Encephala - We are the Dreamers of Dreams -- Lyrics and Amplifying Material

It's these people that are so engrossed in their own worlds that they're doing comical things but they're so serious and sincere about it and they don't really, they can't really see what's going on outside of what they're doing

You just need to find something that's profound

And ... yeah, that's my weird dream when I was six years old

I remember finally getting to turn around and look at him, and when I would finally turn around and look at him he would disappear. And he was actually walking from, like, window to window to door to, like, try and find a way to get contact

But also his eye, he had, like, a screw for an eye

Uncertainty, like: What's going on? What's ... and now this, and now this, and now this like a dream unfolding

The lake had no shores beyond the horizon, like, it's sort of just a lake ... And, um, there were different people that I'd never met before

And just the oddness that any of this has come about at all, you know, like chairs, weird! ... T-shirts, weird! Even, I mean, ... but something utterly specific ...

But I had complete control over the conversation, and I felt like ... during the dream I had Sherman Helmsley in the palm of my hand? Like I could have at that point made him agree with anything I wanted

... are like snapshots; they are like pictures. They're not like a moving memory, like, I don't remember us doing this thing in, in an action sense

Like, uh, a feeling that, that courses through your whole body; it's not, not even localized in any specific place, it's not a thought, it's not even necessarily an emotion

I had some experiences that caused me to see the dream world as more than just psychological

I, I had some experiences with dreams that caused me to see that it was more than just physical

And I gu--I was--I suppose this is debatable but we, we could say that all that phenomena, all that dream phenomena is mind

The girl runs through a little crack, and I know that I have to get her back

I ask her again: Are you ready?

Force of will, the mind, like, made it happen. It's hard to explain exactly; it's like a breathing and like a ... [breathes] ... like a, like a ... you visualize it so strongly that it happens

It was, it was very, a very strange dream, it was so real an--and ... no dream has ever felt so real like it was actually happening

B'wait a minute: Isn't--Yeah--Is--Yeah, no, no--I know

And so that's what you're living, living in something utterly discrete, the color of your socks

So you're like, oh, I need a ... a fork. You could reach into that pile and grab a fork. 'Cause somebody left a fork there, you know what I mean? Even if nobody had ever put a fork there.

It's good to remember that 'know we're all still in our dreams

Cathy Lane, "Voices From the Past: Compositional Approaches to Using Recorded Speech," _Organized Sound_ Vol. 11, No. 1, 2006, pp. 3-11

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The Last Name

I ask her for her last name; I'm like, "What's your last name?"

And she's like, "You don't know my last name after we've been fuckin'?!", this and that, mwa-mwa-mwa-mwa

And so, I'm just like, you know, "Tell me your fuckin' last name"

And I pull out a firearm and put it, y'know in her face

And I'm like, "I'm gonna blow your fuckin' head off"

And she just, like, y'know, she's bawling and, like, I'm interrogating her for her last name

And she had no idea what her last name was

We were in Detroit, and, you know, it had that whole Gotham City, ghetto, you know, like, Detroit atmosphere that Detroit has. And, uh, we were waiting outside this film premiere, and, in this old ratty building, and no technology seemed to really exist. Like, there were streetlights and stuff but there wasn't, like, cars and there wasn't cellphones and there wasn't, you know, radios lying around and, it was just very, very ethereal, and um, we were waiting outside and we got there at like two p.m. and it was freezing cold, and the movie didn't start 'til ten p.m. or something like that. And there was this girl Tori there, that I used to know from high school. And I haven't seen her in about five years, and the last time I saw her was: She was spraying perfume

There was this girl Tori there, that I used to know from high school. And I haven't seen her in about five years, and the last time I saw her was: She was spraying perfume on people outside of Victoria's Secret at the mall I worked in. My relationship with her in the past was: She was, a, student at my high school. And she was a very preppy student, or whatever. And I was, like, you know, the leader of the stoner, flunk-out guys, so socially we sort of had to hate each other, we sort of hated each other for ... but yet then again, whenever we had the private opportunity we'd always have conversations. And uh, nothing ever came from it ... I didn't even talk to her when she was spraying perfume on people; I don't think she recognized me, but

It was, it was, very strange for her to be there, but you know, I guess I didn't really think anything of it

And I dunno, at some point after it got dark, um, w-we were, I-I was walking around, and everybody was following me. And I was just, like, exploring the area of these shitty, like, ghetto, cracked-out buildings

And I was going through holes in the back of the theatre, that were in brick walls. So I was, like, going through these, like, spiderwebby holes in brick walls

And for some reason we all, like, got this, like, news report in our head, like, we all of a sudden knew that there was this virus in Detroit that was making dead people come back to life and eat the living

(I should probably mention that I'm a big fan of, uh, George Romero films and stuff like that so, y'know fifty percent of my dreams involve reanimated corpses and zombies and all that kinda shit so ...)

