ionelv | Entries tagged with dream

Went to a movie standing room only and got separated from all my buddies. Went looking for our car which we parked a few blocks away and got lost in a maze of unknown streets, private courtyards and private alleyways. At some point someone asked me if I need help finding my way.

I got caught just as I was about to dig up a hyacinth from someone's front lot with my garden trowel. I tried explaining that I just wanted to fork their github repo to which the owner explained that their repo is not open source and the two paid versions are between $100 and $200, the first for academic use only (their case) and the second for NATO use, neither of which permitted forking. I told him that only wanted to reverse engineer the undisclosed socket API and that I was about to destroy the original after learning that. [At this point I woke at the usual time I feed the dog in the morning.]

Context: I have thought about stealing a couple of snow drops from people's front yards, especially those that are obviously wild and unmaintained as they grow randomly on that thin patch of grass between the sidewalk and the curb/kerb. The unopened source code must be some faint memories of semi-secret protected Microsoft early APIs and corporate code bases as well as the draconian and non-common sensical approach to copyright and IP in North America and the West that led to such cases as the Pirate Bay trial, US v Swartz, the Mickey Mouse Protection Act and (drug) patent ever-greening. It is somewhat karmic that China's swift rise in the past few decades allegedly owes a lot to completely ignoring and breaking all of these silly rent-seeking greedy IP-protection rules.

I was longboarding in my home town in skiing like motions at racing bike speeds on effectively flat terrain. I crossed a large plaza (much larger than the old centre’s 80s plaza, largely abandoned and weirdly with many steps that I seemed to float over) and reached my rented bed for the night building. After a few tries, I discovered the my lodgings was one of half dozen beds crammed in a half-studio converted basement apartment with one old shower, no privacy and strong cheap cologne smells. I was thinking I might come back to crash to sleep here late in the night after I visit my mom and/or relatives, so I set back outside across the plaza towards my old hunting or haunted grounds. Weirdly, aside from a few faces in the air bnb dump, I saw no faces elsewhere as if the town was mostly abandoned.

I dreamt that Dan got a new bigger house and I went to visit. When I started the trip, I was in a regular car (not new hut not a jalopy either). At one point the GPS directed me to a cul de sac with the next part of the route on a foot path no wider than two feet. I got out of the car to inspect it and after I convinced myself that I can’t safely fit the car down that path, I walked back to the car. A bunch of nosy local ladies were milling about and looked suspiciously at me.

When I got back to the car, at first I did not recognize it thinking “this jalopy can’t be my car”, but after saying out loud “ i guess I must’ve taken the spare car”, I had to accept that I actually did. i made the GPS plot me a reroute away from the foot path and I was on my way. The almost non-existent residential neighbourhood traffic got busier and busier as the road got wider and wider. Also, my jalopy eventually became a moped with which I almost hit a barely visible island curb in the middle of the very wide road (6+ lanes going in one direction) and as I approached a busy intersection, my moped became a lightweight bicycle at which point I woke up.

The whole dream was bookended by Abby waking me up at 6am for her breakfast after which I nodded off and 620am when I actually woke up and went to feed her.

I dreamt that mom came back from Romania and was visiting with Denis. After some chit chat, I asked Denis why haven’t we seen recent pictures of Elena on FB and he said that the last film roll came out too red, the developer overcorrected and made the pics too blue, so Denis chucked them and did not share them especially after the developer attempted to put Denis in contact with a psychiatrist to help him accept that pictures that are too blue are ok because people autocorrect that in their heads anyway (which I agreed with).

Context: As usual Denis and Sam share lots of pics and videos of Elena on FB. Denis also shared yesterday on FB a pic with him and mom from a restaurant near him which I initially thought was very recent but which M mentioned that mom is too happy to be with her sister over there to come back so soon and that the pic was actually from 2.5 years ago (which I was able to confirm once she said that and I took a closer look).

