Dream - The imitation Superman and the Kryptonian lettuce-man

On Monday, September 6, 2010, Labor Day, sometime in the afternoon, while napping at the computer, I dreamed I was in the neighborhood, going along 74th St., back to the house. Earlier I had been in a shopping center, that it seems went in parts into a shallow cave. I was also sometimes in a very large tunnel dug out of the earth, with uneven dirt walls. I was a long time in this part of the dream. I was a Superman-like figure, but at the same time apart, someone else too. There were some Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen and Perry White people, too.

Now I was also two people going back to the house somehow, generally separated, one sometimes more back by McDowell Rd. We had been at a shopping center there, where Los Arcos used to be.

Somebody was suspicious of me/us. I turned onto a cross street, still heading home, and something happened, I'm not sure if there was a struggle, or if I just confronted him and overpowered him, but I ended up carrying him around for a while, like a very large stuffed pillow. I got home, and he wouldn't give up, and I finally banged his head repeatedly and violently on things, holding his body and swinging him down. He was now more like a Teddy bear made out of a pillow. Some other people came in and wondered about what I was doing, maybe the Jimmy-Lois-Perry people, but I quickly hid him. Then after a while, I sneaked him out the window with me. He was much smaller now, and I held him against me like a light gray throw pillow wrapped up in some cloth.

I took him back to the shopping center where Los Arcos used to be. It was several stories high, maybe as many as six or eight, and was still under construction, though it was being used. I tried to hide him somewhere, but then had to move him. Eventually, I was high up on a partially finished section. I was going to try to sneak him out, but construction workers were around. It seems I was temporarily injured or weakened somehow, too, and didn't have all my powers. After sneaking along the section I was on, I tried to cross the gap to another, higher part of the building. Some scattered workers saw me and remarked on it, saying that something seemed to be wrong with me. Flying up and across a little, I managed to reach up and pull myself up onto the building section. People knew I was Superman and I didn't want them to know that something was wrong with me. I wasn't the real Superman, just a lesser imitation somehow, and knew this, but they didn't. They were wondering what I was doing, excited about it and talking among themselves while they watched me. I tried to seem like everything was alright, smiling, tried to seem purposeful. I still had to hide the package, the cloth-wrapped pillow-like man, somewhere. I put it in the section of the building I had reached, temporarily hiding it there. This area was still under construction, and probably no one would come here for a while.

A little later, I came back and got it and walked behind the buildings. It was still about the size of a flat throw pillow, wrapped up in cloth. There was a lot of mostly open land, fields, with widely spaced homes. I took it to where they were growing some lettuce-like things, something like leaf lettuce, a little purplish looking. I tried to hide it among them. A man was there, bent over, working. He somehow knew what was going on, and had even been waiting for me. He looked up at me in immediate understanding, and grunted an acknowledgment. We had actually done this sort of thing before. He was going to hide it among the densely packed rows of thick bunches of lettuce leaves. People most likely would never look way out here, or suspect anything, but if they did come out it would be hard to see without doing a thorough search, which they would have no reason to do. The package actually seemed to blend with the lettuce as I handed it toward him, and as we were both holding it for a time, it was coming to look something like the lettuce, seeming to become in part purplish lettuce. I hoped that it would be alright, that he would be alright. He was injured when I was beating up on him, and I hoped he would heal. The lettuce was actually from Krypton, Kryptonian lettuce, and it seemed that the genes from it would be partly blended into his, making him actually part lettuce. Since the lettuce was from Krypton, it too had superpowers, and I hoped and felt that being partly made of it would speed his healing and make him stronger faster, make him much better able to heal, and that he would get better quickly, in only a few days.

Then I went away from the area, to the edge of it, on I guess the north, and it seemed the land blended into a large ship, though embedded in the land, and I was walking along it along the way between the railing and the rooms. I met some people along the way, some of whom seemed to be against me. It seems I was at least partly disguised as Clark Kent at least part of the time. I also met some people from work, maybe Jimmy and Lois. There were some small struggles at times, and something about the lettuce-man coming back, sometimes as partly a man I think, and there was some worry that someone was going to try to hold it over me, what I had done to him, use the threat of exposure of it to control me. I don't remember much about it anymore.

Dream - I find an old car I had forgotten about, with plants growing in it, and a woman superhero dressed in white comes, who I know

On Friday, February 25, 2011, around 10:30 AM-12:20 PM, I dreamed that I went out behind the radiator shop. It was night. The shop seemed to be someplace I was living, and there were some other people inside, some family members. Before I went there I was someplace else, to the south.

Out behind the shop, out closer to the alley, pointed mostly to the south, was an old car I had forgotten I had. It was evidently a Cadillac Eldorado, from the mid 1970s, though it was more rounded, less a chiseled look. The paint was old and faded. Sometimes it seemed purplish, and at other times much lighter. The sheet metal was a little battered, a little wavy. The light outside was kind of dim and gray. Some lights were on in the building, and some lights reached out here, way in the back.

I was glad I still had the car, and was glad I found it. I opened up the hood and looked around inside. I had some food and other things hidden under layers of thin cardboard in the front, in large open spaces behind the headlights and to some extent the grill. There were also pieces of a blanket-like cardboard that went along the sides, flexible and a little wrinkled, and some kind of thin strange plants with broccoli-like ends.

Some little kids came out from somewhere, neighborhood kids evidently, and happily wanted to watch what I was doing. I fiddled with the layers of cardboard over the food and things, putting them back and acting like I was rearranging and straightening things, then started trimming the cardboard and plants some with huge scissors. The kids were excited to watch, but also disappointed that I was trimming things, and wanted them left as they were. I finally stopped, deciding to go ahead and leave it. The cardboard blanket had been getting loose and out of place, but it wasn't really all that important, and the plants weren't either, might as well let them stay. They seemed to be part of the car's character. After a while the kids left.

A woman came from somewhere, that I knew. She was a superhero in a mostly white costume. She looked something like Dinah on the TV soap opera "Guiding Light." She was a bit larger than life. We talked softly, and she lay down inside the hood. I undid the front of her costume, while she talked. Her left breast was damaged and scarred and uneven and flattened quite a bit, just an uneven shapeless mounding on that side, that covered most of her ribs, though the central part of it looked about as it should, and was approximately where it should be. Her right breast was normal. I massaged her some while she softly talked, looking more up than at me. Then I laid down on her for a little while, hugging her while she hugged me. I was still leaning over the front of the car, and it was almost like she had no legs. Sometimes we looked toward the building, wondering about the people there. We didn't really want them to find out, and supper was being fixed and someone would probably come out for me soon. I finally got up, and she sat up, partly pulling her clothes around her, though they remained undone for now and one side or the other seemed to always be exposed. She got up after a little bit, swinging her legs up over the passenger side fender.

I started to move back along the car some, trimming some things with the huge scissors, while we talked. I trimmed some things in the interior, and moved back toward the trunk. There were a couple of openings inside the trunk, back by the back window, with clusters of thin dark grass coming through them, and I started to trim it. I was talking to her and clipping it, when I abruptly paused, pulling back, staring at it. Eyes were looking back at me, huge eyes. They were her eyes, two or three times the size of normal eyes. Her head and body had grown to match, and she was stretched out through the car, her eyes looking through and up against the holes in the sheet metal, and I was clipping her eyelashes and eyebrows. I looked at it in horror. I was glad I hadn't hurt her eyes. As she talked, I started to awkwardly apologize, saying I seemed to have cut her eyelashes a bit. She passed it off quickly, seeming a bit amused, and continued talking. A couple of people started to come out from the shop, small in height, women or children probably, to come and tell me it was time for supper, time to go.


Earlier, it seems I had been somewhere concerned with things that were somewhat similar. I may have been at the house for a while, but it seems I was also somewhere else to the south most of the time, perhaps outside a shopping center or even in a partly undeveloped area, sometimes talking to people. I think my brother might have been there, and I think a couple of other cars that I had, also old cars, but in better shape than the one behind the shop. There also seemed to be something about superpowers, or perhaps people with them, but I'm not sure now what. I remembered a little more immediately after awakening, but it soon faded, and I'm writing now at 4:42 PM 2/25/2011, a few hours after the dream.

Dream - At a mall, a tiny toy Superman fights a toy super-villain

On Monday, June 15, 2009, at approximately 5:00-7:35 AM, I dreamed I was driving, maybe around locally, more or less, then was in something like a mall, which had a hotel as part of it. My brother and mother and some other family members were there too. We were all much younger, though perhaps not all to the same degree. After some discussion, we separated, and went different directions in the mall. The mall split off in several directions from where we were, near one end, with a branch going off at an angle from the end, and some short branches on the other side at or near the end, most sticking out at right angles, though one at the end had a slight angle to it.

I went down the main aisle of the mall, looking at things as I went. I think I was concerned with getting some food. I made my way to the end, or at least one end, then went back, though along a different branch, one almost parallel to the first, but a little higher and somewhat shorter.

I made my way to the end of the branch, to a large carpeted room. It had some low tables and padded furniture, like a waiting room, and a tall counter was along one side, the one the opening from the mall was by. Some people were behind the counter, perhaps some food vendors and other people. The room also had some association with the hotel, which was behind it and also ran along behind and attached to the mall.

I left the carpeted room, though, and went to the other end of the mall, then went back to it. Near the room, I came across a tiny toy Superman, about six inches high, and picked it up and carried it in. Some other toy figures were standing on the carpet, some together in little curved lines. They were all very lifelike. Some people stood around watching, some behind the counter and some out toward the edges of the room, and there may have been a few in front of the counter or in the room.

