Sexual Propositions and a Giant Leech

Sexual Propositions and a Giant Leech

I am in a bar at a resort with a lot of other people and am sitting at a table with friends, wrapped in a towel.  Eric Potter comes up and, standing behind me, slips his hands down under the towel to cup my breasts.  He makes lewd suggestive sexy remarks about having sex with me and I am feeling aroused by his touch.[1]

Someone suggests skinny-dipping.  I am standing on a dock (wooden walkway) with another woman looking into the dark pond/lake.  The water is cold and somehow threatening and people standing around naked are hesitant to go in.  I dive right in and immediately feel as if I have made a mistake.  But I’m not sure what the mistake is, and I swim out to the middle of the lake.

Suddenly, a giant leech the size of a boa constrictor attacks me.  It is black, with a head like a planarian and a big mouth which is struggling to attach itself to me, I fight with the thing, which is very very strong, and I am tiring and the mouth, which I am trying to hold away, is getting closer and closer.

A boat comes up (a houseboat-like boat) and a woman with a syringe and needle tries to subdue the giant leech.  I am worried she will kill it, and even though I do not want to be bitten by it, I don’t want her to kill it.  She struggles and struggles and finally, the thing goes limp.  Friday, February 17, 2012

What does this remind you of?

YIKES!

Sex!  Unpleasant and unwanted sex, rape.

Okay, starting at the beginning, Eric Potter was my second lover and the one who broke my maidenhead.  (OUCH!)  Somehow Peter Black did not manage to do that.  We had to stuff ice cubes up my crotch to stop the bleeding.  (Eric is now an old, fat man in a nursing home who says “he can’t get it up any more.”) (And I am an old, fat woman!) L

The dark, threatening waters remind me of: sex, the unconscious, nightmares, therapy sessions.

I rarely swim any more, because Keith doesn’t like to.  I used to love to swim, and when I was younger, would dive right in.  Now, on the rare occasions when I swim, I go in more gingerly.

The giant leach is shaped like a huge black penis—like a big horse’s penis.  The idea of being attacked by a “giant penis” reminds me of rape and unwanted sex.

I used to see a lot of horses penises while doing my horse research, and always wondered why women might want to have sex with them—didn’t make sense to me.  Too big!  Some Russian Czarina, Catherine the Great, was supposedly killed trying to have sex with a horse.  What a horrible, crazy idea.  L (The claim that her death was caused by a sexual incident involving a horse is a myth and apparently has no basis.)[2]

It also reminds me of the time when a real boa constrictor tried to kill me and Rachel, my boss, “rescued” me, after Bob ran out of the building.

There was a period of time in my life when I lived in a commune and went skinny-dipping with my fellow commune members and other local hippies.  I was never entirely comfortable with it, although I do like skinny-dipping in safe places with a single companion or alone.

The leech, going limp at the end, is also phallic.  When the giant leech goes limp, the threat is over.

I no longer go to bars often, except occasionally to hear music (friends).  I used to go fairly often with friends when I was younger and one time, sitting in a bar yukking it up with friends, I suddenly had an “epiphany” (or, in this case, moment of clarity) that I wasn’t really having fun, and I stopped going.

In what ways do I feel that I am making a mistake and am going ahead anyway?

Ø  Over committing myself

Ø  Taking this poetry class[3]

Ø  Being too busy to work on and complete already started projects.

Ø  The Rolandale House

Ø  Marriage (sometimes)(Though less and less often, but still sometimes.)

Ø  Attempting to mother or not mother Graham.[4] Finding a balance.

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[1] I may be having more sex dreams because I am getting less actual sex lately.

[2] Although grossly overweight, Catherine loved men - a great many of them, in fact - over the course of her 34-year reign. And then, it was rumored, she died during a botched attempt to make love (if it can be called such a thing) to a horse. The rumor may have been spread by Catherine's Polish enemies, who resented her for annexing much of Poland. (On the list of European royalty's leisure activities, "overrunning Poland" has historically been a close second to "Sex.") At any rate, Catherine never had sex with a horse, and one wonders why anyone felt compelled to make up such a story, since her actual death was plenty humiliating. While straining on the toilet, she had a stroke.  (Like Keith’s first wife, Florence.)(Hope I don’t go that way.) http://www.neatorama.com/2008/10/16/a-pain-in-the-royal-horse-5-sex-rumors-about-royalty/ Also confirmed in Wikipedia.

[3] I am vacillating between feeling misunderstood and unappreciated and feeling worthless and incompetent in this current poetry class.  L  It makes me want to give up poetry.  Or at least poetry classes and competitions.

[4] I had a really nice “bonding” time with Graham helping him make a tie-dye T-shirt for his trip to Italy for the Aquarius song. We went to the store together, picked out a kit, came home and I helped him fold and tie it and explained how to dye it, and he did and it came out nice.  Made me remember, miss and wish for the time when he liked to sit on my lap and I felt closer to him.  L

Save my husband!