1. Saturday night, I dreamt that I was eating next to my brother Dan at the table. When more came to join us at the table, Dan moved closer to me, elbow to elbow, which when I woke up reminded me of childhood when we used to have supper elbow to elbow outside at my grandparents.
2. Monday night, I dreamt about myself, M, Dan and his wife MM and eldest child CP together discussing something about history. CP told us about a school paper that he wrote related to our discussion and started reading to us from his notes.
3. Last night, I dreamt about living in a house that resembled my maternal grandparents house except that the only living creatures were: CG with her dog Mila sleeping inside under a transparent tarp, M and Eddie sleeping outside on the veranda under a similar transparent tarp, and a bunch of hyenas and coyotes roaming very near the house (as our fence was broken in places). I was the only one awake and as I came nearer the house, the wild animals dispersed and CG and M woke up.

My spouse opened a drawer and showed me the apple inside. I could not tell if the apple was real or fake or if it was good or bad.

Alors, ceci n’est pas un pomme.

I dreamt that I participated in some sort of experiment of local low gravity centered around one point near the Earth’s surface. My participation consisted in hopping on a 18’ 2x4 as if it was a stilt. I had attached a GoPro cam to my end to capture the moment. When all was said and done, my sponsor asked me for the GoPro camera back, but I left the “stilt” back at the experiment site (with GoPro attached), so I had to go back and look for it.

I also dreamt about taking a new bus route to get some new place and I was not very familiar with either the bus stops or the routes. On the way to the first exchange hub, I realized I did not have a copy of the route, was not sure where I had to get off and what was the next bus I had to take. I frantically started to look for the info on my cell phone, but I could not figure out how to activate the keyboard on my keyless phone. All I could do is watch videos and no text field was visible.

Context: My real life 8 hours weekly commute time (half driving, half train riding) might double in the fall. My opinion is that all the social media apps on iOS have gotten worse and worse from a usability POV and I loathed the disappearance of the cellphone keyboard (especially the old-style Blackberry). I am also dealing with a pond fountain pump that needs to be pushed further from shore (usually with a 12' 2x4), a long 12'+ downspout that needs fixed and a tall 10'+ 100% metal smokestack that needs wrapped in some wire mesh at the top to prevent birds from flying inside it and ending up trapped in our wood-burning stove (which has happened more than 3 times already). I was also dealing with a Kafka-esque series of automated email warnings that my (old) work cellphone was outdated with re: software, even though I returned it and I told a human about it with proof when they inquired about it.

I dreamt that I was part of a small family group that recently joined another. We had to take an air balloon to flee some danger and someone from the other group that joined us, in their attempt to shoot at a danger lurking above the balloon, punctured the balloon, we had to do a quick landing and seek shelter. The best we could find was a very small windowless room that we were not even sure we could barricade.

I dreamt I was in this large technology park. To get to the upper levels, I had to enter this lobby, position myself under this weird looking cable with a dangling 3 prongs that encased the skull. I fiddled too long positioning myself (more than a few seconds) and a human assistant immediately came to "help" me do what I would have done by myself in another few seconds. Once I was "spotted", a jet of air sucked me up to a higher floor. There, I tried to tell the "keepers" that their technology and rules could improve, but instead I was dismissed with a smirk that I am too adverse to technology and that's why I needed assistance unlike most visitors who need none. Fast forward: I am looking for my shoes to get ready to leave but all rooms are closed now and the two rooms I open the doors to have naked employees inside who either try to help me find my shoes without blinking an eye or try to explain why they have sex toys in their hands.

A semi-official "coach" told us that the proper way to eat shit is to simply shove it in and swallow it immediately. No diddling around sampling or trying to slowly get used to it.

Background/context: I watched a few videos recently about personal jet packs. At work, the level of corporatese fuckery and tribbleness has been exceptional lately. I also recently stumbled upon someone's 101 rules for effective living.

