I dreamt that my mom wanted to eat at an expensive restaurant. I didn’t want to go because I knew I would be paying for it. We ended up going. It was my mom, one of my brothers, and myself. We sat down at a table covered in a white cloth in the middle of the room. The table had five chairs. We had started eating our bread when another woman and her son came to join our table. I was confused at first, but then assumed that it must be this way at fancy restaurants, where people sit together. Almost immediately, the woman pulled a crystal sphere out of her purse to display her wealth for us. She was explaining the type of mineral of which the sphere was made when her son made a comment about how she was always showing off. I agreed with him, out loud. The lady was offended. I didn’t care. My mom was embarrassed. We left the restaurant. The bill for the bread alone was twenty-five dollars.

Recorded in dream journal on: August 27, 2020

I dreamt that I was back at our family home in the cul-de-sac at the end of Sumac Street. I was in the basement watching a movie with my friend. My dad got home from work and said he wanted to show me something. We walked through the sliding glass door in the basement, out into our one-acre backyard. We walked about fifty paces to a part of the yard near the trees that had been experiencing flooding. There was an irrigation system comprised of gates and a glass graduated cylinder that stuck into the ground and pulled up water. We were talking about it, when we heard a wild commotion in the forest on the other side of the yard. We turned, and through the trees, we could make out two buffalo being chased by a pack of white wolves. At first, it was nothing more than a marvel to behold, as one looks at something far away and not personally concerning. Until a few of the wolves noticed us and broke off from the pack, running into our yard. I immediately climbed up onto a stack of cinder blocks, stacked about six or seven feet high. My dad stayed on the ground, seemingly not worried. The wolves bared their fangs and barked and growled. One of them circled around my dad’s legs. He didn’t move. Most of them focused on me, jumping up on the sides of the stack of cinder blocks, and biting at my legs. I was very scared, and that was the end of the dream.

Recorded in dream journal on: August 20, 2020

I dreamt I lost my memory, from the 24th to the 7th; I can’t remember which months. Maybe from May 24th to June 7th. The dream was mostly in the context of work and high school. It was very emotional. When I realized on the 7th that I had lost my memory, I kept it to myself at first. Then I pulled my boss aside and I broke down. In the back of my mind, I thought it was because I had a brain tumor. This has always been a fear of mine.

Originally posted in dream journal on: July 23, 2020

I dreamt we were at a house in the country. We slept on a cot in the garden, K and I. My hand dangled over the side of the cot, and something nibbled on my finger. At first, it was non-threatening. Then, a larger creature, made mostly of zucchini, started to attack with garden tools like a shovel and an ax. Then it became more serious. The vegetable monsters proved very difficult to kill. We killed one and then fled into the house. There were others with us. We locked all the doors. More vegetable monsters had gathered around the house at this point.

Recorded in dream journal on:July 23, 2020

I went somewhere in my dreams last night. I couldn’t tell you where exactly. There were many places. At one point, we went to a house deep underwater. It was a very small house because, you know, real estate is very expensive at the bottom of the ocean. At one point, we discovered a passage in a dresser or a chest or some other nook or cranny. I say “we,” but I can’t remember with whom I was. But anyway, we found this passage in this small house at the bottom of the ocean and it led to a whole other place. There were more people there, which was very surprising because we thought we ourselves had made a very daring trip to the bottom of the ocean. How then could there be all these other people here? It did not make sense spatially, either. It is not easy to construct a house on the ocean floor. The house was, in fact, very small. And there were no connections to other places of which we were aware. Where then was all this other space coming from? I met a woman in this other place. I asked her a question and she said something that struck me as very wise. I cannot remember it exactly now. I asked her something alone these lines, “Why are you living at the bottom of the ocean?” She said, “Down here, we are living. Up there, you are …” And it was something else. Something that made me feel like I didn’t belong up there. That I should be living at the bottom of the ocean too.

I have had dreams like this before—specifically ones where you have to cram yourself through a tiny claustrophobic passage to get to a whole other wide open world that you didn’t even know existed. It is very much like Narnia. I wonder if that concept of traveling to another world through a closet was born from a dream. I don’t know what it means. But this morning I feel different. The only thing to which I can compare it is how I feel after I’ve travelled. Like the old world to which I return after is brand new. Everything I knew and felt before is behind me. I have travelled and learned something new and now things are not the same.

