Space Illusions & Fiddle Leaf Records

I dreamed of strange and worrisome things.

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Fallen leaves from my fiddle leaf fig. I collected them in a specialized tray that held them on their sides. Large green leaves with brown stacked and aligned like plates in a drying rack after a wash. As the leaves would fall I would collect them; they each resonated some sort of task—some sort of right of passage—some sort of measurement of detail needed, so they could be referenced or sourced via some machine or arm like on a record player or in a hard drive.

The the cast would change, and it’s as though it’s hours later in reality; I’m in a new space.

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It’s really space. The same space you would see in science textbooks in the ’90s. It would show you classic images from the Voyager II mission: images of renown. I was floating or was I suspended: held and cradled in the hands of a feminine creator, like a mother. I saw Neptune in its classic image, and I swatted at it with my hand. It made the same sound as a Voit playground ball would as it was kicked across the field. I watched as it dangled back and forth, its stillness violently interrupted as it’s tiny moons quickly orbited the cerulean sphere.

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I saw men as they traversed through space. It revealed the blackness of space like the dark water of an 8 ball. The astronauts would seem to emerge from the darkness like that of the blue polygon revealing the answer to your questions. I was able to reach and grab the astronaut as he tumbles through space. My reaching revealed him to a figurine or a model of dense foam slightly bigger than two feet.

I was filled will fear—I was filled with a complex bewildered shame of what I’d seen and touched. Then in my anticipation, I saw from the bottom of my vision a rising monochromatic red Jupiter. I feared what I would learn of it.

Hatching Coordinates

When the music comes, it is an unstoppable force. Nothing controls the muse as it demands its passing. The years of 2015 and 2016 were creatively vibrant. It was the closing of my synthetic exploration with my EP, Bulbs, and it was opening season for what would become my most successful release, That You Are Mindful of Him, and my brand establishing compilation, Words & Music.

During that time I was bombarded with a shower of songs that came to me in dreams. I would wake up in the middle of the night to document what I could, then go back to sleep. This is something that most songwriters often experience. I never let go of those songs. Something was special about them.

At the time I was single, sober, and had become quite the religious zealot. All three of these features would break down and would have to be reestablished and adjusted. Fast forward some four to five years later and here I am: on the verge of my next compilation, single, sober, and striving to be as authentic in my faith as possible. Then, comes “Coordinates”: one of the songs from my dreams.

I’d teamed up with Kelly Zwern in early 2019, and we started writing music together. Initially, it was pressing on my heart that she collaborate with me on “Coordinate”. I was scared because it was “my precious” (like they all do). She became an informant as I continued to sit on the egg.

Last night the song hatched. A word from a friend via text message would cause the first crack, and before I knew it the structure, the lyrics, the tone were all present.

And that’s how it happens. You lay an egg, and you never know how long, or if it will ever hatch. But when it does, you’re covered in fluids, the hormones rush, and you’re in love.

Saturn & A Woman Clothed in the Sun

Today I slept through everything. I had multiple dreams of note: My car was broken into and Eminem stole my girlfriend, but one sticks out strongly—

I met a man who was to act as a music producer for me. He has long blond hair and was well built. His studio and headquarters were in a huge house that was on a huge piece of land. Many people worked for him and he had a large entourage. Many of the scenes in the dream overlapped as dreams do. One scene, I watch as he was getting dressed in his office. It had sleek dark purple reflective tiling along the floors, walls, and ceiling. It was like he was getting fitted in a suit. He told me that a judge would be coming by in a little while so that we could all sign papers that would give them power of attorney over my creative decisions; I did not like this.
The most intriguing episode of the dream was in a wide-open field of the land that this house was on. It was surrounded by mountains, and I was standing at a cliff. Multiple people were also with us. These people were like peers of mine who had also signed under the producer. They felt like friends or people that you would work with, but there wasn’t anyone that I knew for sure. Standing at the cliff I peered into the sky and saw what appeared to be Saturn, but looked like the moon when seen in the brightest part of the day against the bluest sky. A white outline of a circle appeared around the planet, and a string of ambiguous text or symbols seemed to quickly type across the diameter with the planet in the middle. It looked similarly as if I was wearing an augmented reality lens, but I wasn’t wearing anything on my face. As I saw this I was filled with a deep fear and lament.
I then had a vision of a woman. She looks and was dressed as Beyonce’ during her 2017 Grammy performance, but it was not her. It was like an omen or a prophecy of something bad to come that was being impressed in my mind.
I was crying and had my face buried in the embrace of one of the friends around me. It was as if no one was seeing what I saw, or understood why I was so upset. I peered back up at the sky to see the anomaly again, then back into my friends embrace; more impressions entered my thoughts: a dark black space with Saturn infrared with something larger lurking behind it.
I lifted my face again and I saw the woman from the first vision walking toward us. Again, I was filled with fear and lament as she approached.

