Dream on 2/2/21 Old Greenville, Music Dream, Paris Mountain Church

I was with some friends and I was driving with them through the town where I grew up. The lens in which I saw my hometown was through my childhood; cinematic, regal, fresh. As we made our way to State Park and parked the car, I saw some other friends from High School, I should know their names, but time replaced it with new ones and I was a bit embarrassed as they knew mine. I played it off smoothly, and later, I spun off to ask my brother their names and all was good. It was a picnic occasion, and we went up to the church on the top of the hill. One of the brothers whose name I didn’t know had turned himself into a pretty good preacher, unbeknownst to me, and we were going to have a Sunday sit-down in the church, and the fellow was going to preach.

I was there for fun, and after a bit I asked if we could sing a couple of songs. A banjo appeared and the most crisp intimate version of a bluegrass standard was snug. Pure joy, and the music enveloped me with a spirit that can only be spoken of as holy and I sat transfixed in a deep state of listening— mental acuity was as sharp as a tack. As time waned, some of the others took a walk, and I caught up with the preacher, young guy’s brother I went to HS with, and some of the other worshippers. One guy was wearing shorts, and the preacher keep bringing me choice varieties of alcohol that he loved. The event unfolded somewhere between a cookout and a church service. It was a small back-pocket bottle of a rum in a tan plastic bottle, and boy he was excited for me to try it.

As the cook-out was happening I found myself on the back steps with a fiddle. I picked it up and started sawing on it pretty good. My bow hand was rhythmic and strong, but my fingering hand was shy to float up and down the neck and so, tentatively, I started pushing down on a few strings to change notes, and though I’m a novice I was having one hell of a time. I worked up a pretty good racket with the fiddle and was visited by a black man that can best be characterized as a sage, who watched my intently, smiled slightly, and his presence was motivating to keep up the practice. He never really got to close, but there was something magical about his presence.

As the others came around, my fiddling, though playing with good intensity, became quiet. I couldn’t hear the notes, and I realized how hard fiddle playing is and that I didn’t know how to do it. They came with a bear spotting story, though the size of the bear ranged from fierce Apex predator to a bumbling playful cub. The music in this dream was a joyous experience, as are most of my dreams where I hear music, and awoke with with a good spirit that is seldom felt.

1/20/21 Hole in One, Cafe/Health Pros, Hot Rod

Last night I dreamt I was playing golf alone, though the course was crowded. I was on a par 3, and I hit a Pitching Wedge to the back of the green a good shot! As I watched the ball it began to roll back towards the pin, and it was tracking towards the cup. Bang! It went in, then a few seconds later it popped out again. I yelled “Covid Rules! That’s a hole in one!” (There’s a new golf rule that allows you to leave the pin in the cup, and if the ball, while putting only, hits the pin and bounces out it counts as going in, all in an effort from the golf courses not to have golfers handle the pin in times of Covid.)

A woman on another tee box said “I saw it, it went in!” As I made the turn, I stopped in the clubhouse and told the exiting news to the golf pro. He said “Oh yeah?” And in an instant he pulled up the most high tech camera surveillance equipment and zeroed in on my hole in one. People gathered they wanted to see if I was telling the truth, the camera zoomed into me hitting the shot, a terrible display of a golf swing that I appeared to hit it “fat.” In the video, disgusted at my swing, I slammed the club down in a unsportsmanlike showing of golfing frustration. A woman said “You got mad at the swing that gave you a hole in one?”

Then the camera zoomed in on the ball which was rolling on the green towards the cup. It was moving at an outrageous speed and smashed into the pin, went into the hole briefly and bounced out again. The pro said “That’s a hole in one with the Covid rule.” He then handed me an envelope with a sum of cash in it, apparently a policy the course upheld for all hole in ones. Inside there was $700 cash, and a receipt with my shot number.

I continued my game of golf, that included a grown up toddler running around in a plaid suit. He was in the way of one of my Tee shots and I was worried that I may threaten his safety. Such is life. He was in a way, grown up, but a toddler.