Save my husband!

We are at this strange pool place that seems to be some kind of installment rather than a swimming place, but people are swimming in one of the pools.  There are a series of pools with narrow cement walkways between them.  Somehow, Keith falls into to one of the pools and disappears.  I run to where the people are and scream and scream for help.  They are so slow coming I say over and over and over, please hurry, every second counts.  They don’t hurry, but eventually the come and walk slowly through the pool.  One small obnoxious man finds Keith and gives him CPR and Keith revives.  I am so desperately relived and grateful—I keep thinking the man, even though I don’t like him and want to give him a reward but he goes off with the other people back to the other pool.  Keith is kind of limp and exhausted and his eyes are wrong—he looks as if he is blind or as if his cornea has separated from his eyes or as if there are shining discs inserted.  Or weird contact lenses.  I am gathering our things and Keith disappears.  I don’t know if he walked off or fell back into the pool.  I look in several pools—one of them is opaque and milky.  I wake up in a panic.  Monday, February 13, 2012

+++++++++What does this remind you of?

My good friend Pam’s husband just died this week (last week, 5 days ago) and of course, she is bereaved and terribly lonely and upset.  My good friend Hal recently lost his wife.  Herb was Keith’s age, and Ann even younger.  They both had cancer.  Reminders of mortality.  Anyone could die at any time, but the older you get, the more likely you are to die.  I want to KEEP Keith and myself alive, for as long as reasonably possible.  I am afraid both of suffering and of death itself.  And I have a lot to do. (A lot I want to accomplish!)

Bruce’s cousin David Farnsworth’s daughter Ellen fell out of a boat into a lake and lay at the bottom of a lake for like half an hour and then was revived and was OK—that was 35 years ago or so and she is still alive and well and married and has children—the 40-degree water stopped the brain death.   Thus my shouting, “every second counts” over and over—I wanted to save him and to not have him be damaged.  I wanted him alive and well!

The pools installation was sort of like an old-fashions sewage treatment plant—but the water in most of the pools was clean.  (Perhaps it had once been a sewage treatment plant, but wasn’t full of sewage now.)

I was thinking about what you (Brian) said about how in my dreams, I am always the one who knows what to do and other seems to be stupid or slow.  I do not think that is always true, even in my dreams.  In real life, it is certainly NOT true.  However, there are many times in dreams and in life when other people do not see a need I see or believe in or are slow or stupid or otherwise impeding what seems necessary to me. I observe every day people who are smarter than I, know more than I, are more organized than I am, better writers, better artists, etc.  I do not, in waking life, consider myself the best at anything.  On the other hand, there seems to be a vast crowd of dolts and idiots surging around.  Watching other drivers can frighten one off the road, for example.  Reading things people forward (a bad habit) can make one question the intelligence and sanity of the sender.  (I think some people forward everything they get without a moment’s thought to its value.)  In this dream, when Keith disappeared, I did not know whether he left or had fallen in or what I did NOT know what to do.  (I often do not know what to do.)  In the first part, however, I knew we needed to walk across the pool hand-in-hand to find him, since we couldn’t see to the bottom of the pool.  (These were not regular swimming pools, and were old, and brown rather than blue and the water wasn’t entirely clear—more like pond water, but not sewage. Thus the foot-dragging for location.)

The human chain to locate possible drowning victims was a part of my past, a constant part of my childhood and my children’s childhood.  It always frightened me, especially as a child.  I was also frightened when my kids were little.

Interesting that I have to wonder if my sometimes (often) being in charge of things in dreams is a bad thing, and whether you (Brian) were pointing out a flaw in my personality.  Or is it a good thing?  Or is it just a thing?

Crow Man and Heidi

Crowman and me
After The Crow Man, by Winterwolfe

Crow Man and Heidi

I am at the premiere presentation of Crow Man.  Scientists have taken a real, living crow and added human chromosomes and done a series of operations.  They intend to make him fully human, but have not finished yet.  Crow Man is about three feet tall.  His skin color is nearly a normal human color, pinkish, with a little grey left from the black.  His spine has been straightened he walks erect, his beak has been removed and his face looks human, though slightly strange.  He still has the beak, which has been expanded.  He holds it up to his face and he resembles a crow, he takes it away and he’s human again.  His hair is jet black and feathery.  His hips are wrong, still, and his has trouble walked and especially turning.  His feet are long and somewhat crippled—and bare.  They curl in such a way that he mainly walks on the outsides of his feet—more operations are scheduled for the hips and feet.  He walks around awkwardly and comes to where I am sitting talks to me.  I ask him questions and he replies.  He takes a like to me and gives me a kiss.  Not a romantic or sexual kiss, just a friendly kiss.  When he turns around and walks back the other way, I wipe the cooling drop of his spit from the side of my mouth.  Then, I look around in hopes no one saw me do that because it seems rude.  I don’t want to wipe away the kiss, only the spit and any germs it might contain.  But it seems like a fine line.  The audience, however, is engaged in watching Crow Man.  Or seems to be.

