Dream Log Archive

Category: Nature

  • January 23, 2025

    (temple path exploration / hidden children / dentist lunch expectation)

    I’m on vacation. The others go back to the hotel, but I decide to go on an adventure. The place feels like Okinawa, with similar architecture and statues.I go down a narrow path that doesn’t look made for cars, though I saw one go down it. I follow it as it continues to narrow and eventually enters a pitch-black tunnel. I use my phone to light the way.

    After the tunnel, the path turns to gravel and goes uphill past a building that might have been the car’s destination. The path is clearly too narrow for a vehicle. I continue up the hill, around a bend, and up some stairs toward what looks like a temple.

    At the top platform, my way is blocked by a fallen statue of a two-headed creature. It’s large and heavy. I try to push it but can only shift it slightly. There are other fallen decorations along the path, and I pick them up and lean them back into place. Looking out over the temple, it seems like a storm has knocked everything over. Broken statue pieces are scattered everywhere.

    The temple area consists of the platform I’m on with a few statues and small hut-like buildings, and then the main grounds below, with a single building in the center. The ground is gravel, with stone slab paths cutting through the middle and along the edges.

    At first I see movement and wonder if the area is a playground for neighborhood kids. I go forward toward the main building and down some stone steps, and then the kids appear. They initially think I don’t understand Japanese. I do, but I respond in English.They’re a little disappointed that I cleaned up the path, since it means adults can get here more easily, but they also think it’s strange that one statue is still toppled, so they work together to put it back. I’m impressed because it was very heavy, but they move it easily.

    The kids are curious about me but not direct. They follow me, tap me, and run away. When I ask them direct questions, they hesitate to respond.

    I go into the building. Inside, it looks like a small gym room with mats on the floor and lockers around the edges. The layout shifts between an open space and a more structured locker room with rows of lockers and a small bench.Two kids, a boy and a girl, follow me in. I comment on how worn the lockers look, and the girl explains that the tall lockers are still used for gym class, while the smaller cubbies are used when they come to change.

    On the other side of the room, there’s a display of books like a small library. I point out One Piece. The girl says that the series in front isn’t actually One Piece, but a spin-off where a side character transitions into a man and that’s his story, with book seven on display.

    Next to it is a thick book labeled as a One Piece Guide. I open it and find something completely different. It’s about the Millennium Earl versus Mickey Mouse, written in English. Mickey goes on vacation and leaves his empire to the Earl. The Earl quickly takes over, rebrands everything, and starts putting out videos with things like Cool Ranch Doritos as a background because that’s something Americans like. Someone watches one of the videos and says they don’t know what it is about him, but he seems cool. Soon, the Earl is brainwashing America.

    I find it interesting that the Earl, who is a manga character, is drawn in a Western comic style, even though it’s still black and white.

    I’m the adult son of a dentist. My dad is youthful and wants a good relationship, but I’m grown and feel jaded and find him cringey. One day I offer to bring lunch and eat with him.

    He gets very excited and tells all his morning clients that his son is bringing lunch to eat with him. But we have different expectations. I plan to bring convenience store bread and eat quietly on a park bench. He expects something I made, or at least a proper bento, and that we’ll eat at his office and talk.

    I’m also late, and as it gets closer to one, he becomes nervous waiting for me.

  • January 7, 2025

    (rural academy / lion father / mountain farm)

    I’m in a rural town at an academy with potential dating candidates. One of them is a tall, dark-haired boy who lives in the mountains.

    We hike up through the snow. As we get close to the top, he points ahead and says that’s his father. He’s pointing to a pride of lions led by Simba.

    His mother is human.

    We go to the next hilltop, where she has a farm. I greet her nervously and tell her I’m in a relationship with her son and intend to marry him. She is gentle and says she feels blessed to be able to do what she wants in life.

    They produce milk, cheese, and other goods. There isn’t a proper cheese press—I see the barn and there’s only a cheese roller—but it’s still their most popular product.

    The lions help with shipping.

  • March 5, 2024

    (Soccer field event / missed turns / rerouting)

    I am at an event at a soccer field in Lexington with drag queens and my parents. Shea Couleé and Monét are there. I talk with them because I like them, but eventually I go home without exchanging contact information.

    On the way home, I notice we’re heading down the road toward Friend A’s house, so I ask if we can pick her and Friend J up to hang out. Dad agrees, and I enter Friend A’s address into the GPS on my phone, but we’ve just missed the left turn to her house.

    The GPS reroutes us through a long, winding forest path. After one last long U-turn to the right, we come back out onto the street with the turnoff. We miss her street again. I dread having to go all the way around once more, but Dad starts heading that way.

