Category: dream journal

Cat Links dream journal / words

[dream journal] Drones For Leanne: A Recurring Nightmare

It’s 2061. Shunted off in the corner of the rec room at Elysian City: A Home For The Aged, I spend my days staring out a 2nd-story window at a leafy City neighborhood in a vain attempt to cancel out my immediate surroundings. I am 90 years old. My money is gone, my companionship is long over, I have no savings. The government will not approve me for a phone or any sort of connection to the Internet (by that time, access to the virtual world is age restricted for over-85s the same as drivers licenses). I don’t have a guitar. All my instruments and vinyl collection were sold to pay for a hybrid pig heart I needed when I was 83. Elysian also forbids personal music playback devices and headphones, so I can’t seek comfort in the albums I released decades ago in my highwire days.

The other patients create an absurd, inescapable, Cuckoo’s Nest din. I am there because I lost my money, but most are there because they lost their minds. Phillip, a former tenured NYU Comparative Literature professor, screams all day, every day in the same seat, about Donald Trump’s “Kalashnikov eyes” the “god damned Pension Police in the walls!” Every time he tries to eat, he hallucinates himself into the same Thanksgiving dinner simulation where he’s arguing with his brother Mitch about the 2016 election. By the end of every exchange (of which we only get his side), Phillip will slam his plate up and down, sending most of his meal in all directions.…

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Cat Links dream journal / words

[dream journal] 0517-0518: The Endless Sky Store

On a quest to find a guitar pedal I’d read about called the “Endless Sky.” It creates large ambient washes and textures from playing only one note on the guitar. Features a cowboy boot on the hand-painted graphic with lazy clouds around the six dials and three foot switches. One knob is labeled “reality fade,” the rest I don’t recall. Driving a desolate dusty oceanfront road, and come upon the pedal’s graphic on a supertall sign for a roadside-burger-shack-sized store on the ocean side of the road. Pull in.

Parking lot is dirt. Ocean breaks and foams over huge boulders behind the store (the vibe is El Rey de Pescado in Naiguata, Venezuela). Several sprays from crashing waves threaten to envelop the store, but the age of the small building conveys that it’s held the sea back for a long time, and a quiet serenity about the place gathers as I approach.

As I’m walking up to the store I feel like my thighs are really rubbing together. Looking down, I discover that my thighs have not ballooned, but rather, my pants have turned into Renaissance royalty red-velvet gold-seamed pantaloons.

Tattered screen door. Inside the store, there’s just a counter with four Endless Sky pedals sitting next to an analog cash register.

“One,” I say.

“You don’t want to try it first?” the proprietor asks me, without looking up from a yellowed newspaper.

“No need,” I say. “I know it’s perfect.” I look at the pedal and notice the brand.

“Thought this was a secret Strymon,” I say.…

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Cat Links dream journal / words

[dream journal] 0504-0505: underwater undercover

Walking underwater at a brisk clip at the bottom of a large body of water. Water is crystal clear blue like liquid sky, the sand is white and firm, and I glide forward with little effort. I breathe normal in the water – no oxygen tank, scuba gear or wetsuit necessary. There’s no doubt I’m in water, though, because exhaling or talking creates bubbles that float to the surface.

I am walking with a stocky and very tall partner, Gene, played by the late actor Ken Howard. We are underneath a superhighway. Huge light-gray concrete supports rise from the sand bed to the surface off into the distance of the body of water, which appears to be around 75 feet deep. The structure emits audible rumbles from the traffic moving on it and I feel the resultant sound waves shake the sand underfoot in regular, low-frequency sine-wave undulations.

The light refraction from the surface into the water is bending the light so much that we can see profiles of the cars and trucks driving on the highway. A large 16-wheel semi passes over. Gene leans down and taps me on the shoulder.

“That’s the one,” he says. “That’s him.”

I take a notebook out of a shoulder bag and write a couple notes. The book has a police shield on it. I realize I am a detective or some sort of undercover officer.

“How did undercover turn into underwater, Gene?” I ask.

“Stop asking stupid questions,” Gene gruffs. “Go see where we are.”…

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Cat Links dream journal / words

[dream journal] 04.29-04.30: Aerial Silk Scaffold Deconstruction

Spent entire dream watching two nameless men dismantle six stories of scaffolding across an eighty-foot-wide apartment building. They worked for the most part in silence, communicating with hand gestures punctuated by the occasional “¡Mira!” “¡Cuidado!” or “¡Yo!”

The scaffolding was made of equal parts silk and metal. The men used the silk to climb up and down, raveling and unraveling themselves in an aerial silk performance to move in all directions. At times they also used ladders integrated into the metal piping.

Alternating working above each other, they released large pieces of scaffolding with the flick of one hand, then in the same motion, guided the debris’ trajectories downward. The awaiting partner below caught the falling pieces one-handed and stacked them on the sidewalk.