So we were like, oh, you know, that's not good; we should do something about that, so, we pulled, uh, firearms out of our, our pants. You know, we all of a sudden had these firearms and we were just, you know, shooting these zombies in the head ... a nice little fun game out of it--It was still, like, really fuckin creepy, ethereal (but, at the same time, you know, I guess that's how you do it when corpses come back to life. You gotta make a game out of it, otherwise, you know, you can't be a fuckin' Negative Nancy all your life and just, be scared every time a fuckin' corpse comes out--Alright, this is fuckin' totally irrelevant--Alright, anyway)

SO we were walking around, uh, you know, killing corpses or whatever, k-kinda like finding an area to hide out in, and we found this, like, three-story building

And, like, it was made out of brick, and every floor seemed to be missing a wall, and, you know, like, it, like it was on fire a couple hundred fuckin' times and, y'know, so

We went up there, and we were just, like, shooting zombies from the windows, and I went up to the top floor--both me and Tori--and there was just a bed up there, like a mattress with no sheets or anything like that and

I don't know why, or, like, how we came about it, I really don't remember that well, but we had sex for, like, y'know, three, four, five hours

And, uh, it was really good and memorable and, i don't know, it was just really good sex or whatever, and uh,

Uh, like, through part of it, like, you know, I, I was still kind of killing zombies throughout the whole thing? And uh, one thing that I actually remember that was kind of, heh, kinda fucked up, was, like, I would get up out of bed, y'know, 'cause I'd hear a zombie coming up the stairs or something, I'd get up out of bed, and, like, try and keep myself going, so I'd be, like, jerking off and shooting zombies at the same time

And that was, uh, that was probably the most memorable, y'know I woke up and I was just like, what the fuck is going on? But anyway

Um, so yeah, y'know, I was, like, taking turns between, like, having sex and jerking off and shooting zombies, and, it was, y'know but yet the sex was still really good or something, y'know it was, bunch a, half a fucking day of sex, so

Afterwards, me and her went downstairs, and uh, everybody was gone. And I don't know if they, y'know, we assumed they all died or maybe they went to see the film or, you know, maybe they went to go get chocolates or something but, everybody was gone and we were like, oh, y'know, that ... guess that definitely sucks that everybody's not here, so, um, we uh, I don't know, we were just, like, figuring out what to do and all of a sudden in my mine I was like, wait a minute, this is all really, really fucked up, like, all these situations are just strange and I don't think--I'm dreaming!

And so, like, I come to the conclusion that I'm dreaming. And, but I'm playing a trick on my dream, like I-I-I decided that I wasn't gonna let my dream know that I knew that I was dreaming? If you can follow me there? Like, I was lucid dreaming but my dream thought that I had no idea that I was dreaming, you know? So I was like, trying to trick my dream

And I realized that when I woke up, I'd wanna know this girl's last name because I had completely forgotten it. And, you know, maybe one day I'd, like, hunt her down and, like, you know, be like, hey I had this dream where I was, like, you know, fucking you, and then shooting zombies while jerking off, like, on top of you and stuff?

But it was really--eh, anyway

John Henri Fuseli, “The Nightmare”

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The Magic Lantern

I don't feel like my--dreams--are at all like, y'know--coherent stories in themselves--It becomes a part of the narrative as soon as--or even--it happens--coherent in, in any--I always feel like--sort of--the're--way--um--um--just that, like a dialogue between, like, my unconscious desires--both, like--and--while I'm sleeping--what I've seen ...--and also--what is happening--during my day--People say, like, "Don't be intimidated"--It's hard to play when you don't have, like, an orchestra ...--... like, I always think that the guitar is more fun, 'cause you just pick it up, you know? and, like, play whatever, but, like, the violin--

So I had this one dream, where--there were cicadas everywhere, like dead cicadas all over the ground--and--uh--... what happened, but I remember--but I remember, like, uhh--um--being, like, a different person? like, a detective?--like--and--es, exc, excavating the ...--Like, is that, th--Is that how you, you say it?--the part where, um--"Excavating"?--we cut through the--"Excavating," like, y'know, Indiana Jones excavates?--... that yard--yeah--you know, right by the gate?--um--that we'd go under and the cicadas would fall on us--I remember finding my own body, and half of it was really, really young--um--the other half was really, really old--like, 80 or so, and like, really uhh, wrinkled and uhh, decayed. You know? And then, like, and then the rest of the dream--um, finding out--was ... what happened to my body. You know? And I can't remember the end of the dream--what happened to make--can't remember if--half my body young and half my body young--But when I woke up I realized that the body I found was me--As the person who discovered it--and the end of my dream--the person--like, to find out what happened--like, you know this lost person, this lost soul

Rem--like, you know in the, in the circus--well at least, like, t.v. circus--they have these, uh, half-men half-women--people ... dreams--... like, cordoned off in the middle?--there's like a line down the middle, and like, the young person's part was wearing, like--you know, uh--younger looking clothes, and the other one was wearing--you know, a sweater and frilly stuff--it was weird--elderly clothes--[laughs]--well, well the part that was young was--yeahhh--really, was really, was like per--perfect--Yeah I think there was, like, oh!--That's about it--[laughs]--I'm sorry I don't remember that much