    Mom suggests that instead of inviting Friend A and Friend J over, I should see if Shea is interested. I tell her I don’t have a way to contact her, but Mom says she got that information from her parents.

    I feel a little annoyed that she’s trying to make friends for me, but I’m also happy that I can contact Shea when I didn’t think I would be able to.

  • July 17, 2021

    (house with medical past / naked embarrassment / ghost pursuit)

    Sister and Sister’s Husband move into a house. It’s fully furnished from the previous family, including a medical area where their daughter used to live. She had a condition where her hands could never fully dry out, so her bed is surrounded by shallow tubs of water with toys to keep sensation in her fingers. There’s also hospital equipment like IVs. She could only see friends occasionally, on good days.

    At one point, there’s a gathering. The adults sit at the dining table, and the “kids” sit at the kitchen bar. I sit between a fair-haired girl and a dark-haired girl. I start talking to the fair-haired girl as if I recognize her, but when she turns, I realize I don’t know her. The dark-haired girl talks to me like we already know each other, but I can’t remember meeting her. It’s awkward until she mentions an online friend I had, and I realize I’ve never met her in person before.

    Later, I’m inexplicably naked in the house. I need to get to my room for clothes, but Sisters Husband is walking around. I avoid him by heading into a bathroom off the living room and close the door just as he comes into view, though it catches slightly on the rug.

    Sister’s Friends B and I arrive by bus. I see Sister, Sister’s Husband, and Sister’s Dog going out to greet them, so I run through the house to get dressed properly.

    At some point, I become the dark-haired girl, who lives near the house.

    A friend drags me to a church. We were supposed to perform a sealing ritual for a ghost, but this is something different and urgent, like we’re being hunted. Instead of sealing it, she unseals the ghost by swiping a bronze token so its name becomes visible. A hole opens in the altar, and she throws me down into it before escaping through a passage to the right.

    A man named Ilya chases in after me.

    I try to hide, but the ghost has also been released into the basement, and I keep running into her. She wears white rags and is emaciated, her bones visible through grey skin. Her long black hair is tangled and oily, and her face looks partially mummified.

    I eventually find my way up and run toward the sea. Ilya and the ghost are both chasing me. I manage to fly briefly over the water, but then I fall into a rift.

    The rift leads to a spirit world—an endless sandy desert. Above me, the rift opens and closes repeatedly, showing the ocean just out of reach. I try to fly back up but can’t. I walk along the desert, searching for another exit, and eventually reach a shoreline. I try stacking stones to climb out, but they won’t stay stacked.

    Just as I’m about to give up, the ghost appears behind me, and Ilya pulls me back through the rift onto the shore. Even though he was chasing me before, he doesn’t want the ghost to be free.

    As we escape over rooftops back toward the church, he asks what happened. I realize then that my friend intentionally unsealed the ghost.

    I show him the items I have to reseal her: a bronze oval pendant, a pair of her earrings, and a small silver token—one for each of us. He urgently tells me to store them somewhere that locks, because that’s how she’s tracking me. I’ve just been carrying them in a small folding box that closes but doesn’t lock.

    I try to find something secure, but the ghost catches up again and we have to keep moving. We decide to return to the church so Ilya can help reseal her.

    I worry about my friend, but Ilya reassures me that the ghost is following me because I have all the tokens, not her.

  • April 21, 2020

    (classroom / investigation / rescue on snow islands)

    I’m in a middle school classroom set up like my high school math class. The windows face northeast, with the door opposite on the southwest side of the room. The blackboard stretches across the north side of the room, with the teacher’s desk in the corner by the wall connecting to the door.

    I sit in the middle-back of the room, but close enough to get light from the windows hitting my desk. It’s bright and spacious. We’re turning in an assignment and then getting ready to watch a movie.

    I see a coworker friend of mine—with brown hair in a ponytail—get kidnapped. I follow them back to the hideout but don’t want the kidnapper to know I’ve found it, so I circle around town for a while.

    The city is laid out in a circle around a large rotary, with a downtown area on one side, the hideout branching off on the other, and a business district in between.

    I meet up with coworkers for lunch and pretend I’ve been with them the whole time, since the kidnapper is nearby and I need to keep a low profile. While I’m there, two more coworkers are taken, along with three other people I know.

    I gather a group to rescue them.

    We enter through a place that looks like the entrance to a concert hall or zoo, with gates set up for long lines of people. Inside, it opens into a snowy landscape.

    We’re on a snow-covered island, with a large hill on one side and the ocean on the other. There are two caves on either side.

    We find people frozen in the hill, already too late to save. I jump up and look over the tops of the caves and see the kidnapped people gathered above.

