May your dreams do their magic in your life. Bob Krumhansl Electric Dreams Electric Dreams Electric Dreams Electric Dreams Electric Dreams Electric Dreams To subscribe to Electric Dreams Send from the address you want to subscribe to electric-dreams-request@lists.best.com And put in the body of the e-mail only subscribe your-email To unsubscribe from Electric Dreams Send from the address you want to unsubscribe to electric-dreams-request@lists.best.com And put in the body of the e-mail only: unsubscribe your-email Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z E L E C T R I C D R E A M S Volume 6 Issue #8 AUGUST 1999 ISSN# 1089 4284 Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z Electric Dreams on the World Wide Web USA www.dreamgate.com/electric-dreams Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z Send Dreams and Comments on Dreams to: Richard Wilkerson Send Dreaming News and Calendar Events to: Peggy Coats Send Articles and Subscription concerns to: Richard Wilkerson: For back issues, dream groups, editors addresses and other access & Staff see ELECTRIC DREAMS ACCESS INFORMATION at the end of this issue Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z C O N T E N T S ++ Editor's Notes Special Thanks to Bob Krumhansl ++ Dream Airing: Notes to the Editor, News, Updates. ++ ASD Conference 99 - what you missed! - Richard Wilkerson ++ Poem: Poem of the Past by Linda Lane Magall›n ++ Special Section: Dream Sharing with Serbia A special report of a dream group held during the Crisis in Kosovo: Transcripts and notes by Richard Wilkerson & Branka Introduction Question Phase of DreamWheel Replies from Dreamer Comment Phase of DreamWheel Replies from Dreamer Extra Notes from Dreamer ++ New Web Site: Dream Analysis by Dream Counsel ++ Research Request: Computer's in Dreams : Pre and Post Internet Perceptions. Part I Pre-Net Dreams - Richard Wilkerson DREAM SECTION - with Bob Krumhansl XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX AUGUST 18, deadline for submission FOR Next Electric Dreams vol 6(9) The millennium year Continues - send in dreams about the future, the year 2000 or related themes! XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Editor's Notes +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ In this issue we are offering a full transcript of a dream group held with a Serbian woman during the Kosovo Crisis. I feel this group is such a good example of how dreamwork at a grassroots level is an international tool of understanding. Carl Jung often followed the Neo-Platonic notion that there is a personal soul, but also an Oversoul. Because of the mystical connection between these two souls, Jung always referred to the self as the Self, with a capital "S". At the beginning of our dream group, there were people that immediately left on moral grounds and refused to do dreamwork "with the enemy". Many of us were very nervous about the situation. What kinds of projections would we bring to the group process? Could we get past the media propaganda pouring out from both sides? For those who stayed, transformations occurred. It was very difficult to polarize the political situation and see the Serbian people as a real enemy, regardless of my feelings toward their leadership and military. I feel this reflected a whole cultural attitude that many of us online felt both inside and outside of dreamsharing. Branka, our Serbian dreamer, struggled with the polarization, trying to separate NATO politics from European/American Culture. As with all struggles of this nature, nothing is ever very clear or cleanly separated. As we explore our souls and the souls of our friends online, this not-so-clean reality seems the only thing that is clear. Branka's dream, significantly, was about a hero's uniform that hung empty in a closet. Be sure to read this "Dream Sharing with Serbia" Special. Just in from the Association for the Study of Dreams: Conference 1999 was a success! In a short article I give a few personal reflections on the conference and where things are heading in dreams and dreaming. See "Reflections on California Dreaming". Taking a break after a long conference, some of our regular contributors will return this Fall. Peggy Coats coordinated not only the week long Computer Cafe, but also the Dream and the Internet Panel. Many thanks to her and we all look forward to the return of the Global Dreaming News. Linda Magallon will be back this Fall with more news and challenging ideas in Dream Trek, and in the meantime has send in a special entry, "Poem of the Past." Take Note: Next month we will have a special focus on dreams and creativity and a special Host Editor who I would like to introduce to you now: Hi, I'm Kathleen Meadows and I will be your special host for the September issue of Electric Dreams. Electric Dreams is a community effort e-zine and I would like to call on you as cyber-dream pioneers to join me in making this a memorable issue. If you would like to contribute, I am looking for: Dreams you have used for creative purposes & what happened Your favorite Dreams and Creativity Books, and why Historic uses of dreams and creativity: examples Suggestion for using dreams creatively Workshops and classes you offer or have been to and about them. Please send all material to Kathleen Deadline: Wednesday August 11 SPECIAL THANKS TO BOB KRUMHANSL This is Bob Krumhansl's last month as Dream Editor. :( Bob has taken our very disorganized dream section and made it into a thematic beauty that allows people to find and read dreams and comments on dream each month from various interest areas, such as dream an travel, dreams and spirituality, dream and conflict, ect. Bob, you have really given dreaming in Cyberspace a friendly face and your organizational Dream Section is going to be greatly missed! I probably shouldn't say this, as I would like for someone else to step up and take over as Dream Editor, but it takes a lot longer to do this section than one might guess. Even when I was just cut and pasting them in no particular order, it would take half a day. Bob not only puts all the dreams into one document, but organizes them and has offered us a summary and editorial every month since volume 2 Issue 13, October 1995! Fortunately, Bob is not Leaving Electric Dreams, just stepping down as Dream Editor. I look forward to hearing more from you soon. Thanks again Bob for being a pioneer Internet dream sharing and dreamwork. Your dreams will circulate forever in Cyberspace and in our imaginations. - Richard rcwilk@dreamgate.com +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Dream Airing: News, Notes and Events +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ The Global Dreaming News with Peggy Coats will return next month on Electric Dreams. If you have dream book reviews, film reviews, updates on web sites or any other dream events and news, send that to Peggy Coats pcoats@dreamtree.com before Aug 15th. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ DreamLife: Lucid Dreaming in the Netherlands. http://members.tripod.lycos.nl/blankenThe main bulk is in the Dutch language,but there are however topics in English available : joining my dreamcircle is possible and maybe it is interesting for you that you can contact ( carolus@dds.nl ) me in the Dutch,English,French or German language. Furthermore there are some Articles in the English language and one in French. Also my Review of the Lucid Dream Liteature is available , and the Links of course You may recall Carolus M. den Blanken from his many other lucid dream resources, inluding his speech at the European Association for the Study of Dreams: http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/blanken2.htm His book on le Marquis d'Hervey-Saint-Denys http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/denys.htm And the best Lucid Dream bibliography online: http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/bibs/blanken.htm +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Book on CD: A Brief History of Dream Sharing: Theory Techniques and Cyberspace. By Richard Wilkerson Available direct via DreamGate or via Amazon.com This CD is really 3 books in one! The first part of the computer CD is an easy to follow class on dreamwork that starts from the beginning of time and ends with the new dream sharing practices in Cyberspace. This course will let you in on all the major developments in dreamwork and dream science, dream anthropology, lucid dreaming, and dream sharing. The second part of the CD is a collection of essays by Richard Wilkerson over the last decade, including Dream Sharing in Cyberspace articles as well as Postmodern Dreaming essays and more. Over 20 essays! The final part of the CD is a resource and bibliography guide. The bibliography itself if worth the cost of the CD, with thousands of entries of titles of dream books, articles and chapters on dreams in textbooks often hidden from the usual search methods. CD may be used on most computers with a web browser such as Netscape, Internet Explorer, or AOL. For faster delivery, order directly from the publisher with check or money order for $29.95 plus $3.95 shipping and handling: 15% (reduced to $25.46) discount if you order direct within 30 days and mention you saw this offer in Electric-Dreams. California residents add 8.5% ($2.16). Dream CD DreamGate PMB 171-w 4644 Geary Blvd San Francisco, CA 94118 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Lucid Dream Induction: Run by myself, Erin J. Wamsley -- site contains background and information on lucid dreaming, some of my own personal research, a program for the induction of lucid dreams compiling various techniques, links, documents, and an active message board. http://members.aol.com/aarenka/lucidintro.html +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ ASD Conference 99 - What You Missed! - Richard Wilkerson +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ During the Dream Ball on the last night I was chatting with our host Veronica Tonay and asked what time the buildings would be unlocked in the morning so I could get my computer equipment out of the Computer Cafe. Peggy Coats had already taken her equipment out and I had earlier helped Robert Bosnak mail his computers back. Veronica said the volunteers would be up late and so probably get up late. EEEEK. That decided it, I asked for the key and packed up during the Dream Ball. Just before I left I saw a huge turtle swimming across the Dream Ball floor. The turtle was complaining as it swam about being at a party and all the people talking to other people and doing things so fast and it wanted some attention, maybe someone would take the time to talk to a slow dream turtle? Thanks to Jill Gregory for that. And thanks to Peggy Coats for the Computer Cafe and her persistence through all the difficulties. It was a comedy of errors as usual. The school was designated as one of top 10 wired schools just before we closed the contract with them. So they decided they wanted tons of money for what, just a few moments ago, was free. As you might guess, this quickly went beyond ASD's budget so the computer connections once again went from a non-problem to central issue. After several months and a host of stories I could write a book about, the cafe opened! One of the more unique projects was Robert Bosnak's cyberdreamwork http://www.cyberdreamwork.com. Since ASD doesn't allow dreamwork online, he decided to be his own subject. Robbie connected with three other people on the east coast via Internet voice conferencing and they asked him questions about a dream he had that morning. Robbie was connected also to a GSR, just like the old scientology e-meters, only much more sophisticated. We were able to watch his "inner" reactions to the dreamwork on a moving graph. This allowed us to watch not only Peaks and slumps in reaction, but also to watch over mood trends and patterns. I wasn't as convinced that there were discernable patterns, but its always fun to see an amplification of what I would call the "blush" factor. Passing of the Crown. Patricia Garfield, who has been doing research lately on Universal Dreams (common dream themes taxonomy www.patriciagarfield.com) handed the presidency over to Alan Siegel. I'm personally happy about this as Alan is a big supporter of online activities. Patricia too has been very supportive of the online growth. I really feel this is a place ASD can get more bang for the buck in fulfilling its educational mission statement. However, the BIG story, internally, is the vote to take George Degnon & assoc. on as the financial manager for ASD. George will be handling just about all the business office decisions and planning once the transition takes place. Rita Dwyer and the Vienna Crew will be closing up shop by the end of the summer. Fariba Bogzaran is about to open up the "heart" office of ASD at JFK University here in the Bay Area, pending some final meetings. The conference itself was really fun for me. I had a bag full of agendas, like getting release forms for more articles online and recording voices of dream authors saying profound things. I didn't have time to do much selling of my Dream - Book on CD, A Brief History of Dream Sharing, and sold exactly 3 copies, one the way out of the conference! Some predominate stage scenes for me were the campus itself. In the morning the fog lingered in the redwood forest. By the end of breakfast it had usually backed off an one could see from the courtyard down across the fields to the ocean. Nice temperatures all day, and then after sunset the fog would roll back in. On my walks to my dorm room I saw families of deer, skunks, raccoons and various other little critters. Much of the conference for me took place in the Cafeteria. I got ten times the info and update and connection there than any of the lectures. I think I planned much of my next decade there. Thursday was the peak cyber-day for me. Things really got global in the morning with the invited speaker Stephen Aizenstat. For those not familiar with Stephen, he runs the Pacifica Graduate Institute and teaches a form of dreamwork very akin to Hillman's archetypal psychology. Lately he has gone global with the promotion of the Earth Charter. This Charter recently failed to be ratified by the United Nations and Stephen was discussing with Gorbachov why this happened, why can't some simple notions about living together in a global village in an ecologically sound way be accepted? Can't the world be saved? Stephen suggested, in true archetypal psychology fashion, that perhaps the ego notion of saving the world needed to be changed. Perhaps we need to listen to what the world wants and needs instead of imposing agendas. This appealed to Gorbachov and he suggested to Stephen to develop a community that could learn to listen to the world. Aizenstat suggested that ASD dreamworkers already had these skills and they could be brought to bear globally, to teach the world how to listen the world dreaming. He got a standing ovation. This set things up nicely for our Dreams and Internet panel. We had twice the number of folks as the last panel (that is, about 20). Sadly, Linda Magallon ended the Fly by Night club research phase. Hopefully the fun will still continue. I will give a wider summary of this panel on Electric Dreams. This panel repeated the original optimism of the Berkeley Panel in 96 and expanded the notion of the Internet in its new transformations which will occur shortly and basically, make the whole world come alive and present. The next presentation I went to that day was a paper session with Jayne Gackenback and others who didn't show up. So Robert Bosnak filled in. Only a few people came. Then Stephen Aisenstat and Gayle Delaney came in and it became one of those special events where it felt like the future of the world was being planned. We got very creative in exploring what the Internet penetrated world would look like in the next decade or so. Some of the main concerns were about the next generation, what are they going to be like growing up with the Net compared to us growing up with TV or our grandparents growing up with Radio? We discussed how young boys like video games and are (thereby?) very interested and adept at lucid dreaming. Young women tend to like chat rooms over video games. But again, the key feeling seemed to be the notion that the screen interface we use now will soon collapse and the Net will be everywhere, the world will be quite alive. (eeeek!) My own feeling is that dreamwork online tends to slow the pace of accelerated selections along intagrated circuits nervous system and open soulful moments of time/space in the body electric. I'm looking forward to the dream journals that will automatically generate a movie of my dream. Alan Flagg, heir to the Kilton Stewart collection was there and I got to see the docu-drama for the first time. I hear it was aired in Hawaii last year and is now available for general purchase. The film focused on the current folks in the area doing dreamwork and on a kind of collage of Stewart and Noone's journey. It seems clear there are people doing dreamwork there, but just what it all means is very unclear to me as a Westerner. They had a case, for example, of a tribes person who had a dream of crossing a river. They had cut down a tree to cross, then panicked as they were crossing due to water bubbling up and the dreamer went back to the shore. The dreamer told the dream to the shamen---(I was told at the conference that native people's around the world *hate* the world "shaman" that we use, as it implies a kind of doctor with hierarchical status, when in fact ~everyone~ in the tribe is considered to have some special gift to give the group) - to a group of elders who interpreted the dream. After much deliberation and after calling more powerful Jaguar shaman in to confer, they decided that the dream meant it was going to rain. I suppose there was a mythic union moment for the group as this interpretation came about, but I was a little disappointed. I suppose it is my western prejudice and I am so detached from the simple rhythms of life that I need to see more in a dream than the weather, or no longer find soul in weather. A person in the film directly asked one of the respondents about the way they dreamed, in the Senoi fashion, and they were very hesitant to talk about it. They said there dreaming is so developed that it would be like a person who knows quantum physics talking to someone who can't add. (my metaphor). They said that they develop dreaming into something quite advanced, while Westerners dream child's dreams their whole life. Change all the Dream Science Books! For some time, many dreamworkers have know intuitively that Hobson's activation-synthesis model was somewhat lacking, but there hasn't been much science to dispute it. Briefly, and with limited understanding on my part, the activation-synthesis theory held that random firing in the pontine brain stem into the neocortex caused dreaming. The cyclic REM activation was received in the neo-cortex and attempted to synthesize the input as best it could. The research has mostly been based on some skimpy chemistry, studies with cats and a case or two about lesions in the pontine brain stem. But no one who refuted it had much say in the world of science. Mark Solms (brain surgeon) , who wrote the recent book The Neuropsychology of Dreams explored a huge spectrum of brain lesion information and has proposed a compatible, but much more expanded theory. Generally, Solms feels that we need to let go of REM as having anything significant to do with dreams and dreaming. Yes, REM seems to activate the brain and it is easier to recall dreams from REM, but for Solms, this is confusing one of several ignition switches for the whole engine. Dreams are started by many things, such as sleep onset before REM takes place, in some epileptic brain events and at sleep offset at places where REM does not figure in. The key is that dreams are a higher brain thing, having little to nothing to do with pontine brain stem rem cycles. It appears to Solms that the dream begins (biologically) in the mid-foreground of the brain and heads backwards. Its is interesting to note that it is absent in the most outer tips, both frontal neo-cortex and the furthest back visual structures where direct seeing would occur. It does locate itself in more complex visual structures, in places in the brain were sensory-locomotion-spacial crossroads exist and in emotional associated parts of the brain. Anyway, I'm just spewing this off the top of my head from memory and giving some impressions of the new directions that physiological/biology research will be taking in this regards. Hobson himself is now working with Solms and has given in to most of Solms research speculations. What does this mean for dreamworkers? Probably very little. We already know that dreams are more about feeling than thinking, that they create worlds (spaces), tend to be imagistically oriented and find it nearly useless to see dreams as random. What now does get confusing is how to teach about dreaming without referring to REM. All those nice statistics about how many dreams we have and for how long are dust in the wind. Row, row, you boat! -Richard Hey, we are considering a cyber-dream connection to the Conference 2000 and need to do a test run - anyone interested in experimenting, drop me a line. We will have folks from Italy, France, Australia, Mexico and more. -Richard +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Poem of the Past Copyright 1999 Linda Lane Magall˘n +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ "In Freud's approach, dreams were examined for information about the past--the hidden infantile sources which had energized the dream." Robert L. Van de Castle Yesterday's dreams reach out for Paul with the arms of his torn teddy bear who sits on the broken chair in the hall. Yesterday's dreams reach out for Paul. Will he ever repair them all? They stretch to embrace him but touch only air. Yesterday's dreams reach out for Paul in the tears of his old teddy bear. Poem of the Past Copyright 1999 Linda Lane Magallo n +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Dream Sharing with Serbia A Transcript from the Electric Dreams DreamWheel [An Online e-mail Dream Sharing Group] April 16 - May 7, 1999 Richard Wilkerson +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ With the collapse of the Roumboullet meetings in France a three month war between NATO and the Serbian army broke out in Yugoslavia. Unlike other wars, the cultures in conflict were able to stay in touch over the Internet and attempt to sift through the massive propaganda pouring out from both NATO and the Serbian held Milosevich government. One such occurrence of this exchange occurred on the Electric Dreams DreamWheel, which is an international dream sharing group that had members from both Serbian and NATO nations. The transcript speaks for itself, but it was clear that participating members in the group found it increasingly difficult to polarize the situation in the ways that occur during most conflicts such as this. RECORD OF TRANSCRIPTS: Hi to all, We are ready to move on the question phase for the next dream, Branka's "Radioactively Contaminated Uniform." If you are familiar with the Electric Dreams DreamWheel process, scroll down to the bottom of the page, read the dream and send questions to Branka via dream-on@lists.best.com If you are new or unfamiliar with the process, please read the instructions below ASKING QUESTIONS of the dreamer In this phase of the process you may ask the dreamer questions about the dream that may ~clarify~ the image of the dream. Do not ask questions that call for interpretations. Example: DREAM: "He turned around and grabbed Bill's jacket away from me." Clarifying Questions: Hi Dreamer, thanks for sharing your dream with us. I was wondering: 1.Who is "he" that grabbed the jacket - did you know him, what did he look like? 2.Are you related to Bill or is he a friend? 3.Were you scared when he grabbed the jacket away? 4.What kind of jacket was it? Dark leather, green raincoat...? Some questions you *DON'T* want to ask: Why do you think he grabbed your jacket? (though you might ask if any reasons went through your head ~during~ the dream.) Did you know that Jackets represent symbols of appearance issues? Do you often have men grabbing your clothes in dreams? What does standing behind someone mean to you? And to the Dreamers- If and when you reply to the questions, do so only to clarify the dream. Try to avoid interpretations at this point. If it is not clear from the dream how to answer a question, simply say it was not clear. Usually the dreamer waits until several members' questions have been mailed to the group to begin answering. Send question to the dreamer to the whole group at dream- on@lists.best.com DREAM: "Radioactively Contaminated Uniform" by Branka I have entered the building in wich my father lives. In this place where elevator is supposed to be, I see this military uniform on the hanger. In the pocket of a uniform, I see photos of Nikola Kojo's family. Just as I get them out of the pocket, I become aware that uniform is radioactivly contaminated. Huge wave of fear grabs the hold on me. I'm desparate. I am convinced I will surely die. FROM: Diana I have the following questions about this dream. Is your father alive? What is your relationship like with your father? Can you say a few words about what "father" means? What are your feelings about "the miliitary"? Who might wear such a uniform? How come you search the uniform pockets? Who is Nikola Kojo? What is radioactivity? How can you tell something is contaminated? What is it like to die of radioactivity? What does it mean to die? What is it like to die? I have entered the building in wich my father lives. Can you describe this building? Where is it? What does it look like? What time of day is it? How are you moving? What are your thoughts/sensations as you enter this building? What is the entrance like? Where are you after you enter? How big is the room? Can you describe the light? Where are you standing? Is it a hallway? Describe the walls. What color are they? Are there any windows? What about the floor? Are you floating? Are you standing? In this place where elevator is supposed to be, Where should the elevator be? How far are you from the elevator? Is there an open space instead of the elevator door? Can you please describe this space in more detail? Is it dark? Is it like a closet? I see this military uniform on the hanger. Where is the hanger? Is it resting on a closet pole? Is there only one hanger? How does the uniform hang? Is it a male uniform? What rank? What color? Can you describe the appearance? Is it contemporary? Is it woolen? Is it dress or fatigues? What kind of uniform? Is it well pressed? Do you experience any sensations when you see the uniform? What do you feel? In the pocket of a uniform, I see photos of Nikola Kojo's family. Which pocket do you reach into? How do you do it? Do you take the uniform off the hanger? Is it easy to reach into the pocket? Do you take the photos all the way out of the pocket? How many photos are there? How big are they? Are they black and white or color? Are they clear? In good condition? Glossy? Describe Nikola Kojo's family. Are the pictures portraits? What do the people in the photo look like. Pick a member of the family from one of the photos. Describe this person. How does she/he look? What would it be like to pose or be photographed? Can you feel into the body or position of this person in the photograph? Just as I get them out of the pocket, I become aware that uniform is radioactivly contaminated. How do you become aware? Is it a sensation? Where do you feel that sensation? Does the uniform look or feel different now? Huge wave of fear grabs the hold on me. How do you experience the fear? What body sensations? Do you act or do anything? Are you still holding the photographs? Are you motionless? I'm desparate. I am convinced I will surely die. Are you resigned to your death? Are you desperate for a way to escape contamination? Do you have a sense of struggle or protest? What is it like to be desperate? Are you alone? Thank you for this powerful dream, Diana FROM: Branka Dear Diana, Thanks for so many questions! I never thought so many questions can come out from such a short dream! I look forward to answering them. Since I have read all of them before starting with answers, it is clear that some of my answers will inevitably be touching the situation I am in right now so, in an attempt to clarify things that will be mentioned in answers, I thought I should let everyone know the following right from the start. I live in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and my country and home town (the capital) are being bombed by NATO for 25 days now. This dream I had on 13th day of bombing. Now, on to answering questions: Is your father alive? What is your relationship like with your father? Can you say a few words about what "father" means? Yes, my father is alive and is 64 years of age. Our relationship is now quite good, but was not so always. My mother died when I was 11 years old, and for a long, long time he thought of me as of an unresponsible kid that he has to take care of, that he is concerned and responsible for – up until my 26 years of age, when I happened to achieve something in my life for myself. Before that we were arguing a lot and often. Now, he respects me and is even proud of me. I always loved him dearly, but now I feel he is returning that love to me, while before my 26 years of age I could not feel his love – just critics, critics, critics. Father for me means someone that guides you, takes care of you, and later in life leans on you for support. What are your feelings about "the military"? Mixed feelings as of recently. I was always a pacifist, could not understand anything military. Since this madness with NATO bombing started, quite a few standpoints and values in me started changing, thou... I'm even scared with these newly emerged feelings. To make it simple: NATO military I HATE, and Yugoslav military forces I fear for, respect, feel gratitude that they are preventing NATO of raping my country and preventing them to enter my country grounds. Many of the people I know have been drafted these days, and I fear for them. I also fear my husband will be drafted. Those all are my "military" associations. Who might wear such a uniform? It's Yugoslavian army uniform. How come you search the uniform pockets? This pocket with photos in it is wide open and photos are so visible. Like they invite me to take them out and look at them. Who is Nikola Kojo? Nikola Kojo is Yugoslav famous, famous actor. He's my age. He played this "military" role in a fabulous, grate movie "Nice villages burn nicely" – movie is about war in Bosnia. I like him as an actor. What is radioactivity? The most horrible thing on Earth. Gun shoots, bombs you can try to escape and save yourself from. But radioactivity – no. If it's present, death is in everything that surrounds you – in food, in the air, on the ground... you can't escape it. How can you tell something is contaminated? That's the real catch. You can't. There are instruments that can measure it, but I don't have one. And, anyway, it only measures it after it's already present, so what's the use? By the time it's spotted, you have already became a victim of it. What is it like to die of radioactivity? I imagine it to be horrible, slow