I Have to Remember

I dreamed that my grandmother laid moments away from death. She had her arms spread out wide as if she were free-falling or in flight. She was smiling, and as the sounds in the space centered to a silent swelling point, I heard her say. “Praise God!”. There was a flash of light, and her body was taken. All that was left was this strange stone cast or something like a reverse impression. The eye of the right side of her face was fixed on me with a red gleam in it, but she was gone.

---

Since I started working from home my sleep schedule has been awful. Particularly this holiday season, I’m struggling. It easily becomes more than just not sleeping. It translates into lonely hour of no human activity while you’re stuck in a room in the middle of a dreary Dallas suburban home after everyone has gone to sleep.

Regretting things. Considering things. Wishing things.

it’s been miserable, but worse things have been before. I have to remember how bad it can be. I have to remember the consistent coughing up of phlegm due to my poor choices. I have to remember that my decisions are not other people’s, and that my faith is not equal to my religious practice.

I’m not who I was ten years ago any more, and it shows.

I briefly dreamed last night
like many dreams
many things happened
I was in my car
I could hear pressure being released in the back seat
looking behind me I found that there were wine bottles on the passenger side rear seat of my two door Civic.
there were maybe about four
they were puffing up with pressure as if they were spoiled
the wine bottles were braking and leaking dark red wine in my vehicle
after lifting up the bottle that was on top that had just cracked I found that the bottle at the bottom of the stack was cracked and almost completely broken
the wine was all over the seat of my car. 
it had soaked into the seat as though it were leaking for some time.

Dream Sequence: Goats

A few weeks ago, I had the following dream; I wrote it down in a word document, so that I could uphold the details, but never posted it:

----

I dreamed.

I purchased a house in the suburbs.

I was young, like a child.

I had a boyfriend.

He was Columbian with long hair.

We were playing in the back yard.

He went to the neighbor’s house. They were not home.

In the back yard I saw a strange white deer. It was female.

I went to the neighbor’s house where my boyfriend and his brother were jumping on the neighbors trampoline.

I didn’t want to be there.

My bills were laying around in paper trays on the trampoline. I told them that I wanted to leave and that my bills shouldn’t be here.

I went back to my house, and I found that the deer I saw had birthed a new born.

The new born was in a circle of trees like at the end of fern gulley.

My boyfriend came by and told him to look at the new white deer. He said that it was making a funny face, and then he imitated it.

I was behind him, and I had my hands around his midsection as we were crouching down. He was a bit out of shape, and I didn’t like it.

Whenever I woke up I realized that the deer was not a deer. It was a goat. And that’s why my boyfriend said it was making a funny face. Because it was a goat face.

Dream Sequence: The Witch of Endor

My recollection of the dream starts off in a million different places. Malls, and shopping centers, and grocery stores. Low ceilings like in departments stores. 

Then all of a sudden I'm down the street... with my parents; however it's not Paula and Ricky. I needed to get to the Kroger across the street. It was night time, and there was the amber glow of street lights. The street was very busy like 1960 in Spring. I was driving a car to get across, and picked up a Mexican Man who needed to cross. He and I spoke briefly, but I had never met him.

Crossing the street, and in to the store, I was in the bathroom supply section: like face wash and shower gel. I met up with my Pastor, Mike, and he told me that we would meet up with a woman who practiced the same sorcery as the Witch of Endor. So then we went to my apartment.

My memory leads me to another part of my dream sequence that may or may not have been related.----
My sister Vicky had large portrait-oriented, framed, poster-sized photographs printed. They were sibling related: one was of Gordon, Becky, Vicky, and Kevin all sitting at a table next to a beautiful building having dinner, and looking at the person taking the picture. They weren't smiling, rather, their faces were solemn. There was another one of that was of she and I; it was a collage of sorts: showing different pictures of us together. She had others that I could see. There were none of Sam. Sam's picture, however, showed up in little places here and there--like Easter eggs--------

Back in my other dream with Pastor Mike, Ashely Norton, and other people from the church. We were waiting for this woman to give us a "teaching". She walks into the room, and she is like stick figure drawing (shown). She had a very high voice: very soft and pleasent. 