Something happened, some device got turned on, and gravity got real heavy for some reason. It was something turned on by an enemy of the toys, another toy, a super-villain. The toy figures were pressed into the carpet, bending over, huddled together, the increased gravity trying to pull them down. As time went on, they became more dragged down, many of them laying on the carpet, pressed deeply into it. The air seemed to be different too, to darken, and a lot of the surrounding area seemed to fade out into a grayness, or to simply disappear entirely from sight. The toy figures were groaning, sometimes calling out to each other or for help. They hoped that someone, maybe the toy Superman, could do something, could save them, but there was some worry about whether he could handle it, whether he would be affected too much by it himself. A toy figure was kidnapped, too, though I'm not sure when it happened.

Superman managed to leap over to the other end of the room, which narrowed to a short hallway leading to the door. Beyond the door was a big open area with an elaborate fountain. A voice was talking about how easy it was to have so-and-so do it, to have them apply the stuff and do the work so you could concentrate on what you needed to do (probably an ad playing on the radio, which was on in real life).

A tall giant figure in a bulky padded gargoyle costume was tending the fountain, adding figures and statuary to it. Apparently it also acted as a central figure in it and could emerge suddenly from the water in a frightening display of power. It was actually life-size or a little larger, but was giant compared to the toy figures, which were around six inches tall. It might have had the toy Lois figure, and someone else, maybe Jimmy, though Jimmy also seemed to be in the area and taking pictures.

Superman came and got into a large robot-like figure made of solid cardboard with a huge rounded chest, splitting it open in a straight vertical line to get inside and then joining the sides back together again. Then, wearing the giant cardboard robot suit, he confronted the gargoyle. It was thought that Luther took Lois, and that the gargoyle was somehow connected with it or knew about it. I was worried that Superman would fight it when it didn't really seem to be part of it, just peaceably puttering with its fountain.

Superman, in his cardboard suit, had come up behind the gargoyle, which turned to face him. They stood there and talked for a while, in low tones, Superman questioning the gargoyle and the gargoyle responding. I couldn't hear what they were saying. Superman seemed satisfied with the gargoyle's answer, though, and went back to where he had gotten the cardboard suit, and split it open again and flew out of it. Then Jimmy was worried that he hadn't gotten the pictures, that something was wrong with his camera, so Superman got back in the cardboard so Jimmy could take the pictures, then got out again and flew around, looking for the kidnappers.

My brother and I went somewhere, then, and got some cheesecakes, with my mother and sisters and perhaps other family members helping. My mother and sisters were much younger, perhaps how they were in the mid 1960s, and my sisters were still children, though it's possible they had been children earlier in the dream, too. My brother got two cheesecakes that were fresh and I got two that were frozen, and there were another two that were picked up somewhere else, maybe a store associated with a service station. The cheesecakes were all large, and they were going to be eaten at a party that was supposed to happen shortly.

We all went to a house, taking the cheesecakes with us. Other people were also there. Most of the people, the family members and others, seemed to be very busy, walking around and doing things and talking to each other. A lot of them were in the large living room, or that area, though some went back and forth to other areas of the house, such as the kitchen or dining room, and some seemed to stay mostly in those areas.

The frozen cheesecakes were set out now, and were being eaten some already. The fresh ones weren't put in the refrigerator or freezer, but were also left out, waiting until Lois and the other person were rescued.

After talking with my brother some, discussing things, I left, and I think he did too, and also some other family members. My brother and I were leaving in separate cars, and going to different places. My mother and my sisters were going to go together, I think, in a station wagon, that was either the 1964 Chevrolet or the 1973 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser. I think it might have been the 1964 Chevrolet. The party wasn't going to happen until later, in the evening, which was still a little ways off, so there was still some time to do things, and it seems most of us had things to do, though part of it may have had something to do with the party, with getting things for it. My mother wanted to get supper for my father, though, at least as part of what she needed to do. She had gotten pretty concerned about it, that it was getting late and she had to hurry. I was under the impression that the place she was going to was several miles to the south and west, at the south side of Phoenix, and it seemed to be somewhere we had lived long ago, perhaps even the house in Missouri in 1966. Quite a few people were still going to be here, though, getting things set up and ready for the party.

I think I may have wanted to get something, though I'm not sure whether it was for the party or not. I felt uneasy about leaving the cheesecakes out, even before I left, and kept looking back toward the room as we were leaving, and when talking some to my brother just outside it. We didn't actually have an exact time for the party, because we didn't know when the people would be rescued, and it might not be as soon as we thought.

I drove away, in the white 1965 El Camino I think, but I continued to worry about the cheesecakes, wondering if I should go back and put them in the refrigerator. I went several miles away, to the northwest, perhaps over into Phoenix, to a large service station with covered bays, with an associated large convenience store/restaurant. I sat there outside it, in the car, still worrying.

Overhead, Superman was still flying around, still searching, looking through things with his super-vision, but he hadn't found anything yet. I sat there, in the car, watching him. It was a little after sundown now, and it was starting to get dark. A feeling of depression was settling in over me, a feeling of resignation, of defeat. It was possible he might rescue the people soon, but it didn't really look like it. If he did do it soon, it had better be fast.

I wasn't sure what was going to happen with the party. It seemed likely that some kind of party or get-together was going to happen, it had been planned and set up, and lots of people invited, but it was going to take a lot of the joy out of it, to not have the people rescued. I had already considered the possibility that the rescue might be delayed some, and had pictured the people at the party talking to each other and discussing it, and then the rescue occurring sometime while the party was going on, maybe late in the party. It now looked like it might be after the party entirely, maybe days later. We might have to have a small second party when it happened.

I should go back soon, I thought, and tell them what was happening, and what was likely to happen. It was something they should know, and would want to know.

I started to drive back, still sometimes watching Superman fly around, the times when he was visible. When he wasn't, there was just the trip back, and the increasingly darkening sky.

Dream - James Bond and the picture of the rose

On Wednesday, December 9, 2009, sometime in the morning, I dreamed I went to a mall somewhere, in Arizona, probably the Mesa-Tempe area. It was Sunday and in the afternoon, maybe getting late in the afternoon. I think I went to a second one then. I had to get back soon for supper, I think we were having some kind of family get-together.

I had made my way along the mall from one end to the other. It was a large mall. I started on the second story and it had a downhill slope most of the way. Partway along I switched to the bottom story, maybe two thirds or more along. There were several turns. I think I started out soon turning left, then after a little while turning right, then left again for a little longer and then right and then left and then right for a longer time, and then left for a long but shorter time, and then left again for a fairly long time, something like that. I was looking at various things as I went, usually from outside the stores, though I think I went into a few places and through or by a few that were out in the mall. I was nearly to the end now, in the section where the end was. I had been hoping to get something to eat. I had passed a little place selling soft ice cream. I thought of getting some, but wasn't sure I wanted ice cream. There were a lot of people around. It was getting late now, late in the afternoon on Sunday.

An announcement said the mall was going to close soon. People started hurrying, some to leave and some to finish up what they were doing. I was near a little tiny snack place out in the mall aisle, but it wasn't a place I really wanted to get the food from. I turned around and was going past it or through the edge of it. A family was there and some other people. A little kid ran into me from behind and was against me for a moment, then went around me. I wondered if it was something to try and take my wallet, but felt my back pocket and found my wallet was still there.

I had thought to maybe do some shopping for Christmas, but I didn't buy anything, just looked. We didn't have too much money right now to buy stuff with, and I had to be careful in choosing what I bought. I walked back through the mall.

After a while I turned right, and started walking through the longest section, going up hill a little as I walked. I was hoping to come across the ice cream store and maybe buy something. The mall was closing and a lot of stores were dark, maybe most of them, others were pulling down their security cage fronts. I didn't see the ice cream store, but a lot of the stores were dark and it was hard to tell. I wondered if I had been on the upper level when I went through this area, it seemed that I might have but I couldn't remember for sure. The store was probably on the upper level, I thought, maybe at the elevator back at the corner. I stayed on the lower one, though. I didn't know for sure and time was running out anyway, and it might be closed by the time I got up there.

I went through the section and turned right, and went along a relatively short, narrower section without stores. On the right was a long dirt section with a wall beyond it. It had a slight upward slant. The dirt had cactus skeletons and dry desert plants and a low open wooden fence along it, or maybe just posts and wire. I think it had a few cattle skulls somewhere, along with a few bones. One or two of the skulls may have been on the posts, and maybe a couple of cowboy hats. There may also have been a small wagon wheel or two, painted white. It seemed to be something related to Halloween, I thought, though it was past now, and they still had it up, at least for now. It also seemed to have some other tie-in, something that the mall was doing, perhaps related to some activity or event.

I went in it and walked through it for a while. Partway through, I looked back the way I came. It seemed that the bad guy or guys might be back there, that they might have come back, and might be aware of me and trying to sneak up on me. I couldn't see anything for sure, though I thought I could see a few of the townsfolk.

I got to the end and left the dirt area, and went across to where the aisle turned left and divided, with part going on in an upward slant and part beside it to the right on an upper level, perhaps six to eight feet up, going parallel to it. On the left was a section that was open, down to a lower level far below.

I climbed up to the upper walkway. It was in black wood with a black wood railing, with wooden shops along it, like an Old West town. I seemed to be a kind of James Bond character, though later on I was actually James Bond. I went along carefully, watching out for things. Shortly, the aisles turned left again for a while. The Old West section ended here. Then I got on to a longer section that turned right. It went through an area that was mostly just walls, then turned right again, and went along a large area. On the left were some shops, and on the right a railing with a big open area to a lower story. It was much brighter here. I went along the aisle, going upward, until it turned right, and then went that way. It was broader along here, spreading out into a large area. Things were mostly white.

My mother was with me at some point. It seems like she had driven a car there, maybe a station wagon, to the large room/area there that I was in. It was parked somewhere there, a ways back. I met up with her, and we continued walking, hurrying along. I moved faster, and got ahead of her, though she seemed much younger than she does now, maybe even in her thirties. I was worried, I think, about the bad guy catching up.


