The Recurring Architecture of My Dreams: Part 2 The Adult Years

So, those were my childhood dreams and the beginnings of fixed-place, lucid dreaming.

My adult recurring, lucid dreams occur in three locations:

The first is an overcrowded bus zipping along a narrow, forested mountain road somewhere in the Andes (where, for the record, I've never been). We're travelling fast on a downhill slope, mountain to the right, sheer drop off to the left when we fail to negotiate a sharp right turn and go sailing over the edge high above a city of jumbled low buildings with red tile roofs. I distinctly remember the first time this happened, part way through the fall thinking to myself, "No. I don't like this at all. Let's back up and try again," but couldn't and woke up just before impact. The second time, I did succeed in rewinding the scene a bit and became more successful at controlling the fall and the accident with each subsequent iteration. I haven't had this particular dream in years, now, and suspect it's because there's no more challenge left.

The second dream has no specific action but takes place in a large, dark, multi-story wood-frame house (at least it's all unpainted wood on the inside, I've never seen the outside. I assume it's in the Federal style) which is essentially a hollow cube with balconies on each floor running completely around an open, empty, atrium-like core. There are numerous wooden doors on each floor all the way around. I've only been in a few of them but, with one exception, they are all dark and empty with wooden floors and walls and, inevitably a secret panel behind the far wall opening on a warren of hidden passages allowing me to access almost any other room of the house without being seen (which is important for unknown reasons). The exception is a door that opens into a suite of bright, airy, cheery, sunny, interconnected rooms with numerous windows, comfortably furnished with tables and chairs, flowers and pictures, and suitable for entertaining company on a summer afternoon. No one, however, is ever there.

The third dream happens in a casino. This casino is set in a large open field surrounded by thick forest. There is a single road in through the woods which then circles the casino and leads to a large separate parking garage. The casino itself is ultra modern, three or four floors of polished wood and aluminum in the form of an oval, itself encased in a wider oval of glass in a steel frame. There's maybe a thirty foot space between the inner (wood) wall and the outer (glass) one. There are no windows or other openings in the wood casino walls except for the doors which I have never opened. I have neither been in nor seen the gaming floors. However, between the inner and outer walls there are a number of lounges, bars, restaurants, etc., reachable by escalators between floors. There are people here, unidentifiable background extras, but people nonetheless. They are all well-dressed. The only restaurant I have been in, unfortunately, is the buffet on the ground floor, where I waited in line for typical buffet fare and had a hard time finding a table. One time, I found what I thought was a restroom on the ground floor that turned out to have, in addition to a bewildering array of facilities, an extensive locker room, all arranged in a symmetrical array of dark, carved Gothic stone pillars, alcoves and passageways. And once, I started my journey to the casino from several miles away on a typical American highway, several lanes of fast traffic bordered by strings of neon-lit strip malls and "fast casual" chain restaurants. Night was coming on and the sky was purple with a bright orange sunset afterglow on the horizon. I turned left across traffic down a small lane into the woods and thence out to the casino which was bright against the dark sky and forest.

The reason these have all come back to mind recently, is that I may have started a fourth location, although it is still quite undefined in comparison. Twice now I've dreamt I was looking out a standard size window opening (there is no frame or glass) in a wall made either of concrete or stuccoed cinder block. Outside the window is a long, thin pole, much like a flag pole. I can see neither the top nor bottom. I can reach outside the window but not far enough to touch the pole. And climbing it is some sort of ghoul. This thing is almost human size. It's skin is made of dark gray leathery patches sewn together haphazardly, all except for its face which is pinkish-orange flesh sagging and folded as if melting. It has large eyes (can't recall a color) over which its eyelids droop. It has a long melty nose. The first time, I managed to reach out and push the beast back a bit, but in the second dream I missed and it crawled up out of sight.

All things considered, I'd rather hang out at the casino (or in the sun room).

The Recurring Architecture of My Dreams, Part I: The Early Years

I had a dream over the weekend and it has caused me to think about my history of dreams and some of their standard settings. This last one was some place new yet familiar.

I can remember dreams going back to my early childhood (five or six years old). The two earliest were non-repeating: the first has no setting just a dark background and involves a standard wooden school ruler, 12 inches long with flat bottom and slightly beveled top, fractional inch segments* imprinted in black and the small metal insert running the length against which you could run your pen or pencil to draw a perfect straight line. I hold the ruler in my right hand (I'm left-handed) while a pale green, luminescent spider about an inch long slowly crawls from the far end toward me. I watch as it passes each printed tick mark on the ruler, starting and stopping, glowing faintly as it closes and I can not let go no matter how hard I try until I wake just before it touches me.

The second one seems more. . . normal . . . for a five/six year old: The new suburban neighborhood in which we lived backed up to, and was named for, a long, forested ridge on the other side of which was a reservoir. On the crest of the ridge, one tree stood above all the others, a pine with a peculiar top which, if you squinted just right, or had very poor eyesight as I do and couldn't focus properly, looked an awful lot like a Tyrannosaur. Which, in my dream, it became and waved its tiny arms about and chomped its huge jaws but never came down into our little valley because it was still rooted up there.