She said that she would start the ceremony that she came to do. I was confused at first because I thought that she was going to be giving a teaching, or something along those lines. I didn't resit her magic, however, I laid down on the couch upside down; my feet on the back of the sofa, and my back on the seat. She sat on top of me and started to power my nose with a little white fluffy ball, and white powder. She spoke words over me with her little voice quietly the whole time. She ended her deal by wrapping her arms around me and and having me do the same to her. She was petite and frail. She then did something to crack my back, and at that point there was a non-sexual climax in my body, and I was moaning loudly as though something was released. My friend Ashely got up and left the room as though she wasn't going to take part in it anymore. The Woman would be performing the same practice on all the people in the room. With this I woke up.

Again, My memory leads me to another bit of dream that also occurred that may or may not be related to the main narrative. I was at the end of my Dad's neighborhood, Green Acres, where there were no houses. I was on a mattress that had no sheets on it, and I was laying on my stomach. I wasn't able to walk, and I was dragging the mattress along under my belly as I crawled along inch by inch. While there Jerry from Impact showed up. He told me something that I don't exactly recall, but it was something along the lines of, "Get Up". 

Dream Sequence: Courts & Tiny Chapel

It's difficult to remember this early. 

There was a court room. It was where I worked, or where I was being judged. The courtroom was part of a city, and left a block, and around the corner was a tiny chapel. It seemed to be Catholic in design.

The chapel was surrounded by a rod iron fence covered in vines. There was an older black lady there who kept the ground of the chapel. She was like a Nun, or either a very devout person of faith. She knew my name. 

I walked over to the chapel once by myself, and went in. The yard that the chapel sat on was concrete all the way around, and tucked with two buildings perpendicular to the corner it sat on. The chapel itself was small maybe about five foot by five foot with only enough room to sit in. There was iron bars around the chapel itself. It appeared to be locked. The door was spring loaded, like a screen door would be, and would snap shut when opened. 

Inside there was one tiny window, and a wooden bench. The walls were painted with a very old murals that escape me. The wall that you faced as you sat was inscribed with what I recalled as a prayer--perhaps the Lord's Prayer, or something that a catholic would recite.

On a separate occasion I went to the chapel with two other guys. They seemed like popular you tube personalities, but they were both gay. We went to the chapel from he courts, and all three of us went in. 

I recall a statement I said, "What will people think seeing us three going into this chapel" or something like that. We weren't there for supplication, rather we were goofing off. We knew we had to be back at the courts within a certain amount of time. 

I learned at this point that the chapel and the courts were connected, and that the courts would prescribe time spent in the chapel.

As I left the black lady who kept the grounds questioned my being there in a motherly tone, as if she knew I was goofing off. 

Dream Sequence: The Cage

I was walking down the east bound side of FM 1960 in Humble, across from the First Assembly of God church and Beckwith's Car Care. There I met a creole dark-skinned black man with a white parrot. He was dressed very homely: wearing a white wife-beater that was dark colored from his doings. He was thin with very short curly hair.
As he approached me he asked me to come and see his home, and I agreed. 
I followed him in between the properties of the church and Beckwith's to a place set off deeply in the woods.
His home was in an incredibly thick brush that walled the boundaries of the area. The area was rectangular, and divided into three separate sections. I don't recall passing through the first section. The second section was like his workplace, or like a shed that one would have behind their house. There was a brush line that divided it from the third section with a cut out path at the left side of the area. This aloud passage to the third section.
He kept leading me towards the third section, and I followed without hesitation.
There I was shown a cage.
As we walked closer to it he told me that he was "keeping them there for more of a homeopathic study". I asked him if he would have doctors come in to look at them, and he replied no. Not much else of our conversation do I recall.
the cage was was square and long, and had another structure built around it that covered it from the elements. The cage had multiple parts and shafts in it, like a raccoon trap.  There was a section cut out of it closer to it's top so that his parrot could fly in an out of it; I believed that the cage was for his parrot. His parrot flew in, and greeted him as he knelt by the cage, and spoke to me more about the cage. There was an adult pig roaming about in this third section as well. His parrot was dirty, and his feathers resembled that of dirty wool on a sheep.

As I peered into the cage I saw a woman's hand and arm come forward that gestured for the man to give her food. Looking in deeper I could see the face of a child in it as well. I realized that there were people in this cage. The man told me he found them in the woods, but I knew he was lying. I asked if he was going to keep them there, and he implied yes. 
I told him that I had to leave, and headed leave. Once I got to the second section I realized that I couldn't leave the people there, and I had to do something. As I turned around to go back to the cage the man was standing in the path between the second and third section, and he'd drawn a knife on me. The whites in his eyes had turned blood red, and he embodied a wickedness that was previously not in him.
I'd managed to grab the knife from him, and started to attack him; however, the knife was very dull and rusty, and the man had strangely thick and leathery skin.
He laughed at me as I tried to stab him in the face with the knife, as if he knew that the knife was not sharp enough. He then pulled out another knife that was sharper. There was a struggle for a moment, but I got the knife from him.
In a simultaneous moment I stabbed him in the mouth and the temple --- I stabbed the man in mouth having the blade pass through the back of his head and driving it into the ground --- I stabbed the man in the left temple, and then twisted the blade.
When the fight was over my next action was to contact the police. 