After the presentation is over, there is a reception, and people are sitting at picnic tables still listening to the scientists answer questions.  There will be food and beverage, but I want to go take a walk before it gets dark.  I go over to Heidi.  Keith is somewhere, too.  But Heidi doesn’t want to walk; she wants to stay and listen to the questions about Crow Man.  She says Keith wants to stay too, though Keith is not in evidence at the moment.  I try to talk her into coming, but she won’t come.  Finally, I go out to walk alone.  It seems to me that the questions and answers are all a rehash of what has already been said anyway. 

I am sad and a little upset and angry because the delay has caused it to get dark. I am in a strange and unfamiliar place and don’t know my way around.  I know there is a lake at the bottom of a long gradual hill and decide to go there first.  I can see the lake faintly in the distance and also a long lawn running down to it—all in the very dark dark. I walk down toward the lake and in the dark, I trip on a pipe or some pipe-like object protruding from the ground up to about mid-calf.  It hurts and I stumble and wake up.  Tuesday, December 20, 2011

What does this remind you of?

Ø  Shamanism:  First, and dream with talking animals reminds me of Shamanism, which I studied, including dream Shamanism.  This is bad time for me, right before Christmas, to work with the dream Shamanistically; I am too busy and that takes time.  Crows are very intelligent.  They are also thieves.  They steal food from farmers, and they also sometimes steal shiny things, like a magpie.  They steal babies from other birds.  They supposedly have been known to poke out the eyes of human who try to attack their nests—they are protective.  Because they are black, they are sometimes considered to be evil.  It would be interesting to consider what such a creature would have to tell and teach me.  I miss my Shamanistic practice—I seem to have less time for everything. I had no partner and no kid living at home back then.

Ø  Walking:  Walking is essential to my well-being, but sometimes difficult and painful.  I need to try to cram it into every day, no matter how busy. This causes difficulties for my family, my friends and me. I don’t mind walking in the dark with a companion, but prefer to walk during daylight hours if I walk alone so I can write while I walk.  Also, if in unfamiliar territory, so I don’t trip and possibly injure myself!

Ø  Not wanting to walk:  When Heidi was here, she and Keith made it clear that they did not want to walk in the mush-puhsh.  I was secretly a little disappointed that she, my great walking companion of old, who lives in the wilds, was (in those instances) so prim and prissy.  And wimpy.  However, part of the problem was her shoes, and later, she got out a better pair of shoes.

Ø  Ethics and Morals:  Although I was very interested in Crow Man in the dream, and still am, sometimes it seems as if scientists do thing they should not so, and this might be one of them.  I just finished a book where the protagonists did some bad things, which is always upsetting and disappointing to me.  I like the protagonists to be the “good guys” and gals; they can and should have faults, but it seems to me that the good guys should not go beyond a certain point and if they do—they are no longer good guys but bad guys.

Ø  Bare feet:  remind me of childhood, of nature, of savages (the primitive) of being in contact with nature.

Ø  Tripping in the dark: Hmmm.  I trip a lot, both literally and figuratively, and more often in the literal and figurative dark than in the light.  I could ask myself, “in what ways am I tripping myself up?”  There are many answers and I have little time right now—I trip myself up by walking at night, by eating bad foods, by beating myself up, by taking on too many projects, by not finishing the ones I have, but not submitting my work.  By getting angry.

"Wherever crows are, there is magic.  They are symbols of creation and spiritual strength.  They remind us to look for opportunities to create and manifest the magic of life.  They are messengers calling to us about the creation and magic that is alive within our world everyday and available to us." Ted Andrews

Ø  Magic:  If I look at Crow Man is MAGIC rather than as a scientific teratogenic monster, it serves to remind me of the magic and creativity and love in life.  Of transformation.  And of joy and happiness, and gives me a surge of hope at a time when I am feeling overwhelmed and depressed.

"Since Crow is the keeper of sacred law, Crow can bend the laws of the physical universe and "shape shift".  This ability is rare and unique.  Few adepts exist in today's world, and fewer still have mastered Crow's art of shape shifting.  This art includes doubling, or being in two places at one time consciously; taking on another physical form, and becoming the "fly on the wall" to observe what is happening far away....

     "Crow is an omen of change.  Crow lives in the void and has no sense of time.  The Ancient Chiefs tell us that Crow sees simultaneously the three fates- past, present, and future.  Crow merges light and darkness, seeing both inner and outer reality."