I myself, was a potter
And my brother, was a poet
So we went to see a man
About some flowers
On the outskirts of town

We had already been
To the one man with flowers
Most well-known in town
In the morning
And had gotten two flowers

One for me
And one for my brother
And they were fine
But not exactly
What we had in mind

So we asked our driver
On our way back
If there were another
Man with flowers
Somewhere in town

And he said, “Well …”
And then he paused
“There is one other”

And by the tone of his voice
Like any fairytale
We should have known
To turnaround and go home
And be happy with our two
That we had gotten that morning

My brother, the poet,
Had heard the tone
And wanted to turn around

I, the potter,
Urged that we go on
And my brother, being the younger
Was forced to follow

When we got there
There was a large henchman
Seated at a long wooden table
In a larger open room
With a high ceiling
And a clutter of objects all about

We asked him to see the man about some flowers, and he asked us some questions that I now cannot remember. And our answers must have sufficed, because he turned and took us up the stairs that led to a small room in the back of the place, also cluttered with objects.

There was a man seated there, the man of the flowers. The second man of the flowers in town, or maybe the first—this we hoped to find out.

I told him sir, “We would like to buy two flowers.”

And he said, “Four.”

I said, “Beg your pardon.”

He repeated,” Four … that’s the minimum.”

“But the other man of flowers in town …”

“I’m not the other. I’m the only,” he interrupted me, without looking up from whatever he was tinkering with on his workbench.

I started to argue, but the henchman who had remained standing in the doorway stepped in and grabbed me gruffly, asking, “Do you know who you’re talking to?”

And what happened next will be hard to explain, but the long and short of it is, my brother the poet was turned into a pot to teach me a lesson about being greedy.

I was let outside and wept in the grass for the loss of my brother and learned my lessons once and for all about sacrificing the potter for the poet.

For the first time
That I can ever recall
I met a man
Named Paul
That I could not recall
At the time
In a dream

Particular
Was this perchance
Precisely because
This Paul was a man
Who I was meeting
For the second time
When the first time
Was also
Only ever in a dream

So it makes sense to me
Now awake remembering
That in this second dream
Where I was in a golf shop
In rainy New York
Testing out clubs
With my friend John

And afterwards we walked home
In the rain
With our coats
Pulled around our necks
(I can remember
Now awake
With uncanny accuracy
That we seemed to be older
Than I am now
Here laying in bed
And also that a group of people
That we passed in the street
Were huddled under an awning
To stay out of the rain
Watching the news
On TV screens
And talking about trading stocks
(Such is my subconscious
Perception of New York
It seems)

So John and I
Make our way back to the apartment
And this is when I meet Paul

John and I
Are sitting at his kitchen table
Late at night
On a weekday
Eating pie
That he had left over
From a party
—I remember these details
Because John said to me,
In the dream,
“This is never something you would do,
Eating pie
On a weekday.”

And before I could respond
And tell John
How vehemently I agreed,
But this
Was a special occasion
—I prepared to tell him this,
I was thinking it,
I can remember.

And right then,
Paul came up
To the table
With another friend
Seemingly
From another room
Somewhere else in the apartment.

He and his friend were dressed
Like they were going out
For the night.

He came up
And slapped me on the shoulder
And said,
“Ho, Cole, how have you been?”
Which is when,
I looked across the table at John
And then back up at Paul
In confusion
As I thought to myself
That I had never met
This Paul before
And so wondered
Why he was now greeting me
With such seeming remembrance.

As they both perceived my confusion
And in the space of silence that lingered thereafter
Where Paul seemed to be expecting a greeting in return,
John stepped in and said,
“Cole, it’s Paul!”

I did not know the meaning,
At first,
Of John repeating
With more intonation
Paul’s name
As if that would be the cue
For me to remember
But I still
Could not recall.

Seeing my inability to remember
They all started to laugh
Even Paul’s friend
Who seemed to have no relation
To the situation,
As if they all together
Were in on some inside joke
That I was left out of.

When they had all laughed
And slapped each other’s shoulders
And wiped tears out of their eyes
John caught his breath
For one final try, and asked me again,
“Cole, do you really not remember?”

Remember what?
I thought to myself.
I felt like a man
Left outside in the rain
Looking in through a window
Into a warm and well-lit party
That I was not part of.

But this Paul was a cool cat
And he brushed it off like it was nothing,
My not remembering him.

He stepped around the table
To grab something from the cabinet
To eat on his way
To where he was going out,
This I can best recall
From the dream
From which I have woken
And am now writing.

It was then
That the mental event
In my own mind occurred
Which makes this a dream
Worth remembering,
And therefore writing—

For as Paul
Was walking down and out
Of the long hallway
In the apartment
With his friend,
It was then
That I suddenly remembered!

Paul!
Of course I knew Paul!
The last time I was in New York …
It was all coming back to me.

On another occasion,
I had visited John
And we were all going out.
We were in the living room
Of his apartment
And Paul was there too,
And as a matter of fact,
So was his friend!

We were drinking,
I was remembering
Within this dream
What seems to be
A memory,
Which at the time
In the dream
Seemed to me
To be completely organic
Just as anyone
Would all of a sudden
Recall a memory
That they had
For an instant, forgotten.

