alright, I am reading what I wrote last time and I did not do better. Kind of embarrassing. I took a really long time off. I moved out of Boston to a small town. Its weird how much more peaceful your brain becomes when you leave the city. I'm going to try this again because I have been getting back into my old studies. After the University let me go, I did a few odd jobs for a while and I kind of got out of my prior habits but my old passions are slowly returning to me and its kind of nice. Now I'm looking at the calendar its New Year's Day and I have to make a resolution, so here goes, lets try this again.

I had a dream last night that I was tending to a garden. Like in a backyard. There was a planter and a little greenhouse and I had a trowel and watering can and everything. It sounds mundane, but when I stooped over to take a look at what I had grown, I found spinning clock faces on every plant. The center of flowers, the tomatoes on the vine, all spinning clocks. Every time I used my watering can to sprinkle the plants, the clock hands would spin faster.

The only analysis I can summon from this one is the sense that maybe time is getting away from me. Or perhaps that by slowing down and focusing on my old habits, I'm restoring time I thought I lost. Maybe that's just wishful thinking, though. Maybe its just a bad pun my brain came up with about my "biological clock". I know I'm not getting any younger. You don't have to be mean about it, brain.

It does feel nice to write like this again, though. Its sort of like shaking off the rust that crusted over your knuckles and feeling limber again.

October 30, 1990

There was a study I ran back in my Harvard days that polled large swaths of people on how often they actually remembered the contents of their dreams. The result was that most people, on average, only remember one or two dreams per year. I always try to remember that when I look at how sparse my journal can be. I had a...slightly erotic dream last night then woke up, fell back asleep ten minutes later and had a nightmare. That's a whole can of worms right there. I'm just going to write about the nightmare.

This dream started with the feeling that I was being chased. I was in the city, an alleyway. Every time I looked behind me, I could see something just around the corner, just a shape out of sight. It never got any closer to me but it never stopped chasing. For a while I worried that the alleyway would go on forever, but when I finally reached the streets, noone walking by would acknowledge me. There were countless people, all bustling by, but no matter who I stopped, no matter who I shouted at for aid, they would simply walk on by.

I sat in bed for a good long while after I awoke from this dream. I began to wonder if that feeling of isolation was something that had weighed on me more than I realized. Sure, there are less people around me now that I am living in Charity Bay and not the big city, but it feels like it goes deeper than that. I spent a lot of time on my career when I was young. I never found anyone to settle down with. I didn't have the time. But I didn't mind it back then. But now I don't even have a career to show for it. Sometimes it feels like I wasted all that time. I keep getting this aching in my chest when I see people on the street, when families come into the bookstore. This is probably all just spinster rambling. I'll feel better tomorrow.

September 8, 1991

I dreamed about a sentient cloud last night. It followed me around and critiqued my fashion choices. It told me that my dress was passe and that a blind person could have picked a better choice of shoes. I tried to ignore it but every time I walked through a doorway, my outfit would change and the cloud would start all over again. I would walk past other people on the street and it would compliment them, telling them how much it loved that color on them or how slim their dress made them look. But any time my outfit changed, it was back to venom and vitriol.

If I had to ascribe a meaning to this dream, I would posit that the cloud represents the inner critic. The part of us that is harshest to ourselves. Sometimes it can be debilitating. We can be so cruel to ourselves and our creations that we stop creating entirely. At the same time, I think that it can be good to keep ourselves in check. You often see examples of people becoming absorbed in themselves, becoming blind to their own flaws. Like an old director that everyone is afraid to say no to, that can be toxic. It is good to realize when something needs improvement. I wonder if these two sides are distinct from each other. The Inner Cruel Critic and the Inner Constructive Critic. I also wonder, sometimes, that the existence of the Inner Critic implies the existence of its opposite. Do we have an inner cheerleader?

March 17, 1992

Last night I dreamt that I had a banjo on my knee and wanted to play a song. I do not have the ability to play the banjo, or even the guitar, in real life, but in the dream I felt confident that I would be able to play it. The problem was, the banjo didn't want to be played. It was angry with me. It complained every time I reached for a string. In the end, I had to coax notes out of the banjo by giving it a compliment every time I struck a chord. It felt a little patronizing, honestly, and I was a little embarassed on behalf of the banjo, but at least the banjo was happy enough to play. I remember wondering, while I plucked the strings, whether or not the banjo ever played any songs when he was on his own. Did he only play when other people wanted him to or did he do it just because he found it fun. Maybe he didn't need compliments when it was just him alone.

