The bookstore/halfway house in both California and Mexico. (dream)

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DREAM

I'm in a bookstore that also serves as a sort of house for troubled youths. I'm mainly associated with the nonprofit bookstore side of the building. I help people find materials they would like to read. 

Half of the store is in Mexico, and half of it is in California, although not just anyone can cross anytime they want to. There's some time/space bending involved, and you also can't just go willy-nilly into one country and then the other without authorization. 

I see that a lot of books on a spinning rack in Mexico are gone. Someone mentions that someone took Mexico's "divinities." (The books are called "divinities.") The fact that these books aren't in place means that a lot of rights that are in the full rack in California have been bought and taken away in Mexico. I wonder what the consequences of this are to ordinary people.

I go back inside, and go to the bathroom in California, which is out in the open, around a corner of the bookstore. Kids go in and out showering. I stand next to the toilets, getting sprayed on with fine droplets of mist from the showers. I'm gathering information from the kids. They're talking about what's happening in the bookstore and in society, and I want to know about what's happening too. In my life, I mostly just go back and forth in the store. 

I give a little advice here and there to the kids. They have a lot of difficulties with parents, food, housing, and peers. Then I go back to the main bookstore and I look at a rack of California's divinities and postcards. It's full, and I'm relieved. 

I contemplate how my degree in biology has helped me at this job. Any kind of knowledge is a little helpful, but biology hasn't been particularly helpful. I'm very happy to have the degree anyway though, just because I know things about life now. 

INTERPRETATION

I sometimes wonder just how dangerous Mexico is (how many "God-given rights" they are missing). A lot of kidnappings, murders, and imprisonments of crime lords in or from Mexico have been in the news lately. I just wonder how it is that psychopaths and otherwise bad people so often rise to the very tops of so many human societies. Why doesn't good prevail more often? 

Good's not exactly prevailing in the United States either though, as demonstrated by the troubled kids. Some of society's most vulnerable people are in crisis here. They don't even have a private place to take a shower.

I guess the theme of the dream is being content to learn about how life is, or maybe just being okay with the understanding that that's all you can do for a given time, because mostly all I do is run around gathering information about these problems. And life is certainly not trouble-free when you look at biology either, where I turn my attention when I'm done studying the two social groups.

Lots of little dreams versus one big one. (dream)

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I've been having a lot of simple, short dreams revolving around one idea at a time versus going on one, big long dream adventure. 

One night, the concept was playing a video game. Another night, it was hanging out with someone from another country and considering correcting a note they wrote in English. 

Do they want me to? I don't know. It might just be frustrating instead of helpful to hear someone nitpicking your speech in another language if you're not mentally and emotionally prepared to receive a critique. 

Another night, I dreamed about a childhood idea for Lost Atlantis in which the characters are aliens which look like humans but can shape shift into another animal. 

I dreamed about being attractive all of a sudden when I switched genders.

I dreamed about an "angel" roleplaying fetish community. I found out about it when an attractive young man beside me was getting his wings out of the trunk of his car. And I jokingly, then no so jokingly thought of encouraging my friend to join.

Last night, I was half asleep, half awake after binge watching 30 Rock on my phone, and guest star Kelsey Grammer and I were about to announce to the press that we had both pierced our throats with safety pins and everyone should congratulate us, because we're so happy. 

Could that be my sleep apnea talking? Is my sleep apnea so bad that my dreams are suggesting I could do with a tracheotomy? 

This school wants me to describe all the ways in which I am like Hitler. (dream)

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DREAM

I attend an old English school that I don't take very seriously, but I find that I am the only student in the area when an important meeting between students and staff is about to occur. So I decide to represent my people and go. 

I enter the room. There are very few people in there--staff only. No students. 

The furniture is heavy. A huge wooden table in the center of the room makes it clear that this is a boardroom. There are no windows. The lighting mainly consists of a couple incandescent lamps. There are some bookshelves with some books, fake flowers and busts on them. I review the materials on the shelves. They don't seem relevant to what I think goes on in here. 

I look at what's on the table. There are some Beatles lyrics printed out and hopelessly jumbled. 

As I rifle through the papers, a white-bearded man in a tuxedo says, "See anything you like?" 

I smile and nod. I do. But I don't have forever to linger here when I could be doing something else. I'll wait another ten minutes for this meeting to get started.

Finally, another student, a boy, shows up. I've just been passing the time playing with various plastic toys mixed in with the paper lyrics. I ask how many classes he is taking. Four intro ones. I'm talking about how great his future is, when the Beatles show up. 

The white-bearded man turns and says to me, "So, describe to us all the ways in which you are like Hitler." 

