Dreams: 10/29/2003 Through Last Night

10-29-2003

(1) I'm viewing a display, like a museum display, of the evolution of typesetting. First is a large Linotype machine. Then an IBM Compositor, looking like an oversized Selectric. Next in line is a Macintosh. Last in the row is a tiny PowerBook.

(2) I go down into a New York City subway station to wait for a train. It's an older station, kind of grimy. I note that although it is underground, the place isn't claustrophobic, because of the spacious arched ceilings. The sound of an approaching train grows slowly, from a distant rumble to a loud roar. As the sound increases, I walk to the forward end of the station, where the walls of the platform are shrouded in wooden scaffolding – some sort of construction work going on. A buzzer sounds, warning of the approaching train. It rushes through the station on the express track down the middle, without stopping. It's an M train.

Once the train has passed, I look down the tunnel after it. After it has gone, I see in the distance, dimly lit, two automobiles driving in the tunnel at a place where the trackway splits. One of the cars is a small car, like a Toyota sedan; the other is a police car.

(3) I'm eating gummy or jelly candies, round, about two inches across, a quarter inch thick. They come wrapped in cellophane. I take the wrapper off a red candy and bite into it. The candy has that "red" flavor.

I look up and see a fruit-bearing tree, an avocado tree. The fruits of the tree are not avocados, though, but artichokes.

I want to see a particular movie, and I wonder if there is time for me to get to the next showing. I get a copy of the East Bay Express to look up showtimes, but I discover that it is old. No, wait, it is a special edition printed for a film festival that takes place in June and in October, and it has both dates printed on the cover. It should be current. But when I open it up and look at the movie listings, they all seem to be from last June.

11-2-2003

I'm in Rivendell, helping in the preparations for the Fellowship of the Ring to depart on its quest. I've been doing lots of research in a library, and I've accumulated lots of stacks of books, files, and miscellaneous papers. I'm putting them away now that I'm done with them. I stack file folders on file folders, books on books, and papers on papers, getting ready to put each stack away separately.

I have some meetings with Gandalf and Elrond in Elrond's office; these meetings are grim in mood, but nothing gets accomplished. Later we discover that the "Gandalf" who is camped out in Elrond's office is a fake! It's an automaton, one of the deceits of the Enemy. One grows stupid in its presence and is led astray by it's instructions, until eventually one becomes enslaved by Sauron. The fake Gandalf's body is transparent under its robes, with evil runes written on its skin. Discovered, it collapses and dies.

The real Gandalf says, "There is no time to lose. The Fellowship must depart tomorrow."

The Elves throw a big party the night before the Fellowship departs. There is music and dancing in a crowded hall – it feels like a bar or nightclub to me. I join in the music making, playing a conga drum, working syncopations and surprises into the rhythm. The Elves (who are snobs about such things) are amazed at the quality of the contribution of a human.

As the party is breaking up, I encounter one of the Fellowship members. He asks me if I have decided to come along. I say, "Yes, I was always going to go." I explain that I had discussed it with Gandalf and Sam and Frodo, even if I hadn't mentioned it to the other members of the Fellowship. As I say this, I realize that I have been unfair, having been forthcoming only with the people who "counted". If our quest is to be successful, I need to open up to everyone equally.

11-4-2003

I and a group of people travel into the mountains along a tiny suspended railroad. We are testing the rather old tracks and our cars, which are small and hold one or two persons each.

The suspended tracks wind higher into the wooded mountains. The trackway is rickety – lightweight, made of aluminum – and supports are missing here and there. More and more supports are missing the higher and further we go along the way.

We come to the end of the line, where the tracks bend upwards, vertically. The plan is to come to the very end, and I am to hold on to the tracks for a moment, then let go, and our train will run back down the track freely, without stopping, as if it were a rollercoaster.

I am afraid to do my part. The track is unsafe, improperly supported, and I'm afraid that as we rush downward it will give way and we will fall.

The next thing I know, the incident is over. I'm in a room, talking with my companions. All went well, despite my fears. I apologize to them for my having let my fear get in our way.

11-5-2003

Two fragments:

(1) A polygraph of some kind: a strip-chart recorder that is recording all sorts of biometric data. It's the old-fashioned kind with needles that leave inkmarks on the unrolling sheet of graph paper. Some of the channels have multiplexed data: here's one that has both a slow signal (chest expansion in breathing) and something else that is very fast.

(2) A landscape filled with rockets, rocket launchers, and gantries. Here is a large construction surrounded with scaffolding. It takes a while for me to notice that it, too, is a rocket gantry, and the rocket is being built up under the scaffolding.

11-6-2003

I'm with a group of science fiction writers and editors. [They don't seem to be anyone I know in waking life.] We are talking and eating and drinking; it seems to be some kind of party or social function. One of them is a middle-aged man with unkempt curly brown hair shot with gray, and gray stubble growing on his chin. I join in the general laughter and merriment, but when I try to tell jokes or stories with the others, I find it difficult to get a word in edgewise. I feel like they don't take me seriously.

One of them does take me seriously – a visiting journalist from Japan. He asks me at one point if he can interview me. I agree, but I wonder why.

Later, the party seems to be continuing in some kind of moving vehicle, the interior of which is carpeted and furnished with a bar and with tables and chairs. We are on our way. The Japanese journalist corners me and says, "Is this a good time for an interview?" and I say yes.

He asks me how I started to read science fiction and what it meant to me when I did. I tell him what I remember about the first books I read, and talk about the sense of difference and amazement they brought me: things don't have to be this way. The dream moves away from the boozy party and towards a kind of philosophical disquisition on the meaning of SF for young boys, me in particular. [I don't remember any of the specifics of this disquisition, unfortunately.