Since one of Zarreich’s aims was to make sense of and tie together numerous Other World dreams I’d had over the years, I went through my journals in May 1981 to make a compilation of such dreams in preparation for the novel. I called these Other World dreams because they seemed to imply actual, real realms I was visiting in dreams, as opposed to being purely psychological scenarios.

I’ve always called this compilation 100 Dreams, but the final total is 121. Of these, 22 were used in the first draft; of these, 13 survived into the second draft (shown in blue text below). Three of the dreams came later in 1981 after the compilation, as I was underway on Zarreich.

I still have no plans to publish this novel, especially in its current Draft 2 condition, but I’m curious to keep investigating the forces behind Zarreich/

8/18/73

Library Raskolnikov dream: my little garret on the fifth floor of a surreal ancient library; my cheerful isolation yet politeness to other people. I drive in last nostalgic year to see about a job, to go over old memories.

10/25/73

I had been in the rural bathroom (in the college park) earlier, and the light worked then (as did the surreal gym and locker room). However, one night I parked my car and went inside, feeling very unsteady. The light would not go on. I was terrified, tried to urinate. I knew the walls were sick and green. The floor became alligator scales, greasy. I began to fall and fall. Suddenly I knew I had been poisoned, completely overdosed. In the space of seconds this nauseous feeling accelerated into total mind disorder, the perceptions broke apart in horror. I was dimly aware that I would keep accelerating until I became a vegetable person. “I must be crazy,” I thought, and this thought seemed to be an intense work of art on my part. I ran to the door and opened it: the gray night light came into the black bathroom.  

1/16/76

The drive to a mythological college (Rice?) from Maryland to South Texas–complete isolation of myself there, the endless, fruitless drive. The vast curved yellow plain/ my love of the freedom in that situation. The University is a pleasure, and connotes union with the female.  

3/31/78

The corridors continue under the entire surface of the earth–they are international and non-denominational, like one big high school down here–I go five levels down, it’s a real basement, thinking of M. who works as an accountant on the surface (in a building, to be sure, connected to the underground). But that’s why no one has seen him recently–he works too much–late at night with his books and dingy office and dim yellow cheapass light. Meanwhile around one corner I find anarchy: kids my age living here in a level five commune. On a bulletin board I encounter pictures of Jim, obviously put there by Jim himself: Jim is a Japanese dude with sunglasses, very small, and is obviously the resident “kick-me” asshole. He has put up signs over his pictures which say: “The Greatest Commune Member,” or “Jim, the One You Love,” etc. After talking with some other California commune people, I verify that everyone dislikes Jim.

But he has power. He makes them play his “kick me I’m an asshole” game. I watch him being filmed in a Coca-Cola/sex commercial. His girl is flipping out at his asshole humor. “I’d sure like a Coke!” he says. I resolve to understand Jim better, though I fear his asshole games.  

9/5/78

Speech to river university (Rice and Richland, deep night) concerning justice–me, alone, to cut down some attacker and/or defend an innocent, other aspects of this university.  

9/9/78

We return to Rice–media center/dorm. Lunch bags–garden–midday–vine-covered house–everyone loose in the head. I read a women’s college magazine:

1) Interview with a Rock Star
2) “Sea Girl of Texas”–from the coast and obviously the editor, writes of her love for sex, but extremely poetic and full of soul. I see the editor in her (hospital) room–minor sex episode–everything so loose–night.

9:00 AM and my balcony (indoor) room–much exploration of consciousness to be done.  

12/30/78

Back room–A.’s commune–Illinois–me alone (TV there?)–I wonder at who originally bought this house and then forgot it, moved out as this neighborhood “went to seed” and drugs. Drug commune (C., D., and others). Green shades, green texture–my separation from commune (I’m a visitor). The most minor hint of Akard commune. Outside screen door, humid wetness (slight winter) and carport–a cat, black and white, is in my room–chicken carcass on a black mat outside in carport– I eat some chicken meat, but don’t allow cat any, as I don’t want it to have chicken breath, as it will sleep with me. Girl (Crystal type) hides behind sculpture in the hallway leading here:

Rest of commune involved in drug party. It is both 3 AM and dawn. House next door occupied by other freaks I don’t know–M. S.’s yard is the feel here.