I was talking to these three ladies. Two of them bought these huge antique looking armoires. One of them said it was a gift for her mom and she was going to ship it across the ocean to get it to her. The other one said she should tell her that the shopkeeper said it was part of a set and that they will try to find the other pieces and complete the set. I suggested that she should not ship it because the shipping will cost as much as the piece itself, but she should keep it and buy another one double in price over there were her mom lives and that way both will come off better in the end.

Background: my mom is going back to the old country in two weeks and I am certain she will take with her many second-hand gifts for friends and relatives there (paying for shipment more than the items are worth). Also, last night we watched episode 5 of The Four Seasons with Tina Fey.

1. We upgraded our large bed (for 4 brothers) that was merely a thin hard mattress to proper separate beds for each of us. There was a fraught discussion about going back to our previous sleeping arrangements.
2. I dreamt that part of our property was being overrun by rapid flood waters that were awfully close to the house and that cut off access from places on the property I was trying to reach. I did not even dare wade across as the current looked dangerous and the water quite deep.

Background: As kids, me and Dan slept in these convertible pair of lazy boys in our old library/living room that had quite sucky thin mattresses and very saggy base due to overstretched springs. We slept in these for many years and did not get proper beds until we moved to Chicago. Recently, we had a combo big melt and a downpour that left a lot of standing water on the property and overfilled ditches which made my very uneasy about our sump pump system that drains into the nearest ditch. I actually woke up in the middle of the night and listened to our sump pump and fretted over its abnormal cycles.

I had a short dream that I stumbled upon a green whitered-tulip tomato. The texture on the outside was hairy and on the inside like crocodile skin. The shape was roughly like a thick baseball glove and I was told that the taste is amazing despite the looks. I was about to take a big bite when the tomato started beeping and yawning.

Semiconscious micro-fiction: Across all the home nurseries, small quiet creatures were getting silently activated by remote control. They started observing and memorizing everything there was to know about the nearby bipeds. Their neural and digestive systems was maturing at a super-accelerated pace. Every night, parents were putting their toddlers to sleep by softly singing lullabies and by making sure the kids were hugging their iTeddies. The X day of reckoning was near.

I dreamt that I was following the river bank, wading through crowds on my way to where the river was joining a larger mass of water (unclear if a bigger river, a lake, a sea or an ocean). Two people I was with (one of which might have been my mom) followed along further from the shore. There were three buildings we were passing of which the middle one looked like an Athenee. The crowds near the shore were thicker and I recall I had to scale some small wood structures to keep up with my companions.

Last night, I dreamt that someone was cheerily reading to us a new policy that ”asked” that we perform our patriotic duty and we must now work the fields for a limited time every year (look up corvoada). The policy was presented as a positive change for all and was met with muted reactions (as some could not read between the lines or were too afraid to ask). I now have flashbacks to 80s Romania and flash-forwards to 2020s USA.

This morning, my morning commute was half hour longer than usual: -7C outside, freezing rain, almost bald windshield wipers and a bad car heater that takes almost one hour to blow non-cold air. I stopped 3 times to scrape ice off my windshield and I had to drive with my head out twice due to ice buildup before I could stop to deice.

I was receiving an introduction into how a house experiment will proceed: this and the next house will be rotated and joined together to fuse into one house, while one of the houses was simply rotated 90 degrees in horizontal plane, the other was rotated both horizontally and 90 degrees vertically and translated over for the fusion. Since the experiment was being run by Tesla, and I temembered visiting a large Tesla facility in NW suburbs of Chicago, I asked the rep if they were from the Chicago office and the response I got was a perfectly political one: very verbose and completely ignoring the question.

Next thing I know, I am stepping out and I noticed a couple being interviewed for the other house. I then simply walked into a lab in which my cousin Robert was turning on for the first time a new electronic subcomponent which required easing in a rubbery and very flexible RAM module which I tried to help under the very puzzled gazes of Robert’s half dozen assistants. I got bored, so I just walked out.