A lot of times I, like--high school?--I would have dreams that, like--have knowledge of a language that I didn't know--he used really elevated jargon--y'know--huge vocabulary--which is, like--he used words that I don't know, you know, and so when I woke up and I, I had to, like--what he had said, I wanted to write it all down--'cause he used this specific syntax that I couldn't fathom, y'know--but it made sense--and I've also grasped mathematical concepts that I can't in real life--well yeah--I've done proofs--geometric proofs--in my dreams?--and it'll make perfect sense and I'll go through each line to, remember, and then I, like, I'll wake up and have this, like--another feeling of, uh--...--Ah, thank God I got it, you know

I used to have a lot of flying dreams--like a mixing pot of--I used to have them every night--what I listened to, like conversations--when I was little--things that pop into my head--I flew just like I swam--w--just words--colors--It doesn't make any sense at all--I would dream there'd be a whole bunch of people running--cause the only way out--huge crowds--the only way out was to go up--we got to this huge warehouse--and there was , like, a band playing?--... banging on it--a whole bunch of emo kids, they looked all really scared--thirteen year-olds?--and, uh, as soon as we ran out there, the warehouse collapsed--and then there was this huge forest and I--everyone was running--all the emo kids turned into eight--ten year olds--they were all boys, except for me--they were screaming, and they were all running for cover--... so everyone was fleeing and there was, like, flames coming out from, like, the left and right sides of the warehouse?--everyone was really, really young--there was, like, a lot of fire everywhere, and uh--right before the dream ended, I remember--this really little kid, he was like five, running and--right in front of me, and uh, he ran into--so there was this tree? and it had a, had a hole in the middle?--like, he ran inside the tree, and then he took all the branches and he covered himself up with it--a close-up of his face--blue eyes and dark brown hair and it was really, really scary--and he was just grabbing at, like, all the branches--kinda like, putting them over him like a blanket, and when--as soon as he did it, the, um, the branches kinda melded onto one another?--

And so I hated it, I hated, like, just seeing him--because, like, the smell of his surgical mask? reminded me of, like--like, uh, rubber cement, in my nose--rubber cement and uhhh, like, pee, i think [laughs], yeah--you know, it's ...--I remember, like--poking him, and I was like "This is so ugly!" and he's got this, like, big, poop of an umbilical cord--yeah, it was--coming out of his belly--disgusting--I was like, he's got a big, "Why do you want this thing?" ... gotta--turd coming out of its midsection and it's all wrinkly--it doesn't have ... lungs--it can't even breathe right--

I didn't have any friends in middle school, until I bit my best friend Claire--I bit her?--No, I met her--dream--in eighth grade--where all my teeth were falling out, and--I ...--I would eat my own teeth?

And, like, I feel like when I was little I had a huge imagination and, like, I feel like I still have some now, but, not nearly as much as I used to, you know? And I w--I, I—

"At Combray, as every afternoon ended, long before the time when I should have to go up to bed, and to lie there, unsleeping, far from my mother and grandmother, my bedroom became the fixed point on which my melancholy and anxious thoughts were centred. Some one had had the happy idea of giving me, to distract me on evenings when I seemed abnormally wretched, a magic lantern, which used to be set on top of my lamp while we waited for dinner-time to come: in the manner of the master-builders and glass-painters of gothic days it substituted for the opaqueness of my walls an impalpable iridescence, supernatural phenomena of many colours, in which legends were depicted, as on a shifting and transitory window. But my sorrows were only increased, because this change of lighting destroyed, as nothing else could have done, the customary impression I had formed of my room, thanks to which the room itself, but for the torture of having to go to bed in it, had become quite endurable. For now I no longer recognised it, and I became uneasy, as though I were in a room in some hotel or furnished lodging, in a place where I had just arrived, by train, for the first time.

Riding at a jerky trot, Golo, his mind filled with an infamous design, issued from the little three-cornered forest which dyed dark-green the slope of a convenient hill, and advanced by leaps and bounds towards the castle of poor Geneviève de Brabant. This castle was cut off short by a curved line which was in fact the circumference of one of the transparent ovals in the slides which were pushed into position through a slot in the lantern. It was only the wing of a castle, and in front of it stretched a moor on which Geneviève stood, lost in contemplation, wearing a blue girdle. The castle and the moor were yellow, but I could tell their colour without waiting to see them, for before the slides made their appearance the old-gold sonorous name of Brabant had given me an unmistakable clue. Golo stopped for a moment and listened sadly to the little speech read aloud by my great-aunt, which he seemed perfectly to understand, for he modified his attitude with a docility not devoid of a degree of majesty, so as to conform to the indications given in the text; then he rode away at the same jerky trot. And nothing could arrest his slow progress. If the lantern were moved I could still distinguish Golo’s horse advancing across the window-curtains, swelling out with their curves and diving into their folds. The body of Golo himself, being of the same supernatural substance as his steed’s, overcame all material obstacles—everything that seemed to bar his way—by taking each as it might be a skeleton and embodying it in himself: the door-handle, for instance, over which, adapting itself at once, would float invincibly his red cloak or his pale face, never losing its nobility or its melancholy, never shewing any sign of trouble at such a transubstantiation.

