I forgot most of it, but I think that it was my birthday and Erin had remembered to get me something when nobody else had, or something like that.

I was conspiring in some shopping mall with Suneeta and some other high school friend–Erica maybe? so that we would be able to rendezvous with our respective romantic interests. The shopping mall went many stories underground. To get to the area where we would meet them, we had to go through a side door into one of the restricted staff areas and climb into a large padded coffin full of blankets, where our boyfriends were waiting. I forget if the coffin itself was many layers deep, or if there was a different one on every floor. It was all very secretive. At some point, we were sitting on the floor in many rows facing forward as if to see a movie. I was ready to leave, but Suneeta told me she was not. She whispered to me to tell her boyfriend (I think this may have been Scott in the dream!) that she wasn’t coming. As I was whispering back to her, she got very annoyed because she felt like I wasn’t being discreet enough in my whispering to her. I went back to the empty room with the coffin, lifted the lid, and climbed in.

Apocalyptic Big Brother-type escape dream. Everyone was being herded onto a train. I was having an affair with this older married man–his wife knew and was resigned to it, I suppose. He had a gray beard but was still fairly youthful-looking–she was rather wizened and cronelike. We were in a mall or something when the call came and we all had to get into elevators and get down to that floor–the elevator to the left of ours though was pitching and swaying–with giant squid or something attacking it, I think–and the people were frightened. We poured over into the train that was waiting there, with many violent guards herding us along. As they read the rules to us we plotted ways to escape. In front of me and to my right on a little counter thing there was a pile of frozen chickens and turkeys (I guess they were going to feed us when we got to wherever we were going) and one of the turkeys weighed 38 pounds. I considered grabbing it (or having my lover grab it) and swing it into the guard’s head and knock him down, but we hadn’t figured out how to take care of the rest of them yet. We were sitting up in the very front car, right behind the conductor. As the train went through Albany my lover and I played a fake game of Hangman on a napkin with pencil, through which I told him that we could just overpower the conductor, open the front door that was right beside him (it was not locked) and jump out and make our escape. (Are there no guns in this world?)

Anyway, I think we all got dropped back off at home for a while. My lover’s wife seemed unhappy as we bustled around the home. My lover started to talk about ways to get out but I pointed out that the whole house could have, must have been bugged during our absence, and he quieted. The wife was baking rolls in a little multi-tiered toaster oven and I saw that the bottom ones were starting to burn already so I took them out. She directed me to remember to put some butter in them right away–rolls are no good if you don’t get the butter into them while they’re hot. We all took some rolls to eat and my lover blew out the little candles and turned off the brash, glaring overhead lights. He turned on the huge chandelier over the dining-room table instead. The white flame-shaped lightbulbs glowed clear and true like it was a tree made of light; with the twilight outside the suburban home (much like the Hercules house with floor-length windows looking out onto a sad litle lawn and an anemic birch tree) it was much like a Magritte “The Empire of Light” painting (or that painting of the little cabinet inside a tree trunk) in mood. The romance of the situation in the face of this bugged house trapping us inside was beautifully tragic.

I was thinking about running away without them–and couldn’t figure out logistically where I should go to hide. Tilden seemed too close by, too obvious, too small–they could comb it easily, even if I strayed from the trails and crashed down into the trees and bushes. I could get in my car and start driving to some other location (I see some kind of peninsula with a lighthouse and a little seaside town surrounded by big Northern California beach rock crags, known to me in the dream but not in real life) but I realized that the authorities might put out an Amber Alert-style warning and whenever I happened to stop for gas, the attendant would rat on me. I thought, “Maybe I can only stop for gas late at night, when no attendant is there,” but felt discouraged that I would not be able to time my driving and gas usage correctly. I also thought that perhaps I could change my license plates and paint my car to hide it from scrutiny, or borrow a different car, but my own description would be out there as well.

I had the feeling that we alone knew the evil intentions of our government and had to escape and/or stop them.

I also remember a part in which I was swimming around in very deep water, FFX blitzball-style, perhaps towards an underwater escape route.

Wow, I slept for around 14 hours (passed out around 7:30 PM and slept through till about 9:30 AM). And remembered hardly any dreams!

Here are bits and flashes:

* Epilepsy superpower (this dream triggered by a real-life stimulus)

* Being in Hong Kong, with some sort of terribly mean P.E. teacher or coach

Last night I went to see Fraulein Else at Berkeley Rep with Molly. It was good–I want to read the Arthur Schnitzler novella it was based on now. The set was remarkable, and I loved how all the actors served in multiple parts. We also ate at Udupi Palace (underwhelming).

In my dream, I started reading Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers, and then was transported into the story. Gollum was in the depths of underground caverns and in the damp blackness he started breaking off rock spires projecting from the walls. The spires poured out faintly luminous eiswein (ice wine), the color of white wine tinged with crystalline violets and greens, and he laughed in the darkness as he drank goblets full of the wine. The wine was cold and wildly fragrant, tasting of elderflowers and blackberries. I don’t remember the rest of the dream.