Sams and Carson Medicine Cards

Ø  Shape-shifting:  This is powerful Shamanistic stuff.  Since my crow shape-shifted (with the help, in the dream, of the scientists, it reminds me of the studies I did with Robert Moss in shape-shifting, of being in two places at once, of sending the mind-spirit out to hunt.  This is what we do also as poets and artists.

Ø  The inner and outer reality:  Seeing both is like the healing process, bringing the subconscious to the conscious and becoming aware.

Ø  Being chosen:  The fact that Crow Man chose me in the dream—did not kiss anyone else—reminds me of my fear that I am chosen by men bent on hurting me (abusers), but also by this powerful but as of yet crippled figure of Shamanistic power.  (This reminds me of the Mogur in The Clan of the Cave Bear!)  It gives me a sense of latent power, strength, and ability.

Ø  Twisting:  I notice that I am twisting the apparent meanings in the dreams—the surface meanings, into something more positive.  I do not necessarily see that as a bad thing, because being in touch with deeper feelings mined in this manner have given me more energy and cheer at a time when I needed it.  Energy and cheer are useful.  J

Ø  Stopping:  I notice that the work I do after I decide I “should” stop is more important than the work before that.  And were I to go on, I might do better work yet.  BUT I MUST STOP.  I have other things I MUST do.  L

I would like to do some art to go with this, but that ain't about to happen immediately!!!

The green shirts

I buy a bale of pale yellow green T-shirts, really cheap.  But when I open them, not only are they more poorly made than I imaged, but also, they each have named inside the colors and are obviously used and frayed.  One has many names.  They seem to be children's shirts from camp, ad I am afraid they won't fit.

My Brother, his Novel, the Hidden Chair and the Security Unnecessary Guilt and False Accusations

My Brother, his Novel, the Hidden Chair and the Security

Unnecessary Guilt and False Accusations

My brother Robert lends me a book about a 14-year old girl that he thinks I would be interested in.  It is a novel interspersed with pictures, poems, and scrapbook items.  It has a cheap red cover and has fallen into two pieces, which are in danger of splitting further.  The threads of the binding are hanging out.  I am sitting at the dining-room table in someone else’s house reading and enjoying the book.  There are maybe eight other people in the house, and they are expecting their grandmother and when she arrives, they all parade into the dining room.  I consider moving, but do not.  Someone complains that there aren’t enough chairs.  Because there seems to be one chair too few, about half the contingent returns to the living room.  I stand up and point out another chair that was half-hidden behind mine.  But no one returns to the dining room.  I feel guilty, even though I don’t think it is my fault, and I leave the house with my brother. 

My brother has never been here, to this location before.  I tell him about the ancient graveyard behind the house and we walk up the stone walkway up the hill to the graveyard.   It is not like old American graveyards, but like old European graveyards.  I am excited about this and telling him about the ones we saw in Slovenia, Italy and Australia. 

At the back of the graveyard is an old low stone building, and we go inside.  We are immediately drawn to a large glassed-in cage full of hermit crabs.  There are robot arms with gripper jaws that can be used to pick up the food for the crabs and deliver it from the plastic bins, which can be filled from the cage, to the crabs.  We each have a turn doing this.  I get an old rotted-looking brown onion and try to deliver it to a certain crab, but it rolls away down the rocks and half in ad half out of the water.  I hope the crab will get it.

We leave the building and Rob is going off somewhere.  I tell him there are snow-clad mountains just beyond here, but he says I can show him later; he has to do something.  Because I’ve only been here maybe once before, and I am not sure I am remembering correctly. I decide to check to be sure I’m right about the mountains.  Also, I remember, there are other interesting ruins.  I walk past some appealing ruins and come around a bend in the trail and can see the mountains in the distance—they are tall, thin, and rocky with bulgy rocks rather than rock faces—very strange formations, with patches of snow like alpine glaciers near the top.

I want to walk closer, but there is a large school bus blocking the way.  I consider crawling under it to continue my walk on the other side and bend and look under the bus, but it is covered, under there, with thick black grease.

A security guard comes and is upset, thinking I want to vandalize the bus.  I explain that I am just trying to follow the trail to the mountains and the bus is blocking the trail.  I go around the bus, but the security guard follows me.  She is haranguing me.  I stop to defend myself from her accusations and a line of people walking toward the mountains comes by the narrow space behind the bus where we are standing.  Among them are Bruce and Debby.  They do not appear to see me.

I follow them.  The security guard follows me, making false accusations.  I just keep walking toward the mountains, ignoring her.  Sunday, December 4, 2011

What does this remind you of?

Ø  a way to write a novel

o   (Reminds me of a novel series that was popular maybe ten years ago)

o   (Might be a fun way to write a novel)

Ø  unnecessary guilt

o   that I was taking up a chair needed by someone else (someone who was welcomed and wanted whereas I was not welcomed.) but there was, in fact enough chairs.

