Dream Log Archive

Category: Japan

  • 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 17, 2025

    (ireland arrival / palace vision / crowded japan transit)

    I land in Ireland, not Dublin, and meet up with Dad and Sister. They say they’re going to the hotel to drop off their things and then wander around. I remind them that I came last minute and still need to find a hotel. Dad wonders if I’ll be okay, and I tell him it shouldn’t be an issue, though I worry about Baobao.

    I look up nearby hotels on an app. While I’m searching, we sit outside on large stone steps and look around. In front of us is a large park, and on the other side of the park is an old hospital. Around the park are old European buildings. To the left is a road going up a hill.

    Dad points out that under one of the building steps on the hill there is a statue of Woody and Jessie and what look like their parents, huddled together and holding up the landing. They are half buried. He says the hill had to be re-landscaped because it was slowly eroding, and when they did that it covered the bottom of the statue. A lot of people were upset because they had to reconstruct their houses to match the new level of the road. He also points out a painted sign on the building next to us. He says it reads “war makes money” in Latin and shows a man holding a gun against a red warfront background. It faces the old hospital and signifies people’s anger at wars the government participated in.

    The building whose steps we’re sitting on is a palace. Inside, we go up a spiral staircase to an exhibit room displaying dishware, including an entire wall of tea sets. The tea sets aren’t the thin fine china I expect. Either the family wasn’t wealthy enough to own fine china, or it hadn’t become popular yet. The cups are bulky and dyed primarily one color, sometimes with gold around the rim or a second color inside.

    I see a vision of the ladies of the court having tea when the king comes in to see his queen. They seem to have a good relationship, and he appears to love her very much. She has white hair, possibly a wig or dye though she’s young, curled around her head with a small curl down the back. He has orangey-brown hair stacked high like a beehive. He consults her about information she gave him that was confirmed true, and she tells him what to do next.

    In a cutaway scene, her father speaks with someone about her gift. She has foresight, or has come back in time, and can tell the future. Her father listened to her and gained a great deal. Then she asked him to send her to marry the king. Shortly after, a call went out among the aristocracy that the king was looking for a wife. She passed every test smoothly and became queen. Now she is expecting her second child and seems to anticipate future trouble that she is trying to prevent.

    Back on vacation, I’m in a museum. It has many separate dark rooms with yellow lights illuminating artifacts that look Western in origin, possibly Greek or Roman. Between rooms is a hallway that occasionally passes doors opening to a courtyard. It almost feels like a movie theater. Someone, maybe a group, comes to tell me we’re moving to another location.

    Still on vacation, I’m now in Japan. I’m in a suburb of Yokohama, and it’s extremely crowded around the train station. I try to stay with my group, but we get separated. They shout that I should just keep going and get off at the last station. I look at the train map and see that one end in a direction is Gifu, which doesn’t feel right, so I choose the other direction. It’s crowded down the stairs and onto the platform, and I’m carried along with the flow of people.

    In a new town, I stop for lunch with a friend, possibly UK Friend K or High School Friend L. I like the place but don’t feel very hungry, so I order something light. She orders a large portion of spicy shrimp tempura and a side salad with full slices of cucumber and carrot, and she eats almost none of it.

    I try to help two elementary schoolers pay at a touchscreen machine, but one insists on pressing the buttons herself and, because she can’t quite reach, selects the wrong dish. They’re on a sponsored trip and need receipts for reimbursement, but the dish she chose costs 300 yen more than what she bought. I try to change it, but the system won’t allow it. I ask the staff, but she says she can’t change it either.

    The child explains why she needs the receipt, and the staff seems conflicted because the transaction is already recorded in the system. I think privately that it’s a flawed system. I notice an elderly woman behind the counter working the machine and assume this can’t be the first time someone has entered their order incorrectly.

  • July 7, 2024

    (tokyo meetup / driver’s license / tv show over dinner)

    I live in Japan, somewhere somewhat rural but still close to Tokyo. Friend K is visiting Japan, and since I have some days off, I decide to meet her in Tokyo.

    We meet up and spend time together. It was recently my birthday, and I had posted online asking people to message me. Akira had messaged asking if I wanted to meet at “dept Machada.” I’m unsure if that means a tea shop in a department store or if it’s a typo for Machida in Tokyo, and I briefly wonder if he’s following my updates too closely.

    In the early afternoon, Friend K and I talk about what to do next. I mention something my host family has for me that I never picked up. Friend K feels responsible and offers to go get it. She has a train pass, so it won’t cost much.

    There’s a special express train leaving soon, so we go to the station and she takes it. I wait with her for about twenty minutes, then stay behind to catch a regular train into Tokyo. We plan to meet again later.

    As I’m on the train, I realize I didn’t think the timing through. We both left around 3:30 or 4:00pm, which doesn’t give her enough time to go to my host family and come back. I also realize I never told my host family she was coming, and she’s going to Sapporo, not Kushiro. I scroll through my LINE messages trying to find Okaa-san, but there are lots of recent messages from people I don’t know well, along with ads from businesses, especially home goods.

    I arrive at a building that looks very American, with an entrance like a dentist office. There’s a front parking lot reserved for certain people. A friend parks there, and when I ask why, she says it’s because her small truck doesn’t fit in the regular parking spaces.

    I think about getting my license. Instead of retaking a test, I go to reception and they reprint it for me based on past data. There’s another window that looks like it can print passports too. I answer a few simple questions, and they print my card, and now I can drive.

    There’s a car outside that I can take, though I realize I don’t actually have permission to park there. I take it out anyway and drive around the streets for a bit. Dad is also there at the building when I get my license.

    I’m at a very fancy house, possibly In-laws’. I talk with someone about a show I’ve been watching and put on the first episode while I make dinner—pasta and salad.

    The show is about a girl who is treated very badly by her family. Her brother and sister treat her like a dog, and the father is cold and doesn’t stop them. At some point, the father brings her for experiments. The siblings realize what they were doing isn’t just a game but actually harmful.

    The sister tries to stand up for her but has no power against the father. He forces the daughter to watch the experiments even when she refuses to help him call the girl over. He drags them both instead.

    The girl understands vaguely that the siblings are trying to help, but she’s powerless, and the way she’s been treated has become ingrained in her. She behaves like a dog even as she’s strapped to a table for experiments, while the sister is tied up nearby and forced to watch.

    The house itself is bright and grand, with a pool in the garden and grass and flowers everywhere.

  • 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.