And, indeed, I found plenty of charm in these bright projections, which seemed to have come straight out of a Merovingian past, and to shed around me the reflections of such ancient history. But I cannot express the discomfort I felt at such an intrusion of mystery and beauty into a room which I had succeeded in filling with my own personality until I thought no more of the room than of myself. The anaesthetic effect of custom being destroyed, I would begin to think and to feel very melancholy things. The door-handle of my room, which was different to me from all the other doorhandles in the world, inasmuch as it seemed to open of its own accord and without my having to turn it, so unconscious had its manipulation become; lo and behold, it was now an astral body for Golo. And as soon as the dinner-bell rang I would run down to the dining-room, where the big hanging lamp, ignorant of Golo and Bluebeard but well acquainted with my family and the dish of stewed beef, shed the same light as on every other evening; and I would fall into the arms of my mother, whom the misfortunes of Geneviève de Brabant had made all the dearer to me, just as the crimes of Golo had driven me to a more than ordinarily scrupulous examination of my own conscience." – Marcel Proust, Swann's Way

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StarFalling

One of the walls was missing, the one facing the water

And the house was actually on the beach

So, you look out there,

And we had sand on the ground, and that was our floor

And I'm not sure what was keeping the house there

I was up alone

And I was making a circle with my thumb and middle finger in my right hand

And just then, behind me I heard this huge sound

It just kept getting louder and louder

And I, I ran outside, and I was looking around

Like a shooting star in the sky, y'know those things are quick, they zip around all over the place ...

Came down and it hit the water

And it washed everything away

I mean there was nothing left but rubble and ruin, destruction, chaos

I dove into the ocean and I swam

I dove into the ocean as fast as I could and then I swam back

But along the way, I found my necklaces

I must have found all five of them

Kinship with the survivors, with the rest of them

The ones that had actually lived through the event

And so we had to change our appearance

And I remember cutting one of my friends' hair

And they were cutting my hair

And

Tsunami dreams

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Suitors Intruders

And I was, I was sitting up in my room

Maybe the light was on, maybe it wasn't

And uh, and in my bedroom alone

I was very detached from the rest of the house and from my mother

And my sisters who were in the other part of the house

And, uh,

It was nighttime

And it was windy and kinda cold out

And I was sitting up there

I heard a crunch of gravel, of wheels coming up the long path up to the house

And, uh,

These two men got out

And one of them, uh, I'll always remember his flannel shirt

Glued to the glass looking down on them

Cool as anything, the guy in the flannel shirt pulled out a gun and shot the dog

And, Betsy just died, and

My eyes got huge and I was scared, and

And they started walking towards the house and I watched them take a step, and another, and another, and they were getting closer to the porch

Then I ran downstairs as fast as I could and the stairs kept goin' and goin' ... one of those things wh--th--th--

Dashing through the rest of the house, because I heard 'em at the outside door and I'd locked the inner door of the porch and I heard them stamping their feet like they were shaking the mud off

I heard the creak of the door open, and shut

And I didn't understand why the lock didn't work

And my family, my sisters and my mother, just looked at me kinda quizzically

And, like, they wouldn't listen to me, like

"Mom, you need to listen to me, it's really bad, it's, it's wrong. Where's Pop? Where's Pop? What's goin' on?"

I called.

And no one answered, no one answered, no one answered

And, I was crying, I was sobbing

And you could hear the feet climbing the stairs, those heavy work boots

Just, 'clump,' 'clump,' 'clump'

And they kept coming closer and, then I, I pushed a dresser in front of the door

And I was in tears, and I knew that I had to somehow do something

I had let 'em in the house and I had fucked up and my dad was not here to protect us anymore

And there was no safety left, my family was crying behind me

The door jiggled

And I climbed in it and my mother held all three of us in her arms

And we were all crying, all four of us, sobbing

"Stranger, I should like to speak with you briefly about another matter. It is indeed nearly bed time- for those, at least, who can sleep in spite of sorrow. As for myself, heaven has given me a life of such unmeasurable woe, that even by day when I am attending to my duties and looking after the servants, I am still weeping and lamenting during the whole time; then, when night comes, and we all of us go to bed, I lie awake thinking, and my heart comes a prey to the most incessant and cruel tortures. As the dun nightingale, daughter of Pandareus, sings in the early spring from her seat in shadiest covert hid, and with many a plaintive trill pours out the tale how by mishap she killed her own child Itylus, son of king Zethus, even so does my mind toss and turn in its uncertainty whether I ought to stay with my son here, and safeguard my substance, my bondsmen, and the greatness of my house, out of regard to public opinion and the memory of my late husband, or whether it is not now time for me to go with the best of these suitors who are wooing me and making me such magnificent presents. As long as my son was still young, and unable to understand, he would not hear of my leaving my husband's house, but now that he is full grown he begs and prays me to do so, being incensed at the way in which the suitors are eating up his property. Listen, then, to a dream that I have had and interpret it for me if you can. I have twenty geese about the house that eat mash out of a trough, and of which I am exceedingly fond. I dreamed that a great eagle came swooping down from a mountain, and dug his curved beak into the neck of each of them till he had killed them all. Presently he soared off into the sky, and left them lying dead about the yard; whereon I wept in my room till all my maids gathered round me, so piteously was I grieving because the eagle had killed my geese." -- Homer, Odyssey, 19, 535-550