I definitely feel as though I am being interviewed for a job. Did he ask me that just to see how I'd react, or is this actually an important question I need to consider carefully? 

I guess there are a lot of things I have in common with Hitler, although the knee-jerk reaction is to say... NOTHING! But realistically, we probably both like scrambled eggs for breakfast. We both like art. We probably both like tons of little everyday things like that. So every single human on Earth has tons of things in common with Hitler! Why would anybody ask a question like that? It's a trap!

INTEPRPRETATION

I think this dream mixes anxiety about job interview questions with how I listen to a random mix of Beatles songs on Spotify all the time. I used to have an app that would record your answers to common interview questions so you could play it back later and see how you did, and it was quite difficult for me to get good results from myself. 

Download your FREE copy of Lost Atlantis 5--anytime from now until Tuesday! (news)

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Lost Atlants 5: Saga is FREE to download, from midnight 9/15/23 until midnight 9/19/23 (Pacific Standard Time): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CGKSK4B3 

This is the end of the Lost Atlantis series. 

I do recommend reading the prior books in the series before reading this one since this last one references a lot of things from the earlier books, but the choice is yours! You can always download a copy now and read it later. 

***

I've sacrificed a lot for this series. Not only have I spent about 11 years writing it--it's also one of those artistic choices I've made that shocks people. A lot of people in my life dislike this series, which is fine. People have the right to dislike whatever they dislike. But I have the right to make my art anyway. The system has its balance.

Still, it would feel nice if everything I wanted to make was art that people always like. But that's just not the kind of artist most artists are, especially if they're fine artists and not commercial artists. 

I'm sometimes surprised when I hear about an artist (audio, visual, written, etc.) getting enraged about jokes or criticisms made at the expense of their art, because I wonder how they could have made it this far without having the stuffing beaten out of them by audiences and gatekeepers already. I do understand those upset feelings, but I'd think you'd just get tired of feeling them and numb them out  eventually. 

I think this upset reaction comes from the fear (or the factual understanding) that all the love you've put into the world through this passion project of yours has been misunderstood or mishandled. In darker times, I have been afraid that I live in a world without love. But as I've kept going down my Buddhism journey, I've noticed that at the very least, every morning, there are thousands--maybe millions of people that are praying for my (and your) happiness and wellness. For a week or two, I've been meditating daily to this one video, and it is a wonderful reminder about the love inside of me, and inside of the world, if I remember to look for it: 

I'd say that if you're an artist of some sort, just try to enjoy the fact that your self-expression is at the center of someone's attention, when they could be doing a million other things. I try to have a sense of gratitude for that whenever someone reads what I write, regardless of what they think of it.

With Lost Atlantis, I wrote whatever I felt like writing for eleven years, and it felt wonderful. I experimented with different techniques for writing, played with different styles, made different choices, read different books about writing, learned weird things for the sake of researching these books, and I did almost all of it with a coffee beside me at some cozy cafe--just living in my imagination, going on this little adventure. So in this sense, it's been extremely personally-fulfilling. I'm really not at all sure that anyone else would enjoy it though. 

As I said, jokingly, to a friend: I've finished Lost Atlantis. I can die now. I was scared that I would die before finishing it, but now it's complete. And that's satisfying. 

Turning back time--flying on a musical note. (dream)

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DREAM

I watch a teenaged girl abandon a baby parrot at a Blockbuster. The employees aren't quite sure what to do with it, so they leave it in a nest by the security camera near the ceiling. The baby bird doesn't even have feathers yet. 

She leaves her vehicle in the parking lot. It's a Ford Festiva which belongs to her parents, and she hates it. She walks home and tells her parents it was stolen. They're very understanding. However, when they buy a Ford Festiva again, she abandons it again at a grocery store and claims that it was stolen again. The parents catch on and are furious. 

Then actual thieves sweep in. An organized crime ring targets the family and threatens to take everything from them. 

I rewind time, and the girl doesn't give away the parrot, but raises it. It grows bigger and likes to insult members of the organized crime ring, distracting them. She also doesn't let the Festivas get stolen, so she has something to get away in when the criminals come after her.

She, her brother and her parents all have to flee the crime ring. I see them in a situation in which they all get shot, but at least mess up a lot of the crime ring's precious pottery while they're being shot 1920s gangster-style in an art studio.

I decide to rewind time again and give the family super powers. 

I follow the brother's progress. He has the power to fly on a sound. He flies to a tiny gnome in a tree in the forest playing a keyboard. 

At first, the gnome writes down everything he wants to say in a scroll; but I intervene again and convince him to start talking, because it helps the brother fly.