I came to some small open rooms near the railing. A man came up the steep slope of ground beyond the railing, coming up from the sunken lake that was in the big open section. He was soaked, and met up with two or three of his friends in one of the small rooms. I was worried about him, that he might be a threat, that he might threaten us. He was upset about his girl friend leaving and wasn't rational. He was nervously talking about doing something, that it didn't matter any more. He produced a small chainsaw. The blade was probably only about fifteen inches long, and was black. He turned it on in a threatening manner, waving it around a little, some in my general direction. I worried that he was going to attack us and try to kill us. My mother wasn't in the room, but wasn't very far away. He turned it on and off a few times, waving it a little and looking up at me sometimes, looking upset and worried. His friends, who had seemed supportive at first, looked more worried as time went on. The blade didn't look or act like a normal chainsaw blade, it seems it was a rough, lumpy, abrasive strip with a thin rubber coating, and it didn't spin, it just went back and forth a little along the middle part.

I reached out suddenly and grabbed the blade with the fingers of one hand. I'm not sure whether it was originally on when I grabbed it, but it was turned on at some point for a while while I was holding it. He was looking at me worriedly. I let go, worried that I was going to get cut. After a moment where I thought about what to do, I started struggling with him over it. He wouldn't let go of it. It got pointed up high in the air for a while, and then pointed way down. I think my mother had arrived at some point, and was standing a few feet back, looking worried and concerned, her mouth open. I was worried that his buddies would go to his defense, but they stayed out of it, even though one was literally on each side of him, and an additional one to his right beyond the first one.

I got the saw on the side of his right shoe, which was made of some kind of odd rubber, looking like a poor casting, with raised blotches and extra rubber at some of the seams sticking out in thin ridges. He mocked what I was doing, saying it didn't matter and wouldn't hurt him. The saw got away from his foot and I brought it back down again and got it under his foot, which was now raised up in the air by it, either from the saw pushing at it or him trying to move his foot away from it some or both. I kept up the pressure. It took a long time for the saw to cut through the rubber. He continued to talk to me, looking more sad and worried now, still saying it didn't matter, and saying something about something else, maybe the lake. I looked back down at what I was doing and saw with astonishment that his shoes had changed to rubber swim fins, and that the saw was making progress, cutting up to about halfway through his foot as I watched. I hadn't intended to hurt him that much, just enough to cut him some and hurt him enough that he would be concerned about it and not walking around trying to hurt people.

I withdrew the saw and he put the foot down. He was still sadly saying that it didn't matter. Watery blood was coming out some on the sides of the flipper and spreading a little on the floor under and around his foot. I was worried again that his friends might try to defend him, but they were just looking at him, staring at his face, looking sad and worried. I left them there, suggesting that they get medical assistance, that they needed to get someone. I think someone made a move to call someone or leave to get someone or something like that.


I went to the end of the room, which ended in a very small wharf sticking out, not much more then a heavy wooden sidewalk along part of the edge, sticking out sideways over the ocean. It seemed darker in that direction, like it was twilight or close to it. A few fishermen or sailors sat on or along it, not many, maybe three or four. There were some ships out there somewhere, far out there, and the men were waiting somewhat peacefully and wistfully for them to come back. It felt peaceful there, but I didn't feel it was safe. I couldn't afford to sit down and rest and wait. I felt that the enemy was coming, and I had to take action.

I went back the way I had come, but staying closer to the other side of the area. Along the side, there were sometimes small rooms and areas, sometimes with small side branches continuing at an upward slant to other things. I went by them, without going into them. As I went along, I changed to actually become James Bond, dressed in dark, tight-fitting knit clothes. Sometimes I was more like Sean Connery and sometimes more like Roger Moore. I was trying to pretend I was someone else, just a person there, maybe a tourist.

As I got back to the corner and got on the aisle I took to get there, I looked back and saw that a man was in a part of the wide area near the corner to the aisle, by a narrow counter out by itself, who was finishing up putting on a light gray, padded Batman-like costume with a dark cape and cowl. He was with some other people, some of whom may have been helping him. It seemed like it might have been some part of the activities available there.

I went along back down the aisle, going downhill, and came to the corner that turned left, but went right instead onto an offshoot of the aisle, going into an enclosed section. I met a short woman there, thin and in her thirties or forties. I talked to her briefly about something. She happily answered me, with a kind of smug expression. She seemed to be on my side, and the smug expression was about the information she was giving me, something about other people.

I went on forward and came to a broad opening to a large store. The opening closed off before I could get to it though, by something coming down over it, a wall coming down like a large garage door might. It had square panels like large push buttons maybe a foot or so across covering most of it, set in two or three sections. They had strange symbols on them, and almost all of them were softly lit.

As I came up to it, I saw a small panel under them near the right side. I had to press in a code to enter. I was uncertain what code would be proper. I needed to get inside, though. I thought the bad guy, the head person, might be in there. I needed to get in even if they were closing. It was awkward to enter things on it. It didn't actually have buttons, just a little plate, like dark brass, maybe six to eight inches across with small dark numbers and other things, of various sizes, relatively close-spaced. When I poked on them with my finger something happened, something lit up in an order of some kind up on the door/wall in front of me, and I saw somewhere there a lighted small display of what I pushed, but the place I was pushing didn't go down or do anything. I thought I was just going to enter 007, my code name, and they might let me in because they recognized it, if they did recognize it, but I thought they might because of their possible association with the enemy, that they might do it as a courtesy, and kind of to see what I might want, what I might be doing.

I was having a hard time with it, and was somehow pressing the wrong or too many buttons, and after a pause almost all of the lighted squares went dark. I tried again, and maybe a third time. The result didn't look much at all like 007, being maybe 5 characters, and you'd never know I was trying to type in 007 by looking at it. After a pause the wall came up, though.

There were various people inside, clerks and employees I guess. A woman surrounded by dark counters, with maybe a few other people in there with her, looked at me amusedly and asked in a slow voice, "007?" I looked at small lighted letters on a device on the counter that showed what I typed in, and I didn't see how she derived it from that. Maybe she used the combination of all the times I tried, maybe analyzed by a computer. I nodded. I think she might have said something about the bad guy expecting me, and indicated further on in the store. It seemed to be something owned by him, as part of his empire.

I walked on into the store, relatively slowly, looking at things, stopping frequently. The lighting was subdued. I saw a woman quickly putting some small ceramic figures up on a cart to store for the night. They were probably around six to twelve inches high, and I think of movie and TV characters. The cart, a large square white metal thing with maybe two or three levels, was handled by some other women. Then I saw some life-size manikins, who were movie and TV characters and looked real, who were singing and putting themselves in short compact rows. A Buddy Ebsen figure dressed like the Beverly Hillbillies' Uncle Jed was singing and dancing a little, back and forth from the compact lines to a place a few feet away, where another short line was, where other characters were who were waiting for their turn to join up with the others. It was very pleasant and enjoyable to watch.

After a while I moved on past it, going to the left a ways and then forward. I went by other things, going uphill. Sometimes, too, I ran across widely separated steeper ramp-like areas running across it two or three feet long. I came to an area where jewels were sold on square dark islands in the floor, perhaps six feet across, and I came to a large area where paintings or pictures were set up on an array of easels, and an area where a lot of chairs had been set up, folding chairs, and a lot of people were around, standing and talking and getting into them, special insiders who had been invited to an after-hours showing of some kind, some performance or movie or something. I walked on, still going upward. I came to a broad array of small dark islands again, generally each one with a woman behind it or doing something with the items there. The earlier place had a few women, too.

Near the end of the store, I was given something that the enemy had said to give me for my mother. At first I thought it was jewelry, but then I realized it was a small picture, maybe around eight to ten inches high and six inches wide, on a rigid backing, pale with a large, slightly raised rose done in a silvery sparkly color with a slight bit of rose color in places. There were occasional sparkles of different colors on it and the background, and the picture had a small raised border near the edge. I looked at it and thanked them profusely. I moved on, then. I was getting close to the end of the store area now.

Finally, at the end, there was an open area, set off from the rest with a railing I believe. The open entranceway was to the left, and there was a door to the right. Beyond the area, at the wall, were windows showing the outside and the parking lot. It was still light outside. The enemy was in the open area, within the railing, sitting at a desk. He was an moderately old man, and looked like the Gecko's boss on the Geico insurance commercials. He was busy at something on his desk and talking to people who sometimes came in through the door. He was friendly to me, increasingly so as we talked, with him doing most of the talking. He seemed to regard us as long-time rivals, but friendly rivals. He got happier and more enthusiastic about things, and said I could go out the door, indicating it, and I think getting up even. I might have thanked him for the picture at some point, but I'm not sure. I went off to the open door and back into the mall, to the broad area I had been in earlier.

All through the walk up here through the large store I had been hearing voices singing, one song after another, pleasant songs, generally old songs, like from the first half of the 1900s, sounding like a small choir singing, a mixture of men and women, probably mostly women. The voices had a bright, slightly echoie quality. The final one was "I've got my gal, who could ask for anything more," ending as or shortly after I went out the door back into the mall. It seemed late afternoon, but there were still quite a few people there. I was going to take the picture to my mother, who was still perhaps two-thirds of the way somewhere across the broad area, as the scene started to fade and I woke up.


