underhanded guide of souls

Good morning, everybody.

This post is mainly related to this entry in my dream journal.

But it's also related to a few of my other posts, as I have not made entries for them. This was mainly because image parallels just haven't popped to mind for me for a lot of these dreams. When they do, they seem so obvious. I feel kind of silly.

I think, for instance, that my previous dream entry is influenced very much by the video for "If the Canary Stops Singing," by the Heart-Sick Groans. Especially the image in the video where the canary escapes from the cage in the mine.

I actually put this video into a playlist I made on YouTube on Sunday. The playlist is built around the song "Adia," by Sarah McLachlan.

I got the urge to listen to that song after deciding to name a character in a story I wrote for Smashwords Avia Sokratis. The name Avia Sokratis is actually based on the concept of the Shavio-Socratic dialogue, which was the name that George Bernard Shaw gave to a lot of the heady dialogue portions of his plays.

The Story I wrote, which is called "Slumber Party International," was based on recent news surrounding the announcement that CERN is planning to give on July 4th regarding the potential discovery of the controversial Higgs boson. In all the newspaper articles surrounding this announcment, there is constant mention of a pajama party being held by Columbia University in anticipation of the announcement.

This slumber party reminded me of the Harry Potter and Twilight parties. I kind of got excited imagining a "what if" scenario, where all the Harry Potter and Twilight parties were brought together, via the internet, to make a kind of global slumber party in anticipation of the potential Higgs boson announcement. What if people could be that excited about a scientific announcement?

Anyway, the story I had in my head was going to be this huge kind of pop culture melange, and there were going to be a bunch of heady discussions, which were largely going to be moderated by the girl who was kind of acting as the hub for all these internet interactions. So the name I gave her was based on the Shavio-Socratic dialogue: Avia Sokratis.

I gave Avia a love interest, and decided to give her a bit of a broken heart, too. So when I did that, I decided that "Adia" would be Avia's song. Unfortunately -- as soon as I did that, I went to YouTube and listened to "Adia." I was so struck by the song, all over again, that I decided to build a playlist around it.

The playlist became centered around freedom and birds -- kind of a death fantasy, I think, especially if you think of the "Free as a Bird" song, by the Beatles. I think the bright light in the light fixture is supposed to be my soul. The heavy black chain and the black iron edges to the light fixture are all symbols of a soul's prison. There is a desire for the birdlike soul of light to be free of the cage and heavy chains.

And my dream journal entry from two days ago comes largely from the books I'd been reading, The Ship Who Sang, by Anne McCaffrey. The book is basically six stories about a woman who, at a very young age, had her brain transferred into the control system of a spaceship.

In the last story, the woman/spaceship, Helva, is convinced to go on one final mission for the government. McCaffrey basically presents Helva as being manipulated into the mission. In return for completing the mission -- or, rather, as an antecedent to her going on the mission -- Helva is given a propulsion system based on cutting edge technology. It will basically allow her to travel at unheard of speeds.

The technology Helva receives is a kind of bargaining chip. But the person bargaining with Helva is supposed to a be a kind of underhanded, but genuinely good-hearted person -- with whom Helva is in love. So the manipulation is supposed to be a kind of example of the dirty mind games people play on each other, sometimes, during the ritual of seduction.

But I was struck by how this bargaining chip seemed like too good a product to be used as an example of the man's underhandedness. Instead, the whole scene reminded me of a statement in Marshall McLuhan's book Understanding Media, where McLuhan talks about the travelling salesman's simple faith in his products.

Of course, the travelling salesman, in McLuhan's mind, is a thing of the past. Because nowadays what's being sold isn't necessarily the product, but the experience surrounding the product. The advertising promotes a process rather than a product. And I think that Alvin Toffler would probably say, slightly differing from McLuhan, that the advertising promotes a lifestyle rather than a product.

Anyway, I've lately been debating back and forth with myself regarding the true nature of salesmanship. So I've been tossing around those little bits and pieces of McLuhan and Toffler that actually stuck in my head. And then to see the aspect of salesmanship brought up, in a sense, in McCaffrey's story, brought all that stuff back to the forefront of my mind.

In the dream I take the tack of the salesman with the simple belief in his product. The older man is, I believe, supposed to be a bit more like the underhanded salesman. My old friend KU appears in the dream, I believe, because she has always stood for me as the kind of person who could see through and despise any kind of dishonesty or underhandedness that I person would throw her way. So if I could be honest with KU and convince her of the goodness of some project, then it probably really would be good.

Also, I always had a crush on KU. So my ability to convince her would probably have a love aspect or a seduction aspect to it as well.

The theme of spying plays into my dream from last night. I think that's because I'm currently reading The Death of Sleep, by Anne McCaffrey and Jody Lynn Nye. The book is basically the story of a woman named Lunzie Mespil. Lunzie works in outer space as a Doctor. She makes travels to the far reaches of space.