death. Can't escape it. Even cancer some patients manage to escape and get better from. But from this one – no escape, no hope. What does it mean to die? It means exiting the planet Earth. But I don't believe the soul dies. Only body. What is it like to die? Process of dieing is more important to me then the actual death. Once you die, everything is over. But it's the way you die that makes the difference. There is quick death and there is slow, painful death. This possible death of radioactivity is horrible. I have entered the building in which my father lives. Can you describe this building? Where is it? What does it look like? The building from my dream is the building in which my father's apartment is in. This is the apartment I grew up in. I lived there until I became financially independent, then I moved from it to live on my own (with 25 years of age). Now, since bombing started, my husband and I moved to my father's apartment to be together during this madness. This building is in Novi Beograd. It's 11 flats tall building, my father's apartment being on a top, 11th floor. It's ugly, dirty building. But it is dear to me, since so many childhood and youth memories connects me with it. What time of day is it? How are you moving? What are your thoughts/sensations as you enter this building? It's early evening. I have a feeling that, in a dream, I am coming back from a shelter because sirens have just announced the end of NATO attack. That's odd, since in real life I don't go to shelter, I haven't been in it not once in these 25 days. As I enter the building, I feel relief, like the danger is gone, since the attack is over. What is the entrance like? Where are you after you enter? My dream does not start on the outside entrance. The first scene is me already being inside the building hall, knowing I have entered it from the basement (where the shelter is). So, I was not outside. I was in the basement, and have been going up to the ground floor to catch the elevator to take me to the 11th floor. How big is the room? Can you describe the light? Where are you standing? Is it a hallway? Are there any windows? This hall on ground floor is quite narrow. In the middle of this small place there is this elevator box, and around it there are stairs going up. Stairs are quite narrow, maybe some 1,5 meters wide. No windows. Light in a hall is dim. I am standing in front of the elevator door on the ground floor. Describe the walls. What color are they? What about the floor? Are you floating? Are you standing? Walls haven't been painted for years... They are mixture of yellow and brown – quite depressing color. Floor is dirty and old. I just stand there for a moment. Then I somehow conclude that elevator is out of order, and I start going up the stairs. After 2 or 3 steps I see this uniform hanging on the side of an elevator box. In this place where elevator is supposed to be, Where should the elevator be? It should be in this box. How far are you from the elevator? I don't know where the elevator is stuck. I don't see the elevator. Just the box through which it normally operates. Is there an open space instead of the elevator door? Can you please describe this space in more detail? Is it dark? Is it like a closet? Doors of the box of the elevator exist and they are closed. Space inside the box is not dark, as a matter of fact some light is seen from there. That's why I conclude elevator is out of order, because when elevator is normally being fixed, workers turn on some lights in the box to see what they are doing (since no windows in the hall exist). This box for elevator is all made of thick glass that is, also, very dirty and dim. I see this military uniform on the hanger. Where is the hanger? Is it resting on a closet pole? Is there only one hanger? I am not sure on what this hanger is hanged... really don't know. I just see it hanging and I know uniform is on a hanger. It's just one hanger and one uniform on it. How does the uniform hang? Is it a male uniform? What rank? What color? Can you describe the appearance? Is it contemporary? Is it woolen? Is it dress or fatigues? What kind of uniform? Is it well pressed? Wow! I don't know that much about uniforms in real life, you know!! It's a male uniform, of course, no woman serves the army here, you know. Rank? I don't know ranks, never knew them, and don't know if the one from a dream even has one. Color? Well, not one, but combination of colors – you know: different shades of green and brown. I really lack the English words (since English is not my native language) to describe it. I'm sure that on your news some army official of ours sometimes appear, so that's how you can see the real appearance of Yugoslav army uniforms. However, I have the feeling it's an ordinary soldier's uniform, not some major or general, or something. Just plain, ordinary soldier. It's not damaged or even dirty or something, it's in normal state. I don't know about material. Do you experience any sensations when you see the uniform? What do you feel? Well, naturally, at first I am surprised. Why does it hang there? Who left it? Then, upon seeing the photos in the pocket, I conclude it's Nikola Kojo's uniform. Somehow, at that moment, I am aware that he's dead, and that that is the reason the uniform is left bodiless to hang there. That's the only thing left from him. I feel sorrow for him being dead. In the pocket of a uniform, I see photos of Nikola Kojo's family. Which pocket do you reach into? How do you do it? Do you take the uniform off the hanger? Is it easy to reach into the pocket? Photos are in the left down pocket of a uniform jacket. The pocket is wide open and photos are so visible being in it. I don't take uniform form the hanger, I just reach my hand to the pocket and get the photos out. It was not hard to do. Do you take the photos all the way out of the pocket? Yes. How many photos are there? Some 15 to 20 photos. How big are they? Normal, pocket size. Are they black and white or color? Are they clear? In good condition? Glossy? They are color photos, quite clear, in excellent condition. Describe Nikola Kojo's family. Are the pictures portraits? What do the people in the photo look like. Pick a member of the family from one of the photos. Describe this person. How does she/he look? I don't know much of Nikola Kojo's family in real life. In a dream, I don't even see all the photos. I just take them from the pocket and look the first one. In it I see his parents and children. (I don't know if in real life he has any). I don't remember the looks of these people and children. I just remember seeing his family on a picture and thinking – how sad, his children are now fatherless. I honestly do not remember any particular person from the photo. I just remember the feeling that his family is on a photo. What would it be like to pose or be photographed? Can you feel into the body or position of this person in the photograph? I like being photographed. It's the way to save moments from forgetting them. Just as I get them out of the pocket, I become aware that uniform is radioactively contaminated. How do you become aware? Is it a sensation? Where do you feel that sensation? Does the uniform look or feel different now? I really don't know... It just downed on me. But, as it downs on me, I tremble all over. Uniform did not look any different afterwards. Huge wave of fear grabs the hold on me. How do you experience the fear? What body sensations? Do you act or do anything? Are you still holding the photographs? Are you motionless? Huge wave of trembling is felt all over my body. I'm paralyzed, motionless for a moment. Then, I think, I put the photos back to the pocket. I stand some more in front of the uniform, since I am completely aware that I can't run from radioactivity, that I'm already contaminated, and running away from it would not make any difference. I'm desperate. I am convinced I will surely die. Are you resigned to your death? Are you desperate for a way to escape contamination? Do you have a sense of struggle or protest? No sense of struggle or protest, no plans to escape contamination – I am convinced I can't escape it, I can't do anything to save myself. I am convinced I have already been fatally contaminated and now time is the only obstacle between that moment and death. It's as if I run or something, it would not help at all. Damage has already been done. I'm doomed to die. What is it like to be desperate? Are you alone? I am alone in all this. Desperation that I feel is final and powerful feeling. I am aware that, until the day I die, this desperation will not leave me... Diana, thank you for so many useful questions. Before I started answering them, I was not even aware of so many details and feelings this short dream had in it. They really helped me get a wider picture of everything. Love. Branka. From: Bill branka, thank you for sharing your dream. i wanted to get a little clarification on some of the dream images. (paraphrasing) you said that Kikola Kojo is a very famous Yugoslav actor about your age and that his most memorable role to you and many was in a great movie "nice villages burn nicely", a film about war in bosnia. then there are _dream memories_ of him, that are not really about him, but how he was placed in your dream, with a family. then you said "how sad, his children are now fatherless. " did kojo die in the movie, in waking life or just in your dream? also, what does "kojo" mean if taken literally? some names in english like white and black and smith all mean other things, colors, animals, professions. what about kojo? and kikola, is that similar to nikola? i am hestitant to ask, but what is the movie plot and theme and message of "nice villages burn nicely"? -bill FROM: BRANKA Dear Bill, Thanks for helping me understand this nightmare. Here is the clarification you asked for: did kojo die in the movie, in waking life or just in your dream? Nikola Kojo did die in the movie, and he died in my dream. I did not see him die in a dream, but I am somehow (don't ask me how, I really don't know), aware that he is dead. It seems that the very fact that this uniform stands there bodiless is an indication that it's "owner" is dead. If the "owner" of the uniform was alive, it would not hang there. It would be on him, with him. As I see the uniform in the dream for the first time, I don't know it's Nikola Kojo's. It is after I get the photos out of the pocket that I identify the uniform as his and, also, become aware that it is Nikola Kojo that's dead. In real life, however, as far as I know, he is still alive... (I mean, maybe he's drafted or something now, and maybe he got killed, but I really don't know that...). also, what does "kojo" mean if taken literally? some names in English like white and black and smith all mean other things, colors, animals, professions. what about kojo? and kikola, is that similar to nikola? His name is Nikola, not Kikola, it must have been my typing mistake... As far as the meaning of "Kojo" is concerned... no, it does not mean anything in particular, really, although I am aware that some names do mean something (my name Branka, for example, means "the one who defends himself/herself"). I am hesitant to ask, but what is the movie plot and theme and message of "nice villages burn nicely"? Central plot: small unit of some 7 to 8 Serbian soldiers get stuck in a tunnel that is surrounded with muslim forces that don't allow them to get out. This lasts for days, even weeks... they don't have food, water (they were drinking their own urine). They are aware that, if they surrender, they will die horrible death (torturing etc), so they are just waiting in the tunnel for other Serbian forces to help. But they never come. Some of them kill themselves in desperation, the others get killed upon trying to individually get out. The remaining few decide to try and escape. Only two of them manage to survive. (Not Nikola Kojo, thou). Let me emphasize that this movie script was inspired by the true story from Bosnia. Nikola Kojo's role: he was a thief before war. When soldiers came to his apartment, they wanted to draft his younger brother, but to save him, Nikola Kojo introduced himself as his younger brother, and went to war in his place. In the movie, characters are from different background, different generations. Nikola Kojo represents my generation, in metaphorical sense, in this movie. Message of a movie: it is strong movie about war, and has strong anti-war message in it. But it also ends with the open question and possibility that new tragedy in Bosnia and Balkan is also likely to happen again, that this all is not the end... just temporary peace... And you know what – message has proved to be correct – now Yugoslavia is being bombed... Thanks for questions. Looking forward to see your opinion on possible meaning. Branka. FROM:KARL Branka, Thank you for sharing your dream with us. Didn' you share a dream awhile ago that also involved contamination? Here are my questions: When you arrive at the building, where are you coming from? How did you get to this building from wherever it was that you were? What is a building? Why are you going to this building? Did you father invite you over? Is this a regular visit? Are you taking anything to your father? Please describe this building. Does your father live in a building like this? How do you feel about visiting your father? About this day, in general? What is an elevator? Do you have any idea who put the uniform here? What is a pocket? What is a photograph? Where does the photograph appear to have been taken? Please describe Nicola Kojo's family. What feelings does the photograph evoke? Have you ever worked with or been exposed to radioactive or other toxic substances? What does it mean to be contaminated? If you were still in the dream, what would you do after you realize you've been contaminated? Where would you go? Would you be able to treat your contamination? Thanks, Branka. Karl From Branka: Karl, Thanks for so many new questions. I am again amazed with how many different questions such a short dream can elict. No, I did not have my dream before done on Dream Wheel. I'm new to this kind of work, and this is my first dream. As a matter of fact, I don't recall having a contamination dream EVER in my life before this one, although I record them more or less regularly since 1987. When you arrive at the building, where are you coming from? How did you get to this building from wherever it was that you were? Since I really do consider the circumstances I'm in right now to be more then relevant to this dream, I'll try to clarify and further explain it: In real life: I don't live in this building. But, 13 days before having this dream, NATO started bombing Belgrade and Yugoslavia, so I have moved to my father's place, so that we can be together during this madness (so, this is not a dream, this is what is really happening). In a dream: I am aware that NATO is bombing Yugoslavia, that I have moved to my father's place, just like it is in reality. But in a dream, I do not see my self coming to the building. I am entering the ground floor of the building, where elevator door is, from the basement where the shelter is. In a dream, it is as if I have been in a shelter during the time that raid-sirenes were on, and when they have announced the end of danger, I started going up from the basement, to the ground floor, in attempt to catch the elevator to go to my father's appartment. If you happen to wonder from where I got to the basement – well: from my father's appartment. It's like never ending story: 11th floor – shelter in a basement – 11th floor – shelter in a basement – 11th... What is a building? Building is a lot's of appartments gathered at one organized place. The larger the building – smaller the appartments. Why are you going to this building? Did you father invite you over? Is this a regular visit? Are you taking anything to your father? Well, I've just explained that in the first question. It's no regular visit. It's as irregular as it can be! In a dream, I am aware that I have temporarly moved back to my father's place, and that I will be living there as long as these NATO attacks are present. Please describe this building. Does your father live in a building like this? The building in my dream is the building in which my father lives in reality, and it looks just like it really looks in reality: 11 floors high building, quite wide, with lot's of entrances... it's quite ugly, you know. It's old, it's dirty. But I like coming there, since this is where I grew up and was living before age of 25 (now I'm 31) How do you feel about visiting your father? About this day, in general? I'm not visiting my father in a dream. I am aware in a dream that I came back to live there for a period of time that bombing lasts. What is an elevator? Device that makes it easier to climbe hights. If there were no elevators, we'd have to go up the stairs. Since my father's appartment is on the 11th floor, it's so unconvinient that elevator in a dream is out of order . I have to exaust myself with this long climb up to get there. I hate going up the stairs. Do you have any idea who put the uniform here? Not really. What is a pocket? Practical things. If I have pockets, I don't need to carry purse, I can just put things in them, and it's much easier to get around without extra burden of purse. I envy men because most of their clothing articles have pockets, which is not such common a case when women clothing articles are concerned. What is a photograph? Where does the photograph appear to have been taken? Photograph serves to keep memory. I like photos . taking them, having them, being on them. The photograph that I look at in a dream was taken in Nikola Kojo's home. All that can be seen on a photo is couple of kids, his wife and his parents. They all sit on this big, long coutch. Nikola Kojo is not on a photo. In a dream, I have this impression that photo has been taken after he has been drafted, and later mailed to them, so that he can have photo of all of his family with him while he fights the war. Please describe Nicola Kojo's family. I don't know anything about his family in real life, but on a photo in a dream, they look like normal, average family. What feelings does the photograph evoke? Sadness, grief. Have you ever worked with or been exposed to radioactive or other toxic substances? I smoke, ok. I smoke a lot. That's not radioactive, but is toxic. Never worked with toxic substances. But... these days, while these NATO bombs fall around me, there have been some fear raised in press that NATO might have used uranium filled bombs. They also have hitted couple of days ago this chemical industry, and only God knows how toxic that is. I am not sure if our tv is telling us the truth about "water and air being regular". I suspect they don't want to raise panic. So, yes, I have fears that I might have been contaminated somehow, but this dream I had before these roumers started and before NATO hit chemical industry that is just 20 kilometers from the place I am. What does it mean to be contaminated? To be radioactivly contaminated means to be doomed to surely die. No escape from it. If you were still in the dream, what would you do after you realize you've been contaminated? Where would you go? Would you be able to treat your contamination? To tell you the truth, if this have happened in reality, I think I would not behave or feel any different then in the dream. What's the use of trying to escape it or heal it, when it's unhealable? I would probably want to live my last days best I can with the people I love. That's what I would do. Again, thanks for so many questions. Looking forward to work on your dream in the future. Love. Branka. Branka - thanks for your dream. I was wandering: 1. How do you feel when the elevator is not working? 2. How do feel when you find the elevator in a different place? 3. Do you have any feeling about where the elevator is going - i.e. where in your dream your father's place is? 4. What does "uniform" mean to you in general? Does it mean anything other than a military uniform? Thank you Branka and may you be safe kathy FROM: Branka Dear Kathy, Pardon my late responding - wasn't feeling well yesterday. Today I'm much better. 1. How do you feel when the elevator is not working? Well, usually (in real life), this qute upsets me. But, in a dream, I am so upset with this contaminated uniform, that it seems so stupid to be upset by the elevator being out of order. 2. How do feel when you find the elevator in a different place? I don't find the elevator in the different place. I just know that it's stuck somewhere on the upper floors. 3. Do you have any feeling about where the elevator is going - i.e. where in your dream your father's place is? Going to my father's place would make me feel safe. 4. What does "uniform" mean to you in general? Does it mean anything other than a military uniform? Uniform is something scary - men in uniform handle weapons, and weapons are dangerous - it doesn't matter if they are actually in a war or not - men in uniform usually have weapons and weapons I fear, I don't like and I don't want to have anything with. Uniforms can also be non-military, and these do not arise scary feelings in me. But I don't like non-military uniforms either. They make everybody look alike, and we are all so far from being alike, we are unique human beings. Thank you Kathy. I'll try to be safe. FROM:RICHARD Hi Dreamwheelers, We are ready to start the comment phase on Branka's 'Uniform' dream. If you are familiar with the process, scroll down to the end, read the dream again and send your comments to dream- on@lists.best.com If you are new the process, please read the following: COMMENT PROCEDURES In this part of the process, you may comment on the dream. While you are welcome to make any comments you wish, what we are teaching in this group is non-defensive style developed by John Herbert (Montegue Ullman stage II variation) modified for email. This segment is the one in which each group member takes the dream as if it were his or her own and shares feelings and thoughts about the dream and what it might mean in each members life situation. Making the dream your own: 1. At the beginning of all comment files or e-mail we generally write : "If this were my dream..." This sets up the general subjective attitude and works as a reminder to the commentor that they are not telling the dreamer what they think the dream means to the dreamer, but rather what the dream might mean if we had that dream. 2. To further this point, use 1st person singular, present tense. "In my dream..." EXAMPLE: Dream: "I'm looking at my mother walking down a long hall towards an open window." I might comment "In MY dream the nurturing mother has found a new way to escape ME." In my comment, it is *my mother*, *my hallway* and *my dream*. This may or may not provide insight to the initial dreamer, but its surprising how often this non- defensive approach does lead to new insights for both the dreamer and the commentor. 3. Send the comments in to the whole group. dream- on@lists.best.com 4. The DREAMER may or may not respond as they wish. { DREAM REPEATED HERE } +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++ From Kathy, Branka - thank you for your dream (and also I find it utterly wonderful that you would talk to us as your country is being bombed) If this were my dream: I see the dream is speaking to me about the fears I have about the bombing of Serbia. I see my fear that my country and all the beautiful young men may die. I see that I and all other women and children may be left fatherless and that makes me feel incredibly sad. But more than that I fear that I will be somehow killed in the most horrible and painful way in this bombing. I am so terrified I am immoblised. I feel the incredible effort to get to the safety of my father's house, but it is too late I am already contaminated. But I also see the dream is talking about me and my father. I am coming back to my father's house for comfort but right in my father's house there is difficulty and danger for me. I am finding it so hard to reach his level (does he still have such impossibly high standards or am I just afraid that he will be like that again?). There is a way to reach his level easily but it is not functioning - indeed it is stuck somewhere - oh I wander what this is that has become stuck - is it some way of reacting to my father? and/or is it some way that my father reacts to me? He is stuck at some place and can't come down to my level. It is being repaired so in the future it will be alright but now it is not and that creates great difficulty for me. Then I notice the bodiless uniform. The uniform is rules and discipline and danger and violence and it lacks the warmth of a body. I am drawn by the memories of my family together and I reach out for the memories but that makes me realise that that happy warm father has died and I am left with the harsh aspects of my father - now I am incredibly sad and that makes me instantly fall into fear for my life. I am contaminated by that fear - it will be the death of me. The difficulty and danger are occurring just at the point at which I think I'm safe - the war (with my father is over). I wander here if it is a real difficulty and danger or if it is a very primal fear (coming up from the basement where it has been hidden). I know I'll have to go carefully here for either way I need to be careful so that I do not die. It is not too late. This dream is a warning to be careful. I feel also the dream is about relations between aspects of myself (my internal relations). I feel it is possible that that aspect of me which has just come out of the basement (the underground) is both terrified of and loves another aspect which is dominant: the father aspect. Is this father aspect of me too high up? Has this father aspect too high expectations of what "I" (the basement/lowly aspect) should do? Is it very difficult to reach this father aspect - coming as "I" do from the basement and still being in the shadows of the dark entrance to his house. I feel too that this basement aspect of me is mainly my emotional self and my memories. Perhaps at some time I had to put my emotions and memories down in order to live: I had to choose the more rational aspect of myself. I feel this basement aspect longs for the peace and joy of a happy family within "me". But this aspect knows that the father aspect is dead now - not dead as in "finished" but rather dead as in "lacking all warmth" - just a uniform without a body. Have I let my father aspect rule and discipline and put in danger more soft aspects of myself? my memories of good times (for they make me too sad)? That awareness is the most terifying thing for I know that means I (as a person with many different aspects) is contaminated and certainly I am already doomed to die. Nothing is more terrifying. It seems to me this dream is shouting at me to learn to allow different aspects of myself to live in harmony. Can I? In part that will depend upon how I handle my fear: it is alright to feel fear but it is better not to let it immobilize me. It is alright too to remember a time when every thing felt good but it is also right to recognize that may no longer be the case. Perhaps the difference between memory and the present situation is too painful and creates too much sadness - but it is really not too much sadness for I will be able to bear it - and I do need those memories and those feelings. I am being asked to be brave at every level of my relations: with my historic situation, with my father and with my internal aspects. Kathy ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dear Kathy, So many parts of your comments elicited insights in me, and I think you really helped me get the picture of the main insight this dream carries for me. I'll comment some of it: I see the dream is speaking to me about the fears I have about the bombing of Serbia. I see my fear that my country and all the beautiful young men may die. I see that I and all other women and children may be left fatherless and that makes me feel incredibly sad. Yes, Kathy, that's quite real fear. Let me just state that, since bombing started, I had trouble feeling fear , all other emotions seemed to overwhelm me in different moments, and were changing histericaly quick: anger, depression, desparation, sadness... but fear – no. I guess that this dream provided an outlet for this basic emotion I have forbiden myself to feel. And the worse of all these fears you mentioned is my fear that my husband will be drafted and... I don't even want to write it. So, since I have been obviously repressing my fear and denying it in waking state, I guess dream had to turn my attention to such an important emotion that needed to be recognized. But more than that I fear that I will be somehow killed in the most horrible and painful way in this bombing. I am so terrified I am immoblised. I feel the incredible effort to get to the safety of my father's house, but it is too late I am already contaminated. BINGO! This is the major insight of the whole dream, as I see it now. I am so afraid I will turn into someone else, that good in me will be killed... I was a pacifist, a humanist, people and planet lover... but since this started, horrible emotions surfaced from some deep parts of myself, emotions that I did not even though I am capable of feeling , haterith... anger... killing instinct... At one moment I felt capable of killing a NATO soldier with my bare hands, just if he somehow happens to drop from the skies above, from wich he is bombing me! I am afraid that my old self, my comfortable self, my loving and lovable self will be killed with this experience and that I will turn into a monster that hates, wants revange, wants to kill... I AM CONTAMINATED with these feelings... can't escape them... You said it all in just few sentences: "It seems to me this dream is shouting at me to learn to allow different aspects of myself to live in harmony. Can I? In part that will depend upon how I handle my fear: it is alright to feel fear but it is better not to let it immobilize me. It is alright too to remember a time when every thing felt good but it is also right to recognise that that may no longer be the case." This is the core of the dream, as I see it. I feel also the dream is about relations between aspects of myself (my internal relations). I feel it is possible that that aspect of me which has just come out of the basement (the underground) is both terrified of and loves another aspect which is dominant: the father aspect. Is this father aspect of me too high up? Has this father aspect too high expectations of what "I" (the basement/lowly aspect) should do? Is it very difficult to reach this father aspect - coming as "I" do from the basement and still being in the shadows of the dark entrance to his house. The father aspect.... my father was a child after II World War and is full of stories how hungry he was for full 2 years afterwards, and how hard it was back then, and how spoiled I am, and how I don't know what it means to be hungry.... he has already gone through all this! My trying to get to his appartment in a dream I understand as my ambition to learn his survival ways because, if this lasts (and it is lasting), I will also be hungry... But the problem is, I can't accept such a thought! I can't "raise to his level" of accepting things as they are. I am paralized with the thought of war. Living this way would be worse then