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Via Regia (interlude)

Until my heart skips a beat

And I feel the fluttering of a thousand wings

[Left:]We walked near the middle of the room and to my surprise I fell through the floor

And ... basement

Basement was really bright because there were windows

Um, it ha--it was one of those houses on a hill

Where half the house would be exposed on one side and half would be under the hill, y--you know?

And uh, so it was really bright

There were lots of windows and there was a door, but I couldn't get it open

So, uh, for some reason there was a little trap door in the, on the floor, in the corner of the basement, uh,

And I opened up the trapdoor

And I saw a stream, stream of water, really clear stream of water

I took a drink from it, it was, it was ... very good water

And uh, I continued to go into the, uh, like, it was really small but somehow I fit through the trapdoor, and uh,

I let the stream carry me for a few seconds

Outside into what seemed to be the backyard

(And this is the most interesting part:)

It was uh, it was a little beach on a lake, uh,

Not like a big, vast shoreline

'Cause it wasn't the ocean, it was, it was a lake

It was a small, little, uh, almost like a marsh

And uh, there were frogs, I remember seeing frogs jumping in

It was really sunny and the, the trees, you could see the sunlight coming through the trees

And it was really, really beautiful amounts of light coming into this l--little opening

And uh, along the little patch of dirt that was, um, the--before the, the water began, on the lake,

There were two children playing, and um,

They, they said something, and it was really important, I know that

Uh, I asked them, uh, what did this house used to be,

What was this place before it became a run down, uh, nature sanctuary, almost

And uh, they answered me, and

One child stood up and, uh, looked me in the eye, and uh,

Said something, and I really cannot remember what he said

So, I kind of missed the entire point of that journey through my mind

I wish I could remember that

[Center:]I've been dreaming about like,

Like sort of primitive life?

Like, dr--like, dreaming about, you know,

The ocean and, like, apes

And all the, the wetness and the darkness and the apes

--Living in the waters?--

Living with the apes and kinda being scared

I--I feel like I'm sort of like an omnipresent figure in the dream

Like, sort of, throughout the dream?

And ... I don't know if I really have, like, y'know I, don't think I'm a character that has a part ...

[Right:]So, there was an elevator

And I, and I kinda stopped and I looked at it and I said

"What the fuck? Why is there an elevator here?

I don't remember an elevator being in school."

Then I proceeded to go into the elevator, not knowing where it would take me

And the elevator was glass, so I could, I could see everything

I could see outside and inside, everywhere

It w--I was kinda like this omniscient person rising above the school

And um, I found myself going higher than the actual building itself

I was going, like, in this transparent tube o--l--like on, o--w--flying, almost

On to--on top of the building, over the building

And, uh, I found myself over the clouds

And, the--the elevator just kind of disintegrated as it--as things sometimes do in dreams

And, uh, I found myself floating above the clouds

And, uh, okay this is really hard to explain

Uh, there were, there were fountains of water, um,

But, like, a public water fountain that arcs in a semicircle?

These water fountains, uh, were a full circle, not coming from any source

Just like this eternal circle of water, uh, within its--within itself

It was like a ring of water, um, flowing, clockwise

Uh, so, I--I--I fff--I floated toward these rings of water

I drank from them; they were,

Y'know i--it was really refreshing, of course

And um, and so after drinking from these rings of water

I uh, I noticed that there were a whole bunch of butterflies, uh, flying above the clouds

And I thought this was strange, y'know, w--why am I dreaming about something so fruity an--and--and ehh--sugary? Uh,

But I--I kind of went with it and I, and I let the vision kind of manifest itself more

And uh, the butterflies turned into this face, um,

Like a huge face

And the face started singing to me, i--it was

Totally, totally bizarre

A--and, I remember the song, I don't remember what it sounded like

But it was really, it w--it was really beautiful and uplifting

So, uh, yeah

"[T]he interpretation of dreams is the via regia to a knowledge of the unconscious element in our psychic life." -- Sigmund Freud, Interpretation of Dreams, ch. 7

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Nova Slowly

I grab the soda and leave the store, and she's waiting out there

It was like something nuclear was occurring

And a flash from the bomb was turning everything piercingly, overly clear and bright for the moment

Before this massive displacement would occur

And raze the area into wicked destruction

She's waiting on the driver's side

But I can't see her face because the tints in the windows are blocking her out of view