I was watching through an open window from inside the scaffolded building, feeling the air rushes created by the men’s silk dancing and the falling metal pieces whizzing by. The silk’s movement ruffled and flapped like sails coming-about in stiff winds. The synchronized work moved hypnotic and left me mesmerized, thrilled, frightened and satisfied – akin to watching a snowboarding half-pipe or big-wave surfing competition.

“They’re dancers,” I thought out loud, to no one.

{WAKE}

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Cat Links dream journal / words

Dream Journal 04.26-04.27: “Full Archer Jacket”

Dream Journal 04.26-04.27
“Full Archer Jacket”

I paratroop onto a Chatsworth, CA, warehouse rooftop w/ another soldier. We recon with a tiny drone to find rebel militant locations in the building. They have dug an ICBM silo under the warehouse. We are here to shut it down.

We spelunk into the building through a busted skylight, pass all sorts of people, none of whom concern themselves with us. Find the rebel headquarters on the 1st floor. They think I’m one of them, bringing them my partner as a prisoner. Treat me like a hero, giving me a foot-long croissant and a huge gun with a Victrola Victor Talking Machine phonograph speaker-horn for a barrel.

“It shoots death frequencies,” the rebel leader tells me in Spanish. “Don’t fire it at the sky or use it at a zoo.”

The militants, who look like they’ve stepped out of the Archer Vice San Marcos jungle, keep giving me equipment (walkie-talkies, a Nespresso, etc). Over and over I escape out a basement door via a secret elevator with an apartment front door as its door. The rebels mistake me for one of them every time, and never figure me out. My partner never escapes.

The final time I escape across the street, the sun has just set, and the rebel commander appears on the warehouse roof. He shoots the Victrola phonograph horn gun into the sky as my commander yells “Goddamn!” in Gunnery Sergeant Hartman fashion.

A few seconds later a small yacht floats down from the sky, nose first.…

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Cat Links dream journal / words

Dream Journal 04.25-04.26

I’m the star of a reality show called “Surfin’ The Pole” where I tour the North Atlantic on a surfboard. One episode had me find a hidden river that led away from the ocean and took me through quaint Finnish towns.

The river was the de facto Main Street through all the towns, and I waved at people and stopped for food along the way, all the while never leaving my surfboard. The water was crystal blue, not all that cold, and looked like amusement park waterslide water.

{WAKE}

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Cat Links dream journal / words

Dream Journal 04.24-04.25

Suburban Supermarket
(à la Harris Teeter or Piggly Wiggly)

I’m talking to my mother in the beer section, sitting on the floor with my back against a fridge door, looking up at her. Cases of beer piled high in the aisle lend us some privacy. I’m beyond agitated.

“All the meat used to convict these people had the same date,” I tremble and point off to my right. “They used the same packages! Not a single one of these people is guilty, Mom!”

In the distance, a “slow parade of the guilty” – six people shackled together, heads bowed – moves by a large deli case by the cashiers. Shoppers heckle, hiss and toss old cold cuts at them while onlookers laugh.

I flash back to a man (Samuel Jackson – type) in a hidden bunker letting me in on the secret, showing me clues on the cold cut packaging that unravel the mystery.

My mother says, “Get a grip on yourself, Dave.”

I point around. “But this is all a lie! Everything here.”

“Go buy some dinner,” my mom says. “Ease your mind off all this.”

I wander to the deli and prepared food section towards the front of the store. I feel exposed. In one case are two huge halves of red cabbage. They are so large that nothing else fits in the case. The next case has globular gray slabs labeled “World’s Best Chicken Parm!”

Seemingly friendly butcher says “Hey there! Hungry?”

{WAKE}

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Cat Links dream journal / random / words

[words] Mall Kiosk Dreams 20170118.1700

​2 Quid Squid

  • British accented (Sheffield preferred) servers hawk deep fried squid served in mid-90s News Of The World replica newspaper cones

The Fry Friar

  • Belgian Trappist monk uniformed workers serve frites in take out clamshell bowls shaped like giant mussels
  • NO ketchup – only mayo + mustard

The Tweet Suite

  • Buy a 100% guaranteed tweet from an expert writer
  • Kiosk shaped like a church confessional
  • Customer and writer interact through a latticed privacy panel
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Cat Links dream journal / words

[dream journal] 102616

Sitting in an old theater – Ziegfield-esque, worn red velvet seats, dilapidated condition. I’m fifteen rows up, center. Woman behind me leans in and says, “Isn’t this the worst film ever?”

“I haven’t really watched it yet,” I say to her without turning around. I hear her lean back into her seat and turn my attention to the screen.

The film is called “Toaster Test” and stars Kevin Spacey as an everyday shlub named Herb and Hugh Grant as The Devil. While making breakfast one morning, Herb sees The Devil materialize the reflection of his toaster. In the course of their interaction, The Devil shows Herb how he’ll die in a motorcycle accident.

Cut to black.