Ø  false accusations

o   the missing chair: I was accused of making it so there were not enough chairs, when in fact there was

o   the security guard: I was accused of wanting to vandalize the bus when it had never even occurred to me.

o   I REALLY HATE being falsely accused.

Ø  various failures

o   The hidden chair

o   Feeding the crab

o   I am sad and upset when I feel that I have failed

Ø  successes:

o   Remembering the cemetery

o   Remembering the mountains

o   I am pleased to have remembered correctly

Ø  things that engage and interest me

o   the novel

o   the old cemetery

o   the robot arms and the crabs

o   the ruins

o   the mountains

Ø  ignoring the security guard

o   Ignoring my false inner voices

o   The security guard is like my inner voice that tells me I am “bad” when I am not. 

o   In one case, I gave into it (the inner blaming voice of guilt) and left the house where there were sufficient chairs because I felt bad

o   In the other case, I totally ignored the persistent accusations, knowing in my heart I was not guilty.  The haranguing of the guard was like a mosquito buzzing around my ear, an annoyance but not heartfelt.

o   The difference is, I think, that I was partly blocking the view of the last chair and therefore felt that I actually was PARTLY to blame for the anger of the woman who chastised me.  In the one case, I knew for sure I wasn’t at fault, and in the other case, I felt somewhat responsible and also unwanted and unloved.  But even in that case, I wasn’t really to blame.

o   I feel as if I am often falsely accused or blamed for things.

o   On the other hand, I do actually make mistakes and do things wrong sometimes.  L  I really HATE being wrong and/or stupid.  (I want to be perfect, but I am NOT!  Darn!)

An Impulsive Mistake

I am looking out the window of some academic building on some campus with someone, and I see my daughters walking a bunch of dogs.  I tell the person I am with that those girls are my daughters and that the dogs, or some of them, at one time were mine.  I name the dogs and describe them, so she will know which is which.  Sassy and Charlie are there, but all the other dogs are different, brown and blacks and larger than Sassy and Charlie.  Sara and Erin go around the corner and I tell my companion that the girls are taking a class in that building across the street and it is an excellent class with a fantastic teacher.  We go over there, up the stairs and into the “lounge” of the classroom, which is a large living-room-like room, a little darkish, with couches and easy chairs and displays of student work.  I proudly show my companion my daughters’ projects and then the projects of some of the other students.  There are a number of students in the room who I seem to be mildly acquainted with.  I discover a project I hadn’t seen before that was getting lots of attention.  It had a sign on it saying that the two boys who worked on it have submitted it to the president of the United States.  The boys were both in the room and I ask them about it, and they say the famous actress Sherry Fairchild is investing everything in it in the spring.  I am amazed and proud and glad for them.

I am holding a girl on my lap—a college-age girl in a white dress, slender and pretty, the way I would hold a child.  We are sitting in the room, and then we are sitting in a swimming area on a rock.  I see several frogs swimming by and I think to impress the girl by catching one and I dart my hand down and snag one.  I am a bit surprised it was that easy.  The girl, though, is a little bit upset. I tell the girl that the frog is worried because it thinks I am going to eat it.  The girl gets off my lap and moves away and I am moving through the water with the frog in my hand about to let it go, when I put my hand on the top of a rock so tall jutting out of the water that I do not notice a HUGE frog sitting on top of the rock.  The frog in my hand I had thought was a nice large green frog, but this one is huge.  Without thinking what I am doing, I toss my frog into the large frogs open mouth.  I see the reason that it is open is that the big frog has another frog in its mouth.  I want my frog to jump back out and consider scooping it out.  I am sorry I have thrown it in.  Just as I go to reach for it to rescue it, feeling terrible and guilty, the big frog partially swallows and my frog partly disappears, without a struggle, down the big frogs gullet.  It is still visible, just its head and one of its legs.  I feel awful, bad.

I decide, however, not to try to dig the smaller frog from the throat of the big one and am standing on the side of the cement wall of the pond/pool area considering diving in, but I think the water might be too shallow.  And full of underwater rocks, so I turn to the side and consider diving into the deep end.  But I am wearing jeans.  I wonder if I want to take them off and swim in my underwear, swim in my clothes, or not swim.  Or skinny dip.  All the students from the class, those that were in the room when I was there, are around in and out of the pool.

The teacher of the students asks me if they could take a field trip out to my farm.  I am telling her that the place is sort of run down and would not be a good place for a field trip.  I start describing the barn as having a green fiberglass roof held together with duct tape and I look up and notice that the roof of the school is made of green fiberglass and has duct tape patches.  But their green fiberglass is almost transparent and the patches are only over the nail holes.  I am wondering if I even have any chickens left.  I tell her the ducks and goats are gone.  I am visualizing, with great sadness, deep decrepitude.  Friday, November 18, 2011

What does this remind you of?

