It was a holiday, but I was working in a room in a hospital-like building. Actually, I was just pretending to be working, and was enjoying a conversation with a girl in the room. She was wearing a red shirt.
We were alone in the room, but suddenly there was an order for the girl from the leader of the nurses. She told her to go to U.S. immediately and stay there until she is told to come back. The nurse also told me to prepare to go to U.S. So I started to check the items to bring: something, OK, another thing, OK, the passport - do I have to update my passport? It expires at the end of this year.
I was reading a Richard Dawkins book in which it was said that he is writing for an on-line magazine (a weird thing is that after I wrote this dream down, I received an e-mail from a person named Richard regarding his on-line magazine. I guess this is just a coincidence). There was an annotation about that, and I turned the pages to the end of the book to read the note. The note didn't give me any further information.
I was told to visit the editor of the magazine. His desk was in a small room with lots of sheets of papers spread over the floor. It was a mess. He suggested to go out.
We went outside. I told him that I was a traditional Japanese sit-down comedian. The editor got interested, and asked me which train station I use everyday. I could barely remember. I told him that I was actually a ghost writer for the sit-down comedian, and not exactly himself. "Although he appears at the informative show on TV," I told the editor, "I do all the interviews and scripting, and he takes all the credits."
It became dark, and the editor was now a middle-aged woman. She wanted to walk. So we did. We talked about various things. At some point, we took our shoes and socks off. When she looked tired, I suggested to take a cab back to the office. She agreed, but we couldn't stop any cabs.
We started walking back, trying at the same time to stop cabs. I realized that I didn't have my shoes and socks with me. She said she had the shoes. But the socks were gone. "Here go the socks." I said.
I suggested to go through a futuristic building, which was supposed to be a short cut. But we went in a bar in the building. We were now a group of four people. The additional two members were both young women.
The bartender told us that the bar could serve us medicines. I ordered a couple of H blocker pills for my ulcer. I thought that a pill would cost $3.00, but it was actually $0.0133333......
Before I knew it, the table was covered with white pills and powder.
I was in a class room waiting for the instructor to return the examination papers to us. The instructor wrote on the blackboard that the top score was 200, which meant perfect, and there was only one of us who scored that. I thought it would have been me, considering that the exam was a piece of cake for me. The instructor also wrote that the second prizes were won by several students who scored 150s. The rest did not matter.
The one scored 200 turned out to be my classmate from junior high school who in reality now is a banker. That was understandable as he had been very clever.
Then students who scored 159 and 158 were called and received their papers. My name was not included in the top three or five and I was surprised.
While I was thinking what could have been wrong with my answers for the exam, my name was called. The instructor asked me why I answered "no" for a very simple question "Is it possible for two computers to maintain their communication via phone line indefinitely?" He told me that if I had not made that mistake I would have scored perfect.
I told the class that I thought when there was no signal through a connection for 15 seconds, the connection was to be disconnected according to the relevant protocol, and such a situation is inevitable for the given conditions in the question. The instructor obviously had not thought about it, and made a phone call to an authority to verify my point.
But I interrupted his phone conversation. "That's OK." I said, "I've just come up with a solution. The computers can always redial when they find that the connection no longer exists." The instructor seemed relieved.
Later, I thought that a more elegant solution would be to exchange background signals just to keep the connection. I also thought that it could have been after 5 seconds instead of 15 when the connection is forced to be disconnected.
My score was 155. It was scribbled in red letters on the top right hand corner of my paper.
When I woke up, the following sound was playing on and on in my head.
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I woke up and realized that a strong wind was blowing outside, making drapes on my bedroom window flutter fiercely. This was in reality. I thought I'd better close the window, but at the same time I was unable to repress my desire to sleep. I was closing my eyes, thinking that I could wake up again in my dream and imagine that I was closing the window. I also thought that since it would happen at the next instance, I would still be able to maintain my lucidity in my dream.
I was right. I got up from my bed, knowing that I was in a dream. I walked to the bedroom window, and instead of closing it, I walked through it, and went outside (my bedroom is on the ground floor).
In reality, there is a small backyard filled with wild plants, and the neighbouring house is just a few metres away. But in this dream, there was a field almost fifty metres across, which was covered with brown soil, wet and muddy from the rain. I walked a few steps on the ground barefooted. It felt cool on the back of my feet.
I looked back. My apartment in reality is a two storey building painted pale green, but the building I found instead was a four to five storey, red brick building which looked like the one I saw in Oxford.
The sky was bright. I knew I could fly, and if I did, I could prove
that I was in fact in a dream maintaining lucidity. I started flying
by doing what I learned from many experiences in my previous dreams
- by kicking the ground and pulling myself above in my mind. My body
was slowly elevated. I could see the apartment building on the right,
and just when I reached the height of the building, I became unsure
if I could maintain the lucidity anymore; it requires a specific kind
of concentration.
The concentration was suddenly out of control, and I opened my eyes
in my bedroom. There was a strong wind still blowing outside.
I was on a mission to fly a machine which flies by pedaling although it looked like a fighter plane. On a training session, I flew under a blue sky (note that this dream was seen just after I wrote "I usually fly in the dark" in the top 5 recurring themes in my dream at Dream Link . I also wrote that I could fly without particular body movements, and I was flying by pedaling in this dream), over a green landscape which was not a residential area, situated probably in U.K. But I had a feeling like the set was borrowed from a STAR WARS movie. When I turned the machine to go back, I was worried that I might hit another plane flying below, flown by my colleague.