This turns into a movie all of a sudden

Things are moving quite slowly

And it's the most delicious, fluorescent drink I have tasted

I'm just drinking and drinking from this neon drink of love and it's wonderful

It was ridiculous

I liked it, as much as I wanted to question it

She leans out the window and tells me to get in

Then she comes out of the car with a grin of disgust about the whole thing

And I tell her I'm sorry, 'I'll fix it right up'

She comes closer and takes the tire

And all of a sudden the tire disassembles itself into a series of wet towels to be folded

And she shows me slowly, and with great care towards me, she shows me how to fold these towels

She is doing it so perfectly, folding the wet towels in half,

And in half again, and setting them down

And I can feel this energy going between us

This energy that is so sweet I can choke upon it,

The softest, warmest feeling in the world

I completely become her subject all at once

So slowly, so slowly the towel goes in half, and in half again,

In perfect alignment with itself

And everything slows wickedly down

And this energy is psychotic and mad

And we are connecting over these folds

And when the fold is complete and the piece is done,

The piece becomes a maroon rectangular purse

We're both kneeling, and I'm very close to her,

And our airs are having this sex with each other,

And exchanging themselves,

I am so in love with this girl

This is the grown reincarnate, kneeling right before me, all for me

I look at her knees and I think about what it would be like to have sex with her

And the thought brings me up

I have yet to see her face

And I am drawing myself closer to her

My head is below hers

I come ever nearer to her face, so close that I'm coming closer to occupying her space on the Earth

Closer and closer

And I look at her face so nearly

And again it's that devastatingly bright new face

It's that face that upon closer look is that of a child, that of the grown child

That wonderful look, that look that I could keep in vision for a thousand centuries and never grow tired of it

God, I'm so into this twisted love and always will be with that look

I'm drawing so close to her, and never touching her

Our lips come half of an inch apart

The charge is so energy and so strong that it can dissolve anything with its radical electricity

And we come nearer and nearer, and we never touch

The High Priestess | The Empress

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Goat Dog

Dream: Goat Dog

Running down mountain backwoods gravel road

Noise & trees sounds like missing link barking

I bark back enforced in self-calming aggression

Looking up, trees grow vertiginously high

Return focus to dog, gravel and mailboxes to holler homes, another bark

Gravel road ends at a house

I slow to begin to turn

Some little goat dog, skinny-legged and shaggy-collared

Begins to follow me whenever I turn

I turn back to face, too frightened and take notice that the road continues uphill

To the right and the dirt

As a car blows dust clouds with tires

Turn back around but still think of something

Look back again, little Goat Dog way

And there, bounding down the dirt road hill, is Hellram

Dirty wolf, thick as a mattress

Face stately hot & pink

Horns carved solid bone

He's not getting closer, just bigger

'Til he's crushed the goat dog into the dust cloud growing to the edge of the frame

The face spins 270 degrees, clockwise--if a clock faces up

On the shoulder of the road,

At the bottom line of some enormouse woodland canvas

I'm talkin' huge expanse of valley

Bound extension by distant trees

Old as wet redwoods--But wait

The shoulder, there's a point that sticks out

A strategic, narrow crag offering the only choice to the narrow road

I run there, turn, face to stand

The hellram comes

I'm watching

He comes, and watches me

Like matador, dodge as Hellram falls

But not to the depths

He attempts to jump and barely misses

He attempts to climb,

And I squarely rock him between the stone horns with rock I dug desperate with hand

Working dry brown dirt and sand off its aspirated chalk surface

Hellram falls sidelong to frame-shaking crash

"Thus vanquish'd too, a third form still remains,

Chang'd to a bull, my lowing fills the plains.

Strait on the left his nervous arms were thrown

Upon my brindled neck, and tugg'd it down;

Then deep he struck my horn into the sand,

And fell'd my bulk among the dusty land.

Nor yet his fury cool'd; 'twixt rage and scorn,

From my maim'd front he tore the stubborn horn:

This, heap'd with flow'rs, and fruits, the Naiads bear,

Sacred to plenty, and the bounteous year." -- Ovid, Metamorphoses ix, 65-74

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Gateway

Dreams

Um, so it starts on this bus

Something's wrong, the

It's the driver

And then I drive the bus

I get out, like weird

And she's, like, cheering me on

Oh wow, y'know, um,

And then I think they're gonna honor me

So, what they wanna do is they wanna give me, like, this special, um, bus driver's uniform

This big presentation?

And I'm, I'm getting changed

Looking at me, uhmm

Just watching me, like

Like act--I-I don't know, I don't know, it was just, like, really, really uncomfortable

So I l--

Super, you know, uh, kind of, autonomy and, y'know, freedom woman

And there she is, like, talking about my kcid and stuff

Steal somebody's car

In this convertible to New York

I get chased there

British people chasing me, uh, in a double decker bus

So I go to Fake Brooklyn

He's been my landlord for awhile even though I just rented this apartment

So these crazy Russians that live across the hall from me--

His door opens, and, like, all these crazy Russians come in

And they're, like, really like, old and, like, shrivelly-looking and, like, you know, they're really sad looking

This whole family, y'know, people ... all different ages

One guy's, like, missing an ear and he's, like, lisps and everything

And so, I, y'know, and I was like 'What are they doing in here?'

