I am with a female friend/relative/acquaintance (?). She has a tiny red dot on the skin on one of her arms or legs that looks like an insect bite of some kind. She asks me to squeeze it for her because she cannot reach it herself, and it's bothering her.

I squeeze it with my fingernails, but it doesn't seem to have anything in it.

I squeeze it a second time, though, and the red dot grows larger and larger, until it turns into a nipple. Then I squeeze it with my fingernails again, and this time, deep-red cake icing begins to slowly stream out of it in a long stream like a small rope with tiny wavy lines along it. It is just like red icing coming out of a cake decorating bag.

We marvel at this beautiful "red icing"! I quit squeezing when the icing stops flowing. But every time I stop, there is still more inside. I squeeze it about a dozen times until the red icing finally stops coming out. "I feel so much better," she says.

Then -- as if by instinct -- I reach up to feel my chest. One of my breasts is half the size of the other.

Project Dreamway

Dreamed last night I was a contestant on Project Runway. Problem: the instructions were confusing. Maybe there were no instructions. I think the first outfit I made was a very 80s tunic & leggings in black jersey; I decided I hated it and ripped it up, started making a scallopy layered dress out of the same fabric... but then I heard or remembered or realized or something that the judges didn't want to see black, that it wasn't "risky" enough. I was not on the usual set, it was in some half-abandoned institutional building in the country. There was some issue about shitting, I don't remember what it was. But I do remember that one of the other contestants made this amazing Marie-Antoinette style dress out of peacock feathers, and I was trying to do this totally amateur thing in black jersey. It was very anxious-making, this dream.

last night i dreamt that i was skateboarding and then rollerblading at Woodside, and that honey bees were crawling out of Chad Stock's ears, i think honey bees or wasps might be my spirit animal, i also dreamt that i was walking with Joanna Newsom in NYC and that i could leap maybe 15 feet into the air...leaping or running dreams are my version of flying dreams...i'm usually leaping, like Toby McGuire in Spider Man 1 where he's just figuring out his powers leaping from building to building, it feels exactly like it looked like it felt to do that in the movie

i woke up and had strong coffee and listened to Cass McCombs

Another poet had hypnotized me and an audience watched as I walked like some kind of semi-purposeful zombie, maneuvering through what looked like a TV set kitchen. I stationed myself at the sink, methodically rinsing slush off my hands. The slush was from a bottle of some liquid that had been frozen and was now expanding out of the confines of the bottle. As I methodically rinsed my hands, the hypnotist made a comment about my age and my deadpan sounding rebuttal indicated that I was actually 80 years old. The audience seemed rather disturbed by this assertion (and I was disturbed by it, too, when I woke up and expended a little too much energy worrying about why my hypnotized dream-self might claim to be 80-if anything, I feel younger than my real age, not older-so is claiming to be 80 in a dream some weird portent of impending death or something?-I HAVE been feeling creepily anxious lately about heart disease and colon cancer and family history of such diseases).



After my age assertion, the audience members started making their own assertions about me-and most of these were negative, pointing out my faults. I was accused of being 'ME! ME! ME!' I was accused of being bitter and disillusioned with the poetry world. There were some other negative assessments about me and my poetry, but I can't remember them clearly. There was an implication of irreparable mental issues and something wrong with my brain function and even though I was not responding to the hypnosis properly, they should probably just let it be, because of the hopeless nature of my brain malfunction. At that point in the dream, they were discussing me as if I was some kind of case study and as if I wasn't there or couldn't hear them or it didn't even matter if I could hear them. Even though I was hypnotized and moving like a zombie, I could still hear them and I knew they were right about my brain. I had some awareness of the word brain pan. I had some vague mental image of a metal dust pan in my brain except it wasn't really a metal dust pan; it was more like a filtering mechanism that was stuck.



This FELT a lot worse than it sounds, I think. It wasn't so much the content of the dream I couldn't shake when I got up; it was the FEELING. Disease, death, mental disorder, being judged-all things I fear to the point of detestation. I hate the idea of my brain malfunctioning in a way that only outsiders could assess, because how would I know because it's MY brain and I am trapped within its confines, but on the other hand, how can I trust others to assess my brain?

My brother M and I are sitting crosslegged on a narrow stretch of
sand, both of us on either side of a metal railing. Seated height
embankments flank us. We are in some sort of a community space. I am
telling him about the nature and meaning of something which is
provable by the geography around us. I ask him to focus on the strip
of sand and imagine what the world must have once been like - an
unending expanse of sand.

We notice digging going on some distance away, straight ahead. The
hole is around eight feet in diameter and several feet deep - it is
three quarters filled with water. Somehow this too proves the theory I
have been explaining to him. Though it is M who goes to check out the
hole, I know about its size and water level.