The following part, featuring some activities with the Batman-like character, may have occurred before the store part, probably did in light of the dream seeming to end after the store part and the song being heavily in my mind as I woke up, and remained in it as I went to check on my mother. After originally meeting the Batman-like character, I might have gone back to the broad area before going to the store, although the scenes don't have an obvious exit from them to it, and just seem to end there. There's also the possibility that the first scenes and the remake were separated by other dream activities, possibly even with the first part before the store and the second part after:

I was joined somewhere in the aisle area by the Batman-like figure, who was much taller and clumsier, and much larger overall, but who also seemed to be me. After a few short misadventures in and near the aisle we made our way back onto the wide area. The Batman-like figure seemed to be to provide comic relief. Perhaps a third or a quarter of the way into the aisle area, we stopped at a place with a white counter and some people in line along it, and got hats. The Batman figure picked up an enormous long hat that was four or five feet long and stuck out far to the back and front, tapering to points, almost like wearing a small canoe. The James Bond figure picked up a more normal one, maybe something like a Robin Hood hat.

We then went over to the other side of the wide area, going across its width rather than its length, to a slightly higher area, a little ways through a small aisle that opened up a bit to a moderately wide area with lots of partial rooms separated by low walls, finally becoming more of a general large area near the other edge, where the mall ended. We stopped a little ways in and stood in front of a counter with some other people. Some hats were sitting in little stacks there, and someone behind the counter, a somewhat grumpy short man with light colored hair, probably gray-white, was giving them out, probably selling them. Either now or later the Batman-like figure got an extremely large, long pointed hat made of soft camouflage material that was just half a hat, with the right side just having long thin straps connecting the ends and holding it on. He wasn't wearing the cowl by that time, and looked uncertain about the whole thing.

Then after a while it redid itself, and it was several years later, like a remake or a sequel, and as the Batman-like figure, I was heavier and didn't fit in the clothes as well, and was a little doubtful about the whole thing. It seemed to be mid to late afternoon. The hat I picked up at the first place was still huge, a lot bigger than before even, but seemed to be made of a kind of extremely loose weave soft straw or reeds. I put it on and continued standing there by the counter, sighing softly about it, waiting for something, maybe for the James Bond figure to come back. I think we then went across to the other place to remake the scene there.

There was some more in the dream with the Batman figure, with him getting the second hat, and him having to wait a little while for it because of the other people there, waiting for theirs. I believe the second hat was smaller than in the previous version, perhaps quite a bit. There may have been some more with the Batman figure after that, and there may have been some more in the original version, with him and the James Bond figure traveling in and near the broad area, perhaps sometimes separately, and some activities there. However, I can't say now what it was, as I either neglected to write it down or didn't remember it at the time. The actual portion written down back then ended with the previous paragraph, with six trailing spaces and then, in brackets, the words "I've got my gal, who could ask for anything more," indicating the song was apparently going through my mind in the dream.

Note from Wednesday, September 27, 2011: The additional story from the dream, above, ended with a gap of six spaces and then part of the song in brackets. This seems to indicate that I had some more to write, but never got around to it. I can't add anything now. It's possible I meant to indicate that the song was going through my mind, but there must have been something more.

Note from Thursday, September 28, 2011: It seems that I actually had a battle with the enemy, near the end of the Old West section, when he came along a taller balcony that was pointed toward it, but it's not recorded here. He looked relatively young then, maybe in his late thirties or somewhere in his forties, and was wearing dark stretchy clothes, and was acting crazy, almost Joker-like. Perhaps it was something in another dream, though, and not this one.


See also the post "Until we meet again", which records what happened, in real life, after I went to check on my mother.

Dream - Shopping at a hardware store, then riding on top of a train while someone tries to shoot me

On the night of January 19-20, 2010, Tuesday-Wednesday, I dreamed I was in a very big hardware store, shopping for something with some other people. We had to leave, then. It was almost time to close, but we had to leave anyway. I wanted to look at things one last time. We were trying to find some stuff as part of something we were trying to put together for a gift for someone. I was trying to find some kind of small mirrors and silvery pipes, maybe one and a quarter inches wide. I convinced the others to let me try one last time. Only a couple of them or so were with me, near the exit. My brother was there too, either with me there or still back in the store. The others were still back in the store somewhere.

I went along the front to the other side, then back into the interior of the store. At the back I raised up in the air, to the top of where some tall ladder-like things were stored, maybe 8 to 10 feet high. I tried to get above them, to a shelf they were leaning against, but it was hard. I was pulling myself up, trying to get on top of them. I had been intending to quickly fly along over things, looking down on them. As I pulled myself up, the ladders kept growing, getting higher. They were very high, maybe 14 feet. By the time I finally got on top of them the shelf had grown too and was a few feet wide now, and seemed to be aluminum with some small narrow ridges running down it.

A store manager had been keeping an eye on me, from maybe 10-15 feet away. I was also an employee now, a fairly new one, who had gotten into a little trouble before because of something, and I was a little worried about being reprimanded again or even fired. I walked along the shelf for a little ways. The manager had gotten up on it too, and was fiddling with something on the wall. Besides the pipes, which were smaller now, maybe half or three quarters of an inch thick, and the small mirrors, which were round or oval, I was also carrying a small screwdriver and pretended to be doing something with it, tightening some screws up there.


The scene changed, then, and we were on top of a train, going away from the city, going east. We were quickly out in the countryside, for the most part. Another train was maybe 20 or 30 feet away to the left, to the north. The manager stayed ahead of me, to the east, for the most part, though sometimes we were close to each other, and sometimes talked a bit, and sometimes we were 5 to 15 feet away. We went past occasional crossroads. Someone was trying to get us now, shooting at us sometimes, sometimes from below.

A few superheroes showed up, to try to help us. The man trying to shoot us had actually hit someone, me I think. I was wounded in some way, though I'm not sure how.

I got off the train onto a road that curved in from the north and then went east. The manager or somebody else also got off, maybe more than one person. I think at least one person got off before I did. The bad man got off, too. The train was still moving, but was not going very fast, probably less than 20 miles per hour, maybe less than 10. I don't think it ever went terribly fast, perhaps 30 to 40.


I went off the road among some small hills at the curves. Sometimes I was in a car and sometimes on foot. The hills were mostly dirt, sometimes with a reddish tint. There were two other roads here, being built through the wilderness, parallel to each other, sometimes going across or along gullies and small canyons. I went along the road for a while. Other people were there too, trying to make their way east. Some others were on the road going back west. I made my way back to the main road.

The scene repeated in part a few times, and I went off a long exit ramp to a road that the previous road went underneath, deeply recessed at that point. A few other people did, too. It seemed to be night now, but not very dark. I went left, and got to a road to the north, maybe the main one, and headed back west.

I got back to the curve. I could see where the car swerved earlier and went off the road into the hills. The heavy skid marks were there, and then it repeated and the person was actually the villain, disguising himself as me, or at least pretending to be me. He didn't actually look like me, and seemed to be wearing some kind of minor costume. Some superheroes flew in, to check on what was happening and to help. The villain talked to them, talking about what happened, telling some false story, pretending to be me. I stayed back among the hills, but finally came out, and exposed him. He went off then, trying to escape and hide. I left, too. The superheroes were looking for him, but there was some concern on my part about him going after me.


I was going away from the city again now, apparently on the main road going east, but after a while it seemed to actually be going north, and maybe even northwest, maybe toward Wickenburg or maybe even past it. I pulled off the road at a place with a few buildings, set back from the road a bit, with a parking lot in front and some tall bushes in front of the road. It didn't seem to be too far from the city, at the edge of it. It felt more like a road not too far from Central Ave., maybe even Central itself, though probably not, since it didn't actually go too far out of the city. My brother was out driving too, along with some others. I'm not sure how many cars were in the group, but he had at least one other person with him in the car. I think my father was in one of the cars, too. It was still night, and darker than it had been earlier, though there were some lights along the road, and by the buildings. It was a place I had been to before in other dreams. I talked to some other people while I was there at the buildings, some of them from the group. I'm not sure my brother got there before I left.

I went back toward the city, and stopped at a place that felt like it was on the northwest corner of 68th St. and McDowell Rd., or maybe 64th St. It was a convenience store, a place I had been to in other dreams. I'm not sure it was actually at that location now, though. While it felt like it was there, it also felt like it was further north. I talked briefly to some people there, and went back to my car, which I think I might have parked near the road. I was expecting my brother and/or father to come, but I'm not sure whether they did before I left. I drove back out onto the street, heading south.


I became more and more aware that I was also laying in bed in my bedroom, laying on my back with my legs apart a little. The radio was playing somewhere, in the next room I think, though it was still clear. I would go back to the dream and then back to being aware of being in bed. Sometimes I was doing both, in bed while the dream was distantly happening.

After a while I was more and more in bed, then was becoming aware that it wasn't real either, that I was actually sitting in the chair in front of the computer, with the radio nearby. I figured that I was laying back some in the chair with my head back. It's an office chair and doesn't recline, though it can tilt some. I thought that I must have my left leg on my briefcase, which was sitting upright on the floor, and my right leg on my plastic lunchbox. This would mean that the chair was turned to the left, with the computer and its desk on my right. It felt very much like I was laying in bed, though. It was a very convincing illusion.

My right leg was tingling more and more though, my calf, and was hurting near the ankle and some on my foot, places where I had sores. The other leg was starting to tingle some, too.

Eventually I was just outside the dream, feeling like I was laying in bed still, and listening to the radio. This went on for a while.

I finally decided that I needed to move, to get my legs off the things and back on the floor. I wasn't sure I could still easily do it, though. I finally opened my eyes and raised my head in a smooth dreamlike motion. I was a little surprised, I wasn't sure I would be able to. I then took my legs off the things, one at a time, my left leg first I think. My calves had been laying on them with my heels hanging over. They still felt funny with my feet on the floor, deadened some, almost half asleep. It took a while for me to really recover. I stumbled out of the room. It was hard to see properly, and hard to keep my eyes open. It had been a fairly long dream.