And he explains this problem, like they think that, y'know, they own the entire floor

And he can't get them to figure out that they only have half the, like, the apartment floor

So then

They're like, y'know, 'Well--well, Who are your ancestors?'

Y'know, I'm like, 'Well I'm kinda, like, y'know, part German'

And they, like, flip out, they're like 'Aaagh!' y'know?

They're all angry at me and the guy with one ear is just like, y'know,

'You're insulting us!'--

'Thank you so much' and he gives me this martini

And then I wake up and I'm in court

But, here's the thing, right?

So, all of his, his lawyers are monkeys

[Laughs]

Like, they're really really, like, serious, like, scary-ass lookin' monkeys

Like, horrifying, like, looking monkeys

Okay, like, like young Bob Hope, but with makeup on? and, like, curly hair and stuff?

So I lose the fucking suit against him and he takes all my money

I have no money!

Except what I do have is the convertible that I stole from, from the party for me at the bus thing

So I'm driving around in the convertible again, in the middle of fucking Indiana

And I run out of gas. And where do I run out of gas?

I run out of gas in front of a porn shop. Who owns the porn shop?

It's, it's like a toy shop--it's a comic book shop in one part, and then, like, you go through this secret back alley, and--or, like, little back, like, walkway and it's a porn shop

The mafia come in, so I say, y'know, 'Hey--I'm gonna fight these guys,' y'know

Th--th--of course they win and, like, y'know they beat the shit out of me

And then, uh, the ... like, 'I'm not gonna swear to God because everybody probably swears to God,' s--

'But seriously, this is my first fuckin' day on the job, man,

I've really had a bad spell, I have no money, I'm tryin' to work'

So then they, they kidnap me, right?

And they, like, wanna, like, make me a made man

And they take me to, like, this crazy-ass mansion with this big pool

And so I escape, I--

It's in the middle of night and I'm walkin' along

And then all of a sudden, like, the cops come out of nowhere

No-no-no I recognized him he--he's, you know, he's wanted

And I say 'Well what school are you going to?'

And he rolls his eyes, he's like 'Oh no'

Y'know, he's like, he's like, 'I go to,' uh,

'I Wanna Get My First Degree First Grade Col--University'

I was like, 'Oh,' was like, 'it's nothin' to be embarrassed about'

So he gives me a new car

Y'know and all of a sudden, like, y'know,

The rest of, like, who I am, like, comes back, y'know

And then there's this, like, kinda, like conveyor belt thing that, like, catches your tires and carries you up it, like, over the arch

And my car falls off, like, halfway up the arch?

Like, falls back, I'm like 'NOOOOOOO!'

Y'know, like I'm falling, like that freaky falling feeling

And so then my car, like, goes 'CHRRRR!' and it crashes

I look at, like all these times, like the mafia shot me and they were beating me up and I lived through it, all this different kinda stuff

And I'm like, 'Wow, you're right!'

And then I become, like, a, big-ass angel with, like, all this, like spooky, like, y'know, huge wings and this, like, huge like, like, blue cross on my face and all this different kinda stuff and, like,

It's, like, really ethereal

And so I lie on my back

And then, uh,

All of the stars became, like, you know, like, I, like, morphed into it

And, like, it just, like,

Wshhhoom—

SPAWN Redeemer2

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MæreFære

Alright, well, it started out in the building

That has three floors of research labs--grandfather

Um, loved me, there was pictures all over their house

Of me, or whatever, so it was odd that he was in my dream,

He had cancer of some sort, I don't know what, I never discerned that, and

In the dream--keycarded, you're not allowed to get in

So I thought that was odd too

We were talking about one of the experiments that I was running

And, um, they're all just sitting around

And then all of a sudden, Julia Roberts walks down these stairs

And it's, like, these, they're like, it's like a spiral staircase that comes down the, like it curves around, kinda business?

And I was like 'Whoa, what's--'

And she won't look at you, she got her head down like this and, you know,

She's being all coy and quiet and shy and really pleasant and everything

And all of a sudden, she gets this massively evil look in her face

These really tiny, beady eyes and her face, like, all contorts

And she grabs my hand and squeezes it really hard and starts repeating absolutely everything that I say

It was really kinda scary

I was like, 'So,' you know, 'how are you doing?'

She's like 'How are you doing?!'

'Ho--When did you and Mike start dating?'

She goes, 'When did you and Mike start dating?!'

Nightmare legends

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All Alone in the Family Automobile

Well, I don't usually recall my dreams

But there is this one recurring one from my childhood that still haunts me to this day

You know when you're a child you don't really know the first thing about driving a car?