The most powerful part of the dream is the business of catching the frog and feeding it to another frog.  This reminds me of all the impulsive stupid things I have done that I feel guilty about, most recently, the incident of hitting Keith and other angry outbursts.  One in the past was tattling on Linda.  There are many things I feel sad and guilty about. Some were things I did and shouldn’t have and some things I didn’t do but should have.  These things upset and haunt me.  I wish time could be rewound to the point before the incident and I could be allowed to make a better choice.  Thinking about killing that frog that was swimming innocently through the water makes me feel really BAD and SAD.  I want to undo that and undo hitting Keith and tattling on Linda etc.  And the bad things that happened to Sassy, Charlie, Vickie, Buffy, Shendy etc.  And my current ambivalent feeling about pets.

I started the dream by telling a companion about what I was seeing, but at some point, the companion faded away and I was “narrating the dream as if writing a story.”  This reminds me of my work on my current novel, all the other novels I’ve written, and my lack of getting any of them published.  This makes me sad, angry, guilty, frustrated. (*)

The girl on my lap reminds me of when I used to hold Erin on my lap, even when she was a big girl.  It reminds me of holding all the kids, including Graham, and the grandkids.  And not holding Frankie, because I’m too far away for him to know me.  In the dream, my feelings for the girl were loving and innocent. Motherly, rather than sexual.  (*)

It also reminds me of being a kid and being held by my mother, father, grandmother, aunt etc.  (And being held by Keith and the need for physical warmth.)

The teacher wanting to bring the class to the farm reminds me of negative things associated with the end state of the “farm” and of Raven Girl and Santana and Raven Girl’s foal, and of the worsening state of the house we live in and my state of inability to function physically etc.  (More things to feel guilty and bad about  L)

In the dream, the president of the United States seems to still be the kind of figure that a child thinks the president is, as opposed to the bumbling fools I think of the presents now.  In the dream, the president is impressive and wonderful.

Looking out the window at my daughters reminds me of how far away they are and how little I know of their current daily lives and how I wish I lived closer.

The actress Sherry Fairchild investing in the boys reminds me of how I wish some editor or agent would discover ME and love MY WORK.

The students I seem to mildly be acquainted with through my daughters remind me of the friends of my daughters I know (somewhat) and hooked up with on Facebook or in other ways.

The dream reminds me of

Ø  My love of and lifetime relationships with animals, good and bad.

Ø  My desire to be a fantastic teacher, writer, photographer, artist, singer.  And my failures.  AND some successes!

Ø  The academic community, my love for it, dislike of it.  My love of learning, my fear about Alzheimer’s/dementia.

Ø  My academic successes and current failure to accomplish what I want.  Last year’s success at NaNoWriMo and this year’s apparent failure (I am running way behind!)

Ø  How I used to love to swim but rarely do any more.

Ø  The bad things on the farm—I guess I said that, must be time to quit.

In the Looney Bin and Almost Lucid

I visit a live-in care home for crazy people, emotionally disturbed and retarded or physically disabled people of various ages.  The “keepers” or staff are having breakfast and invite me to sit with them and I have some of their food which is a mixture of potatoes and meat—large pieces like a stew. Then I go in among the patients to observe.  They are roaming around a courtyard that is planted with trees and flowers and looks as if it is a section of woods, pond and bog brought into the courtyard rather than a garden.  People, children and adults are roaming around in various activities, but there is something strange about them and their wanderings, something random and disturbing. 


One great huge fat young man rockets out of a cave on his belly like a gigantic otter, crushing some orchids I’d just been admiring.  I look sadly at the mashed orchids.  He is unconcerned, doesn’t even noticed, and I am disturbed and annoyed by this.  The young man disappears into the forest within the courtyard.



I need to use the bathroom* and throughout the continuing dream, I try to do this and am thwarted.  I discover that the first sets of bathrooms I find will not lock.  I decide to use one anyway, but then the director of the place, a man, comes in to ask me if I want the same thing for breakfast today as yesterday.    I say, “I will have anything, or that,:” and then realize I have to tell him about my allergies.  I am standing there with a wad of toilet paper in my hand I think I have to flush the toilet because I started and didn’t finished because I’d gotten up to check again for a lock when I heard someone coming.  Later, I find a staff bathroom with multiple kinds of locks including a special high power unlockable lock for staff, which has a long key about three feet long.  I fiddle with the lock.  I really have to use the bathroom, but it occurs to me that this seems much like a dream. Ῠ  I might be dreaming, so I’d better be careful so in case I am, I don’t pee and wet the bed.  I feel, stroke, palpate the bathtub next to the toilet—it is cold and very hard, shiny, and feels like porcelain.  The toilet has no seat.  I lower myself onto the cold hard porcelain, and take a moment to consider.  It’s cold, it’s hard, it’s a real toilet and not a dream.  I pee a little, but I am afraid. Tuesday, October 25, 2011



I wake up to discover I am in fact in bed, and luckily, I did not actually pee.