August 26, 1993

I had a dream that I was standing in a long line of employees. We were in some sort of non-descript office building with yellowish grey walls and generic furniture. All of the other people in the line were wearing grey, drab clothing. I was too. The line seemed to go on forever, coiling in and out of corridors, cubicles, breakrooms, copier rooms. Just when I began to believe that the line was infinite, we reached the front of it. The line of employess were slowly, one-by-one, being placed onto a hydraulic press and crushed. The machine slowly tore flesh and flattened bone, until nothing but a seam of blood trickled from the edges of the press. When the machine lifted up again, no body remained. Instead the employee had been pressed flat into a spreadsheet, a milk-white page of rows and columns. Each employee shuffled slowly along to their fate, putting up no sign of resistance or protest. The closer I got to the front of the line, the less I wanted to run away. When it was my turn for the press, I felt like it was the right path for me. And so I laid down on the machine, closed my eyes, and felt my skull cave in on itself. Then I woke up.

October 17, 1994

The dream that I had last night was a rather odd one. I dreamt that I was at a vast banquet with a ton of guests. There had to be around fifty people at one big long wooden table. The dinner decorations were extravagant and shiny, the room lit by elegant candelabras. The only problem was that the food was invisible. The butlers came out and delivered silver platter after silver platter, but they were all empty. The other guests, all dressed in their best regalia, picked up their forks and knives and proceeded to tuck in to food that wasn't there. But I alone was left hungry.

This dream, again, has a theme of isolation. Maybe it's that feeling of being left out, of missing out on the "normal" life, or whatever. This time though, I have to wonder, did I make a wrong choice in this dream? What would have happened if I had picked up my knife and fork and proceeded to eat the air along with the crowd? Would I have not gone hungry?

July 3, 1995

I dreamed about my sock drawer tonight. Honestly, it was really boring. I was counting an endless amount of socks, but every time I pulled a pair out, a new one was in its place. There were striped socks, floral-patterned socks, pantyhose, stockings, sport socks, gym socks, you name it, they were there. I think what woke me up out of this dream was that I looked out of the window in my room. I think the sudden need to imagine a whole town outside of my little bedroom was just too much for my hypnagogic mind to manage at that moment and it startled me awake so fast that I ended up sitting up in bed and staring at my real bedroom window. I do remember there being someone looking in my window, but I think was in my dream, not when I was awake.

This dream was honestly a really boring one. I almost didn't write about it, but ended up doing so anyway because I felt that the ritual act of doing something routinely is important as well. Even if this was a boring one, it was still a dream I remembered so in the dream journal it goes.

June 21, 1995

This marks the point in which I have transitioned from just copying down my old handwritten notebook to writing down the new dreams that I have directly on this webzone. I've been working on this website over the past few months and now that it is live, I may as well just write the entries directly on here. I have also begun to dream more frequently lately. I am not sure what has changed in my life to trigger this. I am still doing the same routine I have been doing for the past few years. I eat the same things, generally. No extra stressors in my life. Maybe its external, not internal. Hard to say.

I dreamed about four people today. I think they were in a diner, but the setting was vague. They were talking about something. The waitress brought them food. Pancakes. Or maybe waffles. I can't recall. The weird part was that all the other customers in the diner were looking at them. They didn't seem to notice but the other patrons were leering ominously. I guess, though, I was staring at them too. Does that make me one of the leerers? Maybe.

May 12, 1996

Last night I dreamt of those same four people from my last journal entry. They were standing around a car wreck. The car looked totalled, run off the road and straight into a big tall pine tree. It was night time. Crickets were chirping along the 'door open' chime from the crashed car. The rear lights on the car were the only light source, bathing myself and the other four figures in a crimson hue. I tried to look into the car, to see if anyone was injured. There was no one in the passenger seat. No one in the driver's seat either. But there was a massive bloodstain on the seat's upholstery that seemed to be spreading. At first I thought it was just seeping into the fabric, but the longer I watched the more I realized that it was continuing on past that. It spread to the floor of the sedan. Then across the metal frame of the car. Then onto the grass. It spread until it coiled up our shoes and stained our clothing. It spread until it was an ocean. Then, all at once, the ocean wasn't blood, it was pale, pink seawater. And then I woke up.