Dream: I was on a train fiddling with my phone. The light was quite dim, so I moved towards the back on the train (where it was even dimmer and the car was quite small, less than 20 ft long: only 8 seats: 2x4, with one end seat properly separated by an arm rest and the other three without armrests between them on one side). When I got off the train, I got on a short bus to a transit center. Once there I was walking around waiting for my next bus (as I had time), and I stumbled upon a deserted camp site which had lots of stuff left behind (e.g. boggle dice). I started picking up the dice and looked around for any other interesting stuff.

Context: A lot of my dreams have to do with transit (trains, buses, buying fare, rushing to make the connections). I also collect scrabble tiles and boggle dice. I am a pack rat so if I find something interesting related to my hobbies (free or at a thrift store), I will get it. I also recall an interesting find about 4-5 years ago, under a tree's roots that got uprooted naturally due to poor soil: a very old green bottle of "medicine" (like 100 years old). I brought it home, washed it and M threw it away. Even further back, about 10 years or so, we used to go to a thrift store run by the local city (closed now) and that store had at least one hundred free books in its lobby (from which I will always pick some and bring home). Very recently (around the holidays), I went to the library in the next town, and I found that they had free CDs, DVDs and books in the lobby. I came home with 1-2 dozen free CDs that day (e.g. jazz, local artists, classical, Indigo Girls, but sadly nothing from the Rat Pack). I went back a few days later, and all the free stuff was gone.

1. Me and an acquaintance get in a car parked at the curb. I get behind the wheel. Before I close the door behind me, the car slowly starts moving forward even though it is not in a drive gear. I start cycling through the gears and slamming the break pedal to no avail as the car slowly keeps moving forward on its own. Eventually me and passenger get out of the car and we watch it crash into a parked taxi and slowly crumple itself and taxi within seconds as taxi driver is frantically waving arms and running alongside the inevitable. Skip ahead: we rush to the scene only to end up inside a house where the cars are nowhere to be found. I call the police from a landline and the police calls the owner of the house which turns out is a restaurant/bar. The owner ia evacuating and closing his business as the police instructed as I try to explain why and what happened. Police arrive and I start explaining again what happened. I wake up.
2. Me and a few friends (as kids) are across the street from a burned church (cathedral like in style and size) which we know is about to be soon demolished. A friend simply reaches into a hole under the curb and flips on a switch that turna on a chintzy electric candelabre in the church’s alcove.

Background: last evening I watched some videos and still images of car crashes. For the past few days, I have been thinking about the history of the Christian church’s diminishing role in Western society and culture since Martin Luther in the context of skimming and reviewing McGilchrist’s “Master and emissary: the divided brain” 2009 book. The electric candelabre reminded of two things: an old 80s Hungarian film in which the revelation of the scary macabre scene repeatingly shown thru the movie as merely a mechanical malfunctioning looping contraption and the discussion I had with an acquaintance (Tibi, soon to be ordained an Orthodox priest after he had a calling, which I found out more about later in some one on one interactions with him) and telling him and his wife and hosts about the subtle ways in which priests manipulate the masses: their imposing attire (including the ridiculous and sometimes enormous hats) and their raised dais or stage. I was thinking now also (but probably did not mention it then) about the church architecture, the music, the smells, the imprinting by inserting self as a required (and for the longest time as the only) official during one’s main events in life: birth, marriage, death (in countries where Christianity is still the overwhelming quasi-official religion, e.g. Eastern Europe).

Me and mom were trying to go somewhere in Canada by train (either East Coast or Prairies) for a medical reason for mom. We were at the main train station outside and the tickets were sold at a small desk outside the station itself. There was a 12-15 deep queue. There were two trains going to where we wanted that day: one in quarter hour or so and another in about one hour. Mom was on the phone. I got in line and by some miracle I reached the head of the line with only a few minutes to spare. When clerk asked what tickets do I want I could not remember the town, so I tried asking mom (who had her back against mine and was still on the phone). She cut me off quickly with: "I am still on the phone with someone. Wait."