I then found myself working in a cafe, and I was wondering if I was suppose to work that day or not. The place was empty, and dutifully I was doing my side-work before the shift began. But none of my co-workers showed up, something was amiss. I saw another worker and asked “Where’s the team?” She said that they had called out sick, and quit the job because their health was at risk. I soon learned that this cafe doubled as a wellness center that had a health clinic attached to it. The servers whom I was working the shift with that day, also advised clients when they shouldn’t go into the work because of health hazards, and on this day five of them self diagnosed the working conditions unfit for their health. A few of the other employees and I marveled at this decision and the chain of command that allowed this to happen. “Well,” she said “They were terribly overweight and standing in a restaurant all day is taxing for their feet, and that’s why they can’t work today, and they’re experts on telling people when it’s unsafe to work.”

At that point, a crazy long haired cook at the cafe came rolling in in an odd hotrod. It had two huge wheels in the back, slick tires, an exposed engine and almost a side car cab where the driver sat. As he backed into his parking space and threw it in reverse, the car began to teeter back and forth on the large wheels seemingly with no front balance, like a unicyclist trying to find his level of balance as he reversed and finally, as the car got into place the front end settled on wheels that looked like shopping cart wheels that spun 360 degrees. He got out, mouth agape, almost rabid like, he seemed full of psychosis and strange energy, and marched towards the cafe with a grenade in his hands! Everybody ran, and I hoped in the crazy guys hotrod.

The key was in it and I pushed it off and slowly, painfully made my escape as the bombing lunatic saw me leave in his home-made automobile. I left it in an easily seen parking spot some miles away and hitched to a cinderblock house with weeds growing around its perimeter where I apparently lived. And settled into the damp quarters with the setting sun blazing the walls with its orange majesty,

Dream on 1/15/21 Mountain Camp, Unique Painted Trees, Records.

Last night I dreamt of a mountain camp that I was attending, almost like a retreat participate. We were living in shared quarters, participated in group activities, shared meals, the works. As I was approaching the camp I found myself experiencing the ride like a child experiences the drive to a family vacation destination— watching out the window with a crystal clear sense of observation, watching so intently like the newness of what I was witnessing would last forever. In this case, it was a winding road through the valley, and the Appalachian Mountains were coated with a lushness of evergreen pines and cedars, deep and beautiful shades of dark green which gave the mountains a flowing hair like quality, hair that was wind blown and gorgeous.

I was riding on this approach in the desired means of travel— a scooter like mini bike. The two-stroke engine pierced the forest’s quietness with each turn of the throttle and I raced past picnic areas, and vacationing campers. On this road there was designated gas fill ups for these scooters; think an old well, but instead of a handle and pump, it was an old folksy gas fill up. I stopped there, and had a memory in the dream of “Oh yeah, I forgot they had these gas pumps up and down this road.”

When I got back to camp, people were sitting around a large well designed modern house. There was a cast of characters, artist types young and old, huddled around doing some group activity. I felt a bit alienated from them, which is a typical feeling in my waking life. Pretty soon the group got wind that one of the favorite participants of the camp was leaving, or had already gone, and he left behind a present. It was a large landscape painting where, as the note left instructed us to each paint a tree to construct a forest. Interesting, the first two painters paints a topiary ball tree, though it didn’t extend into the atmosphere. It sat like a giant globe on the ground, which hedges surrounding the globe in which one couldn’t see the globe meet the ground. As the painting got around to me I really wanted to do something exciting. I was steadfast in my research of finding the oddest looking trees in the world on a google search in the iPad. I only found cosmos pictures, pinks and greens, high in the night sky and the elusive tree I sought was not available. So then, I started to paint, and the most unusual light green shapes started to flow from my brush, Dali-like, but solid, digital, and futuristic.

At that point, I remembered my friend Ken came to visit. He was making small talk with some other participants and he decided to leave a cluster of records in a strange plastic custom made record carrying case. I suddenly remembered that I needed to return these records to him and I asked the others if they had seen them. An older man, hippy-like whom dressed much younger and cooler than his age, a California burn out with a hair of wisdom took me upstairs where he thinks he saw the records. “I now they’re here somewhere.” As he opened and flipped through a catalogue of interesting items, he finally found the records; in a mop bucket. The custom case was gone which seemed to be more important than the records to me— because of its uniqueness. I examined the records in the bucket and at the bottom there was an inch or two of water. The water had a strange characteristic— it was magic, extremely wet, and almost had a mind of its own, twisting and moving in an unnatural way, and shining the records to the point where they became mirror like, a la a CD. There was no apparent damage done to the records, but still the custom case was missing.