And so I said again, “Paul!”
But this time aloud,
And got up from the table
To chase him down the hall.

He turned on his heel
Hearing his name
And I ran down
The not so long length
Of the long hall
To give him a hug.

I could feel the extra mass
Added to his thin frame
By the winter coat
He had put on
To go outside.

He hugged me back
And then pushed me away
And laughed like before.

In the interchange,
Paul tried to hand me
A cigarette
That he had seemingly
Lit up
While he was still in the apartment
Walking out the door.

I tried to grab it
But missed
In the pinch between
Our fingers
And it fell on the floor,
Still smoking
Inside the apartment.

But this Paul was so cool
He didn’t seem to notice
Or care.
He would have just as soon
Gotten the pack
Out of his coat pocket
To light up another
Before bending down
To pick up the dropped one.

“There you go,”
He said.
“Now you’re remembering.
Not your fault,
I’m not offended.
We did feed you
Quite a few drinks that night.”

And this I could now recall,
If only in blurry pieces
How we had all drank together
That night in New York,
For my first visit
(This now,
Being the second).

Us four,
Including Paul’s friend,
Who I now assumed to be
John’s third roommate,
Had all had
Quite a good time.

“Well, I’ll see you next time,”
Paul said,
Now seeming
To be in a bit of a hurry
To get out the door
To wherever he was going out.

Hearing this,
John leaned back in his chair
From the living room
To poke his head
Around the corner
Into the hallway and say,
“You’ll be seeing him,
A lot more now,
Paul.
Cole’s going to be
Our fourth roommate.”

This must have been
The occasion
For my being
In New York,
I thought,
As John said this
As if it was news to me.

And that
Is the last thing
I can remember
From the dream.

Now I wonder,
Awake, as I write this,
If the memory
Of meeting Paul
For the first time
Was another dream
That I have had
Some other sleeping night
Out of my actual
Waking life.

Or, if it was a memory
Completely fabricated
Within that dream itself,
The one I have just had
And am now awake from,
Writing about it.”

For the feeling
Of having forgotten something
And then soon after,
Remembering all of a sudden,
Like a word on the tip of your tongue,
Or the name of an author
Whose book has come up in conversation

—That feeling
Was so real to me
In the dream,
That surely
That memory must come
From something else
At least as real
As another separate dream,
And not something so fickle
As a memory
Within a dream

—For then,
From what other world
Would come that memory?
A memory which has never
Seen the light
Of a real waking day
Nor the muddled dark
Of dreams
That are themselves
So often forgotten
But somewhere deep
In my subconscious
Are a subset of memories
Which I may never recall
As I remember things
While awake,
But may only ever recall
Within a dream,
Or not at all.

I think of many

Horrible things

In my dream

So I’m happy

To wake

Relieved

in a dream, i was in class with my little brother’s childhood friend, christian. i was still the age i am now, while christian was the age i remember him—about 7 or 8 years old. i must have been acting as a teacher’s aide in his kindergarten class. at first, he was asking me whether he could bring a baggie or cookies to school. i told him that he should ask his mom or his teacher. he said they already told him no. they wanted him to eat healthier snacks like raisins and nuts. i told him he should probably listen. then he told me that he would just bring the cookies anyway and just sneak them at his desk when nobody was looking. i thought of telling him that’s what i would do when i was his age, but decided against it. next, the class was taking a spelling test. i was seated at one of the desks next to christian. there were about twenty other kids in the class. they all had their eyes closed. the teacher was going around the room taping up cards with letters on them. i gathered that she was spelling out a word that the class had attempted to spell on their tests (this way they could see if they had gotten it right). i watched this like a person out of place, bewildered at first, and then studying, trying to understand. when christian opened his eyes, he looked at the cards that were taped up. “got that one,” he said. i watched him make a check mark next to the word on his test paper. at that point, i wasn’t sure who i was anymore. was i christian’s age? was i a student in this class? the table’s turned and i started to ask christian questions. “should i be taking this test?” i asked him. “probably,” he said. and pointed with the pink eraser end of his pencil to a stack of papers in the middle of our desks. i grabbed one and a pencil, and then started listening to the teacher and looking around to try and gather what the words were that i had missed. it was right then that i started to feel out of place. i wondered, wait, who am i? what day is today? i remembered that i own an iPhone. and i thought, “oh shoot, what day is today?” i reached in my pocket to check my digital calendar. a feeling of dread came over me as i feared i might have missed my flight back to san francisco. then i woke up, back into my adult life, at 2:25am on monday morning. i felt relieved that i hadn’t missed my flight and wasn’t late to anything or out of place. i was just in bed waiting to go to work in the morning.