Fast forward. It's almost 2 minutes to closing, the first train left the station and clerk is hurrying to get inside the station and lock up. I chase the clerk and ask how to get tickets to second train. Clerk is waving me away because it's closing time, and I suddenly remember that I could get e-tickets online for second train. There might be an issue with printing the tickets myself as backup in case they require printed tickets to board the train.

Fast forward. We are at our destination (even though I did not realize during the dream) and I am chatting in English with some people to which I declare without blinking: "Do you speak Canadian?" (meaning the Canadian dialect of English, I think), to which I get stares and the conversation continues. I then add, "Whatever you're speaking is not Torontonian."

Dream ends.

Background:

1. Way back in the 80s, we owned one AT&T style landline (no voicemail, or caller ID). Mom fashioned me into her caller ID 2.0 module for her phone: whenever someone called, I would pick up, ask who it was and their business, I would cover the handle speaker, whisper the caller's name and business to mom and she would instruct me whether to pass her the phone, or most often tell the caller that mom was unavailable for various bogus reasons.

2. Mom loves going to Amara, for medical reasons at a spa that is renown for their mud baths. Her mom had debilitating rheumatism and used to go there frequently. Mom has severe chronic low back pain (compressed and shifted vertebrae) and has been going there yearly for the past 10 years or so, a few times with her sister, but alone lately. She even took us (me and my brothers, before the youngest was born) at least once there in the early 80s (there are pics). I can attest that the placebo effect works well.

3. Fast forward: last time I talked to mom on the phone was in the fall. I tried calling her twice from my personal phone using WhatsApp (as international calls from Canada are still ridiculously expensive without an additional monthly fee). She tried to call me back once (on my work phone which goes straight to voicemail, so she left one which I learned of by accident only days ago and have not called her back yet). Her voicemail stated that she saw me calling but could not pick up because she was cooking (literally she actually said "she had something on the fire", which I can guess that meant she was frying, simmering or boiling something that needed close supervision).

A few nights ago, I had a nightmare involving two friends (let's call them J and S). My friends were being harassed by a tall imposing man (TIM) who tried to snatch a golf club from one of them which provoked a physical altercation. S managed to get behind TIM and in the course of wrestling back his golf club, with an expressionless face, he managed to separate TIM's spine from his body with the club like one would string a green bean before cooking.

Last night I dreamt that i was walking alone some strange place when I noticed a sinkhole swallow up a small structure and then expand rapidly and swallow up more land. I ran faster than the sinkhole was expanding, but then i noticed more sinkholes pop up everywhere. At this point I realized that this is the end and when I noticed more people around either freaking out or running aimlessly, I asked a random stranger if they want to hug so at least the end will be a little less anguishing. As we started hugging, I woke up.

1. Putin and his generals started a civil war. Putin wanted to move his capital to Siberia and the generals didn’t. He almost lost except he had the ultimate trump card: not the little orange one, but the nucular (sic) codes (which don’t real confer a lot of real power from what I read, not for the bully genocidal midget, nor for the lard turd, as the generals have veto power over them).
2. USMNT lost on aggregate badly to both France and another powerhouse by conceding 13 goals to each opponent (over 2 games each) while scoring 2 and 6 only.
3. Our plumbing rebelled again and our septic backed up again. At first, I saw a backed up sink and I quickly ran into the bathroom to confirm and indeed the bathtub was backed up too.