Dream - The Clark Kent-Superman movie, and the superpowered actor who portrayed him

On Tuesday morning, January 26, 2010, I dreamed a house was being moved, on a street a little to the south of where I live, lifted up, on a giant forklift-like device. My father and my younger sister wanted to do it for some reason. It was put in the street next to the sidewalk, in front of another house a few houses down the street to the east. I figured they probably didn't appreciate it being there. We were staying in a house a few houses to the west of the house that was moved. I'm not sure who owned the house, it seems like it might be my grandmother or my sister. I knew a little more about it in the dream. It had been moved at night, I think, but time passed and it became the next day. I wondered if I should try to move it back myself, but didn't really feel I should. There was a question, too, of where I should put it.

I flew around in the air, looking at the houses nearby in the neighborhood. I saw a house on a street a little to the east, a street that went north-south in a slight curve. The house had a small auxiliary house directly beside it, filling up the side yard. It looked ancient Greek or Roman, and had files of columns, and appeared to be made of concrete, with a peaked roof of concrete. I flew on, then looked at it again as I came back. I found another place with a small auxiliary house the size of the other, but it was slightly more normal looking, darker in color, with pale tube-like things going along the corners and roof edges, and as designs in other places, still with some columns out front, possibly with a flat roof, unless I've got the roof style switched with the other one. It was out in the front somewhere instead of in the side yard, maybe even in the street. I thought of how I would tell my mother about them, as examples of what other people had done, to make fancy buildings to store stuff in, even if we didn't have the money to do it right now.

Scenes from the new Superman movie that was going to be released (in the dream) kept breaking in to my consciousness. It seemed fairly lighthearted, with a lot about Clark Kent in it. The person playing Superman didn't look like anybody who had played him, though perhaps closest to the one in "Superman Returns." He looked more like the comics' version by Curt Swan, though perhaps a little slimmer.

The scene that kept being advertised as a kind of title picture, showed Clark Kent looking almost like he had just tripped, on his side, just above the ground, his feet separated and a little higher than the rest of him, making it appear that he was actually flying and had just swooped in. His long light gray coat was flaring out around his legs like a long cape, and his head was lifted a little and turned back looking past his feet. He was holding the hand of another Clark Kent, who was on his knees I think and leaning forward, his back mostly to the camera. Past him was Lois Lane, standing, her arms out slightly, leaning forward slightly, her back also mostly to the camera, but like the second Clark Kent with some of her face showing, appearing to be somewhat surprised.

I saw briefly also that scene as it came to be, the few seconds leading up to it, and it did seem that he had flown in. Other scenes also showed sometimes, sometimes fairly long versions of them, several seconds, maybe even minutes. I eventually became him in a way, although it was still a part, and he was still somehow a separate figure, and I had his powers, or at least some of them, and the movie was in some way based on my life, or something about me.

I went to find my mother, to tell her about the movie, that they had finally made it, that I had finally got something done. I think I might have written it, or had a hand in writing it, or it had been based on something I had written. I went to where she was working. She had a job behind a counter in a big building. Another person, a man, was also there. They were separated by several feet, talking to different people. A lot of what they did was apparently help people out who came and asked questions. There was a very large, mostly empty room in front of the counter. I think it had some things, but I'm not sure what.

My mother looked a lot younger, maybe in her fifties. I talked to her about the movie, happy and a little excited. She acknowledged me and talked to me a little, but seemed distracted and generally didn't look my way. There were some other people back there too, in a back room. I could sometimes see them briefly. There were also a few scattered people in the large room, coming and going. Talking to people wasn't all she did. She seemed to also be concerned with something on or just behind the counter, some papers that were laying down, maybe in a file.

I moved off a bit out into the room, still talking to her. Though the room was mostly empty, there were a few long things, sales racks and shelves, with small merchandise on them. One was sort of parallel to the counter and one was at right angles to it.

I moved to the one that was sort of parallel to it and then went around it to the other side. I raised up my lower legs and glided along beside it, talking, demonstrating to her, even if she generally wasn't looking, and even though I had moved now around to the side of the display where she couldn't see that part of me, what I could do. I had starting gliding though, I think, while still on the side where she could see it. Part of me was concerned that other people might also notice, and part of me saw that a woman in front of another counter that was some distance away, and by a wall that was at right angles, more or less to the first counter, had turned to watch what I was doing, and a woman behind the counter there who was helping her also seemed to be looking. I felt that they would probably discount what they were seeing, that it couldn't be true, though part of me wondered if they might try to follow up on it.

I left the building, and went out into a kind of winding alleyway that went along beside the buildings there, which seemed to be the lead-in to a park. It had a tall concrete block wall lining the passage. Behind me I saw or sensed some people from the store starting to follow, including the woman who had been in front of the counter. I went down the alleyway toward the park, then came back. Some kids, teenagers or a little younger, were following me, both ways. Evidently they had seen something.

I came to a section where there was another partial concrete block wall inside the other, in the passage, off to the side with just enough room to go behind it if you wanted to. It had a sloped top, slightly rounded but not much, with the tops of the blocks cut to make the slope, and a layer of cement on top I think. It wasn't as tall as the walls, getting to almost six feet at the highest point. I went along quickly behind it.

Then it replayed, and replayed again I think. I seemed to be watching it now, with the person doing it no longer me but a separate figure, an actual Superman figure, though not dressed as Superman. As he went along the partial wall he ran his hands along the top, accidentally putting too much pressure on it and pulling some of the top blocks, or partial blocks, as they were cut down versions, off. He slapped them back on quickly and somewhat roughly, acting like they made a mistake when building it, and rushed on. The kids were staring open-mouthed at it and looking at it and at each other, and going closer to examine the blocks better. He was going to repair it later I felt, when people weren't around, or have the real Superman come and do it. I felt that he was somehow just another person portraying him, though he seemed to have at least some of his powers, though reduced versions of them. I wondered if the real Superman would be mad that it was done, and if he would be mad that other people were going around portraying him.

I moved along to the park-like section and went to the right. I seemed to be going along now in front of a school. I was moving along an area in front of rows of buildings. The ground was sloped some, going up and then leveling off and maybe even back down a little before the buildings. There was a concrete curb before the grass, with a paved area that ran along beside it. The ground where the slope was had some dips now and then, making it look a little like hills. I stopped at one, but I also seemed to be watching the Superman figure again, who again wasn't dressed like Superman. He reached down to one of the dips, where a pipe stuck up, and water started shooting out. There was also a pipe and faucet back at the nearby building, with a hose I think that ran to the dip. I thought it was another thing that had broken and would have to be fixed, and someone from the building was wailing now, about it and about something else, something to do with me, and the Superman figure looked a little upset, and sometimes looked toward the building.

I woke up when the phone rang. I had been sleeping in a chair, by the computer, making the phone closer and easier to hear.


Earlier, maybe before 6:00 AM, I had a dream about school, and going there, and having to take a test I hadn't studied for, something with a lot of math and equations. I'm not sure I had even read the book once. I had intended to at least go over it some, but time ran out and now I wasn't sure I could remember anything. I had trouble finding the room for the test then too, and it seemed to keep replaying. The test became less important, though, as it went along, until there was some doubt it was ever actually given, or if it was it wasn't really anything that mattered, almost like it was some minor advertising thing, some kind of minor survey the teacher was doing for some clients. The dream was fairly long.

Dream - The superhero emulators, the stolen object, and the dog with the toy train

On Sunday, May 23, 2010, in the morning, I dreamed I was in my grandmother's house in Arizona. It was different, though, larger, and had a room-size basement near the kitchen. I became a couple of comic book heroes, particularly Spider-Man, though I wasn't really them, just emulating them, with reduced powers. At the same time I was apart from them, watching.

Time was repeating itself with something getting stolen or not stolen, something just outside the front door, something small, like a hardcover book with some little object on top of it, and a strap around it all, only it wasn't a book.

In the basement room, a couple of bad people came, and attacked one of the sometime heroes. I intervened and beat him up. The other one was holding back, partly hidden near the doorway, and higher up than the floor, near the ceiling. The Spider-Man person was still out in the back yard exercising, swinging around with the webs and climbing on things. He wasn't in costume, I think he was shirtless and just wearing pants. He eventually came back in, and was attacked by one of the men, I think the one I had beaten up. The man was fighting with him and I was watching incredulously; didn't he know he was trying to fight Spider-Man? Though he wasn't really as strong as the real Spider-Man, he seemed to be stronger than the guy he was fighting. The other man crept out and was trying to attack him too, and I beat him up, then joined in and beat up the man the Spider-Man figure was fighting, quickly ending it. Then I threw the bad guy out into the back yard, just gave a quick casual toss and out he went. The Spider-Man figure had turned and stared at me, somewhat surprised by it suddenly being over. The two people had been sent by the enemy, a man who was against us, and who was trying to steal the object outside the front door.

I had finally managed to save the object, after several times of having it stolen. As time repeated itself, I had found it there in time and retrieved it, and was happy and somewhat triumphant about it, though I knew it wasn't over, and I would have to keep watch, because time would repeat itself again.

I went out from the basement into the front room, and was talking with my mother, who looked younger, maybe in her early fifties. While talking I noticed to the left side, as determined while inside facing toward the front door, still in the front room, there was a dog something like Spats, a dog we used to have, large and shaggy, but with some gray in its hair instead of mostly being white. It went over to the right and began playing with an electric train engine, which was on a couch out in the floor not far from the front window. A lot of things were on the couch, it was pretty much covered with them.

At first it just seemed to be a small dark electric motor mounted on a small board, along with a few associated things, but it later changed to become a little train engine. I wondered if it was a good idea for the dog to be playing with it, and remarked on it to my mother. She seemed interested, but discounted the idea that it could be a problem.

I looked toward the door and saw that it was time already, as the incident kept repeating itself, and someone had come up and was snatching the thing again, which was laying down just outside the front door. I saw it through the door screen. I said something and got up and ran outside, accosting the perpetrator on the edge of the porch, although he was not the actual thief, just the mastermind.