    I tell them they’ll freeze from the wind since no one is dressed for the cold and urge them to come down into the caves. One by one, they make their way over and drop down. We pile up snow at the cave entrances to block the wind.

    We realize this is part of an archipelago—there are three other islands: another snowy mountain, a town, and one where the kidnapper is based.

    Later, we hold a large event with the rescued people. Many of them are genderfluid. There’s a stage where they dance and rave to music, the atmosphere energetic and celebratory. There’s also a somewhat sexual atmosphere to the party.

  • April 20, 2020

    (return visit / familiar house / masked pursuit)

    I return from Los Angeles to the home of a friend I met there. I unlock the door with a key, but once it’s unlocked, the key can’t be removed from the door.

    Inside, the kitchen feels similar to my grandpa’s, while the living room is large and filled with clothes—my friend is a fashion designer.

    Sister and Sister’s Husband come to visit.

    At some point, I’m running from a man in a mask.

    I end up at an abandoned house set between rice paddies, with a tea table outside. I go in with my friend to look around, but we run into the masked man again.

    He runs out and up a slope. I launch myself into the air and chase after him, flying up to try and catch him.

  • April 14, 2020

    (beach search / dog facility / different childhood)

    I’m walking along a beach with my family, looking for something, though I don’t know exactly where it is. We pass a taxi area and continue to another stretch of beach, but that’s not right either.

    Eventually, we come to a white glass building and go inside. It looks like a chemistry lab at first, but there are dogs everywhere—it’s more like a dog hotel or grooming center. There’s only one woman taking care of them.

    Near the entrance are four small dogs: a fluffy white one wearing a headscarf, a blonde dachshund, a jumpy dog, and what seems to be the woman’s own dog, maybe a chihuahua with partially dreaded fur.

    Behind a high table with stools where we sit, there are more dogs, including a golden-brown retriever that loves attention.I try to take pictures with all of them. They’re friendly, though some are shy.

    Later, I’m in a restaurant talking about different ways my life might have gone if I’d been born into different circumstances.

    Then I wake up as a small child.

    Murasaki comes in with her daughter. I’m supposed to know Russian, but I only have my current memories. I make an excuse to go practice and escape into the garden, then head out into the street.

    Some kids make fun of my hair color. An older white man approaches and gives me a bad feeling. I try to leave and tell him we don’t look alike. He pulls my hair angrily, but I manage to slip away and run into another house.

    Inside, it feels like a community gathering space. Another girl finds me and pulls me into a crawl space so we can move around without being seen.

    We end up at an outdoor Korean cultural museum. There’s a theater building, exhibit spaces, and alley-like streets lined with restaurants. We look for somewhere to eat but don’t settle on anything there.

    Instead, we leave and go to a building in front of the museum and decide to have Indian food. We pay up front and each order a dish. I get a kind of dumpling set—seven pieces in a batch.

  • February 27, 2019

    (California set / new job confusion / swamp creatures)

    I’m in a place that feels like California, half indoors and half outdoors. There’s a hill with sand, a road, palm trees, and people in bathing suits, like a movie set. The ocean is nearby, and at the bottom of the hill there’s a hospital.

    I’m staying in a bungalow that looks like a tea house with SHINee. I go upstairs to a kitchen area where there are presents—lots of individually boxed oranges. I divide them into equal portions for everyone and note that we’ll have to eat them quickly.

    We all go out through a door on the kitchen level into a white hallway. Two members split off into a door on the left. I go out a different door, while the others go down either side of a T-split at the end of the hall.

    I start a new job. My boss is a middle-aged woman with shoulder-length brown hair. I don’t get instructions on how to do the job, so I go in but can’t really get started.

    Over the weekend, I have a fainting episode. I go to the hospital and move through multiple floors and crowded waiting rooms before eventually leaving again with no diagnosis.

    On the way back to work, I change into my work clothes—a swimsuit and a dress. I stop to talk with Sister’s Husband, who is a senior at the same job. He helps me register the hospital visit as a half-day sick day. I talk with another coworker, and then my boss comes up and asks about my absence. I explain the health issue and say I’ll work the afternoon, even though I still don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.

    I go back up the hill and into the same hallway as before, entering a door near the end. Inside is a marshy area. Two members of SHINee have become swamp creatures—a turtle and a crocodile, which is possibly Taemin.

    The turtle struggles to catch food and gets teased by the other. He explains that tortoises are actually the fast ones in water. I feed the crocodile some reeds from the edge, and the turtle says he’ll also need to eat some for fiber along with his usual food.

    After feeding them and checking on them, I get ready to leave. I ask if they want anything special next time. They say they want oranges. I think this is simple, since I already have the individually boxed oranges from earlier that they know about.