Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Jinx is laying on his back in the sun. Legs spread. His foot just twitched. It's supposed to get into the seventies today and tomorrow get a little warmer, possibly the low eighties. Back to work this week which has felt good, recharged and properly settled into Oakland, and ready to resume. Though I have been having strange dreams recently. In one a student killed one of my colleagues. In another an old roommate broke all of my dishes. Old news but oddly anxious. To me that's a sign that I should probably get back to writing. Something trying to push forward from the back of my brain so as, I should be ready to catch it when it comes out. Like a bloody tooth laying on the pavement after a street fight. Street Fighter II. Street Fighter II Turbo Edition.

Or maybe it's simpler than that. Since I'm thinking about class on Thursday during my waking hours maybe it's only natural to be dreaming about the (mildly) trouble making student. Since I ran into a colleague of my old roommate at work yesterday and the conversation we had lead me to old thoughts about my old apartment maybe it makes sense to have dreams about all that. Ever since the first meditation course, almost two years ago, the meaning of dreams has been not as interesting. Have not been nearly as mysterious. Sitting all day long, working hard to focus the mind and bring it back and notice its wandering and bring it back and really work that sixth sense, seriously occupying the brain all day the opposite of letting the mind wander; at night I had the craziest dreams. Removing the eyeball of a Saint Bernard and sucking on it for a while, putting it back quickly when the leather jacket wearing owner came back. Eventually the eyeball broke, like an egg, and I stuffed it into the wall mounted garbage shoot. Asides from the familiar feeling of guilt over something I wasn't supposed to do, I do not believe that the specifics of this dream (Saint Bernards, eyeballs, leather jackets) have any more meaning than the items laying on my desk right now (a stack of blank CDs, a stapler, a notepad, a pencil case).

For example about six months ago I had a dream about wires sticking out of an electrical socket in my old apartment. I was worried that I or my roommate might walk by and get shocked. So as I tried to fix the wire that was sticking out from it, with a vauge sense that I was the only one paying attention to this danger. Not in a righteous, nobody else cares kind of way, but in a no-blame, gosh I should fix so I don't get shocked kind of way. Regardless, the dream was a vehicle to communicate this worry that I must of gone to bed with. The outlet was not a symbol for anything. It was completely and totally banal as most of my dreams are, just replays of the day's anxieties. Ted used to have a Saint Bernard when I was kid. And the dream leads me to my vague memories of that, but only because I willingly go there. "It's not like it's a mystery." We know, or at least have a pretty good guess, where our dreams come from, if we first consider our sensations in the dream rather than the semi-random objects and people our dreams are populated with. All that said, I still would like to get back to writing.