INTERPRETATION

My friend sent me a video of an organized crime syndicate stopping cars on the road so they can rob them, and I'm sure that's where the inspiration for this dream came from. I think that sometimes, when I get distressed during a dream, some part of me that is almost lucid dreaming sweeps in and takes corrective action so that the situation doesn't get too scary. 

I think it's easy to ruminate about what could've happened if things were just a little bit different as well.

I go to South Korea, and a beautiful young girl really dislikes me. (dream)

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DREAM

I'm in Korea with my mom and dad, and my dad is completely falling apart in a severe psychosis in the hotel room. I tell him he needs to take some of my medication. I don't expect him to accept, but he does, so I give him two of my pills for a double dose. 

I hope I can get away with sharing my medication. Can I just get a refill whenever I want, or are they going to restrict the number of pills I can get? 

To my surprise, he clears up right away, and we can move on with our vacation. 

I meet a pretty young girl and I make some kind of small talk. I'm not entirely sure what I'm saying, because I'm not saying anything profound or relevant. I'm just talking to fill the silence. Shooting the breeze. Making conversation. Being friendly.

We walk around and look at the neighborhood. It looks like a lot of young people are going to a rave in a nearby building. 

My parents and I stop and have a seat for a while at a table in a mall with outdoor seating. We share the table with some young Korean men. When they get up and leave, and I see a brand new cell phone in some plastic wrap. I don't know if it's ours or not. I think it's a complimentary cell phone that the mall leaves all vacationing people. So I take it.

We leave, and I open up the cell phone and turn it on. Right away, I see that it's an activated cell phone. I get a text from someone who is resentfully complaining about a foreigner. They are clearly quoting me. It's the pretty young girl from earlier! She's talking about how outrageous and rude and insulting the things I said were, and how I should never have said them.

I'm distracted by things we have to do in person, but I keep thinking of texting back and either apologizing or giving this girl a piece of my mind--I haven't decided which.* 

*(I just wanted to add a little afterthought here. Although in the dream my feelings were divided between speaking gently or harshly to this girl, I think the right thing to do in a situation like this is to take the softer-hearted choice. Generally-speaking, I think that taking the softer path leads to a happier life. I first heard that idea from Dr. Kirk Honda on YouTube, and when I look back on my life, I believe he's right about that.)

INTERPRETATION

I think this dream is running me through a topic that has been on my mind a lot for the past year. And that is: you never know how the things you put out into the world will be received, whether that's the things you say, or the things you do. 

That's because people have the freedom to think whatever they would like, which is a small miracle. It might be the biggest blessing in any person's life. It's amazing that you can think whatever you want and no one can stop you. But the price to pay for that is that you will be judged, because the people around you also have the freedom to think what they will about you. 

I think it's worth it.

And I think it's important not to take thoughts--any thoughts, but especially thoughts like judgments, too seriously. Think of all the ridiculous things that go through your head in any given day. There's no good reason for a lot of those thoughts, if not most of them. And other people have silly thoughts all day like that just like you. We're all just hallucinating this reality through the 3 lbs of jelly in our skulls. 

Are there spirits trying to communicate with us in the mental hospital? (dream)

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DREAM

I'm in Arizona in the middle of a patch of pinkish gravel separating some buildings in a parking lot. I see a large, clay medallion with some kind of cactus logo painted on it. It seems out of place here. I think it's lost or missing from somewhere. 

I try to pick it up, but it's heavy, so I push it however I can down a small hill to the nearest building.

I alert the staff at the first door I enter. I see that the place is some kind of combination office and mental hospital. Nurses are in uniform, but the rooms look like cubicles and conference rooms. It's open very late, because suddenly, it's gone from a sunny afternoon to a cool, dark night. 

The people on staff inform me that certain spirits will be attracted to this medallion. They tell me that those spirits will be visible through points of light that will appear where they shouldn't, and that gusts of wind that will rush through the building where there shouldn't be any. These spirits have been described by the Native Americans whose land this building is on. 

No one is quite sure what the spirits' intentions are--not even in those Native American stories. The people in the hospital just receive faint impressions of the spirits' existence, but the spirits haven't done anything harmful yet. They just frighten everyone a little. 

I go through the hospital, and I think I'm experiencing some examples of what they were saying. It gives me chills. 

INTERPRETATION

I think this dream is an impression I get of living in Arizona--the orangey-pink colors of the gravel-filled parking lot, the cactus medallion on clay, a tendency towards supernatural thinking, the blazing hot days contrasting with the cold nights, and the buildings and institutions that are sitting on Native land.