But, in the course of two of her travels, Lunzie's ships are destroyed. In both instances, Lunzie is put into cryogenic sleep -- suspended animation -- until she can be rescued. In the first instance, Lunzie is asleep for 62 years. In the next, she's asleep for 10 years. In between her periods of sleep, Lunzie lives in and becomes acclimated to her new worlds -- she's like a tourist of multiple futures. She meets new people, finds new loves, and, eventually, learns how the family she's left behind has developed.

Lunzie also gets involved with efforts to stop a group of pirates that are menacing the galaxy. Last night I got up to a point in the novel where Lunzie works with someone else to obtain information from a spy. Lunzie herself is then sent out on a mission where she acts as something like a spy.

The spy aspect combines here with some of the movies I've recently watched, such as eXistenZ, by David Cronenberg, and Blue Velvet, by David Lynch, where the main characters are spying on people. In particular, I believe that the wood walls in my dream come directly from the "Trout Farm" segment of Existence.

But I think the fact that the spy is an Hispanic man comes from the Pedro Almodovar films I've recently watched, especially La Piel Que Habito. I'm not sure why this is. But I'm pretty sure that's the case.

Probably the most interesting aspect of the dream is the point where the man is drugged into a dream, and where, at that point, I either become the man or take the man's place. I really have no idea what that could be all about. The man is a spy. He gets caught as a spy. He gets drugged, then he wakes into a dream. At which point, I become him or take his place.

I would say that the spying would be looking into my unconscious. While I'm looking into my unconscious, my anima confronts me. When she confronts me, I deny who I am. But my anima drugs me so that I can't deny who I am. When she does that, she causes the "observing" side of my identity to join with the "acting" or "caught" side of my identity. Now the anima has me in one body. She decides to run tests on me.

I wonder -- you know, in Jungian psychology, there's the idea of a psychopomp, a guide of souls through the underworld. When you make an effort to understand yourself, your journey through your unconscious is sometimes typified as a journey guided by this psychopomp. In Jungian psychology, the psychopomp is often thought of as Hermes, Mercury, a male character. But in the case of this dream, could my anima actually be the psychopomp?

I'm not sure that she would be a psychopomp, a guide, still, since all she is really doing is running tests on me and drugging me. But it could still be a possibility.

rainbow eXhibitioN

Good morning, everybody.

This post is related to this entry in my dream journal blog.

Yesterday I went to PrideFest, the annual festival put on by The Center, a non-profit organization that provides support and advocacy for the LGBT community in Colorado.

I do have to say that I was a little wary about going to PrideFest. But my horoscope in the paper copy The Denver Post told me to get out and have fun. And... I hate to admit it, but I do listen to horoscopes.

Anyway, the reason I was afraid to go was because I've gone to the Gay Pride Parades in New York City a few times, and they've always been miserable. Maybe it's just the location. Everything takes place down in the Village, where the streets are all cramped and packed. And that kind of environment makes me really claustrophobic.

To be honest with you, I stopped going to parades of any kind in NYC after a while, just because the crowds were so dense and so unruly. People seemed to be out to make everybody else's time a bad time. It was kind of miserable.

So I was nervous heading over to PrideFest. But I can honestly say that yesterday was one of the best days I've had in a long time! PrideFest was relaxing and fun!

The event is being held in and around downtown Denver's Civic Center. The event runs through the weekend. So there is also stuff going on there today.

But it's a lovely event. All around civic center are your usual fair-like booths, selling food, art, clothing, etc. I spent a lot of my time walking around those booths when I first got there -- not so much to look at the booths as to look at the people. Everybody was dressed up colorfully, in rainbow skirts, with rainbow-colored hairstyles, wearing pink wings, rainbow wings, makeup, body paint -- you name it. It was really an eye full!

I had planned to go there and really download as many styles into my memory as I could. But I think it's been such a long time since I've actually gone out looking at people, that my memory was all flabby. I didn't pull too much in.

After walking around at the booths for a bit, I went to one of the concert stages. As far as I could tell, there were four concert stages: a Latino stage, a country music stage, a dance stage, and the center stage, where all the main events were held.

I went to the Latino stage. I watched a guy named Daniel Galindo perform some of his own songs. I liked his musical style a lot. I looked for a website or any info on Daniel Galindo. But I couldn't find anything. I know that he's performing today at noon as well, if anybody gets a chance to see him.

After that I wandered around a little bit more before heading to the Center Stage. I stayed there for pretty much the rest of the day. The first performance I watched was Pride Idol, a karaoke contest for kids under the age of eleven. There were actually a lot of really good performances in that show. I had a lot of fun.