*I often have dreams about needing to use the bathroom before I wake up in the morning, because, in fact, physiologically, I do need to use the bathroom.  Usually, the dream goes out of its way to thwart me, to keep me from using the bathroom until I wake up.



What does this remind you of:



I am fascinated by the workings of the mind.  The fact that within the dream, I realized I might be dreaming and had better be careful not to pee the bed interests me.  The fact that within the dream, I investigated the toilet and bathtub and found them to be HARD and COLD and shiny and smooth and in every perceivable way like a bathtub, but was still afraid to pee indicates that at some level, I knew I was dreaming.  It also shows how REAL  a dream can be, which indicates that any time we believe we are awake, we could be dreaming, which brings into question all of “reality” or the phenomenal world as we perceive it.  If in a dream, when I am laying in bed in the dark with my eyes closed, I can see light (lots of light), and flowers etc, and FEEL cold hard tubs and toilets, and in every other way experience what is convincingly real, how do I know what we call reality is real?  And not just my dream or someone else’s?



Ῠ:  note that again, I had an opportunity to become fully “lucid,” that I came close to it, but failed to realize consciously (as opposed to simply consider) that I was, in fact, asleep and dreaming.  However, this is a step closer, so I am hoping to still be able to possible do “lucid” or conscious dreaming.



The location reminds me of a home for disturbed people I visited after an accident in a blizzard.  I found it very disturbing and it haunts me.  I am writing a book about it. Or, it appears in several books I am working on.  (Discuss?)(Maybe have already been discussed multiple times?)  Why did/do I find it so distressing?  In the dream, I found it distressing.  I tend to “tune in” empathetically to various “energies” people put out, including crazy confusion, and then I feel somewhat crazily confused and disoriented.  (The dream about the loony bin is much more detailed than described above; I can no longer recall the details.)



I’ve had a fear of “The Looney Bin” ever since I was at Langley Porter and they said I would never recover.  Interesting that at the Looney Bin, I am “almost Lucid,” but not quite.  Sometimes, I think that the truly “sane” are “crazy.”  I’m not sure that being truly sane is an appropriate goal—perhaps being happy and conscious (aware) is a better goal?  No, not “happy,” because no one can be happy all the time, probably, unless they are in fact a little crazy or touched or something, but what?  Total self acceptance?  Inner calm?  None of these seem right, because sometimes, calmness is not the appropriate response to what happens—SOME core of inner calm could remain, though.  And I guess total self acceptance might be a goal, I just have trouble imagining being that forgiving of one’s foibles.  



Orchids and other rare wildflowers often get stepped on and crushed by animals, which seems somehow ironic.  I’ve also seen them crushed by young men on motorcycles, which angered and upset me.  In the dream, I wasn’t sure if that great fat young man (teenage boy?) had the ability to care about the flowers.  So I wasn’t sure whether to be sad or angry.

Sometimes, I feel as if I am becoming like that great fat boy, mashing everything in my path, and that I may have to navigate by sliding along the ground when I am too fat to walk.  Needless to say, I am upset by my weight and size.  

Lessons

Lessons

 

 

Through cracks in the sea-shrunk boards of the shanty

flows danger-darkened air. Vapors billow, taint the room

with the smells of searot, putrefying fish and terror. I do not need

to open the door to know that outside, a sea witch waits.  Through

heavy oak wood, I see her clearly; her feet drift an inch above the step.

 

Her gown shimmers, glitters and floats around her in waves of blue,

green, and endless black.  Beside her stands her merman consort

with his scaly legs and sharpened trident.  Apprehension clings

to my skin like dirty spider webs, like decaying fishnets. I peel off

the slime of fear and flick it out the window, slam shut the opening

 

against invasion. I shutter myself as well, close my eyes, cover

my ears, sleep away the day. Hours later, when my husband returns

with his catch of the day, the witch and her companion still stand

at the door, waiting. Waiting.  Patient.  When I ask what she wants,

she says, "You are finished," and her voice reverberates

 

deep in the bones of my chest. She is a teacher, my husband

reminds me, but I dread her lessons. Like my mother, my father,

and all the men who claimed to love me, she enumerates my faults.

The baggage of my shortcomings pile on the floor around me,

as many and endless as waves on the sea behind her. But when I ask

 

what she is selling, thinking elixirs, miracle cures, redemption, she

and her silent green merman disappear, leaving the stoop empty

but for a sudden whirlpool. Twisting waters suck me in, twirl me

around, whisk me away. Now, with the same joy I find in flying, I ride

inside the belly of a fish as transparent as if made of glass. Through

 

the prisms of its scales, I watch, in exultation the passing coral,

yellow tang fish, clown fish and anemones in shifting kaleidoscopes

of sparkling light and color. If I broke open now, this rainbow

would paint your face, this laughter serenade your dreams.