Dream Sequence

It was Thanksgiving, and I went home to Louisiana. People were celebrating in some of the strangest ways. Everyone was living outside in these make shift houses that were all lined up in a row in a giant field. It was a festival. There were many familiar faces: my extended family & people I went to high school with.

Each house was set up in its own way, and built with different things. Some had canopies, some had barbecue pits, and others were just plywood slapped together.

Night had fallen, and I became bored. I started to wander around visiting others to pass the time.

I saw the Costa family, but Chris was not with them. I visited with them for a while. They were having Catholic rituals by using the computer. The graphics on the screen were a row of squares that would move and sparkle, and each square had a letter in it. I believe it spelled faith.

The next day, there was a group of high school friends, and they were all skydiving. There was no plane. Stephen Stasioisky was there, and he offered to go with me. We were to take these small candies that were black and tasted and looked like sprees.

I took the candy, and I immediately regretted my decision. But, I was too late. I was immediately in the sky. I was above the clouds, and I wasn't falling. It was like I could maneuver in the air. I was only wearing shorts and a parachute.

I remember the clouds. It was Dusk, and the sun was setting far ahead of me. Stephen was in the air with me, and we had become connected somehow spiritually. He told me we would have to go back down, but because I didn't know how to get down, he grabbed me proceeded downward.

Once I got back to ground, I realized that I had done something up there that was worth praise. I walked around boldly as if I understood the method of "skydiving" completely after one visit.

Dream Sequence - the Jackson's and Family Secrets

I was very close friend a with Michael Jackson. I spent a weekend with him indulging in the finer things. While I was at his house I had learned about some secret documents he had. Two papers in particular. I was prompted by some press to give them the in to these documents. He was Living in very gross hoarder-like conditions. His never land ranch had already been take away from him, and he was living in a small and modest home in North Louisiana.

I would be leaving soon, and I met with a woman who would have me expose him. He was getting ready to go on tour or something along those lines. He didn't realize that he had left these two documents out. He left. Then me and another gentleman went back into his house found the paper, and I took pictures of them with my cell phone. As we were sneaking in there was a police car out side of the house with its blue and red light on spinning in the front yard, as it pulled in from the street, but it didn't see us.

It seemed like Michael and I were sexually involved to some degree, and that these paper would expose him in that way somehow. After I obtained the files this woman who was thin pretty and dark headed picked me up. I knew she worked for some type of government entity. I was afraid for myself because I had been using drugs, and she knew that. Either way, she was friendly, and thanked me for my help in the case.

I went back to Michael's house the next time he was there, and the media had already taken their toll on him. I remember that I couldn't look him in the eye, but I wasn't sure if he knew that I had anything to do with leaked information. The man who was with me the night that I copied the documents was there before I got there. We had betrayed him.

My time with him was over and I was on my way home with my Mother. I wasn't sure if she had known what I'd done.

Traveling home we came to a fork in the road, she told me that I was headed the wrong direction, and unless I turned around I would be headed to Arkansas. I was driving a vehicle with a trailer on the back of it. There were other people in the street at the fork: people bringing there kids to college for the first time. This led me to believe I was in Ruston.

My mom began to tell me a story that resembled much of what had just happened with Michael Jackson. She told me this as the dream changed scenes. Her narration became what I saw. She explained to me that back in the 80's something pretty nasty went down between my family, intermediate and extended, were audited along with a big oil mogul and the Haynes family for some pretty shady activity. The details were never divulged.

She handed me a maroon folder with gold embossed lettering on it that contained all of the secret that she spoke of.

I could see a curio cabinet or shadow box in the vision of the narration that belonged to my grandmother. It had many memorable items of real life. It was on a lazy Suzanne type of turn style, and could be kept behind glass. At this point of the dream the two narratives of what happened with Michael Jackson and the latter with my family seem to become blended and confused .

Towards the end of the dream my mother and I are talking, and she is ending this epic tale and secret. She goes on to say that I should read the information for myself, and that since I held nothing against the family in ignorance that I shouldn't let what I'm about to find out change my perspective.