Saturday night I had at least four dreams (as I was woken up mid-dream that many times) of which I remember two:
1. I was in my home town walking along a small creek when torrential rains caused the creek to grow into a big torrent (a very flood like event) and I was carried away to an area I did not recognize. It looked like a Christian private school that closed its doors just as we started washing ashore as the torrent was slowing down. I started walking along the banks looking for a way to get away from the torrent. At one point, I found an area that looked like a way out, but it was a weird dead end: an inside out Catholic church: it looked like the inside of a church except with all the features of the outside walls, ramparts that stuck out and the only opening towards the creek. I woke up before I could find a way to get away from the creek banks. I think this is the first dream I had about a flood event. This dream might have been related to the headline I read about an American Orthodox priest that wrote a detailed critique of the Catholic church and why Orthodoxy was the true apostolic church.
2. I was visiting with colleagues or classmates a foreign university and we were all housed in the gym filled with over one hundred sleeping bags. We went to explore the area and soon descended into the tunnels under the university. They were poorly lit, giving them a feeling of being forbidden and we were the only ones there. They were numbered however and seemed to have a certain logic to them as at periodic intervals there were separations (either heavy curtains or hatches) that were numbered. Eventually we resurfaced into a big enclosed area that felt like a corridor. While walking along it, we spotted at least two swimming pools, one basketball court, one big food court, a movie theatre, concessions amongst which a popcorn-only wicket with a chrome-plated guard rail to ensure single file access to a window at which two people were waiting for their popcorn. I also remember thinking that I should go back to my sleeping area to make sure that my passport did not get stolen. The whole area had the feeling of a mall and I was thinking how it made sense given that this university was very new and very modern. I don't recall seeing even one classroom or professor.

I dreamt that I was watching a mystery: two people were locked inside a mansion. He was upstairs and she was downstairs in the foyer's rotunda in semi-dark (only moonlight) with a walkie talkie watching the front door. The camera zooms in on the front door's lock which is slowly coming off the door as if the mounting bolts turned to butter. She notices, puts down the walkie talkie and slinks up the stairs to warn him. The camera lags behind and by the time it reaches the top of the stairs, he is already putting the intruder in a body bag. The body looks diminutive: under five feet tall but he mentions to her that the intruder was an adult. Moreover, he shows to her on the security camera outside view a couple kids by a park bench waiting for their dad. One of them is in full R2D2 suit and they are trying to settle in for the night in weird bed setup: it looks like they are actually half in the ground with some very light lava rocks (or heavy packing peanuts) as cover.

The weird bed setup is probably connected to a Dystopian Capitalism FB post I saw earlier in the day about a super deal: $900/month bed bunk setup in NYC where 28 people share 3 baths and have a private 6.25' L x 3.5' W x 4' H space that includes a twin mattress, individual light, temperature control and charging ports.

Decades ago, I heard Miles Davis and loved his Bitches Brew and Kind of Blue. Since then, I learned to love Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. Then I heard Bad Plus and loved their rock pop improvisations. I recently heard Ornette Coleman and I love his free jazz. On that vein, I really like Dave King Trio's Lonely Woman.

A few nights ago I had a weird dream about staying a few nights with some acquaintances in Sweden. After the last night there, the host caught me packing my three AK47s and bazooka and asked me why I need them. I explained that because of all the vigilantes marching down their street every night with their open jeeps brandishing their semiautomatics or in their tankettes, it would be wise to pack some heat just in case. He then asked me if I have X which I guessed it was a brand of cleaning oil used on guns, so I answered tentatively that I am a little rusty with my gun maintenance since I have not done it in decades.

Last night, I had another weaponry-related dream, but this one is a little fuzzier in my mind, as it had to do with some weird non-sensical pattern in which some people were making other people do something mundane but which unbeknownst to them caused them to effectively self-mark themselves for being eliminated by a robotic/AI system that was programmed to get rid of "dangers". The self-marking took the form of a written phrase that seem quite innocuous.