Suddenly a lot of water spurts into the sand. It gets wet and squishy
like sand along the shore on a beach. I want to bury my hands and feet
into it and slop around, but crowds of people appear around us and
seem to be in a hurry to leave. I am a little fazed at the ruckus and
decide to leave as well.

I awoke this morning unable to remember the dream I'd had — until a few minutes later at the kitchen sink, when the vitamin pill I take each morning caught in my throat. I dreamed I had taken an aspirin that was about three-quarters of an inch long, braided, and reddish in color. The aspirin, too, had been hard to swallow, because I had no water. Thank goodness I did when I was awake, or I might have choked to death while looking out the kitchen window at the dry ground under the fir tree behind our house.

Reb Livingston's Dream Poet Anthology

I just had a perfect dream. Or it wasn's perfect, it was a completely logical story and even now seems logical by wide awake standards. So there are four or five of us living together—unrelated and one of the men kills one of the other men and there are neighbors who see something, they don't know what, through a partially opened blind. They invite us over, or me over, and want to know where the dead man is, only they don't know he's dead. Or he's only out. Finally they insist on seeing him. He is actually the person who made the arrangements for their rental. I seem to be the only one who knows about the murder in my own apartment and I finally tell the others, telling them to act like they don't know about the murder. The murderer does not know that the others know. And that is as far as I got.

My arms are still tired from flying. I would have been content to walk, but flight was necessary to avoid several hostile lurking figures, on a street lined with mature leafy trees. Evening. With steady strokes, I lifted myself above them. When they kept pace beneath me and tried to grab my ankles to pull me down, I changed the angle of my arms and flew up higher, just out of reach. Then they were gone, and I was in an old apartment house, opening doors and trying unsuccessfully and not very urgently to call out for help. The rooms were all empty, but I could see they were lived in. Eventually I found a set of stairs and followed them down two flights and into the street — not the same street I had been flying above; this was a busier street, lined with shops. I was joined by my mother (when she was a few years younger and still up and about) and my youngest son. We went into a shop that was familiar. There were lots of books in the shop, especially near the back counter, behind which was a friendly young blond woman we all seemed to know. While she talked with my mother, my son and I looked at the books. Several shelves were devoted entirely to hardcover versions of the Modern Library imprint. I looked back; my mother and the young blond woman were gone. Then I found a rather odd-looking book, newly published, much taller than it was wide, with a very busy and colorful dust jacket that depicted hundreds of people in great commotion — the Revolution, I thought. The book's title was Walt Whitman and Aram Saroyan. And I thought, what a strange, unlikely combination. Whose idea was this? I opened the book; leafing through, I could see some of Whitman's lengthy passages, and a picture of him when he was quite old, wearing a beard much coarser and larger than any I'd ever seen in his other photos. And in the back, there was Saroyan, still in his twenties, reading to an angry crowd. And then suddenly I was in the street again, alone and trying to retrace my steps, wondering at the strange, unrecognizable names on the street signs.

I'm at the Marist Writer's Institute participating in a discussion about publishing. I give my introduction. It's a good introduction. All of a sudden I'm hearing everyone on a five second delay. I'm the only one who seems to be having this problem. I start to panic. Finally _____ says she hears the delay too although she's the only one who admits to it. Then the delay goes away and its back to normal but I start to panic again. I yell "I'm still hooked up to the machine!" People try to calm me, tell me it's OK.

Then I wake and I discover that my head is wired to something, the machine, I suppose. There's little squares attached to my temples. I start to rip the cords off. Lex Luther (from Smallville) is there trying to hook my brain back to the machine. I attack him. Then I see a woman in a pretty dress. I'm angry because we were both promised dresses, but since I was hooked up to the machine, I probably missed my opportunity.

I Dream

About an hour ago, at seven this evening, I had a dream. Yes, i do sleep randomly, sometimes.

I am driving into Jaipur, it seems I had a business trip in Delhi and having had some free hours to kill I decided to go to Jaipur. I am driving past St.Xavier School and as I approach Lajpat Marg corner I see there is a bustling market there. In the melee of vegetable and fruit vendors who are parked in front of some shops I spot Baliram, unkempt like he always is, picking the odd vegetable or fruit, chatting with the vendors, walking through, slipping some in his mouth. I motion the driver to stop at the corner and having spotted Baliram and wanting to ask his well-being, I follow him up to a Kirana store.

He seems to be in an argument with the Kirana store owner (at this point I am wondering when did Golcha House turn into a vegetable market and Kirana store). I walk up and ask Baliram how he is doing? he smiles at me and complains that the store owner is not listening to him.

I introduce myself to the owner and tell him that let Baliram pick what he wants and I will pay. In fact I offer to give some extra so that if he needs anything in the future, they should give it to him.