There was a book/video shop near a condominium building. I bought some videos and laser discs there, and had them sent to my apartment. The next time I went there, I bought a series of art critic books. Each book had an either red or blue covering. The set was not complete, but I thought it would suffice.
I was working on an interactive movie at my office. The movie was in English, although I was supposed to make something in Japanese. In fact, I was perfectly aware of that, and using my working hours to finish my personal project. My boss was mad when he found out what I was doing. I showed him that I was also working on what he asked me to do, however for a short amount of time, and also that my personal project is cool. I explained that in order to play a football game within the interactive movie, the player must play football in reality. Otherwise the program will not be initiated. People did not really like my idea, and walked through the subway where this scene was now situated.
When I went to the book/video shop again, I decided to buy a single record by someone I do not remember, but I am sure that it was someone I like a lot. The sleeve was in monochrome. I went to the cashier, but the counter already had several customers, and nobody could serve me. I kicked the counter to show that I was irritated.
Then I noticed that a girl who was my high school classmate and also a coworker at my current employer was walking out of the condominium building. But I do not remember saying anything to her. I just remember that when I looked at the counter again, there was a long line at the end of which I had to place myself.
I was finally served. I asked the clerk if the shop could deliver the
record to my apartment. She said that it was possible, but she
wouldn't take the trouble if she had been me. I understood, but I was
also practicing in my mind to say the address of my apartment. I got
it wrong a few times, but I could do it correctly after some
practice.
There was an archiver program with a very cute name which I do not remember, developed by my team. We asked the testers what to do with the program, and had replies from several of them. One of them, a girl with brown hair down to her shoulders, told us that since the program was so well designed as it could be a part of GNU, we should distribute it with GNU programs. She called the package an ideal option. Her e-mail address had a domain name "gol.it" (Global On-Line Italy?).
As we were investigating on her idea, looking down a street traffic from the roof of a building from which her house could have been seen, a lorry ran into a small car coming from the other direction, and kept running for about 20 meters pushing the car back before finally stopping. The two cars then went into an alley. My colleague said that in that way the drivers could talk in quieter surroundings. Although it was obvious that the driver of the small car was wrong, the lorry driver, we guessed, was a gentleman and would handle the situation properly.
Then there was a motorcycle repeating the girl's idea of the ideal option - distributing the archiver with GNU programs. The motorcycle went zigzag, avoiding hitting pedestrians.
Since my job was to manage an early confusion in introducing a new paradigm to the project, I made some unimportant mistakes in the architectural design of an operating system. Then a new comer came and picked on my mistakes. I told my boss (whom I regard as my friend) that my works should still be appreciated.
When we went to U.K. to visit a firm, they would usually welcome
us with a weekend dinner. There were occasions in which we did not
want them to take the trouble, but I thought I wanted it in this
particular trip. I was staying in a flat instead of a hotel then.
I was in my apartment. There were two workers, both men, visiting my apartment everyday to work on something. It could have been some electric wiring, but I was not sure. They worked mainly at the entrance, putting some device on the door.
The workers looked very suspicious to me. One of them had rather long hair - long enough to cover his ears, and was interested in my artistic activities. I had a feeling like he too was an artist. He had dark skin, and looked always energetic. The other had short hair and looked pale. He scarcely talked to me. I suspected that the device they were putting on my door was going to be used by some organization to spy on me.
On one early morning, when it was still dark, I got up from my bed and opened the living room door only slightly so that I could look at the two men work unnoticed. I was wondering how many days it would take for them to put that simple device on the door. Then I noticed there was a self portrait on the floor near them drawn by the one with rather long hair. In the picture, as far as I could make out, his face was expressed by a circle, and two horns were sticking out of his temples. After all, I thought, he was not a human.
I opened the door. They said good morning to me. The one with rather
long hair picked his portrait up and showed it to me. It was a
drawing of a globe. I found that he was a much better artist than I
was. He may have given me some advice then. He may not have told me
anything.
A train went on. This train was exclusively for the rich, and was running a long distance. Every passenger was entitled to use one whole car. However, I soon realized that each car was carrying woods that took the most space of it, and there was only a tiny room left for the passenger. It was explained that these woods were for heating, as the train was running through a very cold and barren place without even trees. But the train was running through forests when I first saw it.
It was an island where experiments were carried out for some Japanese corporation, by which I was employed. Four people in my office had to move to the island: one of them was a female mathematician with whom I used to work in reality, and the rest were male. Although moving to the island meant less freedom, they accepted the company's order. Now that I received the same order, I was thinking if I should accept it when I was washing dishes in a sink.
I was making some video clips for my songs then. For one of them, I
made an animation of two dancing black men wearing green suits. The
song sounded somewhat like a Mortown song, and I was happy with the
video I made as it looked like a perfect match. I was wondering if I
could continue my video works when I move to the lsland.
Before the island stuff and during I was drawing frames for the
animation, a TV personality named Nakai disappeared. He was a member
of a very popular group of actors, and the group had to do without
him for a while. That was a hard time especially for the youngest
member of the group named Katori.