Last night I had a dream about descending a vertical ladder on a 50+m cliff face. There were about a hundred people ahead of me (I did not look back). Slightly ahead of me were Trump and Elon Musk (maybe 3 to 5 m). I tried engaging in conversation with them but they did not respond (or did not notice me). At some point, the ladder split into two ladders: one that most people kept descending on and one that was more protected and better footed. Soon after the split, both Trump and Musk disappeared and not long after that a commotion started ahead as a scorpion nest started dispersing and stinging people. I was still at least 3m from the nest, but I felt a sting and then my dream skipped ahead to me at the bottom of the cliff with two badly inflamed sting sites that were already festering, waiting with others for medical attention. I woke up at this point.

Citeam ieri pe FB despre doua clujence (de "6 generatii") care mâncau shaorma la teatru în primul rând în timpul piesei Hamlet. Am căutat dacă nu cumva această adaptare era Hamlet de Subcarpati regizat de Ada Lupu Hausvater, dar nu am găsit deși ar fi fost ironic dacă ăsta era cazul. Cu ocazia asta am aflat de formația Subcarpați, trupa hip-hop/electronica/muzica populara, ce mi-a adus aminte de formațiile Phoenix și K1.

I had a recurring dream last night: I was leapfrogging at speed and barely skimming the earth's surface over vast distances returning to some place. Interestingly, in my dream, the Earth was mostly devoid of humans or their structures and the landscape was mostly savannah-like. I've had many similar dreams in the past including more adventurous ones in which I was either flying/soaring (or very long-jumping) at low altitudes or "walking" or skipping off walls and water bodies.

I dreamt that I was walking through the streets of Montreal. At some point I crossed paths with my cousin LZ and his two kids in tow. He did not notice me. After a quick evaluation, I turned back trying to catch up and say hello. It was hard to catch up to them in the busy streets. At some point I followed him through an underground one-way very narrow pedestrian tunnel. Exiting the tunnel, I had some trouble as the exit requiring hoisting oneself up 5+ feet through a one-foot opening that was partially blocked by a guard rail. It took me two tries, but I made it to the other side with some encouragement from those behind me. By this time, I lost sight of my cousin and had no idea where he might have gone.

Last night, in the wake of Cheeto's reinstatement on Twitter, I dreamt that I was in the car with him and his assistant. They told me that they have a few errands and that they will drop me off close to where I live. He was driving and we first stopped at a McD drive-through window where Donnie had to do a bit of convincing to get some free ketchup packets from the teller (and nothing else). I told him that he can get any condiments for free if he wants, but that he has to pay 25c to get a cup of water (as the price for the cup itself).

Next, we stopped at a Starbucks and we went inside. Right next to the cash register was a vertical display of lunchable boxes. Donnie Boy laid on the floor with his head right under the display, so you could not see his face. This lady first in line, waiting to check out asked quietly, miming almost, if the person on the floor was him, the Don. I confirmed quietly that indeed he was and as I pulled away the display, we could all see that he managed to break open a few of the boxes and he was gobbling down food with abandon. While this was going on, I was on the phone with M telling her that we were nearby and that I would be home soon.

Today, I woke up from a nap remembering a dream within a dream I had about Corcodel running in the back yard along the fence and spotting his bum bright spot in the twilight. When I woke up from the dream within the dream, I shed a few tears and told M about my dream. Then I woke up for real, I had no tears and went outside to give the horsies some hay and finish clearing the driveway of snow. You will never be forgiven, bat boy!

A bunch of uniforms are playing whack-a-mole with popcorning tribbles down a gentle slope. As they conscientiously keep at their task, a life-sized Woody Pridocchio is rolling down the slope. Some of the uniforms are so caught up in their task that they don't notice that their billy clubs are now glancing off Woody's body and his protests are increasingly louder:
"Guys, please don't hit me! It hurts! Please stop!"

The guards ignore his pleas up until Woody manages to get up and frown down on them. Finally, the uniform closest to him exclaims as he keeps on whacking indiscriminately left and right:
"Wow! I thought you were just a speaking doll with no feelings!"