Fade in on lobby of a fancy hotel with huge circular banquettes arranged around tall, endlessly high columns at regular intervals around the room. The Devil lowers himself slowly from the ceiling haze and settles on a banquette next to Herb.

“Hey, Herb,” he says, low and slow in Herb’s ear.

{WAKE}

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Cat Links dream journal / words

[dream journal] spiderticks

written upon waking…

My wife, Cat, and I, along with our dog, Sterling, are lounging in a tiny apartment, watching television. The apartment is a studio, so we are on a fold up futon/bed. It appears to be 30 or 40 years into the future. The television program seems to have something to do with faking people into eating wax fruit on the street as a joke. The host laughs very loudly and has a catch phrase – “See? People will do anything!”

“This show sucks,” I say to Cat.

“You put it on,” she counters. I nod, hitting the remote and flipping the tv off. Just as I do, Sterling leaps from the futon and begins to chase what looks like a giant hairy brownish-black spider (12-16 inches across, including legs) around the one-room apartment. Cat leaps up, opens the front door and catches Sterling by the collar, almost in one motion.

“Holy crap!” Cat shouts.

As Cat has the door open and dog by the collar, I chase the creature out into the hallway of our apartment building, the walls and ceiling of which are painted an electric red. The floor is white. A cable running along the wall has been chewed through and a section of it is missing. Walking down the hall a bit, I peer underneath a baseboard radiator to find the creature nesting, having built a shelter out of the cabling. It is visibly breathing.

“You and Sterling tired it out,” I say to Cat as I come back into our apartment and shut the door.…

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Cat Links dream journal / words

[dream journal] suppression / oppression

written upon waking

DREAM #1

30 or 40 years into the future. I am a cub reporter for a large newspaper, maybe the NYTimes or The Guardian, walking into a darkened overfilled, high-floor conference hall to await an announcement by the mayor. Entrance to the hall is a spiral ramp with no railings suspended over the commercial floor below. I have two older colleagues with me and we are met by a huge security goon and forced to sit in the last row of seats with him. We see more goons approaching from the spiral into the hall. They are all headed for us.

The head goon turns to us and says “If you publish your findings, we will take your Section Six Clearance badge,” then turns to me and says “since you’re the cause of all this, we’ll just take yours now.”

“He doesn’t have it here. It’s downstairs,” says one of my colleagues, a gruff Jimmy Breslin type in a porkpie hat. “Leave him alone.”

I am grabbed by the approaching goon and held in place. Tears start to well onto my lower eyelids. “What has be country become?” I ask. “Where has my country gone?”

DREAM #2

At the New Jersey house in which I grew up, also in the future – maybe 15 years. It’s on ~5 acres of wooded property; not a lot of views of neighbors. Moonlight filtering through the trees. Rumbles from outside keep interrupting dinner preparation w/ my parents & my wife. I am waiting on friends to show up to join us.…

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Cat Links dream journal / words

[dream journal] two four one

written upon waking

on a jumbo jet plane that lands in a vacant lot
“where are we?” i ask the girl next to me
“looks like we’ve landed in burundi,” she says.
puts her hand on my arm
“better gather your stuff”
exit the plane and everyone starts running as if trying to escape from something.
flight attendant calls out
“the passport office is across the street!”
i grab all my bags (three – two shoulder-mounted carry ons and a small suitcase w/ no wheels), run to the other end of the dusty vacant lot and enter a colonial house.
a woman rushes into the kitchen
“the passport office?” i ask, reaching into my carry-on bag to produce my passport.
“across the street,” she says. “Two One Four Seventh Avenue. This is Two Four One. Everyone gets confused.”
“Oh,” I say.
Leave the house. Get out to the street. Looking at the numbers as i walk .

Then, smash-cut to a restaurant with my family.
taking off my winter coat, i turn from the table for a second as I place my hat, gloves and scarf into the coat’s sleeve. i turn back to hang it on my chair and someone has taken my seat.
from behind, i recognize this person as a former neighbor who couldn’t stand me (the feeling was almost mutual, though i took the high road). he is now jammed in and making friendly conversation with my mother and brother.
“don’t worry,” says my father. “things are bound to change.”…

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Cat Links disquiet junto / dream journal / poetry / sounds / tracks / words

The Hinrinson (Disquiet0076-dreamsound)

More on this 76th Disquiet Junto project:
http://disquiet.com/2013/06/13/disquiet0076-dreamsound/

More details on the Disquiet Junto at:
http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto

STORY:

I’m in Detroit. Or what I think is Detroit. Wandering around in the rain. I’m in town to play a show and I can’t sleep. Neon lights abandoned Main Street. Restaurants and artist studios nestled between broken glass windows and crumbling bricks. Harbinger or fossil? Hard to tell.

I pass a shaky-looking guy on the street.

“I’m looking for Hinrinson’s,” I say to him.

“Yeah,” he says. “Just walk up the hill, take the right fork and it’ll be right there on your left.”

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