As I went up to him I had been more my normal form at first, normal at least for the dream, as I was somewhat younger and slimmer than in real life, and still at least somewhat tall. Then I was gradually assuming the form of, or taking over the body of, a short, proper old man in 19th century clothes, with a large upturned collar.

At first I was standing there as I normally was, taller than him, holding him by the face and neck, angrily threatening him, demanding that he give the object back. He was smugly refusing, saying he didn't know what I was talking about. Of course it hadn't been him personally, I knew that, it had been one of his men, but he was responsible and knew all about it.

Then the police were coming up the walk or beside it, talking, trying to calm things down, talking like they knew me, dressed like police in the early 20th century. I found then I was gradually changing to another persona, an angry old man, the owner of the house, dressed in 19th century finery, and my hand drew back until it was just holding onto his neck or face a little bit, and then back further till it was not even that, more touching the lace sticking up around his neck, while he, slightly taller than me now, another old man, looked back at me smugly and haughtily.

The policeman, about to give a more stern warning, and maybe take me in, now looked uncertain, and was saying, "Well, if nothing really happened... Come on Mr. so-and-so," referring to me, I don't now remember the name he gave, trying to calm me down to let the other man go.

The policeman was leading him away, then, to the man's carriage, down the wide concrete steps at the edge of the concrete porch, and into the yard, which was partly paved and partly dirt with a little low grass.

I shouted, "What if I have proof!" in the sharp snappish voice of a cranky old man.

The other man, the enemy, halfway or more to the carriage now, turned and sneered at me and said, "You have no proof."

The policeman, down by the carriage, rounding to the other side of it, sounding somewhat distant now, said, "When you have the proof, call me. Until then...."

I watched him help the man get in the carriage. It was a horse drawn carriage, and it had to go over a swimming pool to get out. It was in the way, a small narrow swimming pool with brick along the edges, an outer row and a slightly sunken inner row. I watched as the driver slowly, carefully moved the carriage over it, the tall wheels going along on the slightly recessed row of bricks like it was on rails. I watched, fascinated.

Then as it neared the end it speeded up and turned to the left, the two wheels on its right going over empty space over the swimming pool, without any problem. The carriage continued on into the street, through the wide opening in the tall, black, iron fence, going away.

I turned and went back to the house, returning to my more normal appearance, for the dream figure. I went back into the house and resumed talking to my mother, hoping that when the scene replayed we could catch it and stop the thing from being stolen. The dog began to lay down train tracks from the couch, on little slabs that it joined together. The tracks went from the couch down onto the floor and turned towards the door, then going out the door and down the short steps immediately beyond it, onto the concrete front porch.

Dream - A game with superheroes and a villain

On Sunday, January 4, 2009, a little before supper, I fell asleep and had a dream in which I was driving in Nevada going north, and became involved in a game with people playing superheroes and a villain.

In the dream, I was in Nevada driving back to Fallon, on a small two lane road. I was apparently in some place like the area north of Beatty or maybe the Walker Lake area. It was an area with mountains around it.

I turned to the left, went a ways on a slight downhill grade, turned to the right, went a ways, turned to the right again, making three sides of a box, and went a ways on a slightly rising land, going by the side of a mountain. There were also mountains by the earlier sections of road, but they sloped back more. I then turned to the left, the land still rising some. I kept turning to the left, going around the other side of the mountain, finally making an almost U-turn and going down a slight slope through generally flat but slightly wavy land, with mountains around here and there.

I would get to around that area and then stop and redo it, over and over, sometimes not reaching that far. It didn't seem exactly like the scene was being replayed, it was more like a game was being played over and over, a new game each time. There were superheroes and supervillains, but they were just people pretending to be them, playing a part. They weren't professional actors either, just people, sometimes different people in different games. It was basically some kind of race, with the hero trying to beat the villain and the villain trying to beat the hero and each one trying to stop or hinder the other. Other heroes would show up along the way to assist. I was the main hero.

The villain was generally somebody bald and wearing dark glasses and some kind of tight, padded tan coat with dark raised lines outlining his chest and I think shoulders, some other places too. I kept thinking of him as sort of a Lex Luther type, but he seems more like something the Flash would have fought.

Sometimes he would attack me at various places and get the upper hand for a while, even being considerably ahead going across the wavy land, at least for a while. Sometimes I would get the better of him in the area with the turns, or if I didn't sometimes he would be caught by the other superheroes. I think one of them was kind of like Aquaman, one of them was kind of like Green Arrow, and there was also a woman who wore a mostly white costume and had black things around her eyes with long black costume rays coming out from them. She had some kind of small creature that was associated with her, though earlier I think it may have been more associated with the Aquaman type character.

The creature was a small, maybe golf ball size, vaguely gray thing, sort of roundish but with flatter ends, almost like a chunk cut off a branch, with long physical ray-like things coming out from it. Earlier they were more like long brownish strings, but later they were long, black, slightly transparent rays, very thin and flexible. It was supposed to be some kind of strange sea creature with special powers.

There may have been one or two more heroes. There was also an odd vehicle they had. It just seemed to be by the road without them doing anything with it, like it showed up with them like a prop, though I guess the thought was that it had flown in with them. It almost seemed like a Flintstones-type vehicle.

The people were all aware that they were just playing roles, and frequently all or most of them would get replaced with new people for the next game. It seemed to be some kind of touristy thing.

At least a couple of times toward the end, the villain, who had gotten past me, was stopped by the other heroes, who started showing up just before the second right turn and then in force between the second right turn and the left turn that eventually led to the wavy land. At least one time the villain glumly complained about his situation, about the heroes showing up and capturing him again.

Though I had been driving at first, the cars we were using got smaller and stranger, like they weren't really cars, just odd very small little vehicles of some kind, open, one person things, sometimes only a few feet long. Sometimes it wasn't much more than a strange chair with bars that looped around it and maybe wheels underneath. Sometimes it was something ridden standing up, maybe even being pushed along with one foot.

The last two times that the superheroes captured the villain in the stretch after the second right turn, I took the small sea creature and ran with it held out high in one hand. The first time pale brown strings came out from it, going way out toward and behind me, stretched out by the wind of my passage, the second time it was the black rays stretched out by the wind, wide initially but narrowing to points at the ends, a faded black, slightly transparent, very thin, like plastic the thickness of ashes. One of the points kept trying to get in my eyes, which was an annoyance.

The first time, an additional right turn appeared before the road turned left and I think this was retained with the second time, but the second time the road extended further back toward the way I had come, back toward Arizona, and the road went on to higher land and after a little while into and through the gas pump area of a service station. Both times the woman hero had made some kind of comment when I took the little creature. This second time she followed after me, talking to me and trying to get me to stop, to come back.

I think I went through the pump area but came back, maybe a couple of times. I was thinking that maybe I should get gas or maybe just food. Gas did seem to be a concern, though I didn't seem to be using a car at that point. Maybe I planned to later. The woman also seemed to be thinking about getting gas. I may have encouraged her to, also. She was still trying to get me to stop and come back.


There was also something about a big multistory old house, either before or after, something about going in and out of it, in and out the windows too, even upper story windows, and maybe going on the roof. Someone may have been after me or trying to get me. I also think I may have been looking for something, maybe something hidden in the house somewhere, perhaps even in the attic.

I was either awakened by my mother asking about supper, or I woke up by myself just before she came.

Dream - Superheroes on surfboards

Very early Monday morning, September 1, 2008, I had a dream in which I saw some superheroes, one like the TV Superman, on motorized surfboards.

In the dream, I was in Nevada, at least for much of the time. The 1970 green El Camino with white vinyl roof (a car that was partly a small pickup truck) was in an early part of the dream, maybe just when I was in Arizona. I don't think I was driving it later. I was driving back to Nevada now, and I had possibly driven from there to Arizona earlier.

Much later, partway through Nevada, I saw some superheroes on motorized surfboards, one of them like the TV Superman, George Reeves. They were coming or maybe going through a pass cut through a mountain. I was going through that same area back toward Fallon or work. I was still a long ways off, and I think I passed them whether or not they were going my way.

This was a long dream, but I initially didn't write much down. Coming back to it two weeks later I found I couldn't remember very much more, but managed to fill in a little.

Dream - The plane like a fly, and as Spider-Man I am captured and taken deep under the ground

On Thursday morning, September 11, 2008, I had a dream about a military operation involving a plane like a giant fly, and then I went through a dimensional portal and became Spider-Man, or someone like him, and was captured and taken to a place deep under the ground.

In the dream it was night, and I was in Fallon, Nevada or someplace like it. I was driving through town in the direction toward work and I got to or stopped at the Safeway (the one at the original Fallon location). It was farther from the road in the dream and down a very sharp slope from it. I parked along the road with a few other cars, above the very steep slope to the parking lot.

A plane like a giant fly, with huge diffuse lights on the front where the eyes would be and one on each wing, though one was out, came over the car and landed. It may have turned to face the car as it landed.

I walked down to the store. Girls from work showed up. They were all or mostly all people I didn't know in real life or actually worked with. Maybe some were already there, but I think some were coming in around the time I was. We started going around inside the Safeway (the one at the original Fallon location), grouped tightly together, against each other and bumping against each other and laughing. We were shopping, but I'm not sure now for what or whether anything was actually bought.

I finally thought I had to leave. The mood had changed somewhat. It seemed something was happening. I think maybe some word or indication came that the military was looking for me or perhaps looking for someone else, it might not have been for anyone we knew. I'm not sure we really knew what exactly was happening.

I went back out and went toward my car. Dark helicopters were flying and shooting down beams of light. I was with one or more of the girls still. I almost made it up the slope, but then turned back. A couple of people on foot, up near the road with flashlights, started to come in my direction. I went onto a stairway that went in long, narrow, rectangular circles down into a deep, almost bottomless rectangular room-sized pit. In some places the stairs were very narrow, only inches, though they always had railings. Though it was dark outside, the stair area was lit from somewhere. I'm not sure where the lights would be, but it was lit all the way down.