This article about a connection between the transition to/from sleep (the hypnagogic state) is quite fascinating, because I often solve work issues or come up with artsy ideas during that state as well. As perfect example, while I was waking this morning, I came up with various corner scenarios in a series of tests I was running earlier during the day.

M and I were shopping at this old weird labyrinthian general store. On the way to the back of the store, we passed through this wide hallway that had a single couch on which a photographer was lounging and advertising his trade. He asked M if she wanted to capture on film her excellent attire, her very clean cut white pantsuit. She accepted. While we were chatting with the man, he mentioned that he really likes his Lazaro salad (basically a garden salad with polenta mixed in) which always gives him a pick-me-up on hangover mornings.

1. I was waiting at the station for my train. When train arrived, we quickly discovered that half the doors were closed (right were I was), so I decided to go to the back of the train which unfortunately had only one open door and boarding was very slow. With about ten people in front of me, the dream shifted dramatically: the train was gone, all people in front were gone, I was stuck in exactly the same spot and all the people behind me were scurrying to board buses from a bus depot that did not exist before the scene shift.

2. Me and teen Denis are at airport getting our bags rifled through. As I am trying to put all back together, other people are moving ahead of us seemingly with less checking. At one point I find all these sweaters on the front which I am not sure they are ours, although this sweater will Pac-Man all over sure looks like a gift for Marina.

Background: In real life, I had a short rare Whatsapp chat with Denis the evening before the dream about a messy UPS xmas delivery. The bus depot part might have been triggered by my previous morning's recollection of all the bus rides I took as a kid to visit my grandparents and the busyness of the bus depot in my home town.

1. Juan M was singing a song in Spanish. When he finished, Carolina M started singing a song by Emilio Ruiz. It sounded really good, so I looked up the guy. In this one video, Emilio entered the stage bare ass naked save for some very small short and translucent cape and a cloth draping in front of his crotch. When he reached center stage, he turned around and he mooned the crowd to a standing ovation. He had a funny face and he kept on shaking his head side to side.
2. We were playing game similar to Carcassonne in which the tiles had food and pet related items and the layout was terraced instead of flat.
3. Vague recollection of something involving trains and issue with tickets.

The Snapchat boss opined on China's rise. I have two comments on that:
1. Government heavy investment in infrastructure and research does pay off.
2. Minimal economic drag from short-term return spending (e.g. outsized military spending, heavy and growing rent seeking sectors such as govt, lawyers, lobbyists, police, hedge funds, banks, general middlemen layers that add little value) has a multiplier effect.

I dreamt about an interaction with the pope of which I remember two scenes:
1. I went into a heavily fortified castle in which I met a bunch of armoured guards and an armoured very rotund pope. They all had round helmets with 2+ ft long pole atop their helmets with a small cross on top. The pole length varied.
2. A cardinal taking a bath was whipping someone trying to extract some secrets. Also, a jet of water was continuously hitting the captive washing away the blood of his whipped back.

Ma plimbam prin orasul natal, si dupa ce trec de un frontispiciu al fostului cinema Flacara, dau fata in fata cu un tinar de vreo 12 ani. Datorita asemanarii incredibile, il intreb; "Esti inrudit cu NS?". Imediat apare din spatele lui, fratele lui LS care-mi spune; "NS e mort" si ma ia de o mana, iar sotia lui de cealalta, indrumandu-ma spre un catafalc improvizat la doar cativa metri departare. NS e in rigor mortis cu ochii deschisi spre cer si are o rana adanca ce ii desfigura jumatate de fata, parand facuta de un glont sau obiect foarte ascutit. Era multa lume in jur dar singurele fete ce le-am recunoscut au fost a celor patru din familia S. LS parea mult mai batran decat NS desi sotia lui parea foarte tanara.

Addendum; Fata lui NS avea o forma triunghiulara (f. diferita de fata lui ovala pe care mi-o amintesc), mult mai asemanatoare ca forma de fata lui Marius C (un coleg de liceu).