dying. So, after being "contaminated" with this uniform (war/death/danger experience) I don't see the point of going "up to his level". My life so far is dead. My self so far is dead. I see no future. I see no point at "raising to his level", of learning to survive in new conditions. Anyways, elevator doesn't work (quick way to raise), but I have to go up stairs (tiering, lasting experience of learning to accomodate to new circumstances). As so many times in my life, I guess that in this situation too I am trying to find the easiest way out, but this time... no such way... This is going to force me to accept circumstances as they are. Can't run from them. Can't change them. The only thing I can do is accept I am "contaminated" with them and have to bare them the hardest possible way... if I am to survive. Thank you Kathy for finding time to help me understand this nightmare and help me accept my fears. Branka. FROM BILL: hi branka, thanks for sharing your dream. in my dream, i have entered the place where my father lives. this means to me i have entered into his values, his world, his viewpoint, his imagination. is this my real father's house or my inner father's house? probably both. it is interesting to me that it is a building, a kind of place where lots of people live, like it could be a symbol of my father and his whole society. now, in the place that is suppose to take me up to his level, i find something else. was his culture and society suppose to "father" me, but now i have to rely on another way to be fathered. which greek said "war is the father of us all" that is, there is an impact in life beyond the nurturance of the mother that we often call father. in a peaceful time, it is the real family father that challenges us, that extends our boundaries and makes us relate to something besides the breast. for good or bad it creates a wedge beween the tit and the baby and redirects me. more positively, he picks me up where i am and shows me where i am going. the new hero emerges and i see what he wears. in his pockets, he carries pictures of his family. i am in the process here now of being intitiated, i am leaving my family and entering a new family. he is a hero and the man to replace the man. a perfect mate. and there is a little consciousness here, a photo, a reflection. but wait, the uniform is contaminated. what the heck does that mean? contamination for me is being strongly effected by unseen forces. this is part of initiation as well. in some primitive societies, the person has to go all the way and experience their own death to be reborn in a new configuration, into adulthood. this contamination also means that the purity has been compromised. the psychologists talk about contamination by the unconscious. the game, whatever it is, is highly charged with unconscious factors. danger. watch out. what i think i know is not the way it is, and i am surrounded by untruth. which is always the way of war. things get black and white and truth suffers along with everything else. the empty uniform concerns me as well. its expected, many boys die and there are many uniforms left empty. in a way this closet is full of my expectations that have been dashed. kojo was on his way to being a universal hero, and now this path is empty, to put on these clothes would contaminate the person wearing them with a ton of unconsciousness. initiation or lost cause? this too is the question of war. do we take up arms, shout with our fellow comrades and blindly charge the enemy, or give in, allow all we have created to be dust in the wind? so it goes with initiation. we are gripped by a feeling that we are going to die. it seems the only solution is to give in to the ugly thing or become the ugly thing, but either way we will die. as i recall, that is the turning point of the intitiation ceremonies. one must be totally convinced they are going to die before they can transcend the fear of death. and only when that moment occurs can i burn deeply enough to transform the fear, to see in the contaminated radioactivity the sparkeling stars of the infinite and step into my role as perfectly imperfect mortal being. notes: thanks branka for this dream. i found it very hard to stay in my own dream and kept jumping out, trying to give advice. you know, the war, the war. once i realized i was doing this my own work proceeded much better. thank you for that unique opportunity. bill FROM: Branka Hi Bill, And thanks for comments. In my reply to Kathy, I already addressed major issue I think this dream is about, and you mention it too, but use different words. You say: "the uniform is contaminated. what the heck does that mean? contamination for me is being strongly effected by unseen forces. this is part of initiation as well." That is exactly what I experience – as if I can't do anything to affect the effect of these unseen forces (this can even be taken literally, since I can't see planes and pilotes that drop bombs, just the effect of these bombs once they ruin something on the ground or kill someone). in some primitive societies, the person has to go all the way and experience their own death to be reborn in a new configuration, into adulthood. This initiation you are talking about I feel as birth of my new self, the one that's not so naive anymore, that's being burdened with this new experience that is quite bad and will surely affect the birth of new me. After this, I'm sure I'm gonna be more adult then I ever thought I'll be. I'm even affraid of completely killing, or forgeting the child in me. It's good to be aware of possible concequences, so that I can keep the child while adjusting to new, serious me that is in creation these days. Again, thanks for comments. Branka. Hi Branka ! I LOVED your dream, I have never seen in any of mine such a concise formulation of the deepest givens of our existense: death, freedom, isolation and meaning of it all... if this were my dream ... i understand that it is about my death anxiety, nothing pleasant , terrifying emotion. In order to understand dream's details and meanings I had first to neutralize "the huge wave of fear" . For that I employed Satisfy the Image approach. I drew the dream scene. Then I satisfied the image by inserting into the picture the solution of the conflict : the huge shield of lead all around the uniform and garbage workers , that are about to bury the thing somewhere safe. Felt better .The next morning I realized that I was repressing the fear (burying it) instead of dealing with it constructively and came up with even better solution : I drew a fancy lead container around the uniform with a little window, that you can open-close at will, and donated it to the doctors, so they can use the thing as a uniform source of strong radioactive ray to destroy cancer cells on purpose. I calmed down completely, it became clear to me that I can either repress my death anxiety or I can use it to heal myself towards better fuller life, once I direct it, use it to remind myself to live here-and-now each time cancerous destructive ideas and thoughts start to invade my mind ( I had my share of "what if" thinking - "what if I lost my husband and was left penniless..." "what if I never learned to be a perfectly good mother to my son Felipe"... etc) After that I immediately was able to project abundantly and see some puns in the dream: visual pun ( I am in the BASEment, my father and GrandMa live on the top floor. I want to ascend fast - to his top level - he is an accompished specialist, and I need Grand (Big) Mothering , and this desire is BASEd on the fear of death and avoidance of gray and dirty aspects of life) I thought I was not hiding from it, but according to my dream - I was hiding from the (idea of )death, and now I am out , and feel it fully. Radioactive uniform I suddenly saw as me being Radio Active and Uniform, my messages to many people on internet are like messages of the Active Radio host, who sends one and the same (Uniform) message, defending one and the same (MY) point of view, to groups of friends-listeners, and that has killed an Artist (Nikola) in me, killed my individuality, practically removed me from my family (hours of Radio Activity left no time for them), and I realize - is killing me personally - I have to stop being so Radio Active and Uniform, and shut up for a while and let Me be. The strongest insight of all came from the image of missing/stuck somewhere elevator. I always knew and acknowledged that I have married up, my husband being richer in every sense than myself - emotionally, intellectually , socially and moneywise. Being his wife lifted me into the safety and security of my childhood home, I felt protected, my basic needs were met, I didn't have to struggle on the stairs of life , why, my husband was my elevator. Yes . Till a year ago, when he lost everything, was stuck and unavailable in every sense of the word , was of no help to me , and I WAS left penniless , facing the prospect of my private individual ascension , back to the very basic things in life. Needless to say I was angry, I saw that I was no longer special, I was alone, facing my own choices in life - to get out or to stay in but ascend on my own, or maybe to attempt to repair the elevator, but the worst of all, I realized that with Artist dead in me I was dead as well, I had to revive my creativity somehow. In this dream I began from the position of extreme need, and searched for someone to minister to this need. My need was for "elevation", and I was searching for a partner who would be elevator : teacher, therapist, and purveyor of social life. The word "search" provided a key understanding of my problem. One after all doesn't FIND a relationship ; one FORMS a relationship . I was approaching my husband in an inorganic rather than organic fashion. Not only did I view him as an "it" , an object , an equipment to provide a particular product or service, but I view the relationship as static and inorganic - an entity that was there almost fully formed from the beginning - rather than as a developing process. fascinating Liudmila Branka was offline for several days........................ FROM: KARL Branka, If this were my dream, I would see that I've left a sheltered space within a structure of thoughts and beliefs that I associate with my childhood. I'm trying to ascend, to get a higher perspective, to reunite with the fatherly part of me. But the easy way up is not working, and in its place I see a violent, dead, male identity. I try to retrieve some memories of a happier time and place, but when I do, I feel that I have been contaminated by violence, and I feel I am now going to undergo a long, slow, painful, radical change. Thank you for sharing your dream, Branka. I think it sums up the confusion and conflicting feelings a lot of people have about war in general and this war in particular. I hope you're safe. Karl Dear Karl, That sums it up so nicely. All of it. Thank you. Branka. FROM: DIANA Dear Branka, I have been thinking of "The Uniform" for several weeks now. When I first read this dream, I thought of a dream of my own which I dreamt several months ago. The ending of my own dream also focused on "being killed by radiation." My dream was a dream of a group music lesson. The lesson took place at Omega--a beautiful summer resort in upstate New York. The "classroom" was a free standing, circular building with lots of windows. I looked out of one of the windows and saw a nuclear explosion--and then a wave of black smoke carrying radioactive contamination that would soon overwhelm us. I remember feeling terrified and thinking about how to hide, how to run away, whether I could take extra anti-oxidants. It seemed nothing would work. I remember feeling dread, and feeling terrified, and then feeling submission. I consciously decided to surrender and accept my fate--to "give in" to radioactivity since I couldn't resist it. At the back of my mind was the hope that by not struggling, I would preserve my breath and maybe by "hibernating" I might somehow survive if that were God's will. The dream I shared earlier on this forum about the disturbing "blur" on the blackboard seemed to me a transformation of the earlier dream. The nuclear explosion has now been transformed into a glaring light which is disturbing but less destructive. I recently read a paper in Psychoanalytic Dialogs (v9, 1999, p142) which gave a definition of trauma that reminded me of this dread. The article stated that helplessness was the most salient quality. "This sense of helpless inevitability without reflection...a sense of "nameless dread," and... "fear without thought." The "nameless dread" was especially apt in characterizing a state in which one felt surrounded by oppression, unable to break free or fight back. The image of Yugolavian soldiers imprisoned in a tunnel surrounded by the enemy also captured this state for me. I felt that in order to transform this state, I must somehow appreciate it. It is very tiring and difficult. I keep thinking about "enduring" or how to bear the trauma which can't be endured. Another image I often see in thinking of this dream is the image of the uniform. Several days ago the New York Times ran a picture of a hocky star who was retiring. After his last game they snapped his picture, standing alone in the center of the empty dark sports arena lit by a spotlight from above. Just a single man--at the point of retirement. It seemed so lonely and yet so impressive. The uniform strikes me the same way as I see it in my mind. The light shows the uniform clearly--but it is surrounded by darkness. I yearn to reach out (for the photos?) to make more contact or to see it with more connections. I also think of how to reach out--how to be responsible for more people than just myself. And I feel bad for the bombing and don't know how to stop it. Branka, I remember you as having very helpful comments to me in my dream. I am very grateful to you and wish you well, Diana Branka was offline for several days............ Dear Diana, Sorry for my late responding to your comments - I've been without electricity for days, and off line also. Yes, feelings of "not being able to fight back" and "loneliness" are all over me, and dream clearly shows it. No wonder my mind choose radioactive contamination for expression of those feelings! I'm stuck. No escape from this situation, and you saw it. Thinking about a dream now, makes it easy for me to understand it fully. I just wish that my radioactive contamination will soon express itself as less threathening blur or something... Thank you for your comments and the examples you gave. Branka. Dear Branka, I am grateful for your dream and your responses. I also apologize for not responding quickly. I have had a very bad cold, and I have been too tired to use the computer. I feel a connection between us in this dreamwork. I, too, hope for a transformation. I pray for your safety and the future of our countries. Yours, Diana END TRANSCRIPT From Branka: Soon after finding "dream world" on the net, in the midst of my enthusiastic expectations of international dream sharing, being able to reach to every corner of the world in the matter of minutes, overnight my life was turned into waking nightmare... Raid-sirens, shelters, bombs... the end of the world... my world as I know it. Everything stopped. Life was put on hold and immediate survival issues surfaced with such intensity that they blurred meaning of everything previously experienced. Hysterically shifting from depression to anger, from anger to desperation, from desperation to fear, from fear to sadness, and from there to every other possible emotion, I felt totally unable to concentrate on anything but watching the news. On 23rd day of bombing came my turn to share a dream on Dream Wheel. I wasn't sure if I can do it, but kind Mr. Richard Wilkerson was so patiently persuasive, unjudgementaly supportive, intuitively feeling my need to connect and share my inner turmoil, that I decided to give it a try. For this I want to sincerely thank him, because he helped me more then he probably is even aware... In the middle of what I was experiencing as whole wide world communicating with me via "language of bombs", he reached and suggested connecting with the whole wide world using universal "language of dreams". To be honest, after everything that Serbs were called to be in Western media, I feared to open myself to vulnerability dream work brings with it, especially in front of the group members that come from the countries in which these news are broadcasted. I was vulnerable, I was untrustful, even paranoic at times... Richard was by my side every step of the way, encouraging me, supporting me, guiding me... caring. Thank you Richard. And then, process started... questions began to come in. Crazy chaos my mind was floating in, surrounded with such intensified, intensified, intensified emotions, began to finally take structure and meaning. Just answering the questions triggered so needed order of my inner world to start forming. Feelings were not floating and simply self-existent anymore I managed to face them, identify them and come to peace with them. When comments started pouring in, I was already in touch with my inner world again and felt much better. Confusion that I simply surrendered myself to prior the dream work was gone. It is probably not something that everybody would experience, but in the circumstances I was in, I want to say that participation in dream work had extremely positive influence on me. It helped me structure stirred emotions, many of which were so new to me, so horribly repulsive to me, that I was angry at myself for being able to even feel them! Dream Wheel members were so supportive and caring that I feel a great need to thank them too. After genuine support, care and interest they showed in helping me understand my dream, I felt bad that I ever thought that it can be any other way. Thinking about "the uniform dream" now, when bombing is little more then a month behind me, what strikes me is loneliness... I was so alone in the dream nobody beside me to share or try to influence the horror I am encountering. Guess I was feeling pretty cut off from other beings in my life at that time, being totally focused on my inner happenings, on myself, experiencing the CONTAMINATION of my being. Having that in mind, it's even more important that I was given the chance to connect with others that helped me connect with myself. Next dream I had was also a nightmare in which I was sentenced to death, but in it I had quite a number of people surrounding me and supporting me in my attempt to cancel that sentence I was not alone anymore! It might be interesting that, during 78 days of bombing (and that many night too) I managed to remember only 3 dreams "uniform dream", "death sentence dream" (both being nightmares) and third dream in which the central theme is: Serbia won war with NATO (I did not analyze that one, but it has proved NOT to be precognitive!) I guess that this low recall rate is due to the fact that I did not get much sleep, at least quality sleep, since either detonations or raid-sirens constantly kept waking me up. At the end, I want to again thank everybody for insightful comments that helped me in most difficult times of my life. I hope dream language will keep spreading itself among the people of this planet one, universal language, understandable by all. Regards to everyone from confusing, crazy Balkans that keeps dividing itself while whole wide world keeps uniting... hope we'll learn universal language soon. Sincerely, Branka. **If you would like more information or to join an Electric Dreams Dreamwheel, stop by Electric Dreams http://www.dreamgate.com/electric-dreams +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Dream Analysis by Dream Counsel +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Dreams are a window into the psyche. Through their interpretation, the future is foretold. Whatever questions a person may have or situation they are unsure of, can be easily resolved by their own unconscious thoughts and ideas. Dream analysis will help unlock those answers. Dream Counsel was started by two sisters who have been interpreting the dreams of friends and family for many years as well as delving into other areas of counseling ranging from the practice of Psychology to reading tarot cards. Milla, one of the sisters and head counselors states her personal mission, "I've always felt a need to understand the inner working of my mind, and so I went into Psychology. I wanted to learn how to access the parts of my mind responsible for my sense perception and my higher brain functions, the Sixth Sense. Déjŕ vu for example. Déjŕ vu is the mind perceiving the future but done through recall. So, I figured that if my subconscious was able to recall a future event then the ability to realize the future is in me. That is when I turned to a study of dreams." Dream images and associations are instrumental in personal problem solving. The meanings of dream symbols and themes can be common or complex; will cross cultural, social and interpersonal boundaries and have distinctly different interpretations for each dreamer. Every person is responsible for their own growth, progression, and health and the solutions are inside your mind. "For me, dreams are a way for my unconscious mind to have free reign to help me through whatever life has in store for me. If I have a problem, I think about it before going to sleep and 90% of the time I awake with a possible solution. At times when my mind is not toiling over a problem, my dreams provide me with ideas that hadn't occurred to me in waking thought. I am extremely self aware and hope that my work here will help others to also reach a comforting level of awareness." Says Nina, head counselor and co-founder of Dream Counsel. Dreams can light the way to the best possible future and our Dream Counselors will be the guides. Website: www.DreamCounsel.com. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Research Request Computer's in Dreams : Pre and Post Internet Perceptions. Part I Pre-Net Dreams - Richard Wilkerson +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Upon examining a variety of computer dreams at the DreamBank, one gets the distinct impression that Calvin Hall's famous statement about dreams reflecting our concerns in life is very apt. What I would like to know, is this relationship changing with the advent of the Internet? I haven't collected enough dreams yet to address this question fully, and so I would like to request dreams you have about computers after you went online. I will also accept dreams about computers before you went online as well. Just clearly mark them as PRE-NET or POST-NET. Here are some theme summaries of PRE-NET computer dreams: Projects that never seem to end, not having the right software, graph programs, asking neighbors for the right program, picking out fabric dress patterns, finding the right pictures of friends, being n a computer game, trying to run the computer on old batteries, feeling unable to master a computer at a job at the hospital, writing letters on computers, computers allowing us to do things with greater ease, people with computers able to do things easier, programs as a thing to discuss with other and talk about, trouble with computers, programs helping save the computer, fear of losing information, not finding the program on the computer wanted.. programs that work on old and new operating systems, typing on the keyboard, getting data into a computer, huge tasks of getting data into the computer. People engaged by computers, giving attention to computers. Computer noises warning of danger, human in the computer giving advice. Computer-aided sensing - take me to the store. [see below for actual dreams] But besides the "reflection" perspective, there is also a "dreamwork" perspective. That is, what are these dreams saying about our souls? What are they saying about themselves? What is trying to happen? What is the most profound interpretation we can give to them or receive from them? At this level, I am interested in deepening my work with the dream-as-symbol. This includes the simple sign, what dream computer images point to, as well as more complex Jungian symbol work, were the computer functioning as a novel image holding the tension of two know areas apart long enough for the transcendent image to appear and take me into the unknown, and even wholeness. Within this perspective is the larger cultural question of what dreams are representing for us, and our relationship to those representations. That is, what is being played out in dramas involving computers individually that speaks to the culture as a whole? The Social Connection It is clear that computers represent a medium of communication, even before the advent of the Internet. They are our contemporary typewriter and paper for letters and other kinds of correspondence. They are the medium of articles, dissertations, essays and books. What does it mean to shift our communication patterns to the screen? What effect does this have on the other in dreams? If dream mouth is a computer, what kind of nightmares does it scream? Axis of Thought. Here the interfaces are important. What is the difference between writing by long hand and typing, between typing on a typewriter and a keyboard, between not being able to erase very easily and being able move whole paragraphs and pages. As Alan Sondheim has noted, re-writing has become the way we write and thus transfers the axis of creative thought from being in the "head" to being on the "screen". We used to talk about the dream screen as an axis itself. Now that the dream screen and the computer screen begin to interface with one another, will our dreams become less analogue and more digital, or will our computer become less digital and more analog? Competency Being able to use the computer has become important. What does this mean in a dream, to be able to use a computer or not? What kind of vessel is the dream computer in holding my fantasies about not being competent? Who is my inner computer technician that I can call on to help me? What alternative realities are offered by the inner computer ~not~ working. Technology It has been part of the dreamwork lore that mechanical things often give dreamers problems. How do computers figure in with other technologies? Are they more or less problematic? When they are a problem, will we handle them in the same way as other appliances and vehicles that don't work? Society What is becoming of our society as we interact with one another more and more via computer mediated devices? I will take this up in more detail in the POST-NET articles in the future, but I do want to make some comments here about media and dreams. Media theorists for sometime have noticed the tremendous effect of media on culture. Before the advent of the personal computer, some had felt that the one-way communications of TV and Radio had completely destroyed our culture and replaced it with a simulated Leave-it-to-Beaver reality which served to keep us from the panicked realization that there was no culture left. These theories of simulation can allow us to encounter a part of our soul in dreams that struggles with this. Do dreams represent a more real real than real, or are they simulations of personal desire that cannot find expression in the social field? Once we realize we are dreaming, what then becomes important? For some its simply to wake up, for others, lucidity and the new possibilities this state brings. What will lucid dreamers do with computers in dreams? And what is media in our dreams anyway? Is is more profound to interpret dream media as the voices of the collective unconscious, or as run-away programs left over from the evening news that have inhabited and are trying to get your attention? What is a dream commercial anyway, does is serve the soul, the spirit or some other institution? Here (below) are the actual dreams I found at DreamBank. You can find more information on how to use DreamBank at the end. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dream series: Bay Area girls Query: computer Search mode: find all terms (AND) Case-sensitive: no #219-10 (5th grader, 01/27/97) I was at my friend's house and we were working on some sort of difficult long-lasting project which we never seemed to finish. Her computer didn't have the right software for the graph program that we needed, so we were asking all of the families on the block if they had it. When we got it, we wanted to put smiley faces on top of our graphs! Setting: At my friend's house, but it was slightly deformed. Characters: My friend, her mom and dad, me, her little brother, her friends and their parents. Feelings and Thoughts: Happy. My friend and I finished our project awhile ago, and we didn't use smiley-faces, and we always had the right software. (118 words) #220-01 (5th grader, 01/20/97) I was at a sewing class and you picked out your design on the computer. The lady that was teaching us how to sew took me outside. We started running around the town. It was getting dark and I got scared that I would never see my parents again. But the lady brought me back to a room that my family was in. Setting: It took place at a sewing class outside. Characters: There were people in my dream (sewing teacher, family). I knew almost all of them. Feelings and Thoughts: Happy, scared. At first I was happy, but then I got scared. (103 words) #293-04 (5th grader, 02/19/97) I was at the Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk. My mom and dad were with me. We went to the Log Ride. We got in line and put our backpack and jackets by the water. Oh, no! Our log and some of the others started going down a different river! Then we had to get out of the log and take our flippers off. Then we got back in line. Three teenagers came. Two of them were teasing the other one. They were saying things like, "You can't go on this ride, you have to be over 14." Then she would say, "Look at all these younger kids." She had a shirt from a jewelry store that's in Town & Country Village. When the line moved up we passed a black boy and two black women. The boy looked at these two computers and then he left. We moved up in line again. Setting: Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk, on the Log Ride. Characters: Mom & Dad, three teenagers (one looked familiar), two black women (unknown), and a black boy (sort of familiar). Feelings and Thoughts: Worried. When we went down the other river, I was really worried. (198 words) #601-01 (9th grader, 01/26/97) I was talking to Katie on the phone and suddenly realized that I had pictures of both Glenn and Chloe. She was excited and wanted to come over. Setting: I was at home in the computer room. Characters: Katie, my best friend from the middle school. She's never met Chloe, my other best friend, or Glenn, the guy I've had a bad crush on for 3 months. Feelings and Thoughts: Happy, love. Last night Chloe called me to tell me that Glenn was planning to ask me out! (88 words) #606-04 (9th grader, 01/26/97) The first part of the dream I was with a bunch of friends and we felt like doing something stupid and rebellious, but we figured we'd better have my other friend Sally along. Since nobody else knew the way to her house, I drove. Eventually we just sat around talking, eating cookies, and making scrap-books in the middle of the night, up in Sally's loft. I had some mini-dream about being in a computer game. Me and my family and family friends went to this Club Med, and they were all a part of the Club Med circus team, and they wanted me to do the trapeze. I'm an acrophobic, so they couldn't get me to do it. Right at the end of my dreams, Whitney Houston sang "I will always love you." Setting: In a car along some fairly busy road; Sally's house/loft; in some sort of computer game; at a Club Med with a 50-foot flying trapeze. Characters: A bunch of friends, though I distinctly remember Jon, Sally and Brian; nobody in the computer dream; my brother and mom I don't quite remember, but my dad and his friend Joel, and his two daughters were definitely there, and the trapeze guy, and Whitney Houston. Feelings and Thoughts: Happy, scared, terrified. I know the trapeze thing must have come from when I asked my dad last night what "fear of heights" was and he said acrophobia. I think my brother was playing computer games like that. And I was listening to the radio last night so Whitney Houston probably came from there. Dream series: Teenagers, West Coast, ages 11-18 Query: computer Search mode: find all terms (AND) Case-sensitive: no #83 (18/female) I was being chased by two people. It was a man and a woman. They chased me into a house where a stranger was sitting at a desk trying to make a computer run on old batteries. I went to find some and when I walked out of that room, I saw a man, stranger stealing my T set. He had somehow turned off the alarm and was burglarizing our house. I yelled something at him. He turned and I woke up. When I woke up I was sweating. (89 words) Dream series: Blind dreamers Query: computer Search mode: find all terms (AND) Case-sensitive: no Abbreviated dreams Full dreams (Click here to jump to the bottom of the list) #103-07 The next dream concerned the computer program at [a VA hospital] and I sat in front of a computer, totally mystified and thinking I'll never be able to master this. (27 words) #104-01 (5/18/97) Dreamed I was in my computer room in the basement, trying to write a letter, to my friend H, trying to decide whether to put it in Braille or on tape. Then was sitting in front of the window, opening the curtains to feel how warm the sun was then turned back to the computer and could hear opera music from a radio station coming through the computer speaker. (69 words) #104-08 (5/26/97) We were on vacation with my cousin G, I haven't seen him in years, we went mountain climbing and went up a very rigorous climb that was almost too much for me. We made it to the top, to a little precarious ledge, we were sitting on this thing and all I had to hold onto was a plastic pole, stuck down into this soft, earthy ground, and one little place to put one foot to keep me from falling back down the mountain. I was sitting there thinking how difficult it was and I was scared up there and then my wife was beside me and she said that my twin brother T was down at the bottom, in tears, he was lying down, he just couldn't make it and he was upset and it was just too much for him, and my cousin came up, just walked right up and was having a good time and was talking to us and we told him, we admitted it was just too much for us and he apologized and said he was really sorry and that he just hadn't realized. Then, I remember I had a big 2 liter pop bottle and I was telling my wife some sort of story, explaining to her how much the bottle cost... "it was $1.29" or something like that and here's what happened to it I just threw it off the mountain and it went crashing down to the bottom somewhere. Then we talked for a while. Then there was someone else there, I don't know who it was, but when we were talking about how difficult it was he said, "well I believe in giving it the old Marine try, that means you ask God for help 101 times and usually that works." I was thinking about that. Then we decided to go back down and in going back down, I found that there was a paved way that we could make it, very easily, it was just like a steep slope going down, like a sidewalk. So we went back down, and we were in a house and my cousin was still there and I found this old knife that I wanted to have sharpened. And the blade was split at the tip so it had 2 points, like a fork almost, it was split right in the middle and my cousin showed me, he said "come right on down this other little slope to this ledge", this was still in the house though. He had somehow used the computer to create a vibration so that when I took this knife and held it against the flat surface of the cement, it was vibrating like crazy, and I was able to sharpen the blade by holding it for quite a long while, like 5 minutes on each side, flipping it over, feeling the edge to make sure it was getting sharp and then E, my wife, was lying down right next to us on the couch, trying to sleep and she began to complain about the noise it was making and how it would wake up the neighbors and she said "you know how these people around here swear!" And I said "I don't care, its not making that much noise and they were going to have to put up with it or I might just have to stab somebody! Once I had this thing sharpened" And we all had a good laugh at that. I remember thinking that I've got to get my cousin to explain to me how he did that, how he was able top do that with the computers, setting up that field that would make this knife vibrate. (622 words) #104-22 (5/12/97) I tried to check the time on my talking clock (and, by the way I have had this dream numerous times over the past few years) but the clock malfunctioned, either the battery was going dead or something, and when I pressed the button for the time it started to say a bunch of things about the computer keyboard, and it was just not acting the way it should at all. I knew there was something wrong with it and I was afraid I had slept in and missed my wake-up time for work. (94 words) #104-31 I was in a class, possibly for computer programming. There seemed to be many familiar people in the class with me and the instructor was very friendly and it seemed as if I was sitting in the front of the room and he was sitting in the back, and he came up to me and said "I was going to buy you an "Opticon" but the administration wouldn't let me, they cost $6000 but I brought you a Braille writer and I bought you all this other stuff and I just wondered if you were familiar with it because you are going to need them in this class." I remember thinking "I'm glad he didn't buy an Opticon because I don't remember how to use one. So I began to unpack the box he gave me, and there did appear to be an Opticon and had a little hand held camera with it. A little box that had something similar to a little Braille display, maybe a one line Braille display, maybe an Opticon. I started taking out this thing and all the accessories that came with it and I was amazed at the different plugs and cords and there were adapters like standard serial port adapters for computers, there were some that were offset between the male and female end of it. There were some wires with like plastic keys hanging off of them. My co-worker, M happened to be there then and she said "Oh, this is interesting, you could probably stick this in a car's ignition to start it if you happened to lose your key." We had a laugh about that. I just kept looking at these different pieces. There was one piece that I fitted onto the back of the machine with a little flange, it was some sort of little plug. Throughout the dream everything seemed pretty familiar to me and I seemed to know what everything was for. Then M said she had to go and do an interview and I said "where's everybody else?" and she said "I have no idea, they all left at 8:00 and they just left at 8:00 and I'm left with the work to do." [An Opticon is a device which converts printed material into tactile images that actually feel like the printed letters. It has largely gone out of vogue for the last 15 or 20 years.] (368 words) #104-33 (5/22/97) I was in the computer room in my basement here and my friend J's daughter was here with me. She was trying to print some stuff and I was helping her with the computer and I was asking her if she ever used Print-Shop. And we were talking about Q&A and WordPerfect and I forgot to run my speech program and was having trouble figuring out where I was and she was kind of helping me. In the dream his daughter, who in reality is 40 sounded like she was 20. Next I remember being at the Guild for the Blind in Hingeville. I was walking through there smoking a pipe and the tobacco smelled really good, like cinnamon [I haven't smoked a pipe in 10 years in reality]. I was walking through there talking to some people and all of a sudden I could hear all these little kids coming in and somebody came over to me and said "do you hear the fire?" At first I said no, but then I heard some sirens off in the distance. They said it was next door at a restaurant which I remember having been in before. Then my wife was there and she was looking and I asked "How bad does it look?" and she said "Oh, it's really a bad fire! A good one, really ablaze." Then she took me over there and we walked into the driveway and we could hear the men up above, working away on the roof. One of the firefighters yelled down "What are you doing here? Get out of here now!" And I responded "I'm just glad I had a chance to hear this." I asked my wife again how it looked and she still said that it looked pretty bad. Then rain started to fall on us but it may have been water from the hose. I said, lets get out of this or we'll have to go home and take a bath. I also remember at some point, being able to smell the smoke, it had a rather acrid smell typical of house fires. (344 words) #104-54 (6/15/97) I was in my old office up on 6th avenue, where I worked about 5 years ago. I was with my old work mate, P, who I haven't talked to in about 10 years. I was back there using my computer and I was in Windows and all of a sudden I got a message through my speech synthesizer that said "fire inside computer" and I went over to P and I said "Hey P, you better take a look at this thing I think its on fire." She looked at it and she said "You're right, it is." But there was a computer program that had a little woman in there and she went and found the fire and put it out with a little fire extinguisher. A couple of minutes later I asked P if it was still on fire and she said "No, she put it out immediately. A couple of times it's flared up but as soon as I see it, the little woman also sees it and puts it out." And I just thought that's amazing! And I thought I wish that I'd backed up my data better because if this fire did a lot of damage in there then I'm going to lose all of that information. (213 words) #105-04 Dreaming about the Internet and using the computer. The thing I remember most was that there didn't seem to be any type of adaptive technology on the computer such as speech or large print. I was just sitting there touching the keyboard. (42 words) #111-11 (5/6/97) It's Christmas and I'm talking to someone about what I'm giving people for Christmas, but I can't remember what I'm giving everyone, I can remember some and I name them and the gifts that I'm giving them but I can't remember what I'm giving everyone else. I was giving out some ceramic mugs to my aunt F and others that I can't remember. And then we were at a school and an atheist friend that I have was going to be reading the Christmas story and so we were all supposed to go down to listen to him, they made the announcement over some kind of PA system, that we should go down and listen to him, but I thought that doesn't seem right because he doesn't believe in God and in Christians and I didn't want to go because it would be kind of hypocritical to be there unless he's changed and I thought its kind of weird and so I stayed in another room, I don't know exactly what was in there, there was a wooden floor, there was no carpeting where I was. I had a Braille copy of the Christmas story, just a few pages like they were torn out of a magazine. It looked like computer paper and it was all folded up and I was trying to find how it was arranged so I could find the top. I was riffling through the pages with my hand trying to figure out how it was arranged so that I could find the beginning. Then we were in a car, looking for something to eat, my driver B (male) was driving us and we were hungry and we stopped in this restaurant and there were people waiting on us that were [unclear] and these girls were waiting on us but they weren't happy doing it or they didn't know what they were doing and there was confusion. There were wooden tables that we were sitting at and we never really ate though because the girl that was waiting on us was doing different things and so I don't remember eating even though we were in there. We were sitting in the middle of this restaurant. (368 words) #111-53 (5/29/97) There were a whole lot of children in my house. And it was afternoon and they were cute. They were about six or seven and I was going to go up and show them my computer and one of the vendors from a place that sells computers and reading machines was in my house too and this lady was with him and we all went upstairs and I had 2 dolls on my bed in my spare room and I was touching the lace on one of my dolls and I was showing it to them, one of the collectibles I have and they liked it and then I was showing them my computer. There was a funny connection on my computer, there was this funny big wire and there was another little wire which connected with it and it didn't feel right and Curt the vendor guy said, "we can't have it like that." I was kind of relieved to have him say that it wasn't safe like that and that he was going to fix it. And the kids were getting a kick out of the talking computer. (190 words) #113-09 Very little activity...I dreamed that I was downstairs working on the computer, looking at different discs that would be used in DOS, listening to them through a speaking modem. These discs I was looking at in the windows environment because they were ASCII. Nothing strange or out of place. I remember touching the keyboard. (54 words) #113-21 I dreamed about using the computer, reading some files, listening to them. Nothing unusual. Dreaming about the files that I would read or wanted to read, typing on the keyboard. (30 words) #113-23 Earlier that evening, I had a dream that I was using the computer, using the keyboard and listening to it . I had a tremendous amount of data that had to be entered and everything was the wrong size. It was huge, it was monstrous, Monstrous paper, monstrous everything. At sometime I just knew that I had to enter all of this data into the computer (66 words) #114-29 (6/23/97) [A day dream] Mort was on the computer, which he was when I woke up. My mother came and said "come on upstairs. I want you to try this dress on." I put the dress on. It had a zipper and a belt and this thing that snapped and it hung down the back. I never saw a dress like it. My father in law and his wife came in. They had a whole bunch of groceries. I guess my dad went out and he came in, and he must have gone shopping for us because he had groceries too. We didn't know where to put them all, the groceries that is. (109 words) #114-34 (7/2/97) I was in this big room and there were computers everywhere and everyone was trying to get onto the Internet and I don't know if they succeeded. I had to show them how to get on and I don't even know how to do that myself, and to do it without speech is even harder for people like Mort and myself. There were big computers, noise coming from all these people talking and the computers, bells were ringing. (78 words) #117-26 (7/5/97) I was sitting in my condominium and I heard my computer start talking to me. I was curious as to how this was happening since I hadn't turned it on or connected my speech synthesizer so the computer could talk to me or tell me what was on the screen. Actually there was nothing on the screen but the computer was speaking anyway. It asked me what I wanted and I said I would want to go anywhere that I needed to get to without having to ask other people. So it said, "Okay, lets make a program so you can put down all of the places you usually have to get to." And I started to argue with it and asked it all kinds of questions like "how can all this be happening? I can't drive so what difference does it make if I make out a program?" The computer told me not to be so doubtful. Just pick out the places on the program I wanted included. So I did and it was explained to me that I would tell my computer where I wanted to go and I would get there. I was pretty skeptical because a lot of these pie in the sky things don't work. So I said "Okay, I want to go shopping at the little plaza where the Ames used to be, because there are a bunch of neat stores. Its also more fun to go with somebody and so I want to take Hilda (a blind friend) with me." So I called her in my room, I grasped the telephone, and made a quick call and said "lets go shopping, my computer just talked to me and I programmed it in to know that I wanted to go different places." So we did this. I told the computer I wanted to go shopping top that little plaza, walked into the plaza, went into some of the different stores, the Radio Shack, the Card shop where you can buy all kinds of cards and little gifts, then we went to the bakery where we smelled the aroma of coffee cakes and cookies and all kinds of rich, fattening pastries. Then we went to the shoe store which isn't really there anymore but we went there anyway, and I bought some more shoes. Then there was a department store there and I found some more music boxes, so I bought some of those too. And we found a clothing store and Hilda wanted to buy some clothes, some new dresses and things so I decided to check out those too. And everybody was helpful. Then after we'd had enough shopping, I decided it was time to go home. I had my little palm top computer and I told it through a series of commands to tell my other computer that we needed to get home. A car came and we got home. ===================================================================== Schneider, A., & Domhoff, G. W. (1995, updated 1999). _The_ _Quantitative_ _Study_ _of_ _Dreams_ [Web site]. Available: http://www.dreamresearch.net/ [July 25, 1999] Web pages by Adam Schneider and G. William Domhoff The Quantitative Study of Dreams http://www.dreamresearch.net/ Our home page. Most of the pages listed below can be found by going here. DreamBank http://www.dreamresearch.net/Search/ or http://www.dreambank.net/ A searchable collection of dream reports that can be used for any type of research. Hall/Van de Castle coding system http://www.dreamresearch.net/Coding/ Complete rules for using the Hall/Van de Castle system of quantitative content analysis. Examples of coded dreams http://www.dreamresearch.net/Examples/ A few dozen dreams that have been coded with the Hall/Van de Castle system. They make an excellent tutorial on using the system. DreamSAT http://www.dreamresearch.net/DreamSAT/ A spreadsheet (for Microsoft Excel) which greatly simplifies and enhances the analysis of Hall/Van de Castle coding data SearchCodings http://www.dreamresearch.net/SearchCodings/ An as-yet-unnamed program that searches through selected Hall/Van de Castle data which has been prepared by DreamSAT. It's pretty raw so far, but more features will be added soon. Randomization tests http://www.dreamresearch.net/Randomization/ A number of new ways to look at probability and significance. Still in the experimental stage. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ == D R E A M S S E C T I O N == ED V6 N8 == ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** D R E A M S SECTION INDEX BY BOB K. (For ED V6 N8) Hi there! Welcome to ELECTRIC DREAMS - DREAMS SECTION for Vol. 6 Number 8 - August 1999 ======================== Hello dreamers! Never say never! I agreed to compile the dreams submitted through the August issue so here they are. This month we have a rich collection of dreams covering a wide range of subjects with images from the real to the surreal, from the tragic to the happy. As the shared imagery scrolls by, it is interesting how the scenes suddenly change, and dilemmas appear in a typical dreamlike mysterious way. From the short, one sentence dream or image fragment to the lengthy convoluted stories with many twists and turns, enjoy the 84 pages of dreams of August 1999. Thanks to all of those who have shared their dreams and commentary with our community over the past six years. Enjoy your visit to the pages of Electric Dreams. Bob Krumhansl NEW CATEGORIES: = = = = = = = = = = = == = = = = = = = = = = = == FEEDBACK FROM THE DREAMERS {None this month] COMMENTARY ON DREAMS FROM PREVIOUS ISSUES {None this month] NEW DREAMS: PRECOGNITIVE/FUTURE DREAMS [Stories from past experiences, or send them in before it happens, if you can] REPETITIVE DREAMS [Significant by nature] ** Dream:"Late for Class" by Conan (990526)** ** Dream: "House nightmare & house transformed" by nickbeth (990527) ** ** Dream:"attacking cat" by Mary(990622)** ** Dream: "powers" by jw3013 (990609) ** DREAM TRACES IN WAKING LIFE [The effects of external stimuli on our dreams or is it the other way around - our dreams leaving a trace on our physical reality?] DEFYING CLASSIFICATION [Your stumpers may not be so mysterious to others] [None this month] = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = LINKS TO STAGES OF LIFE BIRTH [Starts] CHILDHOOD [Early development] ** Dream: "grandmas, little girls and flying pictures" by Mermaid (990622)** ADOLESCENCE [Maturing, testing] ADULTHOOD [The main event for most] OLD AGE [Wisdom, Approaching the Journeys end] DEATH [Endings] ** Dream: "He Killed Me!" by Shaken (990712)** ** Dream: "Dead Eyes" by Sabine (990716) ** ** Dream: "Kevorkian Nudists" by ? (990704) ** COMMUNICATION WITH THE DEAD [Beyond our terrestrial limits] ** Dream: "Dead people" by ? (990516) ** ========================================== ========================================== AGGRESSION [By us or against us- crossing others paths] ** Dream: "Getting Tough" by Koala (990429) ** ** Dream: "Vampires" BY ? (990712)** ** Dream: "Geshko's" by ? (990502)** ALIENS [Visitors or visited - creatures from other dimensions] AMUSEMENT PARK [A place to relax and enjoy, another reality] ANGELS [Visitors from Spiritual dimensions] ANIMALS [Basic Instincts - This month: Hamsters, Fish, ducks, snakes and cat's - small and large- appear.] ** Dream: "hamsters" (990509) ** ** Dream: "The Large Fish & The Old Friend" by Jeff (990720)** ** Dream:"school and ducks next door" by Mermaid (990627) ** ** Dream: "Dead Cats in a River" by Cinnaminpop (990618)** ** Dream: "Alternate Marriage and Snakes" by Concerned (990720)** ** Dream: "Strange Cat" by Tami (990512) ** ** Dream: "Vividly coloured fish" by Island_Fox (990513)** ** Dream: "Black Swans" by ? (990513) ** BATHROOMS [Maintenance, Cleansing and Elimination] BELONGING [What we are associated with or wish we were] BOOKS (Extensions of our memory and imagination, our permanent records) BRIDGES [How we get across an obstacle or go from here to there] CELEBRITIES [The well known - famous and infamous] CLOTHING [What we wear tells us about ourselves and the events we participate in] COMEDY [With an accent on puns, funny situations or jokes] ** Dream: "First Prize" by Marie (990714) ** COMMUNICATIONS [From telepathic to devices to signs & symbols] COMPUTERS [Extensions of our minds, mind tools, communication] ** Dream: "Dream Stats" by dreambat (990430)** CULTS [Somewhere out there ...] DIRECTIONS [Ever stop and ask for directions? North, South, East, West, up, down, ahead, behind, straight, turn, right, left, make a circle, cross, go through, open, close, mix, add, boil, cook, simmer, but most of all - follow these instructions carefully...and don't be shy about asking someone else down the path, except, of course, for the Big Bad Wolf!!!] DISCOVERY [New insights and unexpected developments] ** Dream: "Other Life" by William (990530) ** ** Dream: "17 and Pregnant" by Jesse (990705) ** ** Dream: "Head Falling off" by ? (990607)** ** Dream:"Revealing the Moon" by Amiris (990603) ** ** Dream: "Translucent Brain" by ? (990512)** DREAMING [Dreams about dreaming] DRUGS [Healing or Hurting?] ** Dream: "Dreams,Vision,Drugs" by ? (990511) ** EATING [Getting nourishment for maintenance, growth and pleasure] ELEVATORS [Going UP or DOWN - Push the right button or else...] ESCAPE [Get me outta here!!!] EVENTS [The activity defines or dominates the story - a convergence of people at a place and time for a special purpose] EYES [The organs of sight...the window to the soul...] FEAR [What scares us] ** Dream: "Falling" by ? (990621) ** FIRE [Flames bring light, heat and destruction/transformation] FLOWERS [Color and fragrance that nourish our spirit] FLYING [Confidence, Power, Freedom & Perspective] ** Dream: "Infidelity and Flying" by D (990619) ** FOOD [The source of our physical nourishment] ** Dream: "Cooked meat" by Babylove (990704) ** GIFTS [Offerings to or from others] HOBBIES [Our interests and desires]- COLLECTING THINGS HOLIDAYS [Time off to ...] HOSPITAL [A place for treatment, healing and repair] ** Dream: "Pregnancy" by Renrik (990703) ** HOUSE [Where our lives take place] ** Dream:"The Race House" by Sierra (990612) ** ** Dream: "Moving Furniture" by Andrometa (990721) ** ** Dream: "Hall of Doors" by Venus (990611) ** HOTELS [Temporary Dwelling or Special Event location] JOURNEYS [Missions away from our home base -explorations] ** Dream: "Skyland" by Pine (990609) ** ** Dream: "Engagement in London" by Banshee (990709)** ** Dream: "K's Adventures: The Axe Man & The Hungry Cat" by Kly (990625) ** ** Dream: "Pilot Disaster" by Thirteenth Peer (990610)** ** Dream: "Decisions" by HollyL (990601) ** ** Dream: "Rotting Souls" by VdeV (990511) ** ** Dream:"Looking for something evil" by CinnamonG(990512)** ** Dream: "Get up & go out" by Keyogi (990519) ** LOST [Disorientation or abandonment] ** Dream: "Peru" by Mr. Breeze (990703) ** ** Dream: "I just don't know" by ? (990703) ** ** Dream: "Gypsie Dream" by MT (990513) ** LOTTERY DREAMS [Sudden Wealth - Randomness favors the dreamer] LOVE [All around us, yet so hard to find and keep] LUCID DREAMING [Knowing you are Dreaming when you are Dreaming] ** Dream: "I found myself, and woke him up!" by Michael (990609) ** ** Dream: "waking from a lucid dream into another dream" by Adridne (990608) ** MEMORY [Remembering ...In dreams we often struggle with the issue of memories and remembering a dream which by definition involves the process of recollection.] MIRRORS [Reflection of Self] MONEY [Something of value] MUSIC [Melodies of the land within] NUDITY [What you see is what you get] ** Dream: "Eagle Eye" by Canoraline (9904XX) ** PERFORMERS [Entertainers] PROBLEMS [Situations or difficulties sometimes present choices] POLITICAL SCENE [Public issues through positions of power] RELATIONSHIPS [Other parts of ourselves including family which constitutes the first and earliest of our relationships, often influencing how we relate to the outside world] ** Dream: Nada's Dreams" by Nada (990614) ** ** Dream: "The husband" by Maja (990717) ** ** Dream: "future husband" by Juliet(990708)** ** Dream: "Danny" by Cass (990715) ** ** Dream: "Misunderstanding Resolved" by Nissa (990627) ** ** Dream: "The Rainwater Room" by Na (990622) ** RELIGIOUS RELATED [The Ritual and the Spiritual] ** Dream: "Birth of the Christ" by rc-r (990426) ** ** Dream: "Manna flakes" by ? (990530) ** ** Dream: "Jesus" by Kit (990507) ** ROMANCE [Thrills and Chills, lost in another] ** Dream: "Jadzia" by ? (990602) ** ** Dream: "friend" by La'Sar (990703) ** SCHOOL THEMES [Learning and learning related trials] SOLUTIONS [The answers to problems or quandaries] STAIRS [Bridges between levels, between the upper and the lower] STRANGERS [Who and what we don't know yet] TEETH [Ok, losing teeth is one of the top ten dreams people have questions on. Theories on what they mean range all over the spectrum of possibilities.] TORNADOS [Pretty well defined destructive power of nature] TRAPPED [Temporarily helpless- Sometimes we are paralyzed or imprisoned by jobs, relationships or expectations] ** Dream: "Long Way From Home" by Homeward Bound(990426)** ** Dream: "prisoner of the state" by stan kulikowski ii (990622) ** VEHICLES [Means of transportation, reflection of lifestyle] ** Dream: "Lost My Car in a Big Place" by Lost or Something Else? (990507) ** ** Dream: "The 650 beemer" by stan kulikowski ii (990525) ** WATER [A magical earthly fluid, nourishment, cleansing] ** Dream: "The Life Underwater" by Seagull (990501) ** ** Dream: "Losing Battle of Determination" by Seeking Enlightenment (990513) ** ** Dream: "Water vs Mud" by Continuum(990521) ** WORKPLACE [Where we make a living] WRITING & WRITERS [Communication and creativity] = = = = = = = = = = = == DREAM SERIES Stan's Dreams: ** Dream: "pk league, bunting for the fence" by Stan Kulikowski (990427) ** ** Dream: "dream with physical ailment" by stan kulikowski ii (990714) ** ** Dream:"my betrothal" by stan kulikowski ii (990715)** ** Dream: "psychic fair" by stan kulikowski ii (990512) ** +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Farewell for this month. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ = = = = = = = = = = = == = = = = = = = = = = = == FEEDBACK FROM THE DREAMERS {None this month] COMMENTARY ON DREAMS FROM PREVIOUS ISSUES {None this month] NEW DREAMS: PRECOGNITIVE/FUTURE DREAMS [Stories from past experiences, or send them in before it happens, if you can] REPETITIVE DREAMS [Significant by nature] ** Dream:"Late for Class" by Conan (990526)** Late 4 Class re-occurring Dream I dream I'm attending a HUGE college. I wander beautifully manicured grounds and walk along majestic hallways of glass, granite and marble; all lush with potted plants and expensive artwork. Everybody is lively and busy with college life, and I enjoy it so much I forget I'm supposed to be getting registered. These dreams span months in the course of one night. Eventually, I realize I'm almost out of time and I simply MUST get registered. I scurry hither and thither searching in vain for the registration office. Eventually I realize I actually HAD registered, but forgotten, and I've lost my course schedule so I don't have any clue where my class is. Suddenly, I'm back in the halls of my old high school. I get a copy of my course schedule and rush to the class, hoping I can catch up. I walk in and sit down in a room full of kids, even though I'm 35 years old ... only to find the final exam being passed out. I look at the exam and of course, it's a jumble of complex formulas that would befuddle Stephen Hawkings. I usually wake up at that point, feeling very nervous and stressed, but also exhilarated by the majestic college campus. I feel a longing to return and always look forward to the next re-occurrence of the dream. Thanks all ~ Conan ** Dream: "House nightmare & house transformed" by nickbeth (990527) ** childhood-Christmas '98 (old)/ May 26, 1999 (new) This dream is a recurring one that changed significantly last night. Before last night, it went like this: I'm walking down a hallway in a big house with many rooms branching off the hallway. I go into the first room and try to turn on the light, but it doesn't work. It's late afternoon, and the sunlight is slanting in through the window, giving me just enough light to see my reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall. When I look into the mirror, I realize that I am naked and that my face is horribly distorted and bleeding. I run out of the room and find myself in a corridor on a train. Someone is now chasing me (my reflection?) and so I am running from room to room, alternating between coming out into the hallway in the house and the corridor on the train. In every room there is another mirror and my reflection gets closer and more menacing every time. The running/chasing/mirror sequence would usually go on until I woke up sweating and shaking and terrified. Apparently I talked and whimpered and yelled in my sleep when I had this dream. Last night, it was the same dream, only very different. This time, I'm strolling down the hallway, dragging my hands over the plaster walls, enjoying the feeling of the bumps in the walls over my fingertips. As I go into the first room, the light comes on right away, and there's a man lying on a bed with a large cut on his arm. He looks really scary and frightening (like a homeless man), but I'm not afraid. I went over and cleaned up the cut on his arm, ripped the sheet on the bed, and bandaged him up. Then I started to pray for him to get better. He then disappeared. I was expecting him to, I guess, since it didn't faze me at all. As I walked out into the train corridor, I realized that someone was waiting for me, and although I wanted to rush to see who it was, I knew that I was doing something important, and that I had to finish it before seeing who was there. I went through the same alternating sequence with the hallway and the corridor as before, but this time in every room was someone who needed bandaging and prayer before they all disappeared. Finally I came out of a room into another room (they had all had the hallway/corridor break before) and this time it was a beautiful bedroom with candles everywhere like a sappy soap-opera seduction scene. The person who was waiting for me was in the bed, and I don't know who it was supposed to be, but it wasn't who I was expecting. It was my new boyfriend in the bed, and he got up, took my hand, and held me close while I cried, but it felt good. When I finished crying, he kissed me on the forehead, and I woke up feeling very excited and full of energy. Comments by Dreamer: In the first dream, I am the only one in it, (with the possible exception of my reflection, which is chasing me) and in the second dream, the only person I recognized was my new boyfriend, whom I've been dating for less than a month. ** Dream:"attacking cat" by Mary(990622)** 22 June 01:30 I was walking down a country lane with my husband, and further ahead down the road was a cat. I love cats - so I was calling out to him. Then all of a sudden (and I could sense the tone of the dream changing) my husband had disappeared, and I'd fallen down, but couldn't get up - I was totally lacking in co-ordination. Then suddenly, I could see that the cat was running towards me, but it was no longer a nice friendly cat, but had yellow eyes and bared teeth. So I tried to shout at it to go away, but couldn't make sounds other then strangled noises. Then I thought I'd throw my shoe at it, but again, I couldn't control or co-ordinate my limbs. Then the cat was coming closer and closer, and I could see it was going for my face/throat, so I tried desperately to shout/move for all I was worth to scare it away...and I woke up shrieking and hitting my husband. Comments by Dreamer: Very scary - as it's not the first time I've had the "attacking cat" dream. ** Dream: "powers" by jw3013 (990609) ** I have constant reocurring dreams of levitating objects and even myself. I also have constant dreams of having physic abilities. I dreamt that I was backed into a corner with an evil monster with huge sharp teeth that just ate someone. He was about to eat me and I was terrified to death. All of a sudden I started chanting prayers and things from the bible and just mentioning Jesus Christs name (I must mention that I am not spiritual and churchy at all). All of a sudden, I remember seeing the colors red green and white, and then I felt this total feeling of lightness and I started to rise up out of my body or all of my body did and I felt invincible. I told the monster that he cannot touch me because Jesus Christ is protecting me. I was safe. But then the monster was gone, and I kept levitating myself or having out of body experiences whenever I saw the colors red and grenn and white it seemed that way. But it felt so real and spiritual. I also have a dream that I was helping people find people that were trapped under a collapsed building and I led them to a little boy and told them what he was wearing the color of his hair and what he was saying. When they found him, everything said I said was true. Comments by dreamer: I dont know if these reoccuring dreams really mean something or if they are just wishful thinking. I am not even sure if I want them to be real. DREAM TRACES IN WAKING LIFE [The effects of external stimuli on our dreams or is it the other way around - our dreams leaving a trace on our physical reality?] [None this month] DEFYING CLASSIFICATION [Your stumpers may not be so mysterious to others] [None this month] = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = LINKS TO STAGES OF LIFE BIRTH [Starts] CHILDHOOD [Early development] ** Dream: "grandmas, little girls and flying pictures" by Mermaid (990622)** I went with my daughter to visit my paternal Grandma (dead in waking life for nearly 10 years). I hadn't seen her for a while, but had kept up correspondence with her and was surprised to have heard nothing about the little African girl she had adopted. This girl was comparable in age to Emily, my daughter and was happily doing drawings. One of these drawings was of a big flying pig that began looking like a butterfly as it was drawn. Emily walked across and drew a cat inside the belly of the outlined flying pig, then both girls picked up the page that was folded like a paper jet, went outside into the sunny street, threw it and waved as it flew off on its own volition. Soon after that, Emily's Nanna (her Dad's mother; my mother in law) dropped in for a visit. We were just finishing our cups of tea when somebody noticed the time and realized Nanna June would be late for the party she had been invited to. It was an old friend of hers she was to visit. Somebody opened a book on the shelf and said, why don't we call Wanda. She might fly June there? ADOLESCENCE [Maturing, testing] ADULTHOOD [The main event for most] OLD AGE [Wisdom, Approaching the Journeys end] DEATH [Endings] ** Dream: "He Killed Me!" by Shaken (990712)** 07/08/99 2:30 a.m. My father, whom I do not get along with, had kidnapped my sister. I went to my old house where he still lives to try to get her back. I went to the side door and came running back out because he had shot me in the chest with a shotgun. I stumbled around the side of the house and ran into my neighbor. She kept asking me what happened and all I could say was "he shot me. Call a doctor." Then, I died. I didn't know it until I was looking at my body on the ground with my neighbor hovering over it. My spirit kept going higher and higher and then all of a sudden I started plummeting back down. Expecting to see my body on the pavement outside my old house, I was looking at my body in my bedroom. I was sleeping. I drifted down to my body and settled in. I woke feeling as if I were being pressed into my mattress with a great weight and realized that I had just had some type of out of body experience. I always thought it was not possible to die in your dreams. ** Dream: "Dead Eyes" by Sabine (990716) ** I hope you can help me..I had this really scary dream last night, and I don't know how to read it. There is this man that I fell for last year, and it has been a really intense love for him for me. We are constantly in contact, and see each other like once in two months or so. He is really busy with his profession and has to travel all the time. He claims to like me more than I think. He is 28 and I am turning 20 by the end of August. I don't know if this additional information is any help but anyway...what I can remember about my dream is.. I am walking towards a cemetery and the reason is that I've heard that he died through one of his tournaments (he is a really successful athlete) so I am walking between these tombstones towards this little crowd about two hundred yards away. As I pass people coming from this crowd, I recognize my aunt sitting next to a tombstone wearing a wedding dress and having a picnic with her friends.She looks at me smiles and I keep on walking towards the crowd. Then I find myself on a balcony over this guy's grave. He is lying there facing the ground, and a couple of people are standing next to him talking. He is still wearing the clothes he wore at the tournament, and the funeral seems to be over as the people leave. On the balcony, I find a newspaper were they have already written about his death. Next thing I know is I am looking down at him, and people are moving his dead body, rolling him on his back. As they turn him around, I recognize that his hair has grown, and then I look him right in to his face and his eyes stare at me and are really close to my own eyes, although I am on the balcony. So I am staring into his dead eyes and I feel sad.....then I woke up and felt really confused, weird and scared. I really hope you can help me. I was thinking of sharing this dream with him but I don't want to scare him. Please help me. I feel so confused. Thank you, Sincerely, Sabine ** Dream: "Kevorkian Nudists" by ? (990704) ** I was back in time about 30 years or so. I was in this nudist camp for elderly people (I am not elderly; I'm 28) that was run by Dr. Jack Kevorkian. These folks were doing all the normal stuff that people do in nudist camps: volley ball, sunbathing, badminton, stuff like that. Anyway, this camp was out in the middle of the woods, and there was this old fashioned 4 legged white bathtub about 30 feet in front of this cabin. I was standing near the bathtub, fully clothed. Every so often, an old woman would climb into the bathtub and joyously slit her own throat with a very long, slim knife. As she bled to death, all the people in the camp would form a big pile and have a furiously fast-paced INTENSELY AGRESSIVE orgy. This would last for 10 minutes or so, then they would go back to what they were doing before like nothing had happened. I questioned them about it and they acted like they didn't know what I was talking about. The bathtub was always clean at the end of the orgy, and Dr. Kevorkian was in a window in the upper part of the cabin, laughing the whole time. Comments by Dreamer: This is still disturbing me, and it's still very vivid. Any help would be appreciated. Permission Comments: Do whatever you wish with this. I only want help in interperetation. COMMUNICATION WITH THE DEAD [Beyond our terrestrial limits] ** Dream: "Dead people" by ? (990516) ** I have in the past dreamt a lot of my dead grandma who was the only grandparent i knew, i had dreamt that she had come back to visit even thought she has been dead, she sat down with me and my mom at a coffee shop and we were letting her listen to all the songs she missed while she was away. This dream was pretty common to me since i dreamt of this grandma relatively lots and these dreams had taken place last year. But a really uncommon dream was a dream i dreamnt this year about my other grandma who i have never known because she died when i was only a couple months old. I dreamt that there was a family gathering in a big tent and i was sitting on this grandma's lap and all of us were telling her all the news she had missed in the past 17 years! (im 17 btw) This dream just came from out of the blue, and i don't understand why. my classmate friends kept appearing in this dream near the tent as well so it was a kind of unorganized dream. But what could it possibly mean? The night before or the night after this dream i dreamt of my other grandma who was walking around my relatives house in either canada or virginia (setting kept switching) and she was acting very unlike her personality, she was being irritable and bitchy (maybe she was in a form of a ghost), when i slammed the bathroom door she screamed at me as my father usually would (she's my mom's mom though) which was very wierd because thats sooo unlike her when she was alive. She never screamed at me, she was always quite pleasant. Comments by Dreamer: So why do u think i dreamt of two dead people two nights in a row? especially the grandma i didn't know and whom i was sitting on the lap of? I'm sorry this is sooo long but interested in anything u could comment about them. thank you ========================================== ========================================== AGGRESSION [By us or against us- crossing others paths] ** Dream: "Getting Tough" by Koala (990429) ** I'm being taunted by a little mexican boy (I'm white). He seems to be trying to get me angry by saying that if that's all the harder I can hit, I must be pretty weak. I get tired of hearing him go on so I hit him. I keep hitting him while I tell him that I've been taking it easy on him all along. He has a shocked look on his face because I'm inflicting pain. I told him I could have been hitting him like that all along, but I didn't want to and it wasn't necessary. I wasn't really angry as much as I was thinking, "You little jerk! Here I've been taking it easy on you and instead of just being grateful, you want to push me to the edge and make me hurt you!" Immediately after that, I'm riding a black or brown horse--feeling really good being out in the fresh air on a sunny day. I get to the top of a small hill and dismount. The horse turns into a stick horse, but the head, torso, and front legs of the horse are there and it's real, not stuffed. I cradle the horse in my arms (it's very weak) and begin rocking it back and forth. I feel very sad that someone could have done this to a beautiful animal just to make a childs toy. Then I woke up. ========================= This dream came in from the Electric Dreams Network. If you would like your comments to be published along with this dream, please send the comments to Bob Krumhansl - bobkrum@erols.com Please include the dream title, a pen name or just your first name. If you want your email published with the dream comment, make this very clear. Otherwise all submissions are considered anonymous. For more information on the Electric Dreams Network, visit http://www.dreamgate.com/electric-dreams - Richard ** Dream: "Vampires" BY ? (990712)** A vampire attacks me. I am not afraid nor in pain, but I am alone. I see others and they do not understand. I am unable to stop the feelings that this vampire induces. The details are very clear and concise, but I am beginning to get concerned in my waking moments. Permission Comments: Please interpret this as best that you can. ** Dream: "Geshko's" by ? (990502)** May 2 I find myself outside a theatre where I do spotlights, and this girl that I think I love is cowering in a corner. Her boyfriend is yelling at her, and it looks like its about to get violent. I step in between them and stare at the guy. He looks suprised for a second, then starts pummeling me. For some reason, I don't fight back. As I lose conciousness in the dream, I wake up. ALIENS [Visitors or visited - creatures from other dimensions] AMUSEMENT PARK [A place to relax and enjoy, another reality] ANGELS [Visitors from Spiritual dimensions] ANIMALS [Basic Instincts - This month: Hamsters, Fish, ducks, snakes and cat's - small and large- appear.] ** Dream: "hamsters" (990509) ** I dreamt that I had hamsters around me. ** Dream: "The Large Fish & The Old Friend" by Jeff (990720)** Hi there. I was filling in a bit of time on the net today when I found your address and the site on dreams. I dream a lot and very often I have no idea what certain things mean. My most recent dream was about a large fish that jumped out of the water and was chasing me after it bit me on the leg, it had me bailed up against a wall. The funny thing was that most of the dream was spent telling people about the fish. My Mum even said "You know that's almost unbelievable". I also have a reoccurring dream about a best friend from primary school whom I haven't seen for 15 years. I dream that I have bumped into her and that we are reaquainted. I say in the dream "Hey I've dreamt about this." Looking forward to hearing from you. Jess ** Dream:"school and ducks next door" by Mermaid (990627) ** Dreamed on 5am Sunday 27th June 1999: first snippet..neighbours had opened the fence down the back of our garden like a gate, but had cut down a well-established loquat tree. Although there aren't "really" ducks around, there had been in the dream, only they were all in with the neighbours, including some stripey ducklings. I had the impression that we used to "share" the ducks, but suddenly the neighbours were worried about them being taken away, and had them cooped up. They agreed to one duck and one duckling coming into our yard again, but wanted us to watch a video on duck development and the latest technology and trendy duck-maintenance techniques. The dream snippet ended with me and my 2 year old son trying to catch the duck and duckling to get a closer look at them and pat their feathers and feed them some greens and snails. **** Then I took my 5 year old daughter to a school holiday program at my old school. She really liked it, and the school headmistress (from my time) and wanted to change to go there instead of her current school. She took a test and was at a suitable level of academic excellence to qualify for a scholarship. On the way "home" from the school, we had to cross a railway line and somebody was worried about taking their toddler over it and had a tight harness on him in the stroller. Emily liked crossing the bridge to see the view over the railway line and surrounds. notes - it seemed warm and sunny and daytime in my dreams though it was really cool and misty when I got up. I went to an all girls' Anglican school. I think it was a mother duck and a male duckling in our yard. ** Dream: "Dead Cats in a River" by Cinnaminpop (990618)** June 18,1999 I was at school when all of us students were making flower bouquets, and I had gotten on the bus to go home. When I got home, I got off the bus. Then, I returned to the bus for no reason and rode the usual route. Then, all of a sudden, I was getting off the bus and walking through this river about ankle deep. I noticed that I kept stepping on something, and to my surprise, I looked down and I was stepping on dead cats. The dead cats were floating in the river everywhere. I couldn't step over them. I have no clue on the meaning of this dream. It was a dream I will never forget. Comments by Dreamer: I wish I knew what a river full of dead cats means. ** Dream: "Alternate Marriage and Snakes" by Concerned (990720)** I have had two dreams over the past two weeks that have disturbed me, the first one in particular. The first one I dreamt I was marrying the brother of a friend who I have not seen in over a year. The problem is that her brother died in a car accident 2 years ago. I am currently married, but in my dream my husband had been dead for six years. What does this mean? The second one I dreamt of snakes. I have been told that snakes are not good to dream about, but in this dream I was walking through a clearing in a forest. There were campers on either side of me killing the snakes. The snakes were not actually going for me. Your interpretation of these dreams would be appreciated. Concerned. ** Dream: "Strange Cat" by Tami (990512) ** wed. am, May 12, 1999 6:45 am I was in a house in California (I actually live in Kansas) and everyone(?not my family, not my friends, just people in the house. Me being there wasn't an issue) was using all of the showers upstairs. Someone told me to try the kitchen so I went downstairs. I was mildly irritated to find no bathroom at all downstairs, so I wandered over to the refridgerator (olive green, but not ugly) and proceeded to open it, exclaim out loud "this is stupid, I can't take a shower with a refridgerator, what am I doing here" then I flipped to a different view in the kitchen (about 6 feet back from the refridgerator, facing it, a kitchen island to my right, stairs to my left, sliding door and window to the right of the refridgerator) I looked on the floor by the island and a huge decorative conch shell was sitting beside it. That wasn't strange because we were in California, and the ocean was nearby (dream logic, also in the dream, I had remembered that you needed to be careful of the animal that lives in the conch shell???) I was looking at the shell when a fluffy orange, striped tail came out of the back of it. It looked like a big orange tabby cat (kind of bright) and when it had emerged I noticed that it had 2 heads. One head was a passive head, eyes not opened and no movement of the mouth, the active head only cracked its eyes open (and I didn't seem all that concerned about that in my dream) the mouth was meowing, but I didn't actually hear its sound, I just knew it was making one. Then I awoke, Vividly aware of all of the details. Comments by Dreamer: I had no fear, just mild curiosity, also mild irritation at the inconvenience of no shower. Permission Comments: Sure, that's fine. I can't seem to make heads or tails of it, maybe someone else can ** Dream: "Vividly coloured fish" by Island_Fox (990513)** May 11 12:10 AM My dream was of vividly coloured fish. Turquoise and yellow fish, were swimming in a huge aquarium. A whole wall was covered by this aquarium. On the other wall was shelves and they had the same coloured fish in small fish bowls. My aunt was indirectly involved in the dream because it was her home, but I never saw her. The only way to get out of the room was to use a motor boat, and I had to go through a trap door in the wall that had the huge aquarium covering it. The dream seemed to go on for some time. At one time or another I was in the boat, but in the ocean now, and the ocean was an angry ocean. There was a station where I could go to the bathroom and it was filthy.......... That's about all I can remember, but I didn't have to get up to go to the bathroom I just woke up rolled over and went back to a peacefull sleep Comments by Dreamer: Beautifull Turquoise and Yellow colours ** Dream: "Black Swans" by ? (990513) ** Saturday 24th April 1999 In my dream, I had a vision of some black swans on a very still lake. I believe that black swans have some significance, but can you tell me what that is???!! BATHROOMS [Maintenance, Cleansing and Elimination] BELONGING [What we are associated with or wish we were] BOOKS (Extensions of our memory and imagination, our permanent records) BRIDGES [How we get across an obstacle or go from here to there] CELEBRITIES [The well known - famous and infamous] CLOTHING [What we wear tells us about ourselves and the events we participate in] COMEDY [With an accent on puns, funny situations or jokes] ** Dream: "First Prize" by Marie (990714) ** long time ago My sister and I were walking along a wooded path talking when we came along a male passed out in a kilt. I was very attracted to him and went closer to look. I peeked underneath his kilt. I then took the ribbon out of my hair and tied it around his private. When he woke, I was watching him, but he couldn't see me. He started on his way along the path till it came to and end. He had to cross the road to enter row houses. He went in the house and started up the stairs, on the way up I was thinking of what a strange colour that was to paint the walls. He went in the bathroom and was going when someone (I thought was his mother) yelled to him and asked him where he had been. He said he didn't know, but won first prize. I started to panic and thought I shouldn't be here seeing him like this. I was really frightened and didn't know what was happening. I woke sweating and afraid. COMMUNICATIONS [From telepathic to devices to signs & symbols] COMPUTERS [Extensions of our minds, mind tools, communication] ** Dream: "Dream Stats" by dreambat (990430)** The school dean suggests that we ask Stan to help with my statistics. He points the way and I go down the hall and then ask a secretary where his office is. She hasn't a clue, but another woman overhears us and points the way. I enter and its like a motel room and office combination. Stan is sitting on the bed playing with his laptop computer. He is very amazed by how the graphics program can bend and twist his picture. I tell him the program can duplicate it as well. He says yes, look at this, and then opens several windows on the computer with his graphic. I tell him that the program will also put the graphic together as a 3 dimensional object, such as a cube, or develop it as a fractal as well. He is quite amazed by this. He takes my statistics and says he needs to run these at his house and will be back. I am left kind of confused and irritated. I think to myself in the dream that I guess he expects me to just stay there and study until he gets back. GAP then I go looking for him. I get into a bad neighborhood and jump over a chain link fence and enter a large park that has many hills. I see they are letting the animals out. I worry about them. They are zoo animals and usually locked up. I see lions and elephants and hippos and ostriches. I decide they might be hungry after their nap and run up the hill to get away. CULTS [Somewhere out there ...] DIRECTIONS [Ever stop and ask for directions? North, South, East, West, up, down, ahead, behind, straight, turn, right, left, make a circle, cross, go through, open, close, mix, add, boil, cook, simmer, but most of all - follow these instructions carefully...and don't be shy about asking someone else down the path, except, of course, for the Big Bad Wolf!!!] DISCOVERY [New insights and unexpected developments] ** Dream: "Other Life" by William (990530) ** May 30, 1999 My name is William and I had a dream that was like real. I had a dream that we found 8 planets around one anouther and one of them had life on it - Human like. We had invented a Time Machine Telescope that you step inside of, and this is what was taking us to the 8 planets we had found. ** Dream: "17 and Pregnant" by Jesse (990705) ** I had this dream that I was pregnant, and so was my best friend. We are both 17 years old and for some reason were really happy about it. We were in a dark street and then suddenly we were on a bus and that is all I can remember. ** Dream: "Head Falling off" by ? (990607)** A few weeks ago: A friend of mine who told a few of us about his weird dream want's to know what it means, but is too shy to ask anyone about it. Coming across your site in a search engine, I saw the chance to mail a dream and have it looked into. Could you please do me a big honour of telling me what it means, Thank you. To help out with it a bit, there's a site on which we talk to each other [about 10 people] everyday. None of us have met, only over the net. What the dream was about is: We all decide to meet one day in a Bar. We are all waiting in the bar for him to come in and join us, and after a long wait, he comes through the door, and he looks around and his head falls off. Now, funny as it is, that's all the dream consisted of. Comments by Dreamer: Eh, Please help. ** Dream:"Revealing the Moon" by Amiris (990603) ** Tuesday, June 1, 1999/Wednesday, June 2, 1999 I was outside with someone, male, I believe. I knew the person but could not see the face nor did I know the name, but the voice was familiar. We were outside in the parking lot by my apartment complex. It was night and the sky was cloudy and there was wind--I was upset because I couldn't see the moon so this person told me to cast a spell so that the moon would reveal itself to me. I performed a ritual but can't remember how I did it. Once I finished the ritual the clouds parted and immediately I saw a perfectly round bright full moon. I was jumping up and down quite excited because the spell had worked and the person standing with me said, "see, I told you that you could do it". I was really happy at this point. I stood with this person in the moonlight staring at the moon. As soon as the moon revealed itself to me the wind stopped. Suddenly there appeared little black bats as if they had flown out of the moon itself. At first I was nervous, maybe even a bit frightened, but as the bats came closer I realized that they had appeared as a result of the spell I had cast and that they meant no harm. They circled close over my head and I reached up my arms and made it so that they could land on my hand if they choose to but they just flew back into the moon. Immediately after they returned to the moon I looked down at my feet and saw little turtles-one for each bat that had flown over my head but I cant remember the number (possibly ten). Since we were in the parking lot I picked up a soft powder blue blanket and held it in my arms, I then started to place the turtles into the blanket I was holding to move them out of the parking lot and to a safer place. Then the dream changed scenes, and I was in my step father's convenience store looking at butterfly clips for my hair. I saw only black and white and was trying to decide between the two. I moved the basket that they were in and saw a pink butterfly clip and choose that one. The person in my dream was with me until I went to the convenience store. Other than the few moments of nervousness when the bats first appeared and confusion when I was trying to choose a hair clip the overall emotional feel of the dream was excitement and happiness. Comments by Dreamer: I had this dream when I went to bed and was surprised that I remembered so much of it that I was surprised. I would love it if someone could analyze this dream and tell what everything means in it. Permission Comments: Please forward any comments or interpretations to my e-mail address it amiris@hotmail.com. ** Dream: "Translucent Brain" by ? (990512)** Date of Dream: 5/12/99 8:00am I had a very disturbing dream last night. I dreamt that I was looking in the mirror, and that I had very stringy hair and when I combed it aside, it revealed my translucent head with carrots and corn slices imbeded in my brain. I tried to peel one of the carrots off, but it gave me a strange, tingling feeling and something told me that I should just leave it alone. Then I thought about eating it and visualized myself doing it. Then I held my breath and my head turned hot and heated up until my head turned opaque again. Comments by Dreamer: I normally wouldn't worry about something like this, but the dream has been haunting my day-dreams all day today. Every time I stop doing something, I think about the dream. It must be a warning of something, but I don't know what. I currently have a head full of hair and I'm 19 and going slightly gray. Maybe it has something to do with my upcoming exams. I really don't know. Permission Comments: Comment away on this. I'm very curious about it. DREAMING [Dreams about dreaming] DRUGS [Healing or Hurting?] ** Dream: "Dreams,Vision,Drugs" by ? (990511) ** Stories about young people dreaming and religious themes. Visions people have and drugs people use. Permission Comments: No put downs for comments! Thank you! EATING [Getting nourishment for maintenance, growth and pleasure] ELEVATORS [Going UP or DOWN - Push the right button or else...] ESCAPE [Get me outta here!!!] EVENTS [The activity defines or dominates the story - a convergence of people