There was someplace at the very top that the stairs disappeared into, that looked almost like bulging, slightly crumpled white paper. I tried to get up to and through it at one point, but I had to stop then, because it was taking too much time and they were getting too close. I was intentionally falling down the stairs at one point, just supporting myself on the rails and swinging or jumping out past huge blocks of stairs at a time, and then actually outside the rails, just grabbing at the railings to break my fall as I fell past down the endless stairs. The people after me never seemed very far behind somehow. I think I might have then made it back to the top somehow and through the paperlike barrier and to the other side. I did get through somewhere some way.

Then I was on the other side, running and dodging among the various white rooms there and the rows of tall metal shelves in them, seeming to imagine and then see Spider-Man doing it and then quickly becoming him, or at least becoming someone acting the part.

As Spider-Man, I was trying to escape, going over and along stacks of tall metal shelves filled with things, shooting webs and swinging from them, also shooting them at people and their weapons. There always seemed to be a delay when I tried to shoot the webs out and I was a little puzzled at it, looking at my wrist and wondering why it wasn't happening. Then some device or chemical they used on me made the webs stop, my wrists just shot dampness that I couldn't see until the person I was aiming at was covered with drops and wetness. Then they stopped working completely, and my wrists shot nothing at all.

I was trapped and captured, and brought to a strange, middle-aged mutant woman with a body that had odd irregular lumps. She was apparently supposed to read my mind and also control it, to make me docile and do their bidding. The lumps on her body moved around when I pushed at them, like they were just wads of cotton. I ended up with my hand full of dark, bronze colored metal-like needles, slightly curved on one side and perhaps one and a quarter to one and a half inches long, that her body had produced as a defense. I spent some time, then, pulling them out, groups of them at a time. I pretended that she had succeeded in her attempt to control my mind, but I'm not sure how much was pretense.

I was taken far, far underground, maybe brought back to the endless flights of stairs going down, though it seems more like I might have been brought to a similar place inside the barrier. I'm not sure now. We didn't actually use the stairs, we went down through some elevator-like device or maybe even partly through some kind of dimensional portal.

I was taken down to the last few stories, and then to someplace near or on the bottom, where plants were grown to use to make purple dye for toys. At this point the dream was mostly in black and white, though some pale color was sometimes seen. I was a worker doing whatever was assigned, though new people were generally given the most menial of tasks.

I planned to escape somehow when I got the chance. I had some small device that I had picked up or was given to me by someone. The device was supposed to help me escape in some way, maybe overpower the guards (most of the people seemed to either be guards or definitely on the side of them, though), or the device may have been more to unlock a doorway out or open some other way of passage out. It seemed like I would be passing between dimensions somehow when I left. I seemed to become a little afraid to try, though, and wasn't really sure I would.

The place seemed to be mostly a field with rows of things growing in it, though people were also working on toys that were returned or that needed more work before they were sent out. There were boxes filled with them, some boxes three or four feet high and some smaller. Some of the boxes were shaped like houses. Some of the problems were just with toys being improperly colored and color had to be added. The toys were various colors, not all purple, though we were concerned with growing plants that could be used to make purple dye and maybe crushing them and extracting the dye from them.

Then I got away somehow. I got past the people and went to a somewhat higher control area. It seemed that someone else was there first, that someone had come, maybe from the other side of the barrier. They went back after showing me how, but I was now looking through things, at the white wall and the devices on it and looking at the wall behind me and the things there. Some were pipes and some were metal boxes, all painted white. I was looking for a door or some other way through, maybe activating some device or mechanism and somehow slipping through an opening or even into where the device was attached to the wall, flowing into and through it. I had forgotten how it was done. I was worried, too, about someone finding me there. I worried about them noticing I was gone and looking for me. Somehow I finally got through and to the other side.

I was above ground then, in some big building. The building had a lot of lights, but it still didn't seem brightly lit. The walls were dark. There were conveyor belts and a section at the right, from my perspective facing toward the front, with huge bins with clear plastic covers over them, like some kind of smorgasbord. Some of the bins contained identifiable food, but everything in them was kind of dark. The darkness may have been a trick of the lighting used. Workers in white protective clothing, almost like containment suits, were working at them, putting more in some of them. A grainy mudlike substance was in some of the bins and also on a big area of the wide conveyor belt, blocking it.

There was also a contest going on, something about the bins and the conveyor belt, and traveling down the conveyor belt, and people in a hurry to complete it, but I don't remember the details now (I am adding to this last section on December 2, 2008, almost three months after the dream). The high area where I was also seemed to be part of a huge theater, with lots of rows of seats leading down to the front on a downhill slope to a stage.

Comics art imitating life

Several times over the years I've had some cases of deja vu while seeing images on television. I was able to place them fairly quickly, though, in some cases instantly, as things I had seen in comic books long ago.

One time, several years ago, I saw an old clip of some disaster in some other country, with the announcer in the foreground talking into a microphone and dirt and debris behind him, and an old man kept coming into view a few feet back. The old man had his mouth open wide in an expression of despair, the mouth a tall rectangle with a few ragged teeth showing and a lot of them gone. He kept coming back on camera, evidently wanting to be part of the broadcast, always with the same expression, always looking the same. I was astonished. It was the same figure I had seen in the comics, drawn by Jack Kirby probably, probably in the 1960s or early '70s. I had thought it was terribly exaggerated when I saw it in the comic book, the mouth open far beyond anything in real life, with lots of artistic license, but here was the original for it, what must have been the original, and it looked just like it.

There was also a case where I saw, again several years ago, a scene in a movie in which some people were sitting down with their backs to each other, maybe tied up but I'm not sure now, with the tops of their legs seeming unusually long and sticking out too far. I had seen the same image, with Sgt. Fury and some of his commandos I think, tied up in a circle with their backs to something, back in the mid 1960s. I had thought at the time that the legs were much too long, that their length was terribly exaggerated, but they looked the same in real life.

Another time, several years ago but perhaps a little more recent than the others, I saw a replay of an Elvis Presley concert, from the late '60s probably, or maybe a little earlier. In one scene, his arms were stretching out in opposite directions, and his hand was reaching out toward the camera, fingers spread, his face turned and looking up toward the camera imploringly as he sang. The cloth of his sleeve was covered in wrinkles because of the arm stretching out and upward like that, and the fingers large and foreshortened, the fingertips looking square and seeming to form an arc with the thumb. I realized with wonder that I had seen the same thing years ago, in a comic where the Human Torch was having trouble with his powers and trying to light up without much success. It had seemed exaggerated again, the extreme foreshortening and the large hand with the squarish fingers in an arc, and the extreme wrinkling of the sleeve, an unusual thing for a superhero costume and it seemed a vastly overdone effect. Even the anguished face was there.

Then, a few years ago, I saw part of an outdoor concert from the mid '60s, with Peter, Paul and Mary among the performers there. The camera tended to stay on Mary as she sang, looking up at her face, which was in the sunlight. Her face had dark shadows in places, and because of the angle of viewing looked more squarish. The wind was blowing, blowing strands of blond hair across her face as she sang, the hair making more shadows, strands of shadows on her face. I realized, again with astonishment, that I had seen the same image in the comics, probably for Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, another member of the Fantastic Four.

I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with doing this. It's common for artists to use models, and common for artists to take inspiration from real life and from what they see around them. It's just interesting to know what the artist(s) in these cases used, and that the extra effort was put forth, even when a comic was involved. And also that, though some of the drawings seemed exaggerated, they were in fact drawn from life.

Dream - God of storms

Sunday morning, November 23, 2008, I had a dream in which I displayed godlike powers and attempted to control the weather, and received retribution from above for my daring to do such a thing.

The dream was a lot longer than what is written here, but the first part of it has been forgotten. There seems to have been something about superheroes and superhero comic books and dolls, but it may have been part of a different dream.

At some point I was with a group of people. It was night and we had traveled across some areas like broad fields or yards with a few trees and bushes bordering them, perhaps in part across the area around a school, a school similar to an elementary school I used to go to, and then into some countryside beyond. My impression is that we flew through the air under our own power.

After going a few miles we landed outside a large building, in the parking lot near some wide steps leading into the building. It was still night but the area was well lit, particularly near the building. Some other people were nearby. They were scattered a bit, though some were within a few feet of each other.

They were discussing among themselves some task they had to perform there. It was some kind of hush-hush thing, involving secretly getting into the building, or fairly secretly, and taking some things from there, enough that several boxes were involved, which were being loaded into a big truck. I don't think it was quite like stealing, it felt more like it was some kind of secret mission, though I don't know if it was actually sponsored by the government. I was a little distance from the others.

I felt that I had to show them my power, I had to show them what I could do and what was possible. Happy and smiling broadly, I called out to the others to look and I pointed my arm at the sky, my hand holding high a large stick or scepter/wand/cane, pointing it at the sky as an extension of my arm. It something dark and made of wood and smoothly varnished, with a wider section eight to ten inches long fitted onto it toward the end, like it was something that could move back over the thinner part I was holding, to make a shorter object. It also had some rings, probably made of brass, at the edges of the sections. I was moving it and my arm in a large circle. A thin overcast was moving across, lit partly by the lights below and partly behind it by the stars and maybe the moon. The sky was faintly visible through it, though the clouds were thicker at the edges.

Nothing seemed to happen at first, but I kept it up. Then the thin overcast slowly started to turn in the area of the circle. "See, see!" I cried, jubilant. Then, still smiling, I started to wonder about consequences, what might be required of me as payment for the energy I was using.