C.  slowly advances, laughing. I close my eyes and pretend I’m asleep. But she comes to my bed and (she is the anima). Nothing evil about her at all. She is good humored, but also a part of a commune which I don’t understand. The house is more M.s house. I am a total stranger at the place; my sleep in the little room smacks of doing penance. C. is not really supposed to have any contact with me.  

1/11/79

I’m driving a car (and/or walking) on a completely conceptual interstate towards Los Angeles (which has taken on an “importance” in my thoughts recently). Strangely shaped blocks, symbols, kinetic sculptures, everywhere. The L.A. skyline looms ahead (no California mountains in the dream–it’s all a vast green plain)–equally cubist, blocked, insane, powerful, working well. To the north I see San Francisco (c.f. S.F. buried dream within past month–hotel, parents, insanity! Other World–same S.F. as this dream). S. F. is equally blocked–but the sculptures and buildings are “thinner” and “gentler,” more artistic and cultural. (Cut to rooftop speculation on bullshit in Dallas skyline–flying horse, clock, Republic National Bank rocket.)

I consider as I (humorously) travel on the interstate (shapes everywhere, I go at varying speeds to interact with all obstacles), the S.F./L.A. duality as being similar to the Dallas/Houston duality. Also, how neat it is that both skylines are visible on this Other World interstate. Interstate packed full of conceptual automobiles, people, problems–a great caravan of humanity journeying on this Interstate.  

3/7/79

August night (complexion cream). Our house–behind it a garage apartment. “Similar to my old one.” An Interstellar Wombat picture there, but one I dislike. I set up two canvases up there, 5 x 5, on chairs, they tower over me, giant walls, one is I.W., with deep blue swirls and orange, the other is blank. I intend to “rewrite” I.W. on the new canvas. But I think that I could also paint right over I.W., do two canvases at once. I begin to like the deep blue tones, clouds of I.W. more.

8/1/79

The shapes are the shapes of keys, concepts from intelligence tests, the mall is modern. It is the blocks of technology. I scramble to the railing and five or fifteen or fifty stories below me, the concrete of a more massive mall. Dizzily I fall backwards, vertigo, pebbled walks, planters, cheerleaders. But above the mall extends into more keys, blocks, levels–and the sky. The anti-vertigo is worse. Gravity slides. But I find a sunlit block of crabgrass. I concentrate on the crabgrass, and calm down. Later, in the lower mall, I explain it all easily.

12/4/79

S. or C. or both at first day of Rice–August 1970 (yet also, familiar summer–could be beginning of sophomore or junior year). Dark, cold monastic Wiess College–in summer, Saturday morning, and currently run by Catholic nuns and cheerleaders and bankers’ group. The second floor (stone) interior corridor. The two guys I met at 11/3 homecoming. Students start arriving. The marsh outside. Green-blue-brown. Damp and cold. Possibilities. S/C is my friend.

12/17/79

It is May. Implying first house in Australia–as my dorm room. G. gives someone else speed. I’m afraid to ask but he gives me 5 or 6 beautiful hits. Near end of semester. The open-ended feeling/apocalypse and triumph. The deep night. The forest around the school. I plan to stay up all night. X. is there. “Where are they hiding all the speed?” she says. I offer her one of my hits, tell her of my plans–and tell her she can get more speed from G.  

11/16/80

I have returned to Evanston to take a room and relive my past there–some necessity. All very compelling. An old poet and his two sons offer to go on a walk with me–at first I decline, but then I accept on the condition that we cover all the places I need to. White room with bright window–to the lake–

12/20/80

A community celebration, lasting for weeks, in a large indoor shopping center–and spreading out far past that. Total celebration mood–standing in line at ice cream store to get my 20th cup of beer. I am free to do exactly as I please.

1/20/81

I have a motorcycle with no hand grips–riding with X. in traffic–to weird stone amusement park stand run by middle-aged man and woman–bright morning–I put the bike in the back seat of the VW and drive it home. But then I pull into a gas station, deciding to take the motorcycle after all. When I start to pull it out, it turns into Ming, sleepy, fat Siamese. Ming puts his claws into the seat and refuses to be pulled out. I do succeed in getting him over a couple feet, but by this time he’s so pissed off that I decide it will be best to leave him alone. He goes back to sleep, and I resume driving. That very open and clear road–“to the north, running east/west through a relaxed urban space”–like North Rice Blvd. in Bellaire?–opening up into other “green urban” buried dream scenes.

