A Very Square Building and a Japanese Lady

 This isn't the most exciting or craziest dream I've had, but I want to write this down because it's kind of cool in its own way. My husband I were visiting a city somwhere, and we wandered into a wide midrise building. I don't know if was an office building, a hotel or even a dormitory. But, its interiror was certainly unique -- it turned out to be a series of atriums, wall-to-wall skylights and walls of dusty-yellow brick walls with square windows. In fact, each wall looked the same with several rows of evenly spaced windows and passageways at the bottom. In fact, just about every aspect of the building was square -- the entire walls were square, the perimeters of the atriums were square, and the skylights each had 9 perfect square of glass, and so on. It made you feel as if you were in a building made with big lego bricks.

It was early evening, so the skylights glowed violet-blue in each atrium we visited. The atriums were basically indoor courtyards with not much except for concrete benches and large planters of fake plants, like at a shopping mall. In other words, bland.

But, we did encountered something interesting at the next atrium we walked into. A woman, who looked Japanese with her black hair pinned up in an elaborate up-do, had set out a section of the courtyard as a sort of studio space. It featured bolts of fabrics in rich jewel colors, a cluster of chairs and stools, and various kinds of tools. It looked like she specialized in upholstery, and currently, she worked on applying a beautiful striped fabric of vibrant purple, black and hold to the seat of a dark wood dining chair. She had a white string of many knots, each tied at an equal interval, wich she stretched across the seat at various angles, as if taking measurements. I asked her what it was for. She smiled and explained it's a measuring string, like the kind that seamstresses used in old times. Why not a measuring tape, I asked.

She answered, "Well, it's true that measuring tapes are more precise, but this string is more organic."

I didn't understand what she meant, but the chair did look like it was done professionally and not sloppy, so I guess I can't argue with the results.

 i

Secret Smiles on TV

 Last night, I dreamed I was in the kitchen of an apartment I'd never seen in real life, though it did seem upscale with graninte counters and expensive-looking white cabinets. I was preparing a dish for dinner. I was cutting up an endive and trying to remember what the recipe was supposed to be. Soy sauce, sesmale oil, what else? Maybe I should look it up in a cookbook that I'd left in my bedroom. So, I padded down a hallway painted dove graywith white trims and plush carpet in matching shade of gray, to the bedroom.

I entered the bedroom and realized with disdain that I'd left the TV in the room on by accident. Right now, the TV was showing two college-age women, one White woman with wavy brown hair and freckles, and a Black woman with a gyspy-style scarf tied over her hair. The White woman leaned close to the Black woman as if about to share a secret, and asked, "Are you...?"

The Black woman nodded her head with a shy smile.

Both the women hunched up their shoulders, grinning at each other. clearly sharing the secret, whatever it was.

I have no idea what that was all about, but that part on the TV stuck in my head for some reason. Mabye the White woman wasking the other if she's seeing someone or if she's pregnant, or if she is LGTbQ. Or from another dimension. Feel free to speculate. (And in case you're asking I don't know if I found that cookbook or finished the dish.)

Secret World Behind a Closet

 This is probably one of the most poignant dreams I ever had, from 1990. In it, I was a little kid dragged by parents to a boring grownup party at someone's house where there were no kids to play with. I sat in a sofa in the living room, leafing through art coffee table books (which were indeed on the coffee table) because because they had pictures in them. A teenage girl walked into the living room and saw me. She told me she has something amazing to show upstairs, and asked if I would like to see it.. Eager for a distraction, I said yes and jumped off the sofa. I followed her upstairs.

What Not to Do at a Fire Drill

 As I recall from my college days, if there's a fire drill (or an actual emergency), you're supposed to head for the nearest fire stairway and proceed downstairs in an orderly fashion. Recently, I had a crazy dream that basically threw out all these rules.

Tales of the Midnight Mall #3: A Dead Mall is Discovered

 I guess this is more like a tale of a dead mall. This dream takes place in an office space that I work at (not sure what kind job I have). It seems that the management figured out there must be a room behind a wall without any kind of access to it. So, a contractor is hired to knock out a hole in the wall, so we can see what's behind it.

I was sitting at my desk, doing my thing with the computer, when I heard the contractor call out, "Hey, everyone -- check this out!"

My co-workers and I gathered around the newly made hole, and we saw what had amazed the contractor. It wasn't a room at all, but space above a floor at least 2 stories down, which meant it was underground. But what we saw wasn't a basement but part of a dark shopping mall. An empty water fountain, and a dark store entrance with a sign reading "FLORSHEIM" in a mid-century-style font above it.

 Someone said, "Wow, I had no idea there used to be a mall here!"

Someone else said, "Let's go down there and chec it out."

Unfortunately, the dream ended there, so I don't know if we made it down.

"

Tales of the Midnight Mall #2: Underground Goth Mall

 Here's one ab a mall that could be considered a midnight mall. But befoe i continue, I need to give quick background about one actual mall north of Denver, Colorado, called Northglenn Mall. It was just one of these middle-sized malls built in late 1960's, basically an one-level place that ran a straight line from one anchor store to another. It was torn down in 1990's to make way for a non-descript area of big box stores. Anyway, I had dramed that Northglenn Mall hadn't been destroyed -- instead, it went underground literally. During daytime, the mall would be hidden, but in the middle of the night, the mall would come alive, and you would go downstairs to the mall (not sure how you accessed it from outside) and there it was, a long corridor of stores on both sides. But there's a twist -- the mall has also gone Goth. So, instead of family-friendly stores, you would have shops selling music, incenses, Goth / punk clothing, optical illusion posters and the like. And yes, you would see mostly high school and college kids, punks, people in period customes and so on. And maybe vampires, too. anyhow, it sounds like an awesome place to visit, ifyou don't mind getting up in the middle of night to go there.

Butterfly Alarm at a Fancy Resort

 This is probably the earliest dream that I remember, the one that I had as a little kid. If the description of the dream sounds kind of gay, please remember that I wasn't even in first grade yet.

In the dream, my family and I were staying at a fancy ressort, built to look like a medieval village, soemthing that Disney would have designed. But it had one weird rule. You couldn't get up in the morning (even if you wake up) until a magic butterfly flies into your room, landing on each of you, waking you up or givingyou permission to get. Then it would fly out of the room, presumably to other rooms to do the same. You were able to get out of bed, get dressed and go out for breakfast or whatever.

Hmm...how did the butterfly get into the room? Perhaps it just phased through walls -- it's a magic butterfly, after all.