at a place and time for a special purpose] EYES [The organs of sight...the window to the soul...] FEAR [What scares us] ** Dream: "Falling" by Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:52:30 -0700 I had a dream once that I was at my old school which I had went to when I was a child. With me were my 2 year old cousin and my aunt. We were playing on the side of a cliff when I notice that my cousin is falling. I just stood there and let her fall. She hit the bottom of the cliff, the road, and I thought surely that she was dead. I got to the bottom and she was alive. Comments by Dreamer: I don't know why I had this dream, I love my little cousin with all of my heart. FIRE [Flames bring light, heat and destruction/transformation] FLOWERS [Color and fragrance that nourish our spirit] FLYING [Confidence, Power, Freedom & Perspective] ** Dream: "Infidelity and Flying" by D (990619) ** 17June...5am My husband and I are at a dance. He's making a move on some woman, and dancing with her all night. I go to the washroom where a young woman is who also has her eye on my husband. I confront her and she cries; I put my hand gently on her face and say, 'if women would only talk to one another, we'd never hurt each other'. Two friends and I and another person in a circle - special dance. We're all floating and Duncan goes first - he flies through the air in a larger circle around us dipping in to touch his wife... he's doing it wrong because he doesn't dip in to the rest of us. It was very difficult to maintain, but we enjoyed it. Can any one make any sense of this??? Thanks for your help. Comments by Dreamer: My husband did have an affair 20 years ago, but it's not something I've dwelled on in the last decade or so. FOOD [The source of our physical nourishment] ** Dream: "Cooked meat" by Babylove (990704) ** June 29, 5.30 a.m. /july 4 6.30 a.m. My father and I are in a banquet. There is buffet style food kept in food warmers. I hand my father a very fine china dish that seemed like it was an antique and very expensive. Then I take one of the dishes for myself. The waiter then points out to my father the first dish. I look at it. It is chicken legs in a very rich sauce of herbs and spices. My father fills his plate and moves ahead. I see very small pieces of meat with huge pieces of potatoes floating in the sauce. I see my father whistling and in a very happy mood. The place is lit with chandeliers and is very bright. There are lots of people all in a happy mood. Then I wake up to find myself in bed. It was dawn about 5.30 a.m. After a week, I dreamt that my parents and I are in a train and the journey has ended. We go to the end of the train where the kitchen is. There are many tray of foods stacked to one side and the other side is an exit. The I see pieces of bird meat cooked and kept in the trays. I tell my father that they look like turkey legs. Suddenly, I see the legs twitching. I tell my mother that if the meat is cooked how come they are still twitching. Anyway, I begin to get out of the train and after having got out, I tell my mother that she has to get off as that is the last stop and the train will go back. Then I wake up. The time was 6.30 a.m. GIFTS [Offerings to or from others] HOBBIES [Our interests and desires]- COLLECTING THINGS HOLIDAYS [Time off to ...] HOSPITAL [A place for treatment, healing and repair] ** Dream: "Pregnancy" by Renrik (990703) ** July 3 - 8am The dream was that I was in a hospital filling out forms because I was very pregnant. I was sitting next to a male friend of mine who just happened to be there and was playing a computer game at a desk. I had been playing before him waiting for nurse to arrive. Once the papers came, I started filling them out, but I couldn't answer any of the information on them because I didn't know the answers. As my anxiety grew, I started having contractions and my water broke, but the nursing staff refused to see me until the form was filled out. Everyone seemed to be oblivious to my panic. Finally, I stood up and there was blood/water all over the seat from when my water broke and my friend finally noticed that I really needed to see someone. He said I should go to the elevator and go to the maternity ward, and then he resumed playing his game. I headed to the elevator, clipboard and sheet in hand waiting for it to arrive when a check-in guard/nurse noticed that I didn't look so good. She rushed over and helped me into the elevator and took me to the emergency floor instead of maternity because she said they only deal with people who have already given birth there. As the elevator doors slammed shut, I woke up. Comments by Dreamer: Alright, to set the stage, I am a 23 year old woman, seriously involved with a man for the past 1.5 years...and I am not pregnant and never have been. I am also very faithful to my parnter and would never dream of cheating on him. I do not plan on getting married for the next couple of years, and do not plan on having children until I am at least 30. I am on exchange and am heading home in two weeks. This dream was very disturbing to me. HOUSE [Where our lives take place] ** Dream:"The Race House" by Sierra (990612) ** 06/12/99 - approx. 0500 am In my dream, I am at a lake near a place called Deer Run. In reality I actually lived quite close to this location. I am in a race or practing for a race (probably a rogaine or orienteering type event). I start running over hills, dirt, in the bush, brush, It is overcast out but not uncomfortable weather. I am part of a team but the other two members are there yet. I reach a fork in the road where the trail seems to incline slowly. There I meet up with my team members (two girls whom I was very good friends with in elementary/high school). We also meet up with another team, one girl and two guys. The girl is short and fat, I recognize her but I am not sure from where. The two males I do not actually see but I know that they are there. I ask them where they started and they say that they began. This irritates me and I say, "well i began at the beginning that's where you are supposed to start." The next thing I know is that all 6 of us are running together as a pack. We reach a old white house that has seen better times. We all go inside up the stairs to a room. The room possibly could have been a living room at one point but it looks like it has been converted into a store. The walls have shelves and it is very dusty and bare. A man behind the counter tells me that it once was really busy but slowed down considerably since the mine shut down. At this point I go to a very large window and look out, I see the mine entrance which looks like a two door garage except that it looks really new. I turn around and there are two miners in there buying something and then they leave. At this point I also notice that the short fat girl from the other team is eating something that looks like rice pudding, she says she needs it for energy if she is going to win the race. I turn to Suzanne and Diana, my team, and say, "come on let's go I can win this race." The short fat girl goes up some stairs but S, D, and myself go out the doorway. To get down we have to descend down a broken, rickety old ladder. One of the males from the other team is doing just this and is nearly at the bottom. I once again say that I can win this race and climb down two rungs at which point there is a rope hanging down to the ground. I slide down the rope because it is better and faster still thinking, "I am going to win this race." Comments by Dreamer: I appear to be uncertain about what is going on, ie. how I got to be in this race but the overall feeling of the dream is positive. In real life I have just recently separated from my partner with no explanation other than it was all them and had nothing to do with me. Could this be affecting my dreaming? ** Dream: "Moving Furniture" by Andrometa (990721) ** July 21,1999 Approx. 3:00AM My dream was very simple... I was in a living room and I was moving a couch toward a wall. My best friend came into the room and he began to yell at me and he told me not to move the couch my the wall... Comments by Dreamer: I just want to know if this dream means anything about me and/or my relationship with my best friend... He and I are on the verge od starting a romantic relationship... Permission Comments: You may publish my dream to anyone... ** Dream: "Hall of Doors" by Venus (990611) ** 06/09/99 3 a.m. est upon waking I must tell you about a dream I had Wed night....the only reason I say this is because it is really the only one this week that I have remembered afterwards...darn thing even woke me up! It was really clear too, at least the last part of it........Here I am (and I do swear it is almost like a scrooge type thing) with this entity...dont know exactly what or who...but they led me through different phases of my life...can't really remember that part...but at the end the entity lead me to a hallway. It lead me there and told me to get in the first line leading to a doorway, then it was gone. As I looked around myself and this hallway, I could see several doorways all the way down the hall...no end to the actual hallway...every doorway was the same and at each doorway there was a line of women....all clones of me...every single one of them in blue nightgowns exactly like the one I was wearing in my dream, and also actually wearing to bed that night. I could see each woman walk up to the door and walk out. Finally it came my turn to be at the doorway...all I could see was a sky and clouds...all these women were walking out into nothingness! and they gladly went!! ! I remember thinking to myself "forget this, I'm not jumpin out a doorway to my death!" I ran up and down the hallway looking for another door that went somewhere else...shouting at all of them to stop, what were they doing? No one answered, they just kept walking out the doorways...no expressions....just emptiness on their faces....except when they hit the doorway and started falling they were happy! I could see the joy on their faces as they fell to what I presumed to be death......At that point I woke myself up, because I could tell somewhere in my subconscience that I was becoming agitated.(and I really did feel agitated, not being able to just walk out a doorway into the sky below, but also having no other choice) At the point between waking up and being totally awake it occurred to me that maybe they werent actually dying...maybe they were going on to something better....Then I was totally awake sitting at the table in my room shaking, and confused. Comments by Dreamer: The hallway was dark, and shadowy, except for the doorways being nice and blue with clouds and sky. All the women were exact clones of me..lines and lines of them. Permission Comments: Permission granted for any form of guidance and constructive critism. HOTELS [Temporary Dwelling or Special Event location] JOURNEYS [Missions away from our home base -explorations] ** Dream: "Skyland" by Pine (990609) ** 6/9/99 8:30AM Last night I dreamt that I flew to the skyland with my brother, for purpose of 'remembering'. We flew with the power of a triangle that was held in our arms in front of us. We landed in one building in the clouds, a royal court, where Mom was. Then a window opened in the clouds so we could see the happenings below. We saw the city below, and a large oval green field as we drifted over it. Then it began to rain little orange flags that stuck into the clouds, and my brother and I had to hide from them. These flags came to show us what was happening on earth. Then I descended back to the earth, to the large oval green field. I played football there with some friends. Comments by Dreamer: After the dream I began to reflect on the Bible passage that says something like: 'When the end of the world comes, both Heaven and Earth will be reconstructed'. ** Dream: "Engagement in London" by Banshee (990709)** 7/9/99 at approx. 7:30 AM EDT In this dream, I am in London, England. (I have never been there). I am with a man from there who is about my age, tall, medium build, with loose, dark hair. He had a goatee and was wearing a grey trench coat. I was about 23 or so, and looked much like I do in waking hours. I also had a trenchcoat, but mine was beige or taupe. We are walking down a tree-lined street on a brick or cobblestone sidewalk. It had been raining, but wasn't then. It was dark and foggy and the streetlights were on (they were orange). We're talking, laughing, holding hands, heading toward town. On the way, he turned our conversation toward marriage. I asked him, "Are you serious?" and he said, "I am if you are!" I replied "I hate that expression because if you were serious and I was joking, then I would leave you hanging." He responded "Well, I am serious." and I said, "So am I." We continued on our way to a mall. The mall was large and high with stone walls. There were 3 stores, one straight ahead, one left and one right. To get to the rest of the mall, you must go through the store to the left. The store on the right had a large, white sign above the doors with the store's name (something with a B, Brian's perhaps? I can't remember.) To our immediate left is a small jewelry kiosk. Behind the counter are a man and a woman, both impeccably dressed. They address the man as Mr. (I can't remember his name.) He tells them we are looking for a diamond engagement ring, but they don't have any. They do have these rings that are green stones (regular stones, not jewels) set in silver. We decide to go look somewhere else. And the I wake up. I have never had a dream where I remembered so many details. It was almost like I was really there. It has been plaguing me ever since because I don't understand it. Please e-mail me at LadyMorgan@webmail.netscape.com or post comments here. ** Dream: "K's Adventures: The Axe Man & The Hungry Cat" by Kly (990625) ** 06/23/99 first must have been around 8-9, the other i woke from around 9:45 or so. I was in the army I think. My friend (in the dream) and I were canoeing down this lake. It was dark out and the water was calm. We were going to her apartment to get something. When we got to shore, we pulled the boat in and there was a huge canoe(fit like 30 people) and people were already getting in, but the back was sinking down more than it should. We were concerned that it wouldn't hold all of us. We went to her apartment and her landlord screwed her because he just gave the apartment to someone else. The guy let us in, he was from our military group. We sat down with him, he was playing solitare and was telling us that his girlfriend came to visit, but she was in the shower. I was sitting at the table, but I was also watching her get ready in the bathroom. She was throwing stuff around and ordering him around, acting like a complete bitch. Then she came out and saw us sitting there and started acting all nice and innocent. It skipped...now I'm trying to hide from somebody. Our leader or someone went nuts and was trying to kill us all. In a small country town, I was hiding inside a small motel room. The guy that got my friends apartment was in the room next to me, but he had his radio up loud and was giving away his position. I looked around the room. It had lots of windows, all the curtains were shut, but one on the side of the room. He would be able to see me thru that, so I went into the bathroom. Then he was in the room coming towards the bathroom. He had an axe. He came in and attacked me stabbing me over and over with his axe. It hurt, but the axe wouldnt cut through my skin. I woke up gasping for breath and had a sharp pain in my chest. I fell back asleep within a minute and dreamt of this: I was driving down the street to go to the store. I stopped at a light and was going to turn right, but I was in the left turn lane (this was normal in the dream). I looked over to the left of me and there was a huge lion sitting in the road (looked very real but was as big as a house), very detailed). I thought it was very cool. I drove on and stopped at a 7-11. I went in and saw 2 girls I used to hang out with a lot. As I walked by I asked what they were up to and they both ignored me. I watched one walk away and saw all the things we'd done together and wondered what her problem was. I let it go and got my stuff(a drink and gum) back in the car. I'm at another stoplight in the left turn lane. For some reason, I pulled up really close and on an angle to the car in front of me, which was a light blue bronco convertable with 4 girls inside. Behind me a little way was another huge lion(extremely lifelike and huge). For a second, I wondered if I should be scared, but the feeling went away as quick as it came. It did scare the people behind me, they stayed way back. There was a dark blue car behind and to the right of me with no one in front of him. Suddenly, the huge lion behind took off running to the left of me up a hill. Right after that a huge leopard(spotted wild cat, don't know which kind)ran out from in front of me in a rage and attacked the dark blue car behing and to the right of me. I turned in amazement and watched the cat devour the whole car. It looked very real. I saw the windsheild break and the wipers bend with the guy behind the wheel in sheer terror. The cat ate the whole car. I turned left, the people in front of me were gone. I looked to the left and saw a baby lion(still huge) run down the hill and roll over(happily) on the ground. Then the other lion that ran off earlier came after it. They were next to each other and I realized it was a mother and child. It made me very happy to see this. I was driving home and was excited to tell my parents about the happenings. I got home(wasn't home, was an apartment) and my Mom, Dad and Grandma were there. I wasn't so excited to tell them any more because I knew they wouldn't understand it, but they were very excited to hear what happened, so i told them that in the pack of gum I had bought was a bunch of money hidden in the pack(there was). There was a twenty and some ones. I think there was another twenty too, but i didn't see it( my mom was yelling at me a couple days before for losing 20 bucks so I figure it had to do with that because I was saying I got double what I lost). The whole dream was in night time(most of mine are). Comments by Dreamer: These were both very very vivid, and felt extremely realistic, especially the cat one. Permission Comments: Please send me your interpretations. I haven't a clue as to what they are trying to tell me. I am a female 21 years old. My e-mail is: etain@angelfire.com Thank you. ** Dream: "Pilot Disaster" by Thirteenth Peer (990610)** June 10 1999 The part I remember the most vividly is of leaving from a sort of barracks where I had had close friends who stayed there with me. We shared some unhappy circumstance as war or plague, but at some point I woke to find my self completely alone. I rushed outside and proceeded to an airfield which seemed familiar to my dream me as if I was a pilot. There was a young lady standing near an oil drum fire. She was dressed normally. My near panicked question was whether she had seen any planes taking off. She said no, but there was some sort of flatness to her expression that I did not trust. It was not sinister though. The sky was completely black and the earth was as if made of light sand. I went hurriedly to some sort of rudimetary building of corrogated aluminum with barbed wire around the top. There was space around the top of the walls before the roof. I intended somehow to break in though it was not quite wrong for me to be there only wrong how I wanted to go in. I got in and found with a sort of horror that my plane was not there. I remember taking some sort of storage space open to remove engine parts again unpleasantly surprised to find they were not the right ones. Just as I am discovering this, my comrades or friends begin to return in fighter planes, but at the same time bombs start landing or perhaps it was a plane or planes crashing and burning. Later, I am in some sort of cafeteria standing before an old woman, as if at inspection, but she is reaching out and her hand brushes my cheek. She prophecies that I shall recieve horrible disfiguration in sixty years at which point there appears a tatoo in red and black on my right arm just below the shoulder, and I realize somehow that the disfigurement is somehow the same as that received by an important friend at the barracks that I believe to now be dead, and that the disfigurement is somehow shared or perhaps a mark of guilt toward that friend or something. ** Dream: "Decisions" by HollyL (990601) ** June 1, 1999...am The dream started somewhere out in the middle of nowhere...green hills, dirt paths, stone rock formations... reminded me of Stonehenge (though I've never been there). I was walking up one of the dirt paths when I noticed a very beautiful, very athletic woman killing a stranger and laughing while she did it. I went up to her and asked her why. She told me that it was because I wasn't involved in a relationship with her and until I promised to be with her (forever) she was going to keep killing people. She told me that she had been in love with me for a long time and that she hated waking up every morning without me (for the record, I am a woman also). She laughed and then spelled out the ultimatum: be with me as my lover, or be responsible for the death of many people. At first there was no decision...I told her that I would be with her. My conscience wouldn't allow otherwise. So, we started a relationship. We slept together immediately and I f! ! elt very torn inside because I actually liked making love to her- even though I couldn't help but think about the fact that she was a murderer. Time seemed to go on...several years passed. One day I was walking around some old homes, which were made out of stone. They were probably old ruins from a long ago civilization. I met a young boy, probably around seven or eight years old, and befriended him. He had no friends or family. I knew I had to introduce him to the killer/my lover...and I felt awful about doing so. I was afraid his young eyes would see only her beauty, nothing else. I felt that if I ever told him the situation, he wouldn't believe me. She was in fact so incredibly beautiful (on the outside). How, I asked myself, could she be so terrible on the inside. Finally the day came when I decided that I had to leave her. She was unbearibly suffocating and outrageously co-dependent. I felt like I was dying inside. I couldn't make love to her anymore. I couldn't even stand to look at her. Everything she did pertained to me. She brought flowers, cooked elaborate meals, wrote poetry about her love for me...basically she breathed for me. She had to always be near me. I couldn't stand her anymore; at all. I told the boy that we must leave. Suprisingly he trusted me and chose to go with me rather than stay with her. I met her at the top of a small hill, the boy by my side, and said "I am leaving you, I can't go on this way anymore." She smiled and said "you can't, you know what I'll do!" I told her that I indeed was aware of what she'd do, but I could no longer be responsible for her actions. I told her that I felt awful about what she was going to do, but I would no longer sacrifice my life for others. I was dying. She looked down, toward the bottom of the hill, and smiled. She pointed at a male jogger who was coming up the hill and said "he'll be first". I took the boy and began walking down the hill. I had to pass the jogger. He smiled at me and said "good morning" and continued running right toward her. I wanted to turn around, knowing his fate, but I couldn't. I kept walking and never looked back. She killed him and then starting running after me and the boy. I took his hand and we fled as fast as we could. We had to hide in the rooms of the old ruins. The last thing I remember I was sweating and could feel my heart beating very rapidly. I wasn't going to change my mind. I woke up. ** Dream: "Rotting Souls" by VdeV (990511) ** February 23, 1999. fell asleep:11:30 pm awoke:6:20 am The sky is very grey and it is mid-day. We are driving along the road and there are pine trees on either side. I am in a red car with my boyfriend Erik. We are following our friends Tim and Holly in their blue car to a out of state event. There seems to be no sound, eeire stillness. We decide to pull off for a moment in this small town to get gas and food. There is a plaza right off to the side of the road so we pull off. There is a dollar store a Bp gas station and a cinema, just seems odd because thats is all, just trees around it. We get gas and food and go into the dollar store. It seems normal in there, maybe a little too much yellow light everythig looks kind of jaundice. I see a very pretty but sad looking girl. She has shoulder length hair and is very pale. She has a Family Dollar shirt on so I can see she works there. She comes up to us and says, " you have to leave here, you can't be here in this town today!" she is very urgent and distraught. We oblige and leave but decide to leave our cars just outside of town and sneek back in to see why we had to leave. When we go back into the town, if you can call it that, it is deserted. We think we see some one over by a childs playset and go over. Again it is eerily quiet, my friends never talk. As we approach the play place we see that what we thought to be a person was really a dead corpse of a child tied to the pole. As you can imagine this is greatly disturbing to us. We walk along to sidewalk to the family dollar entrence and in the window we see that there are more dead childrens bodies all over. Some look hundreds of years old and others only two or three. I feel very ill in my stomache and i want to leave, but eriks pulls me toward a dirt road with several tire tracks going back it. We follow the road and it leads us to a cemetary. There we find all the people of the town gathered around all the children of the town. Slowly they are cutting the children one by one and taking turns eating part of their flesh. The children scream ove and over and i feel like i want to cry. Some of the children die but others are sewn shut hastliy by the women. here is a fire and the ground is very wet. Someone, a man, sees us(by this time tim and holly have dissappeared) and begins to chase us. Somehow we manage to get away. We go back to the store a few hours later and see the girl again. She is crying and sobbing heavily. I ask her what is wrong and she statrs to leave the store, she says to me," they sworn they'd never do it twice in a lifetime." i am confused then she lifts her shirt to show a badly sewn cut in her right side and a scar on her left. i remember being very sad and wanting to go home. I woke up after that. Comments by Dreamer: This is by far the most disturbing dream i've ever had. ** Dream:"Looking for something evil" by CinnamonG(990512)** 05/12/99 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. Dream take place somewhere down south or southwest. Somewhere like the Grand Canyon, my husband and I and a couple of others are following, looking, chasing something; and we keep running into something evil. The higher up we climb the more dangerous it becomes. I'm scared but say nothing. Some people tell me to stay w/them but I say I must keep by my husband's side. Then husband tells me I must jump and put a chute on me, again I'm scared but say nothing. The rains come and start to flood. To go to higher grounds it is believe we run into evil. No one is for sure, but I'm the only one willing to take the chance. Then I wake. Comments by Dreamer: Husband and I are divorcing. I notice in dream he doesn't leave my side and I'm scared to leave his, but yet I don't want to be with him. Permission Comments: Would like to hear any comment on this to better understand. ** Dream: "Get up & go out" by Keyogi (990519) ** 5-19-99 10:00 am My dream, as I remember, began with me visiting a friend.I went to his apartment(I don't remember traveling)when I arrived a girl I know that used to live in his apartment was downstairs on the stairwell.I stopped and she told me it was dirty up there.She asked if I had seen what he has done to the apartment.I had no idea what she was talking about.The next thing I remember is her sitting naked beside me caressing me.(I was woke up by a phone call: reality)When I went back to sleep I was dreaming again.I was now at my fathers house with my girlfriend(not the same girl).It seems that her and someone else I couldnt make out were sitting on the bed I was laying on.It seemed as if they were waking me up.i got up and felt very grogy.I told them I wanted to go out.They said come on we were going.I was stumbling around the room in a very drowsy state in search of any stimuli that could wake me up.I told them "I need something to wake me up" Next my father walks into the room and sits beside my girlfriend on my bed.I had no idea what he was saying, but it seemed as if he was having an enjoyable conversation with the other two people on the bed.I then noticed my girlfriends breasts were exposed,but she was kind of covering herself with her arms a little.I made my way back to the bed and sat beside her.Sitting up I felt a little more awake now.My father left the room.After he left they told me he took a bong(waterpipe) from my room.I pointed out all the pipes he did not take and we all laughed.Next I remembergoing to some kind of bizarre.It was a multi building and outdoor sale.I walked through the vendors looking around a little with my girlfriend.I remember being outside and someone came outside to tell me and another girl that my mother wished to speak to us.My girlfriend told the other girl(whom I thought was attractive)that my mom just wanted to bitch and she might never stop.Myself, my girlfriend and this other girl headed towards the entrance of one of the buildings.On the way in I stopped and picked up some gravel along the walk way.The other girl also picked up a rock(a fist sized stone).We walked in and saw my mom sitting at a bar like table full of 40ish types.On the bar were intracate small glass house oil lamps like i have never seen.Like 30 of them together it looked like a minirature picturesqe city.Meanwhile I saw the other girl behind my mom motioning like she was going to strike her with the rock.I dont know what happened in there but I remember leaving with my girlfriend and going to look for the car.While looking for the car a tall man in a fedora(hat) that looked about 50 was walking toward us.He snatched a newspaper out of my girlfriends hands and exclaimed "what do we have here!"I answered "a newspaper, who do you think you are?" He answered "security! there could be drugs in this" I told him we had been searching for our car for a couple hours now, and how long have you been looking for someone to bust ALL DAY! Comments by Dreamer: I felt tremendous pressure in my head. The phonecall that woke me up I remembered as a dream during the dream, and spoke of it. I am a 23 year old artist. Permission Comments: do what you like with this!!! LOST [Disorientation or abandonment] ** Dream: "Peru" by Mr. Breeze (990703) ** july 1, '99, about 11:45 a.m.; after sleeping for 5 1/2 hours. I am in Peru on a journey to Macchu Picchu. In a car in my own vision of the stereotypical Latin American neighborhood (lush vegetation, poor roads). I have no direction and nothing to use as a guidepost, not even the sun for the late afternoon heat-haze. I feel as if I'm near the ocean. I pull up to a young woman who "looks" like she speaks english. Lo and behold, she does. More people from the neighborhood gather around the car speaking English and Spanish. I can't really get any information on where I am or where I want to go. At the same time, I start to sweat -- a deep, real and vivid tropical fever sweat. The feverish sweat and the tropical humid heat seeps into my center and through me, but I feel no pain, nor fear. The feverish sweat is almost hallucinatory, it is so vivid. I then regurgitate a clear yellowish-green bile all over my hand and my lap, but it doesn't hurt like a real-life vomit would. Asking directions to Macchu Picchu -- part in Spanish, part in English -- but nobody can give me a real answer. Suddenly night falls and i am trying to figure out what to do, where i am, and how to get to my destination. ** Dream: "I just don't know" by ? (990703) ** 06/29/99 10:00am to 3:00pm It was like a huge funhouse-type place. Like an amusement park. There were lots of people, playing games and such. Every so often someone would lose and disappear. Then I disappeared. Then I was in the same place, but all the people were gone, and everything was more dangerous. There was a large hole, like a drain, and someone was hanging in it, barely holding on. I knew if he slipped and went down, if anyone did, then we would be lost forever. 