1/31/81

The blue corridors … level X of an N-leveled library, university, etc.–this area being nothing but solid corridors. None of it is scary. I am exploring–I’ve come from the black and white corridors to the blue ones (related to an earlier “library levels” dream written earlier, I believe–probably the same structure.)  

2/7/81

In haunted house all night party–building a giant wrap-around table in different layers. Paintings, stairs, laboratory in it. My power (even “evil.”) All the personalities there–G. S. at the end driving his car up the Dark Hill as I prepare to leave the old millionaires’ burnt-out five AM conversation. We discuss (he is now D. U.) German grammar.  

3/31/81

Dream: entire perspective of my life, nearing 30 … in terms of an open-ended house (Fair Haven, New Jersey atmosphere?) Traveller(s) in trucks visiting … S.? … with X., talking about direction of my life. Realization that I am on the verge of some great writing … in terms of that entire perspective. “I don’t mind if my life accelerates from 30 on out–as long as I get that powerful writing out …” Pond, morning twilight … vast spaces, prairie, beyond the house. Begins: Truck driver-me pulling into house? S. visit? summer night–then it becomes my open-ended house.

4/19/81

The village in the sunny valley (arranged as plain, valley, hill, 2nd plain–the first valley is the quaint village–the 2nd plain is the magnificent city built out of nothing.

Into this I come, a Jim Piston character, with my .38. I live in the first valley with my grandmother. But a guy next door strikes me as evil and so I shoot him– several times–but though I know I am doing damage, he keeps standing in the doorway laughing. In paranoia I keep loading my gun and firing it at this guy. In the kitchen. Finally I say to myself: “C’mon, you’re acting just like Jim Piston now.”  

6/14/81

Driving VW with X. on a black rural road at night–which has been roadblocked–a hundred-foot-deep barricade–by the road’s construction workers, who are on strike. Anger and tension in the air–the workers, the cops, the stranded drivers. Sense of a giant interchange half-constructed behind the barricade. All headlights are turned off, and I realize I cannot see anything at all–it is complete and total blackness (such as I experienced in the cave near Llano in ’71) and I walk around the cop cars and the drivers parked at the side of the road maneuvering by “a sense of the volumes I can remember.” The blackness seems to be the result of the roadblock. I know the black fields go on, uninhabited, for hundreds of miles around us. Some of the cops do occasionally use a flashlight. X. and I have a long red flashlight. I shine it on the ground. “We will be able to survive, at least,” I say.  

7/20/81

Me downtown at night–rainy–in my raincoat w/suitcase–having so much trouble walking–fighting the wind. After a movie, or business consultation, “The Hilton” (the library)–needing more business, needing sex. Other people on the street (Commerce). Then: in “rental room” of “M.’s house” at night, He informs me that if I sign the contract, at 9:00 the next morning, S. will be here. Yet: I am horrified–it is 10:00 PM and X. must be home waiting for me–I gather my things and leave (instead of staying all night until 9 AM).

But: no conversation with X. shown in this movie. It is 9:00 AM the next day and I am greeting M. at the modern high school bowling alley. He says: “Come into my cubicle and we’ll discuss that contract.” (Dream ended here by alarm. Very deep–with all sorts of side situations, such as “my sunlit shack at the side of the road.”)  

9/16/81

Dream: on Willow St., Fair Haven–1981 perspective–other world–beings–the sense of total release–the same as (tied into?) the “South Pacific series of islands and world geography dream.” Also triggered by this: the drive down “Lake Shore Drive” dream–Northwestern–or something–on the lake (very old dream). In a book I read about the sea and islands north of the U.S.S.R.–was tied into this feeling of: infinitely beautiful world–I am totally free to explore it–

Sunlight down Willow–somehow sunlight down to Hance Rd. (connecting the 2 schools?) in fog–the “beings” are on this street–from another planet? At any rate I am one of them.

copyright 2024 by Michael D. Smith