Both of those dreams are over fifty years old and only happened once.

The first of my recurring dreams started shortly after. It was also the first of my lucid dreams. It was the flying dream.

I remember lying on my back, under the covers, yet not touching the bed. With a little effort I could swing my body sideways, left then right, until I was moving like a pendulum or someone swinging in a hammock. Soon I was flying two or three times a week. I still remember the delight I felt when I eventually realized I could control how far I could arc the swing and when I first performed a full barrel roll.

At some point, I turned over so I was facing down and thus began moving through space. Left, right forward and (with some difficulty) back were mine. The only thing I never got the hang of was altitude control and I remained at a constant (and not coincidental since that just happened to be the height of my bed) three feet off the ground. And this is where the first of the recurring locations came in as I found myself repeatedly navigating through my brightly lit, empty school, into and out of classrooms and up and down the clean, polished hallway, no one else around, until, inevitably, the one long hallway would narrow down in a kind of forced perspective and I found myself with shoulders wedged against the walls unable to move and woke up. The school setting was accurate down to the desk arrangements, lights and radiators in the classrooms, including the overall floor plan. As dream settings go, except for the last little bit, it was quite mundane.

A couple years later we moved to another town and those dreams ended,

* There was no such thing as metric in those days. I wear an onion on my belt.

How I Came to Stand Beside Connie Chung While Nixon Resigned

Short answer: She was last in line.

Forty years ago today I was wandering around D.C. with too much time on my hands having just recently resigned as director of development for the National Student Lobby due to massive burnout. It was an intense time to be in Washington.

I'd been to some of the Capitol Hill hearings and a co-worker whose parents lived around the corner from the Watergate prosecutors snagged her a couple of tickets to the trial so we got to sit in on a session. The high points, aside from seeing Maureen "Mo" Dean, came while we were standing in line waiting to get into the courtroom. We were right next to a small branching hallway that led to the judges' chambers and "Maximum" John Sirica, himself, stopped on his way in and said "Hello," to us. Then Art Buchwald wandered by and autographed our copy of the Washington Post which we had used as a sign-up sheet while we were still out in the plaza waiting for the courthouse to open up and which everyone getting into line signed in order of arrival and then honored even though the guard announced that he could not and would not enforce it.

The radio said the president intended to make an announcement this evening and the rumors started flying. He was going to resign. He was going to declare martial law. He was going to throw Haldeman and Erlichman under the bus. Tanks and APCs were seen across the bridge in Arlington. He was going to dismiss Congress. The national guard was over by Union Station.

I decided to go to Lafayette Park which was, at that time, still separated from the north lawn of the White House by Pennsylvania Avenue. It turned out not to be an original idea.

There were thousands of people there. Some were protesting, yelling, chanting and carrying homemade signs. Many more were partying and some sections of the park became enveloped in pungent clouds which the police monitored with some amusement and an attitude of "as long as they stay peaceful, we stay out of it," although that didn't prevent a certain amount of paranoia from floating around with the smoke. This is where I heard most of the more outlandish rumors. I seem to recall a few small fireworks, too.

At the south end of the park, right up against Pennsylvania Avenue, and with an unobstructed view of the White House, the TV news crews were setting up. They parked their trucks at the corners and ran cables out to their crews. Each network and major station had its own crew: cameraman, sound man, lighting tech, make-up, talking head. As the sun went down, they set up in a line along the avenue, shoulder to shoulder. That way they each got almost identical background shots of the White House without indicating there was anyone else also standing there broadcasting the exact same thing. Nowadays, there are so many news outlets I doubt they could all fit in that space but back then there were only the three networks (ABC, CBS, NBC), the local channels (both network and independent) and a couple of major channels with ambitions (mostly out of New York) which. although they were network affiliates, felt the need to have their own people there in addition.

One of those people was Connie Chung.

She was still with WCBS out of New York and not yet with the network. And she was just as hot in person as on air even with all the pancake make-up on. She was the last reporter in line on the east end, right next to Dan Rather who was with CBS network and therefor directly competing for the same eyeballs. The klieg lights all in a row made the rest of the evening that much darker. I stood at the end of the line, about three feet away and watched Nixon resign on the same monitor her producer was using.

I wandered away when the resignation was over and the "analysis" began. I'd be surprised if folks in the White House couldn't hear all the cheering and yelling that went up from the park that night. The party continued on for quite a while.

Eventually I went home and, a few months later, with all the adrenaline gone from an exhausted city, moved back to Connecticut.

Late Night Drinks With Pete Seeger

I woke up this morning to the news Pete Seeger had died and flashed back about forty years or so. 1971 to be exact.

I was a sophomore at a small private university in northern New Jersey majoring in political science and self-appointed chair of the school's environment committee. My roommate, Bart, was majoring in theater (and later went on to get his masters and create and lead the puppetry department at the University of Connecticut).

