Dream Log Archive

Category: Vacation

  • 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.

  • September 18, 2024

    (dockside festival / cruise escape / haunted one piece)

    I’m on a cruise ship and step off into a large city. There’s a festival being set up by the docks. One of the acts uses fire tricks. Two men setting it up talk about it. There had been a large terrorist explosion earlier in the center of the city, so they thought the act would be banned, but instead the city wants it as a distraction, just redirected elsewhere.

    I go over to move the fuses. Something goes wrong and there’s some kind of attack, or the trick goes off too early. All the cruise passengers quickly return to the ship. We had gotten off without specific paperwork and don’t want to get stuck in the city and not be allowed to leave.

    The cruise ship circles around the water and heads toward Dubai.

    There’s a new or changed version of One Piece. Monkey D. Luffy, Nami, Nico Robin, and Sanji are there. In the first boat, Brook appears briefly. Luffy invites him to join jokingly, but Brook is searching for the pirates who killed his crew and says he’ll join later.

    Sanji initially only falls for Nami. I think this is to prevent early changes to the story, but soon after he also starts liking Robin.

    The ship becomes haunted. Luffy sends everyone to their rooms and confronts the ghosts. There are three pirate ghosts escorting two child ghosts. One of the children needed a glass of water, so they stopped.

    Most people get scared and attack, but the ghosts don’t harm anyone unless they need to protect the children. Luffy stays calm. Nami comes in and turns on the lights, and Sanji gives the ghosts food. Everyone understands the situation.

    One pirate ghost stays behind and haunts Luffy’s right arm. It takes a lot of energy, but it significantly increases his power. The ghost looks somewhat unintelligent, with a large body, like a homunculus.

    They land on an island so Luffy can practice using the new power. Sanji fights him because Zoro isn’t there. Luffy is initially worried about hurting Sanji, but Sanji deflects all of his punches into the ground before they can land. There’s also a sense that Sanji might be a twin.