I woke to the following on the radio: Novelletta Composer: Giuseppe Martucci, Conductor: Francesco d'Avalos

I feel as though many of the details have been removed from my mind upon waking and writing.

Dream Sequence

A mountain, Along the ascent there were different thing.

There didn't necessarily occur in the order in which I am recalling them.

Nathan Brow and Bobby Kaznoon were in the with me at this academy or school of sorts. We were all three working together. Nathan and Bobby went off to lunch together, but I went to lunch alone.

The primary location was reminiscent of the seventh grade and the class rooms there. Ms. Liprie's class room in particular. I can recall there being visqueen draping partitions.

Another stage: I could see the location of where we were from aerial view. I could see the facility where I was, and I could also see a neighborhood with swimming pools and a few houses just below the academy. Dylan Oubre lived in this neighborhood.

The third stage of the dream was back in the academy. I was in a class room with my peers: people from the seventh grade era of my life. In particular I saw Keandra Augustus.

Dream Sequence

There were turtlesThere was New Orleans

There was my grandfather, and his hunting land. He said that he would rather stay out there. He'd set up deer stands in trees, and whenever he was finished them, he'd abandon the whole outfit--leaving behind important supplies like toilet paper.

The last bit, I was in school. I saw a genealogy. The first of all musicians. Adam and Eve, showing the baby Jesus to The Lord as a sacrifice. Dylan Oubre's mom was teaching. In the last moments she asked one of the student to give a demonstration of how to do the homework. He began to read over the lesson in song. Singing the assigned numbers and names. I could see from his perspective, and the text that he was reading from.

The song he was singing. Am--G--D... And the word "September" was being shouted by the choir behind him.

Dream Sequence

I dreamed, There were at least three stages to the dream that I can remember.

It started with me being at my my grandmothers house with my sister Becky, but the house didn't belong to my grandmother. We were visiting my mom there. We were young, but I our current forms.

I was traveling.

The second part led me to someone's house that could only be described as Lady Gaga. It was as if I was spending the night with this woman. We had sex together. We slept on the second floor of the house we were in. There was little furniture I the room.

The third scene, and most easily recalled was in the swamps of Louisiana. Perhaps I was below the US boarder. I was wearing boots, khakis, and a green striped button down shirt.

I was walking through the swamps and I stumbled across an indigenous people group who lived in the muddy waters. I stumbled upon one family: the mother in particular.

Her house was built into trees, and she had many children. I had short conversations with her daughter as well.

In talking to the woman, I asked her about what she'd do whenever hurricanes would come. She had no answer because she couldn't understand my language.

I saw men of people driving around in old Chevys. They would drive through the water, and I was able to see the depths of the water. Where the water was too deep the trucks would float.

Behind us a road appeared. It was wooden, and sat atop the water. I decided to follow it towards a clearing in the trees. I passed by a man, and asked him what was up the direction, he said that's it was a boat Dock, and that there was no one there.

I was looking to get home so I went towards the dock. I found a large congregation of white people there. Many people were eating at a restaurant there. I had only coins in my pockets, so I was unable to get any food or a snowball.

I decided to call my dad to see if he could come and get me be Use it was getting dark, and I wouldn't be able to walk through the swamp at night. My phone was almost dead, and my dad could barely be heard on the phone. He asked me where I was, and from a business card that I got from the counter of the restaurant. I was in Goo-man, Louisiana... Or Goumau... Or Something along those lines.

My dad asked me how I walked from Baton Rouge to Gouman. I wasn't sure, but I was glad that my dad knew where I was.

By night fall I could see some buildings, and signs of western civilization. Also along the peer I there was a casino boat. That was when I knew that I was still in the states.

Then I awoke.

Dream Sequence

It started with me at the Patterson Truck Stop.My boss, Bart, was there. He was sitting at the bar, He had been drinking too much. He had just walked out of the casino. We had mild conversation, and in his inebriation, he told me that he had found my music on the juke box, and played it. From that he went on to tell me that he saw Lexus Berthalot and her mother in the casino, and in the conversation we found that he knew them too.

At that point the scene switch, and I was in Humble off of 1960 and Timber Forest. My apartment complex was located where Coach's Bar was, and in the same shopping center was a piano store. I went I with Bart initially.

The store was giant with lots of warm tones, deeps reds, and vintage lighting.

Walking around we looked at all the pianos, and I found many different kind. I sat at a harpsichord, and attempted to play it. The keys were loose and wiggly.

Bart exited the sequence, and my dad and Ms. Barbara came in the store. I was excited to see them. I played many of the pianos--but only recall one having the appropriate sound. It was light brown without stain on the wood. It was also one of the only ones there that was normal in size.