There was an official student entertainment committee that booked popular-but-safe concerts (I remember Santana being one) but Bart wasn't satisfied with their selections and essentially started his own freelance booking agency on campus specializing in unknown, under appreciated, controversial acts mostly of the acoustic or folk variety. Among others, I remember he brought in the Boys of the Lough featuring Aly Bain and Mike Whellans.

And he booked Pete Seeger.

I don't remember the actual venue for that concert. The official committee usually booked into the gymnasium. Bart's concerts were much smaller and usually played in the common room of the Great Hall ( a copy of Christ Church Hall at Oxford University).

The important thing is not where the concert was held, or that it was a roaring success. The important thing is that, after the show, as Pete and his accompanists were packing up, someone asked him if he would care for refreshments before taking off and he allowed that, "singin' is thirsty work," whereupon we decided, what with the hour and all the commercial establishments being close to or already past closing time, to invite him back to our dorm room for a beer or three.

To our delight, he accepted. And so Pete Seeger (and troupe) spent the next two hours or so up in our room in deep conversation about music and politics and the environment. We talked about the war. We talked about pollution. He told of us building the sloop, Clearwater, a sailing ship on the Hudson River as a kind of moving billboard for cleaning up the water. He took out his guitar and and strummed a bit. He told us never to get discouraged or give up, the fight was its own reward and you never knew what kind of effect you could have down the line.

Rest in peace, Pete Seeger. What an effect you had, down the line.

How It Came To Be That Alfred Hitchcock and I Had the Same Housekeeper

Recently, a friend posted on his Facebook timeline the anniversary date of Nixon's resignation from the presidency. Normally, I do not comment on Facebook except for birthday congratulations but this prompted me to remark on how I happened to be in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House, standing by Connie Chung and Dan Rather, partying with a few thousand others that night.

Which got me thinking about some of the other events/happenings/coincidences in my life.

It was in the last century, while Nixon was still president, and I was studying political science at a small private university in New Jersey. Our school, despite its size, offered several off-campus semesters including United Nations (International Organizations), Brussels (European Community), Washington D.C. (U.S. Government) and London (Comparative Government). I eventually took all of the off-campus semesters except Brussels thereby spending my entire junior and half my senior years away.

This story is about London.

There were about 40 of us on the semester, including about a dozen students from other schools, plus three of our professors and another handful of local professors and lecturers including a sitting Labour M.P. All of us, except the locals, lived in a five-story white stone Victorian townhouse in South Kensington a short walk from the Royal Albert Hall. The owner would occasionally lurk about in the corners with serious second thoughts about having American college students running loose. (Rumor had it a few years later he sold the place to some African country for an embassy.) In addition, this being London and all upstairsy-downstairsy, we had a full staff: cook, whose specialties included Brussels sprouts, ox-tail soup and eggs drowned in lard; three live-in maids, two homely Spanish girls who looked enough alike to be sisters and one incredibly cute Australian whose nickname was "Rabbit" and who has her own story possibly titled "How I got the Maid Fired for Fraternization," due in a future post. And the housekeeper. Mrs. Yardley.

Mrs. Yardley was in charge. Mrs. Yardley set the schedules for the maids and inspected their work. She kept the owner from freaking out. She could do nothing to improve the cook. She was barely five feet tall, broad in the shoulder and hip, with thick stubby fingers and a voice like a trumpet. Think short Julia Child with a working-class English accent. And, unlike the owner, Mrs. Yardley was intrigued by Americans.

One day four or five of us were sitting around one of the bedrooms enjoying a little afternoon sweet vermouth when Mrs. Yardley knocked and entered. She had a question regarding American timekeeping, specifically: Did the phrase "a quarter of the hour" mean fifteen minutes before or after the hour? Being Americans, it had never occurred to us that this could cause confusion but, after considering for a moment, we realized that, yes, someone unfamiliar with the Americanism could misunderstand and invited Mrs Yardley to partake of some vermouth while we explained. (It means before.) Turned out Mrs. Yardley liked vermouth. We had two bottles that day. We guys finished one and Mrs. Yardley did for the other.

Towards the bottom of her bottle Mrs Yardley started to reminisce about her experiences during The War. She'd been in London during the early part of the Blitz but late in the war got a position out in the Essex countryside as a housekeeper. In fact, she was on her bicycle, peddling home from market one day, when one of the first V-1 buzz bombs exploded in a field less than half a mile from her. She said her employer out on the estate was "Mr. Hitch-cock." That's how she pronounced it, with equal emphasis on both syllables as if it was two words.

We asked her if he was, you know, the Mr. Hitchcock. Oh, yes, indeed, she said. Himself. We asked what he was like. Mrs, Yardley turned her glass a bit, examining her vermouth, perhaps contemplating the propriety of discussing personal details of a former employer.

"He was a very quiet man," she said, finally. "Strange. But very quiet."

Well, of course.