After that, Denver's Drag Queen Nation gave a performance. By that time, the Center Stage audience was packed. Drag Queen Nation's performance was great! A different girl would come out on stage and give her performance, lip syncing to some popular artist and doing a lot of sexy dancing. A lot of people in the crowd -- including me! -- were dancing as well.

My favorite performers were the first girl, who wore this kind of gold lame leotard (I think); a girl who wore a red spandex full bodysuit and a red wig and did some Nikki Minaj; a drag queen and drag king (?) duo who did a Shakira song; and a woman named Victoria Sexton, who came up on stage with two sexy boys and did some really hot dancing.

But my absolute favorite was a girl named Alessandra Stiletta, a super-skinny girl wearing a blue wig, a black tank-top with blue and pink designs, tiny jean shorts, and bright pink lipstick. She did a really sexy and powerful performance! I can't find it on YouTube yet, but here's another nice video of hers.

After that I headed away from the Center Stage. I was about to go into the Dance Stage. But there was actually a line to get in. So I just headed home.

So I think that obviously the girl in my last dream, the girl with the black corset, pink wings, and pink hair, was a combination of a lot of the style that I was so happy to see at PrideFest.

But I think another source for the colored hair in my dream came from this YouTube video, from the ParisModesen channel. The colored hair the girl in my dream had was a lot like the hair coloring patterns you see in the Jean Paul Gaultier segment at the beginning of the video.

Another image that I think came from PrideFest was -- myself in the second dream. In that dream I'm wearing Pampers Underjams, diapers which, for girls, have a largely purple color scheme, and a purple t-shirt.

This partly came from the fact that I was going to, but I did not, wear diapers to PrideFest. A lot of times I just don't feel like being a baby. I just feel like being my regular, old, grody boy self. But I looked around at PrideFest to see if I could find anything adult baby or sissy related. I couldn't find anything. That may simply have been because I wasn't looking hard enough.

Anyway, at Center Stage, during the Pride Idol performance, there was a group of young women -- I'd guess around college aged or thereabouts -- watching the performance, too. They were all kind of butchy-looking, with short hair done up in boyish mohawks, jeans, and so forth. But I was really attracted to them. I mean... I like girls in general. And for each girl's look, there's probably some girl who has that look whom I'll be attracted to.

But there was one girl there wearing a purple sports bra and wearing her bluejeans loose, so that the purple waistband of her underwear showed over them. She had platinum blonde hair with black roots. She just looked really hot. Of course, I would have been happy if she'd taken me home to be her little boy or her little baby forever. But I wasn't going to bug her.

Anyway, I think I appeared in my dream wearing a purple t-shirt and purple diapers specifically so I could be that girl's little baby. We would match, I guess, if I were wearing purple, too!

I think my step-grandmother (who I like a lot and who is very kind) stands, in my dream, for all the insecurities I heap on myself that prevent me from showing myself as who I really am -- even at events where everybody else is showing off who they really are!

But there is another image that influenced this dream. It comes from the Pluggers comic strip, which you can follow on GoComics.com. Actually, like an idiot, I'd forgotten all about this website until this morning. Now that I remember, I'm going to have to follow some of my favorite comic strips on this site.

Anyhow, in yesterday's cartoon, the joke was that Plugger females get their perfume from the samples in magazines.

It's kind of interesting to see the GoComics version of this cartoon. In the paper copy of the Denver Post, where I first saw this cartoon, the image was in black and white.It's interesting to see how the actual color scheme of the GoComics image is purple, like in my dream.

But the cartoon obviously contributed to that statement my grandma made about the boy who'd left behind all his fashion magazines, which all smelled like perfume.

I obviously had a lot of dreams -- a lot of imagery to think about -- last night. But I can't get to it all. The only other thing I'd really like to discuss right now is the pools in my third dream. Those pools definitely come from my having watched the David Cronenberg film eXistenZ.

In one scene in the film, the main characters are taken out to a series of ponds that serve as a breeding ground for aquatic animals that eventually become components for a virtual reality game system.

I like these aquatic animals -- it seems like they are the last really slimy, ugly, gross images that occur in Cronenberg's movies. After eXistenZ, Cronenberg's films -- though still awesome -- seem to lose a lot of that slimy ugliness that's so enjoyable.

I think I wanted to bring these animals into my dream. But all I seemed to get were "ponds" that were more like swimming pools or industrial tanks or something. And even though there were supposed to be animals present in the tanks, I'm pretty sure I never saw any.

Themes from eXistenZ also resonate through my fourth dream, the hospital dream. I walk through a bunch of areas called "exhibits," which is obviously an echo of "eXistenZ." And I stab a needle into a boy's back, which is an echo of the image of people getting "ported" (having the virtual reality system plugged into their backs) in the movie, as well as of images in the movie where people actually get needles poked into their backs.