Dream Journal
May 21, 1997
Rebecca, I, and this jive-talking black guy were out in nature. The story was that I was her wimpy geeky boyfriend and she was attracted to the commandeering, confident black dude. Of course, I was jealous. Then we came across this skinny black guy stuck in a pit and Rebecca went to rescue him. I thought she’d get stuck too so I went to help her. Skinny as the guy was, he got up and lifted a one-ton keg and threw it out of the pit. It landed on the jive guy and squished him all up. The result is that he became this big-headed super guy who could read everyone’s thoughts and only tell the truth. I said “Hey, that’s like me on mushrooms!” He said “Yeah, exactly what I said.”
Then Rebecca started crying and asking him to tell her why I had always lied to her. I wanted to say “No, that really isn’t true!” and I guess I/we did so by returning to past events at Oberlin, one by one, and going into them. Oh, and by the way, it suddenly turned to night.
Continuity and Going Into the Past: Here I’m in a rote where the girlfriend character appears as Rebecca. I’m inhabiting the lying boyfriend. But, taking it for physical life, I go back through my own memories to show I wasn’t lying.
Going into the past is easy, as shown by this scene. Taken without the introductory scene, the following scenes of Oberlin may have just been remembered as a collage of memories, but the greater context explains why I was going back into them.
Someone Else’s Story: This was clearly a rote, because it came with backstory and we were all playing parts. It also went really weird with the first guy getting squished and transforming. It was clearly a silly story but here I am taking it seriously and defending myself.