my dream diary - 1

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I'm experimenting here.  For only the second time in my life, I'm keeping a dream diary.  (Excerpts from my first were published as "Lord Vacant on the Boulevard of Naked Angels." in Readercon's program book, back when I was guest of honor.) This time, I thought I'd keep it online.  Because some people won't be at all interested in this, I promise to mark these entries clearly and not to post them on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays, my regular posting days.

Inevitably, this will be an irregular feature.  We'll see how long I can maintain it.


Tuesday, November 19, 2013:

A reluctant guide was leading me through a vast and rambling abandoned house, all early 20th-century with heavy wood framed doors and the like, thickly overpainted, mostly in beige or white, some rooms empty and others retaining their furnishings.  Moving from room to passage to room took one through different alternate worlds, some of which were dangerous, which is why my guide was so reluctant.

We didn't get far.  In an empty kitchen, a woman ducked through one doorway and looked about, clearly delighted with the room.  She was slim, in her twenties or thirties, well dressed in flats, skirt, blouse and vest, and easily nine feet tall.  My guide pulled me back into the shadows before she could notice us.  Silently, we slipped out and down the hall.

The next room we came to contained perhaps eight or so sets of lawyers' stack bookcases, filled with old, well-read books.  A handful of people were standing about, silently browsing.  My guide heaved a sigh of relief.  Evidently this was a safe room.  Perhaps he also knew that I would be unlikely to go exploring further today.

The glass doors of the nearest case were almost covered with photographs and notes that explorers had pasted to them.  Ignoring these, I began going through the books.  Immediately, I was struck by a series of thin matching volumes giving the history of a city named Faran:  "Faran was never very important," my guide explained, "until it was destroyed by fire during World War II.  Now it haunts our culture's imagination."

Comment:  The house was very similar to an abandoned factory I broke into in three or so dreams earlier this year.  I hope I get to revisit it.

Thursday, November 21, 2013:

I was ending a visit to Ellen Kushner, who was writer in residence at a university, when she urged me to stop by the deli and have one of my novels interpreted as a hoagie.  This was done with verve and skill by Lawrence Person who made a hoagie so large that when it came time to slice it in two, he had to lean on the break with both forearms to compact the thing to manageable dimensions.  Then it was fed to one of the bald eagles that frequented the campus.  As it was explained to me, if the eagle came back for more, my novel would prosper.  If the hoagie became one of its favorites, it would do very well indeed.

I did not see the hoagie offered to the eagle.  But I had no doubt it would be popular, because Lawrence had put a great deal of tuna fish into it.

Comment:  Ellen Kusher is now one of the very few people, other than family, to appear more than once in my dreams.  The last time, she was spontaneously conducting a big jazz brand at a party with fellow guests Isaac Asimov and Frank Sinatra.  I saw her through the windows from the street, but rather than intrude on her happiness kept on going.

Friday, November 22, 2013:

Of a night's worth of dreams, all I remembered upon awakening were two words:  Ruffle duss.

Comment:  According to the OED, "duss" is not a word in the English language.  

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