Dream on 1/9/21 Folk Art Aquarium, Red necks, Carpenter's Square

Dream on night of 1.9.21: I dreamt I was in a small town in Florida, and I was on a bike ride. I heard a hum, somewhere in the distance, a soft buzzing sound and I decided to turn my bike towards the noise. As I circled around a few blocks I saw a small one story house, somewhat run down, nothing atypical of small southern towns, and the center of the house was cut out in a funny architectural way. I notice the hum was louder and was eminatting from the house, it was electronic, as if someone was running a lot of wattage from inside. Upon closer inspection, the aforementioned centered cut out of the house sat incredibly large fish tanks, like a folk art aquarium. Two regular humble ends of a house book ending this 10' fish tanks with neon lights and exotic fish smoothly lapping around the aquarium. I noticed my Covid systems had subsided and I was feeling healthy and energized.

Later on, as I got back to the small abode where I was staying, I noticed the cluster of small houses were now occupied by some redneck low-lifes. As I settled into my nightly routine, I heard the low-lifes bolt the front door from the outside, and the malicious behavior was about to begin. They were setting my house up for a fire, gassing strategic places, blocking and boarding up windows. When their bags were nearly packed in an attempt of escape, they set my house on fire. I was never panicked though. I kicked down the front door, and slide off to a garage to look for a good weapon. I found nothing quick, except a carpenter's square and another odd right angle square about 24" long. I grabbed them, and snuck over to the low-life family about to leave. The husband-ring leader was packing up the back of a pick up truck with his body spread over the truck contents. I took the metal square and whacked his legs, at the back of the knees, over and over, so hard and so mighty that his legs were nearly severed from his body. I remember the lacerations were so perfectly cut it looked like a surgeon's work, neat, and perfectly place so walking was no longer an option for this man.

Dream on 1/7/21 Warthogs, Rubbish, Instagram

Last night I dreamt that I was in upstate New York, in a rural landscape picking up trash to beautify the land. I saw an empty seltzer bottle, hundreds on napkins flapping in the wind. I rushed over to grab the rubbish and put them into my trash bag. As I approached and picked up the bottles and napkins, I saw used condoms in the vicinity as well. "Gross" I thought, "people are traveling to this location to have sex." Ugh!

At that moment a forest beast appeared, something akin to a warthog or a wild pig-- it had large tusks but it was oversized. It was rummaging through the forest calmly, digging and sniffing in the mud looking for food. Then, many arrived, a few dozen perhaps. Mother and young were now present. I realized this presented a certain amount of danger. Something happened that my safety had been jeopardized. A snap of a thing under my foot.

I began to run and the sound of thundering hoofs were not far behind. I thought this boar is charging and I'm going to be skewered like a bull fighter. I ran to a mud pit and jumped with all my mite-- leaping like an olympian and landing in a mud pit. Splatter, gunk, nearly every inch of me is soiled. As I looked back at the beasts they were calmly grazing on the forest's surface. It was a complete over reaction, and now because I'm such a scared being, my fright caused me to be in this incredibly uncomfortable and muddy predicament.

Suddenly, the boars were now stampeding because a mythical looking wolf was on the prowl for a forest hunt. The wolf, mythical with supreme athleticism launched and grabbed a boar by the jugular. It held its neck in its strong jaws, canine teeth secured in the boar's flesh. It was remarkable to witness this aspect of nature so close-- the sounds, the visuals, all culminating in an experience a wildlife video couldn't produce.

Sometime later, I was scrolling through my Instagram feed and I come to my friend Matt Roper's account. He posted a video my whole experience-- the mud jump, the wild hogs, the wolf, as a videoed farce. First, I saw myself stupidly jump full of fear into the mud pit for no good reason at all, and that was alarmingly embarrassing because of my over reaction. Secondly, the wild wolf that hunted the boar? t turned out it was a burlesque dancer, dressed up like a wolf, in sexy attire and make up, imitating a wolf-- trudging through the forest looking for her fresh kill. As I watch his Instagram video, I'm learning all about this event through his feed, and at each moment when things are being elucidated I become more and more humiliated and what I thought was happening versus what was being filmed for his post.