December 11

I think the antidepressants are starting to do something. I’m definitely noticing the side effects, anyway. As for the primary effects, they might be related to the dreams I had at lunchtime.

I was walking through a building with Dr. NN, and he pointed out a scrawny, dark-skinned, foreign-looking character leaving a room and going down some stairs. The doctor told me this man had been interned there (as a patient or a prisoner) for two (or twenty) years. I remembered this scene later on, because at that moment it had occurred to me to play the lottery, on number two hundred, and afterwards I heard the radio announcing excitedly that that very number had come up. I was amazed, even though I hadn’t actually played. I wanted to tell this anecdote to various people on various occasions, but it made the full story too long and complicated, and no one would let me finish; they kept interrupting to talk about other things, and I got frustrated and angry. I was angry at myself, too, for not being able to condense my story, to get to the heart of what I wanted to say. I tried again and again, and every time I ended up going around in circles and getting lost in minor details.

(second sheet)

Another part of the dream took place in a market, while I was looking around for a butcher. I chose a piece of meat, but for some reason I wasn’t going to buy it right away and instead tried to hang it back up on a hook that was dangling from the ceiling. Someone from another butcher’s stall nearby said he could give me a hand, but I told him I didn’t need any help. When I tried to push the meat onto the hook, however, the end of the hook receded into a kind of rag that had been wrapped around its base, so hanging the meat was impossible.

Then someone turned up with a message from a girl who worked in a café in the market, whom I’d apparently asked out on a date. The girl wanted me to know she was waiting until the market closed and she finished her shift. I responded with ridiculous self-importance, sending the messenger back to say it was too late and she’d missed her chance.

At another point in the dream, I’m in the same place as a strange, tall car, maybe a tractor. On the lower part of the vehicle there’s a kind of tray for soil and plants, and in it, near the vehicle’s large wheels, is a little girl. Her parents were riding in the upper part and couldn’t see her very well. I noticed the girl was in danger and thought worriedly: “Her parents don’t realize she’s big enough to move around now. This way of transporting her would have worked fine when she was much smaller and couldn’t go anywhere, but it’s not safe anymore.”

(third sheet)