Well at least I didn't

In my dream I found myself all alone in the family automobile

It was pretty late at night

So the roads weren't too well-traveled

I was still deathly terrified

Looked all around to make sure I was the only one in the car

Seemed like it was

And I started heading down a hill, gradually picking up more and more speed, about to hit an oncoming truck

Then I woke up, hands twitching, sweating profusely and wondering exactly what happened

"Son wake up you gotta go to school now."

Lost Highway title sequence

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Atopdog

I had a dream last night

And the dream was about me in my old house, in Austin

And the house looked really weird

It wasn't the same kind of house that I used to live in

It was a lot bigger on the inside and there were more rooms

It looked very, uh, Mexican? Kind of?

And a lot of my old friends were there, a lot of my friends down in Austin and

One of my friends was there, named Eddie, and he had his dog with him and one of my other friends dogs

And the uh, the uh, one of the dogs had a, a, canister on its head?

Its head was inside of a canister,

And there was some sort of sticky stuff inside the canister

And the dog's eyes kept opening up

I could see uh, how it was kind of, uh, you know, normal for the dog to have the, uh, canister of maple syrup or sticky stuff, whatever, on its head

And it was really weird to me but for some reason I knew it was normal,

At least, uh, that was the way I was dealing with it

And the other dog, my friend's dog Django, had uh,

Big huge, green eyes that kept blinking strangely and uh,

They uh, they were very alien-like

Both the dogs looked like aliens

Some of the uh, other stuff was that I could, I could hop around like I was flying, kind of

I would show people this, I would uh, I would be walking and I would jump up and I wouldn't hit the ground very, very easily, I would kind of float there for a second

Like I was flying--Green eyes that kept blinking strangely

Goodbye

green eyes

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I Just

It was a really, really visual dream; it was very vivid

And even the auditory aspect was really vivid, even though it was completely silent

But that silence was what was so vivid

It was just completely peaceful, the stillness of everything

It felt untouched by everyone, untouched by the world, but it was so beautiful

It was really subtle

I'm standing on a small hill on a grassy and wooded area, looking down on a lake, in a city by the lake

Small houses, porches, docks, stone paths and the like, all along the shore of this lake

I am walking back to this picturesque city alone, and I see the most beautiful sunset

The sun is this golden orb close to the horizon and over the lake

Everything around it is touched by these vibrant reds and pinks and oranges

I want to take a picture of this gorgeous scene, so I start running back towards my house

As I'm running, the sun continues to set, and at some point I realize I won't be able to get to the camera in time to capture the scene

I keep running, though, and everything in the city is still and peaceful

I am still completely alone

I wake up knowing I can't capture the scene on film

I've had this dream twice now

I can't describe how beautiful and peaceful it is, and the sadness of being the only one to see it, and not being able to have it but for that one moment

I just stopped and realized that I wasn't going to be able to, to capture it

And I woke up

It was such a sad feeling, waking up from that dream

I mean, it was this mix of kind of, like, 'Wow, that is incredibly beautiful and I, I feel really luckt to have had such a vivid dream,' and

I was so sad, like, that emotion carried over from the dream to when I woke up

And I wanted to hold that moment, and I wanted to be able to show someone

And I felt like I would be wasting something so beautiful if I didn't try to hold onto it

And sometimes I should just stop and enjoy it, rather than being so worried about holding onto it

I'm in my apartment alone

And there's this huge moth flying around in the bathroom

I'm trying to kill it because it's so disgusting

So I keep hitting it with a magazine or something while it's inside the bathtub

It's not working, so I turn on the faucet to try and drown it

When the tub is almost full, I lean back, because I'm relieved that the moth is finally dead,

When I look over and realize that you had been in the tub somehow,

And that you had drowned in the water that I had poured into the tub

I start freaking out because I had killed you

Then I'm in the passenger seat of a car driving to your funeral

I'm holding the part of your abdomen that has your heart in it

It's just, like, a strip of your abdomen that seems almost porcelain-like

I was holding that because we were gonna bury your heart at your funeral

I start sobbing and decide to give your abdomen breath-to-breath

But it doesn't work

The driver tells me that I have to let you go

Instead, I start giving you CPR

Halfway through, I feel your heart begin to beat

So I keep doing CPR until we get to the funeral

I'm at the funeral, and there are lots of people, but no one notices me

I keep doing CPR to your heart, desperately hoping that you're gonna come back to life

And all of a sudden I feel your breath

I look up, and I'm sitting on your lap and you're holding me

I give you a huge hug and cry a litle bit, telling you how sorry I was

You tell me I should be sorry, in a joking way, after all, I'd killed you

Then you give me a kiss on the cheek

People start filing in to the funeral

We're sitting on a chair near the front entrance

As all these people walk in and see you, and say, 'Congratulations,' because you're actually alive

I just wanted you to be alive

(I just want to be able to appreciate beauty)

(I just wanna be sincere)

"And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question,

To say: ‘I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all’—

If one, settling a pillow by her head,

Should say: ‘That is not what I meant at all.

That is not it, at all.’" -- T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

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encephala – We are the Dreamers of Dreams