Then suddenly a thin smoky bolt came out of the sky at an angle and hit a heavyset man about a hundred feet ahead. He was wearing bulky clothes that had an ornamental feel to them, and was just a dark silhouette. The man was a leader of the group, maybe even my father. A burst of smoke or fog or cloud appeared at the spot the beam hit, like an explosion, and then the beam retreated and took him with it back into the sky.

"No! No! Take me instead," I cried, bending over double in guilt and anguish, still looking toward the spot where the man had stood. The sky gave no response, and I was no longer concerned about making a twister.

After a bit of a pause, the other people in the group mainly continued what they were doing, if anything. Perhaps some looked toward me and what had happened. If anything, I felt they were very slightly amused, perhaps also with a feeling of life goes on and to continue what they wee doing as best they could without him. The project seemed mostly done, though part of it now seemed to have been abandoned and they were getting ready to leave, and some were already leaving.

Dream - Superman and the two Superboys, and the superhero hideaway in another dimension

On February 21, 2009, I had a dream about Superman and two Superboys, and a superhero hideaway that was created in another dimension.

In the dream, I was with some other people, in the parking lot of a large shopping center. I think some of them were relatives, family members. My mother and father might have been there, not necessarily together, and perhaps a brother or sister. The light was dim, either evening or very early morning. A lot had already happened, but only vague impressions of it remain.

I went across to the other side of the shopping center, past a road going through the parking lot to the shopping center, past the landscaping along it that had small trees, into a smaller area of the shopping center that was surrounded by landscaped areas with small trees. Perhaps trees were even being sold there, maybe even Christmas trees. Some other people were there.

We had been about to leave earlier, but I felt called over to this area, that I had to go there. Maybe I felt I had to check on something or there was something I had to somehow do there before we left.

It seemed then that they were doing some filming there for a new Superman show or movie. I watched, but also became associated with the Superman character. He probably looked more like the one in the new "Superman Returns" movie than any of the others, though he didn't look precisely like him. I think I might have said something to the people there, or at least one or more of them that I was with earlier, or tried to do so or at least thought about it, about the Superman scenes they were filming.

They lifted the Superman actor straight up in a standing position with a bunch of strings attached to him, then he turned so that his body was more face down and flew around a little bit, but the area was criss-crossed with low power lines and they kept getting in the way. He had trouble and kept having to go lower to get under them. Sometimes he was beside them, even sometimes touching them, even sometimes with his hand resting on them. I was concerned, but he seemed to be unaffected by them.

Then the strings weren't attached anymore to the equipment, but just trailed off behind him as he flew, streaming back from his fingers and probably other parts of his body. They were thin and light in color, almost transparent, almost ghost-like. They seemed to be magic somehow, and were helping him fly that way. He flew off over and partly through the trees to the other side of the road that went through the parking lot. Though earlier the shopping center had seemed to be in another state, perhaps Nevada, it now felt like it was in Arizona.

There was a Superboy then, not looking like movie or TV representations of him but probably something like depictions of him in comics in the early 1960s. He was probably mid-to-early teens and was evidently Superman's son. Superboy flew up but had trouble getting past the trees and the parking lines, and had more trouble flying. Superman watched, sympathetic but with a little amusement, hanging in the air. Superboy finally got past the trees, tending to fly low and then back close to the pavement when he got past, maybe ten or fifteen feet above it. He was flying with the pale strings pushed in front of him, in somewhat rumpled streamers, apparently maintained in that position by his will. There was also a smaller Superboy, perhaps around ten or younger, who also then flew up from the same place in the parking lot as the others, and more or less joined them, going to their approximate area.

The teenaged Superboy flew off away from the shopping center, crossing a main road, perhaps twenty or thirty feet in the air now, sometimes more, and headed across relatively undeveloped areas toward another shopping center, approximately where Woolco in Tempe used to be. He was dipping down and flying much lower now, going over some cars and then back up some and over and through another clump of trees in the parking lot, nervously trying to remember to keep the strings up and ahead of him, to help him fly. Superman and the younger Superboy had flown out some distance behind him and to the side. Superman had gotten a little ahead of him now and hung in the air, watching.

They came across Lois Lane, coming out of the shopping center, where she had been shopping or doing some assignment or maybe even worked there. She had had a break-up with Superman some time back, and was still somewhat mad at him, mad enough that she hadn't forgiven him. She looked something like the newest Lois Lane, but also some like the earlier Lois Lanes. He tried to talk to her but she rebuffed him, talking only briefly, basically keeping her nose in the air, though she had to anyway to even look in his direction, since he was probably twenty or thirty feet above her and a similar amount away from her, though sometimes he was closer. She tended to purposely look away from him, though.

Superboy flew off to the side, going across the road again and off to some place else. Superman finally did the same, though the scene repeated a few times and finally ended with him flying off too close to the shopping center, scraping the edge of his hand along the upper edge of the building, leaving a long dark line of damage in the pale stucco, perhaps over a hundred feet long. Then he turned more and went out over the road, perhaps fifteen or twenty feet up, flying under some low power lines but going too low, seeming to have trouble maintaining elevation but also seeming not to care too much, and crashing through the upper part of a stuccoed wall that was either a tall ornamental wall enclosing another area, perhaps another shopping area, or was an actual part of a building, an ornamental edge projecting up. Then he came back and was going down the road between the two areas and past them. It was darker now.

He came to an odd pale elevator set low over the road. The road either was blocked by it or that part of the road ended there or the road went under it. The elevator went to another dimension. It was where superheroes went when they were not out doing things. It was a place of safety where they could be away from the world and no one could get them. Lois Lane followed after him down the road, evidently having second thoughts.

At least a couple of other people were already in the elevator, people from the other dimension, acting as operators for the elevator and escorts to the dimension. They were dressed casually in normal, inexpensive clothes, darkish pants and pale shirts, perhaps with open vests or jackets. Superman got in the elevator with them. Lois Lane came up to the open door of the elevator and wanted to get inside, but they kept turning her down.

The door finally closed and the elevator started going down, but one of the men's fingers got caught in the door, along with some cloth, and the finger was stretched as the elevator went slowly downward. They halted the elevator and finally had to go back up at least part of the way and then open the doors, at least enough to get the finger out. They then went back down. At some point, either when they reopened the doors or at another time, Lois Lane got on.

The other dimension was a strange place, looking like it was an entirely manufactured place, like it was initially lacking everything, maybe even form and substance, but was forced into its present configuration. Things were mostly gray, and the light was pale, almost sourceless. The area was a large space perhaps hundreds or more feet across, with a concrete floor and with walls of what looked like huge heavy pieces of canvas sewed together, that went up maybe fifty feet or so and turned to form a distant ceiling. I got the impression that beyond this area, on the other side of the walls, was basically nothingness, like a formless fog, that what I was looking at was the whole dimension, and that as it was worked on and expanded, it was done by working with the formless possibility that existed there. I was there also, sometimes as Superman and sometimes as a watching presence, and was told, perhaps through explanations to Lois, that the area was still under construction, evidently continual construction, and that the walls got pushed out as the area grew.

The area was mostly covered with rows of widely spaced long tables. It was very thinly populated with people, some workers and a few other superheroes. The tables had shelves underneath them and sometimes a little ways on top of them. The shelves held various strange artifacts, not generally very big. They seemed to be made out of some kind of copper alloy, at least in some cases, though I think some looked a little more like stone or even wood. They seemed to be very old and had a rough, light grayish tan coating on them, though I wasn't sure that they hadn't been made recently and had been created that way.

It seemed sometimes that they had in fact have been of recent creation, at least some of them, though I'm not sure that it was a case of faking something. It may have been more like creating exact copies, indistinguishable from the originals even at the atomic level, and actually at least partly pre-aged, like the aging was really aging done by time that had somehow been placed upon them without them actually having to have existed throughout that time.

I got the impression that some of them were supposed to be from Krypton, or rather made new as objects from Krypton. Some of them appeared to be single-piece machines or parts from machines. A lot of them had strange markings, evidently Kryptonian, though they looked like runes.

Superman, showing them to Lois, picked one up and bit into it, leaving marks on the soft metal. Superman seemed to have lost a lot of his powers here, though it seemed initially that he hadn't. He seemed now though to be only a few times stronger than a man, at most, and could fly a little and was evidently still hard to hurt.

Then Lex Luther was somehow there. It felt like he had been there for at least a little while. He may have been taken there earlier by Superman or one of the other heroes, or he may have made at least part of the way there himself. I got the impression that he had wanted to get into it, thinking that he could get something from it, some kind of power maybe or technology and maybe do something while he was there. I was under the impression though, that someone had to take him the rest of the way, that he couldn't actually get in himself or even come close to it, that all he had done was just get into the general area of the elevator. Once here though, he was helpless, he couldn't do anything and I don't think he was even restrained in any way, he was trapped simply by being here.

He talked in a hard, angry voice to Superman, perhaps from fifteen or so feet away, aware that he couldn't hurt him and intimidated by his power. He got a little closer, perhaps half that distance. I'm not sure whether he moved or Superman gradually made his way in that direction. Superman had been moving along and among the tables with Lois, showing her things. Finally he picked up both Lois and Luther, Luther still complaining, and flew with them to the other side of the area, to where it narrowed to a smaller room that was almost an offshoot, where he landed and set them down.

It felt like the section was newly built and was still unfinished, and not quite as solid as the rest of it. There were a few tables here, and an occasional worker. The canvas walls, not far away, hung a bit loosely, without much tension. Superman sat down at a bench in front of one of the tables, with Lois sitting to his left and Luther sitting several feet to the left of them.

Superman quietly talked to Lois, with periods of silence. The area felt quiet, and seemed to promote silence. Luther, still somewhat angry, still sometimes talked, but in a lower, more subdued voice. Voices tended to be more hushed here anyway, and paler, like they were partially lost in the vast nothingness that lay nearby, just beyond the canvas.