My first recorded dream

To begin this process, I dug up my old dream journals from when I was a kid. Yes, I was that kind of kid. Think ‘Lisa Simpson’ with a bad 80’s perm.

Here’s the first entry, from December 13, 1988 (I was 16). Snarky or explanatory comments in red, from the adult me looking back on this entry:

I am in English class, where Mr. Hartman, my physics teacher, is my English instructor. He hands back homework — on three worksheets that resemble French homework, he has scrawled ‘5′ out of 10. On my vocabulary test, I have received twenty-eight or so out of fifty, missing eight alone out of thirteen on a paragraph written with vocabulary words that I had done in red pen [note themes of failure, especially visible failure in front of a teacher. Ahh, school dreams].

School is over, and I begin to walk to my math class by way of fifth street. I ask Jason Johnson for a ride, but he wants to invite Rachel and my brother Dan, who are playing chess on the sidewalk in front of school, surrounded by many people [My brother is now a chef in a small Pittsburgh bar, known for organizing big Barleywine festivals. Think booze and food. Not chess].

When I get to the end of the teacher’s parking lot, I see a girl with permed hair brushed to one side, no bangs, and a great tan [I wrote this?? Note the 80's obsession with looks, even for the class nerd. And the 80's hair styles, of course].

I run over to her and say ‘Look who has a tan!,’ thinking she is Carrie S., visiting from California [a classmate who moved to San Francisco, from our dinky town in Pennsylvania, when we were sixteen. At her going away party, we gave her a box of condoms, and thought we were being hilarious. She moved and never wrote to any of us again. Hmm].

The girl looks exactly like Carrie, but she says she is not. I am extremely embarrassed and half-jog to the end of the soccer field. Inside, three kids are fooling around, half-playing soccer. In the school driveway, a kid grabs a soccer ball and spins it on his finger while on a skateboard. I continue walking up fifth street until a tall imposing structure says ‘Vo-tech’. [Definition: the technical training school that non-collegebound students attend part-time in American high schools, to learn trades like autobody repair]. I walk in out of curiosity, look in a classroom, and see Mike Cribbs, who glares at me. [Wow. I've completely forgotten about him. He was the school bully that was in my homeroom all through junior high and high school, tormenting both myself and other similar nerds]. I thought he had been suspended the day before. Two boys give me directions to the main office, but I walk around and see students swimming in a pool and playing outside, as in recess. I finally find a door and leave the building. [that's it? that's how my first entry ends? Talk about attention to detail, and inability to wrap this into a fun story].

So as a haiku, if the above was too boring, here’s my first entry:

A public failure.

Random folk being random.

Everyone cooler than me.

From this dream, I’m adding a couple themes. Also adding a quality called ‘Mashups’, since I’ve noticed how people get confused in dreams (your Physics teacher becomes your English teacher, your college friend is in your high school). Hope you enjoyed it — share your own!