2 crying girls hauled him out and I noticed there were others appearing one by one. I searched and found there was no way out except through the hole. We weren't really trapped, we could walk, or run, or swim, for forever. But we couldn't get back to our world. There was a blond man who took charge, telling us to do this and that. I don't know if it was really necessary to do these things, or if he wanted to keep us busy, so we wouldn't get hysterical. We went into a room, and when he opened the door, an identical man stood there. This man was obviously "evil" and was the reason we were there. The evil one laughed at us and said he hoped we would last longer than the others. Then he was gone. I knew what we had to do to get out, but no one would cooperate. Then they started getting sucked into the hole. I tried to tie balloons to them, to pull them out. It was too late. And I woke up. ** Dream: "Gypsie Dream" by MT (990513) ** The night of 20 April 1999 I had a dream last night and I was wondering if you could help me to interpret it. Firstly, I don't dream very often, and dream in colour. In this dream, I was a refugee/gypsy, but I had a different face (didn't look like my me). This was the same situation with the rest of my family. I knew it was them but they all had different faces. My father was there and he had actually died twelve years ago. There was no no violence in this dream. We were sitting around a gypsie-like campsite. There were horses and camp fires. We were just sitting there talking and having a beer. To me it's such a weird dream, that I would love somebody to explain it to me. Any ides? Best Regards LOTTERY DREAMS [Sudden Wealth - Randomness favors the dreamer] LOVE [All around us, yet so hard to find and keep] LUCID DREAMING [Knowing you are Dreaming when you are Dreaming] ** Dream:"I found myself, and woke him up!" by Michael (990609) ** I found myself, and woke him up! I was in a small room with a bed. I saw myself asleep on that bed. I could hear Don Juan telling Carlos, "If you meet your double face to face, you will die." This thought made me extremely lucid. I leaned over and whispered to him (me): "You're dreaming" - and I woke him up! He stood up and we looked into each other's eyes. I had a tremendous urge to accomplish some great feat with him - I'm not sure what. And I lost it in the details... Many times what triggers my lucidity is (what I thought was) myself, saying "you're dreaming". Perhaps my double dreams of finding his double (me), and whispers "you're dreaming"... Can there be a real dreamer, when we both are the dreamed? You may do with this as you please, Michael ** Dream: "waking from a lucid dream into another dream" by Adridne (990608) ** The dream begins with me driving my car. I'm in my senior prom dress (a wedding dress I converted to a prom dress, very formal) and I'm driving to school. I realize how absurd this is, to be driving to school in a wedding dress, but I can't stop. at this point, I lose control of my actions, something that has never happened to me in a dream before. I just keep driving to school, no matter how much I want to turn around. here, I realize I'm dreaming and decide to just go with it. I drive to school, park, and go into the school. only it isn't school, I walk into a chapel, one with stained glass windows, but only fog for walls. it is bright in front of me, but dark behind me, everyone turns around to look at me. I realize I'm walking down the aisle of a chapel in a wedding dress. this isn't school, it's a wedding, and I'm the unsuspecting bride. I feel someone (the bridegroom) behind me, and I turn, as I turn, though, I fall, and the man behind m! ! e catches me. he is wearing some kind of mask, a close fitting one. there is something vaguely threatening and possessive about the way he catches me. at this point I wake up. or I think I do, but it's really just another dream. I'm driving, the driving part of the previous dream had been real, I had been driving in my sleep, in my prom/wedding dress. I go under an underpass and start to panic, but I'm right by my boyfriend's house, so I went there and went inside and talked to him and calmed down, then I went home, because I realize my mom will be furious. at when I go home, it isn't really home, it's a cabin we're staying in while I'm visiting Hampshire college (which I now attend)very strange architecture. very strange. almost entirely wood. I go about visiting the college for the rest of the day, the dream fades and I wake up. I'm prone to fairly strange dreams, some of them lucid, but I usually do not wake from a lucid dream to another dream. although, I have been dreaming, realized I was dreaming, and then proceeded to have an argument with someone in the dram about whether or not I was dreaming, then been convinced I was not. MEMORY [Remembering ...In dreams we often struggle with the issue of memories and remembering a dream which by definition involves the process of recollection.] MIRRORS [Reflection of Self] MONEY [Something of value] MUSIC [Melodies of the land within] NUDITY [What you see is what you get] ** Dream: "Eagle Eye" by Canoraline (9904XX) ** 04/99 at night I was lying naked on a small area of beach. The beach was triangular in shape and surronded by huge rock cliffs that extended higher than I could see. Everything about the dream was very clear, and clean. The water was calm. The sand was white and the sky was clear. I then saw an eagle soaring through the sky and towards me. I didn't see the eagle land next to me , but there it was, sitting in front of me looking me clear in the eye. I could see every detail of its eyes. The eagle then started to clean my hair by gently pecking at me. The eagle was crawling all around me and this is when I woke up. Comments by Dreamer: Eagles hold a sacred place in my heart. The feelings in my dream were unreal. Everything felt perfectly calm and peaceful. PERFORMERS [Entertainers] PROBLEMS [Situations or difficulties sometimes present choices] POLITICAL SCENE [Public issues through positions of power] RELATIONSHIPS [Other parts of ourselves including family which constitutes the first and earliest of our relationships, often influencing how we relate to the outside world] ** Dream: Nada's Dreams" by Nada (990614) ** Hi Bob, My name is Nada and Ive been keeping a dream journal for a couple years now. I'd like to share a couple of dreams with you. The dream that caught my attention the most this year was a dream of me traveling in some sort of elevator, kind of thing back and forth between Heaven and Hell. Whenever I go up in the elevator kind of thing, I go really quickly to Heaven and then where I spend a matter of seconds in feeling confused because in a way I'm still in the elevator and not coming out exploring around me. Then after a very short period of time, I drop in the elevator going down to Hell and I see colors of like whitish blueish thunder as I travel down to Hell and feel my body shaking since the elevator is traveling at high speed as if like a roller coaster and as I go to heaven, the thunder thing turns into a different color than that of when i go go Hell. The whole time I'm on this ride between Hell and Heaven, I see God communicating with me as if asking me questions or testing me. If I sin, I go to Hell; and if I'm good, I go back up to Heaven. It goes on back and forth and the strange thing was that God was in the form of a really good looking man, and I felt love towards Him as well as fear. And there was a point in the dream when I touched God's arm because His skin looked unlike humans skin, instead it looked whitish plastery, and it was beautiful to me and I was amazed...something that startled me the most was the time of the dream when I kissed God (he was still in the form of a really good looking man) because I was in love with him. Anyway, as I awoke from this dream, I still saw vivid colors of transition between heaven and hell, and I was shaking in the elevator like crazy. I felt that weird feeling in my stomach which I feel when I'm on a roller coaster, and I was sweating majorly as well...it took me a while to snap out of it and move my body. Whoa, sorry, that was a long explaination of my dream. I thought maybe this is a dream having to do with how I am so dedicated to God in my life, and I have not been in love yet, and the only "one" I loved was God. I guess that's it. Do you think there was a special message in this dream or was it too confusing to tell from? I have had many dreams of which I feel my body still taken over even a minute after I wake up...like I felt the pain of an injection in my thigh still jamming as i woke up before...and a dream that was recurrent at times and wasn't very pleasant, was that I was lying in my bed and pretty sure that some kind of little furry creature like a rat or something was either touching me near my face or peeing while sitting in my pjs!! I felt this so clearly as if it were real, even after I woke up. I still felt the fur and the warm pee, but when I searched for the creature and its pee later on, after a couple minutes, they are gone. I suppose those are hallucinations, but what do they mean?! Ok now for the last dream. I have in the past dreamt a lot of my dead grandma, who was the only grandparent I knew. I had dreamt that she had come back to visit even though she has been dead. She sat down with me and my mom at a coffee shop, and we were letting her listen to all the songs she missed while she was away. This dream was pretty common to me since I dreamt of this grandma relatively lots and these dreams had taken place last year. But a really uncommon dream was a dream i dreamt this year about my other grandma who I have never known because she died when I was only a couple months old. I dreamt that there was a family gathering in a big tent, and i was sitting on this grandma's lap and all of us were telling her all the news she had missed in the past 17 years! (im 17 btw) This dream just came from out of the blue, and I don't understand why. My classmate friends kept appearing in this dream near the tent as well, so it was a kind of unorganized dream. But what could it possibly mean? The night before or the night after this dream, I dreamt of my other grandma who was walking around my relatives house in either Canada or Virginia (the setting kept switching). She was acting very unlike her personality, she was being irritable and bitchy (maybe she was in a form of a ghost). When I slammed the bathroom door she screamed at me as my father usually would (shes my mom's mom though), which was very wierd because that's sooo unlike her. When she was alive, she never screamed at me. She was always quite pleasant. So why do u think i dreamt of two dead people two nights in a row? Especially the grandma I didnt know and whom I was sitting on the lap of? I'm sorry this email is sooo long, but I'm really interested in anything u could comment about them. Thank you, Sincerely, Nada ** Dream: "The husband" by Maja (990717) ** I am standing just infront of the fridge in the kitchen. I'm standing in front of the open fridge door and there is also my husband. I'm saying to him: "I want to divorce you, and you know why I do." After this, my husband is standing on top of a hill at the roadside, telling me this.." are you aware of that you are smelling bad and that your surrounding also notice this and the smell are spread more and more around you?" I was feeling very sad,hurt and bitter in the dream. Comments by Dreamer: I had a bad quarrel with him some days ago, maybe this dream is telling something about that? ** Dream: "future husband" by Juliet(990708)** I had a dream that I was at a huge costume party, but it had all taken place a long time ago. I came dressed as Titania, the queen of faires from Shakespears "Midsummer's Night Dream". As soon as I entered, a voice spoke to me from a shining light. It told me my furture husband was at this party, and he was dressed in a sparkling cape. I was afraid and since this was such a big house, I ran up a large flight of stairs, and into a walk-in-closet to my left. Once inside, I closed the door. Then the light appeared again and assured me not to be afraid, and it gave me a vision of my future husband, but I could not see his face so I did not know who it was. The light told me it was someone I knew and that he was dresssed as Oberon, the King of Faires from Shakepeare's "Midsummer's Night Dream". It told me to go back downstairs. I listened, and when down there, I began to search for Oberon. I found him sitting next to a fire. I tapped him on the back, and he turned around, and it was my ex-boyfriend whom I still have feelings for. He kissed me, and then I woke up. Comments by Dreamer: I know for a fact that my ex-boyfriend still has feelings for me too. Could this be a predictition that we will marry or at least get back together? What did the light represent? ** Dream: "Danny" by Cass (990715) ** Well, my friend knows how much I still love my ex-boyfriend and she calls him and talks with him. He comes over my house and we end up kissing. We start dating, but I have this weird feeling. Like I'm scared or distracted or something like that. We go to a movie and make out but it feels so strange. ** Dream: "Misunderstanding Resolved" by Nissa (990627) ** 6-25 4:00a.m. My friend and I had a kind of misunderstanding. It wasn't a fight, because she said something that ticked me off, and I walked away so I wouldn't say something I'd regret. About a month later, I dreamt that we made up and were really happy about it. Does this mean I should call her? ** Dream: "The Rainwater Room" by Na (990622) ** 19JUN99/5:30-6:30am? Background - earlier that evening, I was on a first date with a man I had met a week earlier. The man is in my dream - coincidentally? The man from my date is in a small room in a house that is supposed to be my own. One wall in the room is covered with planks, like the siding on the outside of a house. There is a small iron bed against the wall. The man is standing by the bed. He is garbed in dingy white shirt and pants, sort of rumpled. Pajamas? The bedsheets are dingy gray-white. The wall is dingy white with the high gloss paint on the planking thick and rippled. There is dirt in the ripples as if this was once an exposed external wall. The ceiling is a dingy white. I enter from a clean, if spartan room with unfinished hardwood floors and a window bright with glowing sunlight. My room connects to the man's room through a tiny 'foyer' or hall. I go to his room because he had called or came to get me, to show me that it was raining very hard outside. I can see my dry room while standing in the wet room. I am a little annoyed to find that water is streaming into this room. The floor and walls are glistening wet. Above the bed, the planked wall has sprung a leak and clear rainwater is streaming down the horizontal planks onto the bed, soaking the mattress. At first, I am concerned about where the man will sleep. He does not care about the wet mattress, but is concerned about the water streaming onto the bed. I assure him that I can take care of that. I begin applying a dirty, dingy caulk to holes that suddenly become apparent in the planked wall. The caulking is dirtier than the rippled paint and I'm concerned that when it dries, it will not blend in. I get some of the smaller holes filled but the larger ones (where did so many holes come from?) have so much water flowing through that the caulk is pushed out. I am determined to fix my home, and frantically try to fill the holes. The man recedes out of the room. All I remember of him are his words - him saying that he could still sleep on the mattress and my reaction, of distaste, that I could not sleep in such a bed. But he is my guest, and I'm concerned that he be able to sleep at all. So I'm trying desperately to patch the holes. And then I wake. RELIGIOUS RELATED [The Ritual and the Spiritual] ** Dream: "birth of the Christ" by rc-r (990426) ** I dreamt I was stacking cold hard trendy metallic tables in storage, as if preparing for something. Then I was in a dark tubular void with a camera panning from my feet upwards over my body. It was "scanning" me. As it reached my knees I called out "stop". I was perturbed because the part of my body that had been scanned had turned into bright 1960 colours and patterns -yellow, green, pink, orange...paisley! I called out "I am being turned inside out. Next I am writing notes on paper. I am taking notes from two aluminium like tablets with hieroglyphic writing on them. I am note taking to give the information to the virgin Mary. I say "don't interrupt me, I am preparing for the birth of the Christ". The virgin Mary is a young naive looking girl standing over in the corner...Joseph is with her, but both seem like "dumb" teenagers to me. I think, "gee if only the world knew what they were really like" -it was as if unless I got the information to them the birth would not occur. dream ends. (note: I am not Christian, nor am I pregnant) ** Dream: "Manna flakes" by ? (990530) ** July 1996 I was at a church that had people from my congregation there, but it was not the church we normally attend. There were people going to and fro, and many I did not know. The building was 3 stories high and built like a circular theater. I noticed smoke on the 1st floor and discovered that the building was on fire. I ran up to the top floor and told people what was up. Some choose to ignore me and others left in a hurry. The fire was growing, and I descended to the next level to continue to sound the alarm. Many people left the building and waited outside near the fire trucks. What appeared to be angels flowing in the sky above us started dropping down these flakes. We could see them falling but could not touch them. The flakes fell on top of me and others, and were absorbed inside of us. Comments by Dreamer: I believe this has some spiritual meaning. Permission Comments: Comments are more than welcome. ** Dream: "Jesus" by Kit (990507) ** May 6, 1:30 a.m. I dreamed I was in love with Jesus and he was in love with me. Every year he would come into my village and stay. The end of his stay would happen with a man would come into a main courtyard of the village and display a painting with men and women in the village including Jesus. Then Jesus, as I would cry, would kiss me goodbye and walk into the ocean with the people in the painting. He told me that he was taking them to heaven. People in the courtyard would taunt him and our friends. One year he came in and shortly after we got word that the man was in the courtyard with a new painting. I started crying, but Jesus and I walked down to see it. Jesus wasn't on there. I was so happy! I thought that Jesus and I could marry. He told me that he was going with his friends for a while and I kissed him. I was standing with my friends, when a man walked up to me and handed me a piece a paper. On the paper, was Jesus' picture and it said "For his head, $100,000 or 8,000 slaves." I went to find Jesus who was in a room in what looked like a hotel sitting on the floor with his friends. I was crying and he carressed my face and asked what was wrong. I showed him the paper and he looked at it for a while. Then he said that he knew this was coming. I was still crying and I asked him how he could know something like this and not tell me. He grabbed me by my hand and led me to a church that was circle and had no roof. The seats were arranged in a circle and there was a grass clearing in the center. As we walked to the center, Birds of all kinds flew in all around us. And I was begging him to stay. I told him that I would run away with him. I could tell that he wanted to stay, but he said, "I just have to do this." I stood there crying and I woke up. ROMANCE [Thrills and Chills, lost in another] ** Dream: "Jadzia" by ? (990602) ** May, 99 The dream features me and two men I am attracted to and carry a great degree of love for. I am not seeing either of these men, but have equal potential for both, but have been very confused about them. So in the dream I was in the shower with one of them...Kevin. We were kissing and things were getting passionate and all the sudden he stopped and said, "I hope you don't mind." I looked over his shoulder and there was a mirror there. In the mirror I could see the other man, Duane, reflected. In his eyes I could see he wanted to be with me...to come into the shower with me. Kevin was indifferent and returned to kissing me, as I stared into the reflection at Duane. The last thing I saw before waking was Duane's eyes as he began to take his clothes off. ** Dream: "friend" by La'Sar (990703) ** june 23,1999 2:30 am I was in my room kissing my guy friend, who I have a major crush on. We were really getting into the moment when all of a sudden my grandmother pulls up. I push him of my bed onto the side to hide him. My grandmother comes in my room to tell me she forgot something, and she came back to get it. When she was about to leave the room, my friend said: "Is she gone?" I tried to say something loud so she wouldn't hear him, but she did. Right after that, I had another dream about the same guy, but this time we were at his house and everytime we tried to get close to one another someone called or knocked on the door. Comments by Dreamer: I wrote a letter to him telling him I liked him before he told me he really liked me too, but he had a girlriend in another school. When I woke up, I was angry I didn't get spend time with him. SCHOOL THEMES [Learning and learning related trials] SOLUTIONS [The answers to problems or quandaries] STAIRS [Bridges between levels, between the upper and the lower] STRANGERS [Who and what we don't know yet] TEETH [Ok, losing teeth is one of the top ten dreams people have questions on. Theories on what they mean range all over the spectrum of possibilities.] TORNADOS [Pretty well defined destructive power of nature] TRAPPED [Temporarily helpless- Sometimes we are paralyzed or imprisoned by jobs, relationships or expectations] ** Dream: "Long Way From Home" by Homeward Bound(990426)** I dreamed that I was bicycling home from a house. It was an ordinary house and two guys lived there. (I don't know these guys in real life but they are familiar to me. Like I have seen them before). One guy had long brown hair. The other was a guy that I dreamed about, I know I have seen him at the bowling alley that my sister works at. He is probably in his 40's. The guy with the long hair was my age I think. I had a backpack on my back while I was on the bike. I am not sure what was in it. I remember being on a long road and it was getting to be near nighttime. The road was a straight road, but not a highway. The road had traffic lights on it, and I could see various buildings on both sides. Like a two-lane business street with shops. It was however, a pretty quiet road. There were no people walking around. I know I felt that I was a long way from my home. In my dream, I realized that I was traveling the wrong way. I was on the wrong road and even th! ! ough I had a light for riding at night, and reflectors, I thought it was too dangerous to keep riding home at this point. I turned around and went back to the house I came from. By this time it was dark outside. When I went inside, I told the guys what happened and that I thought I should wait until morning before going home because it would be safer. I remember giving a pack of Marlboro Lt. Cigarettes to the younger guy. It was a full pack. I told them I didn't use them. (In real life, I had quit smoking in January.) I also recall that the road I was biking on had a road that you could turn onto on the right shoulder. It was not a two-way road. You could only go up it. It was a wide one way, one lane road. It was a long road and it was darker over that road than the one I was on. Like the sky was darker, or the night was later over that road. It wasn't spooky but it did not feel like I should go on that road at night. It was 400. That was the name of the road. I saw the name of it on a green highway sign that hung over of the road. I also remember that as it got darker, more cars were on the road I was on and it was not as quiet. Comments by Dreamer: I have been on medical leave with my current job for almost a year now. Since I have to go on leave, I had to move home with my parents since I could not afford to live on my own. They are in a different state than I was living in. I hate being here and I have been here for a long time now. I was getting ready to resume my job again, but my medical condition may have come back and now my car is no longer running properly. It is like all these unknown forces are keeping here in this place I hate being! I am 29 and just want my life back. I want to be on my own again. Does this dream reflect any clues as to why obstacles keep getting in my way from leaving here? ** Dream: "prisoner of the state" by stan kulikowski ii (990622) ** DATE: 22 jun 1999 06:51 DREAM : prisoner of the state =( last night i did not get back from school until after 23:00. some former students way laid me in the computer lab to help with a programming problem. they had horrible messed up code on a linked list of pointers. it took a while to understand their convoluted attempts and explain why their data was lost. eventually i got their code working, but i just gutted their insort procedure and kludged in some processing loops. one student kept saying 'if it works, what does it matter?' when i mentioned inelegance. i hoped they could learn from that but i did not have time to reteach them data structures. mom and i watched a cheap B movie on time travel and i went to sleep early, around 01:30 without much difficulty. )= anne said she found the gun in a box under the seat of the van when she went to get the weekly groceries. probably a guard had left it there by mistake as none of us prisoners are allowed to drive the van. she was looking for her small umbrella under the seat when she discovered the weapon. immediately she began to convince the rest of us that now was the time to make a break. the springfield street house where we live is a minimal security prison. a half way house where we are permitted live and serve out our sentences in labor for the state and the penal system. the work we do in not that challenging, like cleaning public toilets of their disgusting filth with hand brushes. the smell of those places never quite goes away once you have spent hours scrubbing on your knees. since i am a computer scientist, another job i am given from time to time is algorithmic repair of the defense dome. the battle robots are constantly trying to complete the geodesic dome which arches above the city and surrounding county. it does not matter where they start, they can always get the thin rafters in place to cover just slightly less than half of the precinct when the structure starts to weaken and fail. then they have to tear down what they have built and start afresh on different pylons with a different pattern to the arch. several squads of robots are always building the construction from several starting points, some here around the city, others across the river. the robots are continually patrolling the incomplete structure in the sky above the buildings. they can barely be seen from ground level. since i work on their programming, i know that their intelligence was engineered so that they can never complete the dome. they keep constantly in motion in trying. most of the repairs i have to do concern removing learned connections if their architecture gets too solid so as to encroach the midsky limit by chance or design. they must be kept in a constant state of flux by an unsolvable problem to prevent their actions from becoming predictable. this is the only way to solve the problem of pseudorandomness, like a law of thermodynamics. machines always become fixed in routine given time in self maintenance. this is a strategic weakness in battle drones which can be eventually analyzed and defeated when the worn groove of their routines becomes predictable. i would as soon clean the smegma crusted urinals as mend the off balanced neural nets of the robots. but prisoners of the state only get scutwork. no one else would do it, even for minimal wage and robots cost even more. i can not even remember what my original crime was. some minor infraction of an unheard of regulation, but being a tourist was no consequence. that ignorance is no defense of the law is one of the stupidest maxims we are taught. how can we obey laws we have never heard of, or even guess at their exsitence? with busy legislatures constantly making new regulations, it is impossible for anyone to know the law. this is the defining principle of a police state. we live at the mercy of which unknown regulations get enforced and how aware we are of them. like god, we can never know the law we are held accountable to. for me, it was five years detention in the springfield street holding facility. i am only two years through. anne says that once we get the van out from under the defense net and on the open interstate, we can make it to the next country where extradition is not given for minor crimes. she is convincing. six of us agree to make a run for it. hot wiring the guard van is no problem. as we begin to drive several blocks through city traffic, i decide to look closely at this gun which is the impetus for this breakout. i do not think that any of these people would actually threaten anyone with this weapon, let alone fire it. so why is this mere symbol of power so potent in causing us to consider a prison break? from my pocket i pull out a swiss army knife that has a torx wrench attachment. i start to work on removing the five bolts which join the halves of the heavy weapon. at first the wrench will not turn the bolt, being one size too small. but i am able to lever it at an angle to get the bolt to turn a degree or two. to my surprise all five bolts turn uniformly when i turn just the one. this makes removal very easy once i get the initial one going. when i separate the gun casing. the barrel, magazine track and trigger come apart. what is all this small wiring inside? looking closely i find the handle of the gun has a