 

 

 

Mary Stebbins Taitt

"Finished" and Glass Fish

 

I am in a small cabin with a bed, some spare furniture, and multiple doors.  I want to do some exercises that require partial nudity, but 2 people are standing at the side door (stage right).  I can't see them, but I know they are there and I am afraid.  I do not want to answer the door because I'm alone and scared.  I do not think they have knocked; they are just standing there.  Their unexplained presence is worrisome.

 

I prop a very flimsy small folding chair against the door and start doing exercises.

 

Later, Keith comes home, entering stage left.  As I am telling him about the strangers at the door, I walk to the front door (stage rear), and look out.  The two people are still there, now at the front door.  I turn back to Keith and say, "They're still there!" and am wondering why they moved from the side door to the front door.

 

In anger and frustration tinged with fear, I ask them what they want.

 

One of them, a woman (in black?), who seems to be in charge, says, "You're finished!"

 

She says it in a deep, severe tone of voice, like a death knell, and I think she is death, come to take me away, and I am terribly frightened.

 

But she continues, "You can't even take care of the baby" (there is suddenly a baby in an old-fashioned wooden rocking cradle by the fireplace—my baby?) and then blah blah blah a whole litany of everything that is wrong with me—"you're fat, more than one hundred pounds overweight and deep in the throes of addiction, you're lazy, you're messy, you're defensive, etc etc etc on and on and on—[I can't remember everything she said, but it was all negative, all 'true' and the sort of thing I beat myself about.])

 

I am lying in a chaise in front of the open door where the woman is expounding my faults and shortcomings, and am half asleep.  I ask sort of sarcastically, "what are you selling?"  (I am thinking maybe she is selling some sort of miracle cure to all my problems—drugs—religion, meditation, something).

 

No answer.

 

I get up and look out the door.  No one is there.  The front porch is empty.  They've disappeared. 

 

Keith tells me that the woman used to be a kindergarten teacher.  Her companion never speaks. 2-20-11

 

I wake up, go back to sleep, dream

 

I am joyously riding in a glass fish that is swimming in the water and watching the colors in the glass change as it moves.  I look up and down and all around—it's so incredibly beautiful and blissful. Then I am home thinking about painting what the world looks like from inside a glass fish.  I think it should be a movie, because it is in 3 dimensions, or it should be a sculpture you could get inside of.  2-20-11

 

What does this make you think of?

 

Ø  the first dream was "negative" and upsetting, critical, scary.  The second dream was full of light and beauty, uplifting, creative, engaging.  It makes me think of yin and yang, of the ups and downs of life, of the creative process of living and dying.  Obviously it makes me think of death and dying.

Ø  perhaps I have died after the first dream and the fish is my ride to heaven or heaven itself or some form of it.

Ø  My grandmother died of cirrhosis of the liver.  She may have been a drinker, but if so, I wasn't aware of it.  Cirrhosis of the liver is a now becoming a common cause of death by obesity, along with breast cancer, heart attack stroke, and a whole host of other health issues caused by obesity.  The dream seems like a warning for me to do something about it.  But it doesn't tell HOW.  (Other than deal with the addiction, but how?)

Ø  Who is the baby?  I have two biological children, a stepson, grandchildren, including a baby, and I also have my books (my book-babies).  Maybe I am not taking care of all the book-babies I've already birthed.  Frog Haven, for example.  Story 16. The Herpetologist.  Following Wolfie.  Muddy. Etc.

Ø  If the woman who tells me I am finished used to be a kindergarten teacher, maybe she is trying to teach me something.  Maybe she is trying to shock me into changing my lifestyle.  But she doesn't actually TEACH anything; she just criticizes, like so many adults and teachers, parents etc.

Ø  The fact that she disappears so suddenly when I ask the wrong question makes me think she is a spirit guide, and I need to listen.  But if so—perhaps she should speak more clearly.  Give me some useful info.

Ø  Nearly asleep on the chaise—sleeping through my life, being in denial about (or not wanting to hear) all the criticisms.  Sounds like a negative abusive parent or spouse.  Sounds like a child tuning out a parent!  But also, when I dream I am sleeping, it is partially an awareness that I actually AM sleeping.

Ø  The glass fish makes me think also of Jonah and the whale, though it seemed that the glass fish was relatively small and I was also small.  And also of the great fish dreaming the world.

Ø  Maybe I am the baby I can't take care of—my inner child.

Ø  I wonder why I looked out the front door for someone who I thought WAS at the side door?  In my life, am I looking for something in the wrong place?

 

Eric says he was never a flasher.  I have many memories of him as a flasher, but who is to say my memories are right and his wrong?  But why would I remember him as a flasher and no one else, and why very specific memories, very clear.  (Were they dreams?  I don't think so!)