While I am chatting, I turn to spot Puneet behind me. We are happy to see each other and I am surprised to see him in Jaipur. We start chatting and the owner orders some tea. We stroll out onto the terrace. It overlooks a lake ( in the dream, where St.Kabir High School used to be was now a huge lake starting from the St.Xavier's school grounds). There were jagged black rocks and people were swimming in the big waves. Some kids were playing as well. As Puneet and I chatted, I see Baliram just walking around talking to people downstairs. I see a woman running in the rocks. She slips in a puddle and stubs her toe. Puneet and me grimace. We feel her pain.

This time when I turn I see a pregnant Renu, Richa and Appu walking towards us. I am completely overwhelmed at this point, how the heck is everybody in Jaipur at the same time and that too on the terrace next to a kirana store. But we are all happy to see each other. It truly is a very happy moment. The kirana store owner and his brother are happy to see Appu, they seem to know him. I think to myself that all these changes might have happened after I had left Jaipur. The kirana store owners are talking about starting their own detergent brand and are very excited about it. We all smile and share their enthusiasm. They start telling Appu about the old house and how it is now a tall building and painted yellow. Their families come out. They seem to know Richa and Renu.

The kirana store brothers invite us inside into their house. We all move in into a nicely done up, warmly light, living room. It has a hint of modernity and a lot of old furniture pieces. It seems the kirana store guys have been doing well for themselves.

We are all chatting and creating 'khap' and I see Ritu Mami and my mother walking in. Both are dressed like as if they are going for a wedding. Ritu Mami has a pale blue Saree on and some kind of small bead pearl tops set in gold. Mom is dressed in a maroon and dark blue Banarsi Saree with some gold jewelery on. Mom looks at least twenty years younger. I am completely overwhelmed and excited. All of us have smiles on our faces.

I had to wake myself up. It was getting to be a bit too real.

A few weeks after the Shakespeare dream, I had the Chaucer dream


I'm among several people standing in the aisle of an Amtrak train-car. It isn't clear why we are standing up; we don't seem to be waiting to use the bathroom, and there are plenty of empty seats. In fact, I do have a seat to return to, which I imagine is true also for the three or four other standees.

As I stand there on the train, my thoughts are about how I would love to immerse myself in the study of British Literature of the Middle Ages. I murmur the word "daughter" as I am pretty sure it would be pronounced in Middle English--with the "gh" forming a "ch" shound like Yiddish chutzpah or Scottish loch. A woman standing near me comprehends my quiet utterance perfectly--she says to me, "you like Chaucer, don't you?" I say, yes I do.

She is wearing a very cheery blouse, with a white background and large patches of bright color. We talk in the aisle for a while, then I follow her to her seat. I don't necessarily sit down next to her, probably I sit in the row of seats behind her. As we are getting seated, I notice that she is wearing a wedding ring, and I'm dissapointed, as I had so much wanted to ask this balanced, erudite, delightful woman on a date. (I noticed also that she wore another ring on the middle finger of her opposite hand).

As we speak further, I learn that she is an expert on male sexuality and the misadventures thereof. This becomes another reason I would like to have her as a friend--at some point she could provide much-needed guidance/information in regard to such matters.

note: some time after dreaming the dream I realized that "daughter" as I pronounced it on the train--dauCH-ter--suggests also "doctor". (& btw, when I consulted a Middle English glossary I noted that the M.E. word was not "daughter" but "doghter").

I'm on a ship that's broken down - will it sink? Seen from above in blue Pacific water it looks like The Titanic. Merle kicks a goal. I am clambering up a muddy bank. We get separated in the crowd hurrying to get off the boat. She has the car-keys. I'm packing up in my cabin hurriedly, interrupted by a maid who speaks almost no English. She's trying to clean the cabin, while I'm in despair at all the clothes still in the wardrobe and in drawers.
A boy [my son?] helps but hinders, packing a full hot-water bottle in my cabin-trunk. I tell him to empty it [& wake up]

Dream at the Asylum

Dreams can enter through bolted doors. I've heard them roaming the corridor. Many are shared, like germs — even this one, which finds me holding up my poor dead father, who has returned, and is too weak to stand.

I had to go from New Zealand to Portugal via Paris
to watch a dance competition. I was taken to
the airport [by whom?] but had to turn
back when I got there because I had forgotten
my passport [barely time to go back to get it].

I didn't know the name [much mumbling
& uncertainty] of the town I had to go to.
I don't speak a word of Portuguese.

I had with me a CD, made by a Portuguese dancer, of
his commentary on the coming competition, & the instruction
to distribute a thousand copies [to whom?].

I didn't get as far as
Paris before I woke.