bundle of copper coiled up which is attached to printed board circuitry. i look at several of the condenser and diode packs. one of them is labeled TRNSMTTR. "damn. this gun has a radio bug in it." i tell the others, cutting the antenna and several of the board components. it is about ten seconds before the dopplered alarms can be heard as the defense droids rain down from the sky, surrounding the van which stalled almost immediately when the gun signal cut off. we had only gone about twelve blocks. we are quickly pushed into a nearby building where a police lieutenant sits with a smirk on his face. "you did not make it half as far as we thought you would." he tells us. "good work, anne. your sentence has been reduced by six months. the rest of you get an additional five years in moderate security. be glad your escape was short circuited. if you had made it outside the defense dome where we expected you, it would have been ten years. report to the clarkson street holding facility." as quickly as that the police action has been logged and they begin to break up, the robots filing off toward the base of the sky dome. "but i do not even know where clarkson street is." i say. "don't worry. you will find by sun down or face a step toward maximum security." replies the policeman. clearly he would get a merit pay raise if any of us eventually upgrade from moderate to dangerous security. anne seems pleased with herself. moderate security does not have mixed sex living arrangements which may be a benefit here. i guess women learn the skills of entrapment as soon as they realize they can not compete in the league of strength. it is harder for men to learn this as we have to test ourselves against each other before the pecking order gets established and it becomes clear that there is always someone stronger. i start walking down the street towards the small business zone of the city where i think clarkson street must be. now that i have learned the lessons of minimum security, i feel like i have graduated to the next level beyond private enterprise. the springfield street facility was in the residential zone, and now my life will come into the commercial stream where endeavor in valued in profit margins rather than utility. as i am thinking about this, i see my high school friend, porter welbourne, walking on the sidewalk across the street. i do not wave, but i can see that he has noticed me. for a moment i hope that he will take word of my presence in the police state back to friends who can sue for my release through legal means. but then i see that he has a hair piece attached to the back of his head. it is a long braided pig tail to simulate the cossack warrior braid, worn to facilitate the handling of your severed head after a battle. this is the badge of a consultant to police internal affairs. i hide my disappointment and walk on toward my destiny on clarkson street. i find that clarkson street is only one block long, at an angle to the city street grid. the buildings are all two story red brick, built into each other without even an alley between. i assume that the holding facility is on the second floor above the firehouse on the corner. perhaps i am to be a fireman in this incarnation of the penal system. this area of town looks rather oriented to street life having nothing to recommend it for private interiors nor private lives. i feel someone grab my leg below the knee. i look down to discover that a young child, hardly more than a toddler. she is looking up and saying "daddy? daddy?" her skin is a lovely chocolate brown color, but her shoulder length hair is platinum blonde, a startling contrast. cold blue eyes. must be one of the engineered mutant children. "no, i am not your daddy." i tell her as i extract her bear hug on me. a worried mother is running from across the street. i am careful not to appear dangerous after my recent upgrade from minimal security. poor kid. this is the world she has been bred for. prisoner of the genome, no chance even from birth. am i so different, i wonder. =( i wake easily at 06:30 without the alarm. it seems to me that the repair of the geodesic dome by the robots actually started on the far side of the river across from the town in an earlier dream which i could not recall well enough to include here. i think my original crime was explaining to the robots how geodesic structure is achieved and they were fascinated. i do not have many associations with this in-city dream content. i recall that i did not teach the section on random generators very well a couple weeks ago in one of my programming classes, so perhaps that figured into the robotics work here. )= stankuli@gulf.net . i swear it happened just like this: === a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss, | | and the gates of love, they budged an inch, --- but nothing much has happened since. -- l cohen (1992) closing time VEHICLES [Means of transportation, reflection of lifestyle] ** Dream: "Lost My Car in a Big Place" by Lost or Something Else? (990507) ** May 7, just before waking: I have periodically had this dream before, maybe once or twice: I am driving down a road. When I arrive at my destination, I pull into the parking lot and park on the side of the building. I go into the building and conduct my business (I don't know whether it is personal or work business, and it doesn't seem to matter to the dream). When I leave the building to go to my car, the area where I thought I left my car looks totally different and my car is not there. I have the feeling that I must have taken a wrong turn. I retrace my steps, but do not arrive at my most recent starting point (i.e., the place I just left after conducting my business), but encounter a totally new environ. I have a feeling the same as if I were to walk out of the front door of my house, and when I turn around to reenter I am not facing the inside of my house, but perhaps the inside of a church or the beginning of a trail through a forest. In this dream, each time I turned around to retrace my steps I encountered either a pleasant or unpleasant new scene - a pleasant farm auction, an unpleasant spooky house, a neither pleasant nor unpleasant industrial setting, a pleasant antique show, etc. The anxiety in the dream centered not on the new places in which I found myself, rather on the frustration and anxiety of not being able to find my car, and perhaps to a degree some concern over not being able to orient myself. I awoke from the dream with mixed feelings. Anxiety at the twists and turns the dream took, but pleasure and comfort in some of the scenes I had encountered. Comments by Dreamer: I've had several stressors this week in both work and my personal life. The stress I was experiencing the evening before the dream was an upcoming first date on Friday, with several unreturned phone messages to my supposed date. Common sense tells me the date is still on, but anxiety leaves me feeling I'll be stood up. ** Dream: "The 650 beemer" by stan kulikowski ii (990525) ** DATE : 25 may 1999 05:12 DREAM : the 650 beemer =( i taught my programming course, the late evening course. did not get home until 21:45. just caught the end of _cleopatra_ movie. made myself a sandwich and watched _back to the future 2_ on video tape. went to bed around midnight and read _the stainless steel rat_ until about 02:00. had no trouble getting to sleep. )= it feels good to be riding on my 650 cc bmw cruiser. the black polished metal of the gas tank between my legs, the chrome streak of the handle bars coming up to where my hands are twisting the grip and levers to squeeze the juice into the engine. the deep bup bup bup of those exhaust pipes that seems to go on forever as the landscape glides by dissolving in the constant blur of motion. yes, nothing feels as good riding the bmw. but eventually even the eternal has to change. i come through the pine forest to the little unpaved lane that leads back to the church. reluctantly i pull the bike over to the side, put down the kick stand, and switch off the key. the bmw stops its life, not like something dying which struggles to live for more breath, but the bike just stops like its death is just as natural and as common as its animation. perhaps it is. i get off the motorcycle with some regret. the church is a little pine building in a little pine forest. many parishioners, perhaps thirty in all, are already gathered up in the pews inside. singing nearer my god to thee mostly off key and flat, but god doesn't seem to care how good or how poor the music is. god just wants the music and the faith and the worship. he must not have enough from the angels and the deceased souls. he always likes more. every one looks at me as i try to slip into a pew well over on the side by the wall, but the place is much too small and too simple for anyone to be unnoticed. i do not like to sing but will join when someone is looking my way. today everyone is here to listen to my report on my trip to australia. they are going to be disappointed. god was there just like he is here. never really directly there, just always somewhere on the edges of experience, just over the line where we can not sense him directly but surely just there, breathing heavily and watching everything we do or even think. like moby dick, we search and search for god, always believing he is near, but never seeing him face to face like real things. giving him total credit for anything good that happens in our lives and crying 'why god why' when something bad happens. and god never shows himself direct except maybe to some primitive nomads thousands of years gone, or maybe when we have crossed over into death ourselves like that great white whale come to ahab only when he is out on the water too far to get back to ship. who can tell when only the dead can see god direct? maybe even they don't. well, when the singing is done, they ask me to tell them about the presence of the divine in australia, and i start in on the tale of the white whale. at first everyone listens really close but little by little i can see them one by one start thinking other things than what i say. it must be that anything i can report about deity down under is mostly contained in the first few syllables and leaks out quickly. very soon everyone is satisfied that what we do not see of god up here is just like what they do not see down there. and that is how it should be. omnipresence means just the same everywhere. it would be difficult if there were a mountain somewhere where heaven was closer, more real than anywhere else. they seem to like it when i chant a little sea ditty i learned from quequake, but the few who stay listening more intently than the others are not happy with me. they want me to reaffirm what they believe and instead i am talking about some big albino fish and nautical lore. clearly there is some sacrilege in discussing the meaning of life with a cetacean. as displeased as the bright ones are and disinterested as the rest, i finish my report on oz and get up to leave. a few mumble polite words of thanks without any thought. my legs are not well coordinated as i get up. rather than think of anything to repair my reputation with these church folk, i step outside the building and find a cut stump that i can stand on. this allows me to reach the several strands of plastic clothes line that are stretched through the trees overhead. no one does laundry here, just the lines have been strung up so the children at vacation bible school can hang their crayon pictures of the good things their parents like to see. i can not fashion a noose from any of the clothes lines, but i can clench one taunt wire under my chin and step off the log to hang by my neck. it feels good in that moment of stepping off the stump. the wire bites briefly into my throat so i can not inhale. there is no pressure in back to break the neck but i do not mind. the slower way of suffocating is just as good as the faster way of spinal cord separation. i really do not care about dying, i just mean to reaffirm life by leaving it. who cares if this is not exactly sensible to the congregation inside? it is my life and my motorcycle and my white whale. let them find their own way to that place where moby dick finally rushes headlong straight at you, opening his blunt toothed mouth. no more hiding or seeking. there is no despair or resignation, just the intrigue of expectation for the tunnel of light. i do not know what i expected, but you can not hang yourself on a clothes line. after a brief sensation of strangulation the line bounces back upwards. like a bow string, i find myself being shot away upwards like arrow. man, am i disappointed as i sail past the windows on the side of the church. and down the hillside. through the trees trunks, sliding and rolling and sliding. sometime on my back, sometime on my face. it seems to go on forever. i keep sliding and sliding and sliding. does this slope go on forever? my cheekbone hits a rock. my back bounces off a pine. perhaps this is just as good as hanging. i start to enjoy the feel of skidding into things as the rush downward continues. sadly, i notice the velocity start to diminish slightly, but like zeno's paradox, half a reduction still leaves half. i slide out of the forest hillside into the fields. with the last of my inertia, i see some children. at least i see their shoes as i skid by them. why can't i look up and see their faces? finally i stop with my shoulder against the last tree. i was hoping the motion would go on forever. but everything changes eventually. so here i am, lying on my chest and face, bunched up at the last tree. i feel good. think i will just lay here. my breath is regular, unhurried. my heart beat is strong. my eyes blink when they need to. i am unconcerned that i may not be able to get up if i tried. i will just lay here and look out across the ground at the shoes of the children. one of the children comes over and puts her face next to ground right in front of me so i can see half of her face directly. i think i might just say something to her, or wink or something, but she goes away as quickly as she came. eventually you would think that i would get tired of laying in this spot in what must be an uncomfortable position, but i do not. it is good to just lay here. when i am not looking at the ground and that swell way perspective makes distant things small and near things big, i can listen to squeal of nerve activity in the back of the head. it is strange secret sound that i never heard very clearly until just now. i am really content to lay here and look and listen. why would i want any more? oh. now church people are starting to show up. i can tell by their bigger shoes, mostly brown. well, maybe they will go away and lose interest quickly like they do in their services. they do. but too soon after that, the vibrations in the ground coming up my left cheek bone tell me a large rolling vehicle has arrived. i can feel the rubber wheels pop and plunk over pebbles and wooden sticks. dirty white sneakers then khaki knees fold up in front of me. a pretty paramedic kneels down to look in my eyes. with a small pen light she shines into my eyes, the right then the left. "dilated, no reflex" she says. she is pretty. i wonder if she has a boy friend. she reaches up and is given a white plastic collar which carefully slips around my neck. too soon it tightens a little too snug. i think i might tell her that this is too tight and my chin is a little abraded by the edge of the collar, but i decide not to. she probably knows what she is doing. six, no, eight hands take a firm grip on my legs and arms and head. in one motion i can feel body raise, straighten and roll over. the stiff wooden board they lay me on feels pretty good. my neck and shoulders are carefully pressed into a larger foam contrivance i can not see. but it feels good too. half of a helmet comes down over my head and is clamped to the wooden board under me. a tube with a spray of cold air is forced past my teeth. i had not noticed that they were clenched but it with some difficulty that this tube is roughed into my mouth. i do not care for the feel of it and the cold stream of air pouring down my throat. but i decide not to complain about it. a clear plastic face shield clicks down on the helmet. now i am ready to ride again, i think. the board is lifted unsteadily at first. pine tree stretching upwards. clouds. blue sky. the sun. the roof of an ambulance. bottles and white paper wrappers in shelves along the sides. a brief compression as the rear doors slam. a little jiggling as the driving starts. i get an itch on my back just below the right shoulder. my nose has an irritation but i do not sneeze. the cold dry hiss of the air in my throat from that tube is the harshest annoyance. i do not know how i get anywhere anymore. just one moment i am somewhere, then another moment i am somewhere else. i seem to remember a phase of life in which there was a causal connection between these somewheres, but i am beyond all that now. i would explain this to the people in those somewheres, but i do not bother. i do not speak anymore because i really have nothing i want to say. i said it all once and if they did not listen then that is their loss. my breath is regular, unhurried. my heart beat is strong. my eyes blink when they need to. i feel good. some kind of hospital ward. nurses in light blue polyester jackets. bland concrete walls, beige i think. several of them could be quite attractive if they just thought about it. the nurses, i mean, not the walls. the nurses could be attractive if they tried. getting dressed. i think i must spend a lot of time getting garments put on my body. clothes on. clothes off. clothes on. clothes off. why do we bother changing the fabrics around our skin? i would be happier and more comfortable just hanging around naked. i suppose we should call it nude, not naked. sounds more polite. clothes on. clothes off. in the brief periods of clothes off, about one in ten, i get a messy sponge bath. cold drips running down my skin and never enough care given to the places that need it the worst. i can not remember the last time i felt like i had a clean asshole. just clothes on to cover it up. now this is better. i am sitting in a bar. a nice home like place, not too clean. neon lights on the wall. that nurse in civilian dress is flirting with that ambulance driver. someone has put a cold bottle of beer in my hand. the cold is a little annoying, but it soon warms. i used to like the taste of beer. even now the smell is good. country music on the juke box. maybe the nurse will get lucky tonight. it is good to sit here with a bottle of beer in your hand. i won't bother to drink it. that would spoil the mood. my breath is regular, unhurried. my heart beat is strong. my eyes blink when they need to. back at the dayroom. clothes on. shoe untied, but i do not bother to bend over to tie it. i will just sit here and look at those fools in the wheelchairs. i may be in a wheel chair but i do not care to look. back at the bar again. midafternoon this time. i think i like hanging out here the best. a heavy set chinese man comes in with a very thin woman. they say hello to me like we are old friends. i do not remember them. the man goes over to the bar tender to order some drinks. the skinny woman kisses me on the cheek. the chinaman comes back and puts a cold beer bottle in my hand. i will just hold it for a while and the chinaman whispers something in the woman's ear and does something with his hand under her dress. she laughs. in the bar again. i know i must like this place to show up here so often. a man with a scraggily beard and leather vest comes over to me. he seems to have drank a little too much. he takes the full bottle out of my hand and replaces it with his empty one. that is good. glad to share. a full one will appear in that hand soon enough. he leans real close to me and starts talking. his breath smells bad, but i do not fuss about it. "hey man, i know where your beemer is. i saw it the other day. this guy has it in a garage across town. i know it is yours because of that scratch across the tank. now i know you did not sell it to him. am i right? don't say anything if i am right." i do not say anything. "ok, so i plan that we go get your bike back. have to steal it, but he must have stole from you so that's fair. tomorrow i will come and get you and we will go over to that garage and get it. won't it be good to be on your ride again?" it is my bmw. i had not thought it might be, but there are all those little personal marks and dents collected over the miles and years. the cracks in the leather seat, the speckling of rust in the chrome. i wonder how it got in this garage. someone must have taken it from the church yard. mister leather vest grabs it by the handlebars like a greek dancer takes the horns of a bull. he wrestles it this way and that until he gets it up the ramp onto his pickup truck. the beemer never struggled with me that way, but that is probably from long experience and familiarity. its horizontal block like extended lungs gleam invitingly, eager to breathe again. vest jumps back into the cab of the truck beside me. a car pulls in the alley from the opposite end. he cranks over the engine but it does not start. again the starter motor just whines. the car gets closer. finally, on the third try the truck comes to life and we make away down the alley with my motorcycle. 650 cc bmw cruiser. =( i wake. the clock says 04:47. i have been sleeping on my belly with my neck bunched up on the pillow. it feels like the same position with the tree trunk in the dream after the downhill slide. i must have lain this way for a while as i feel stiff and sore when i roll over. that probably explains the paralysis in the dream. i usually roll around a lot when i sleep. god, the whale and the bmw come from somewhere else. )= . stankuli@gulf.net === qui non est hodie cras minus aptus erit | | who not is today, tomorrow less suitable will be --- -- Ovid _Remedia Amoris_ i 94 WATER [A magical earthly fluid, nourishment, cleansing] ** Dream: "The Life Underwater" by Seagull (990501) ** Can't remember all of it, or very clear. I was in this kind of store, with my elder brother. The sorrounding was normal, but it was under water, and i knew it wasnt that way always. In the store, there were people, and lots of shelves. My brother took me to see a fish, which from far looked little and when i got closer, it was really big, it was golden on his back, and white on his bottom. He was in a big aquarium inside a wall. Then i saw this seagull with its wings tied up and i think it was dead. when we got out of the store, i saw the other street was underwater, but the place we were on wasnt. I asked my brother how come, and he said it has to do with the level of the sea (which made no sense to me)... ** Dream: "Losing Battle of Determination" by Seeking Enlightenment (990513) ** April 26, 1999 I had a dream that had to do with 2 kids, another adult and myself. I dreamed that we were in a large body of water. Like a lake or beach or something. The other adult and I were on a dock. The dock had a roof over it. The two kids were in the water next to the dock. I remember that I kept trying to build these rafts that the kids could sit in. I remember that I thought it was very important that would be able to "sit" and float in the water. These rafts were supposed to be floating in the water but they kept sinking or breaking. The rafts were the blow up kind that you would take to the pool. The kids did not seem traumatized and they did not die or even get hurt when the rafts started to break or sink. In fact, as the rafts broke or sank, I caught them in time so neither child was harmed. The water was only waist deep for me. I am not sure if I ever got in the water or not, but I remember realizing that the water was not deep. The water was a green/blue and seemed to be fresh water because of its clarity, but it also seemed that we were at the ocean at the same time because I do not remember seeing any land nearby. The water was calm and had no waves. The kids could not swim. One child was maybe 4-5 and the other was 6-8. As I remember, one kid looked like my younger cousin, Chelsea but she was younger than Chelsea is in real life. In real life, Chelsea is 10. She also did not act like Chelsea. Though I could say, it was her. The other child I want to say, was my nephew, Gio. He is only 4. But again, the personality was different and neither voice matched how the kids' talk. I do remember getting in the water now to fix the rafts. I also used some kind of sticks to hold the rafts together. It was like I kept the rafts folded in half, like a chair formation for the kids to sit in and tried to hold the rafts together like that with the sticks. They reminded me of sticks that you use when building a kite. I heard music also.! ! I think it was coming from a radio that was on the dock. It was a specific song, by Duncan Sheik, but I can't remember the name. The chorus rings a bell though. It goes something like this "Cuz I am barely breathing/I can't find the air/Don't know who I'm kidding/Imaging you care/I can't stand here waiting…oooh for another day/ Don't suppose I know the price that I must pay…, But I'm thinking it over, anyway… (Not sure if this has anything to do with anything, but I thought I would include it since I dreamed it) Now like I said, the kids were not traumatized when the rafts kept breaking. I feel sure of this. Also, I sensed that the other adult on the dock was a female with short blond hair. I have no idea of who she was. She was not familiar looking to me. It was not a family member. I am certain of that. I don't think she was doing much, except I do recall that she was tying some rope up on the dock. I recall that I kept trying over and over to fix these rafts even though the! ! y kept breaking. I also recall that as I was dreaming this, I knew they would break. But the me that I was dreaming about, had no idea and just kept trying to fix them over and over. Comments by Dreamer: I have been tracking my dreams only in the last few days but I have found that I hear certain songs in my dreams. This seems to happen in 50 of the dreams I have been having. Does this mean something? I thought this was a bit strange as I have never heard of anyone else having this happen. What does it mean? Any interpretaions are gladly appreciated. ** Dream: "Water vs Mud" by Continuum(990521) ** 5/21/99 2:00 a. Everytime I try to get ice out of the ice machine, I get mud instead. It's dark and stormy outside. At home I try to get water out of the faucet, mud comes out. WORKPLACE [Where we make a living] WRITING & WRITERS [Communication and creativity] = = = = = = = = = = = == DREAM SERIES ** Dream: "pk league, bunting for the fence" by Stan Kulikowski (990427) ** DATE : 27 apr 1999 08:54 =( last evening i went into the university to meet with my grader so he could be trained on grading the last assignment of the term. i got back around 21:30 but my mother had gone to bed early to read a book. i did some email work for a couple hours and went to bed myself around 23:30. i read _prisoner's dilemma_ until 02:00. this is a shallow history on game theory, mostly a brief biography of von neumann in the early part at least. )= in the days after the great war of the apocalypse in which people wander the earth in search of things that could neither be manufactured nor distributed, i came upon the psychokinetic league forming up softball teams in the desert of arizona. for some reason unknowable to the survivors, the effects of the peripheral effects of genetic bombs were to mutate the brains so that the very fabric of space could be torn. this resulted in a new variety of person that move objects with their thought processes. so common were these people and so sudden their appearance that society never went through a rejection and persecution phase, but rather we had to reshape the rules of behavior to accommodate these new abilities. i was not one of the new people, or at least no such powers were noticeable in me yet. it turned out that the bending of space was very tiring, requiring great amounts of energy and concentration. only a few were strong enough in their new powers to actually deflect the path of the softball into their gloves. this had to do with the natural deformation of space by matter which we call gravity. i was told that on space stations outside the gravity well of the planet this would be an easier task, but since those satellites had been the first casualties of the war, it was unlikely anyone could confirm this very soon. it was, however, easier to make a small puncture in space so an object could fall through it and transfer from one location to another without being present in the intervening adjacent locations. for some reason unknown to me, the distance between the entry and exit of the spatial rip was not very noticeably more difficult on the person creating it. the size and duration of the opening were proportional to the effort to achieve the displacement. so, to bend space enough to change the flight of a softball required a series of space holes only separated far enough for the ball to appear to travel along a nonnewtonian direction. like a movie frame, each step was discrete but a series of them is close and rapid succession would appear to be a smooth motion which the eye could not perceive. that is why the bending of space seemed so difficult for the psychokinetic league. but making a single discrete jump of the falling ball into your glove was much easier, requiring only one spacetime puncture. it made the game harder for spectators to follow. a fly ball would vanish in midflight so one of the outfielders would have to hold it up once it appeared in their glove. if the right fielder missed the ball with the mental space hole, the center fielder or left fielder might snag it. this allowed for much amusement to the spectators, especially when all three of the fielders missed, the ball actually hit the ground and the players had to scurry after it. infield play was generally too fast to intercept a line drive, but a grounder was generally transported directly to the first baseman's glove. the catcher is not allowed to bypass the strike zone. the pitcher, however, can generate a displacement, then pitch the ball into it, so it makes a discontinuous path from leftside to rightside for instance. the strain on the pitcher is to hold the displacement open long enough and wide enough for the ball to pass through it. so faster, more accurate pitches are better to achieve the effect. the batter has two small advantages. when a pitcher has to yawn open a displacement and throw the ball through it, light also passes through before the ball does. since the light is no longer traveling in a straight line, it is noticeable as a blur or glow on the point of exit. as the blurred spot has to be on a line with the strike zone, the batter can sometimes see it in time to adjust his swing. the main advantage, however, is for the batter to transport the ball before the basemen do. not every pitch can be pked or the pitcher would wear out too soon. fast hit balls are too difficult for any one but an outfielder to intercept, but the slower grounders can be scooped away, often by the batter who is the closest to the object and may have some anticipation of where the ball is hit. this gives rise to the most treasured play called 'bunting for the fence'. a homerun ball has to be seen crossing over the outfield fence, most easily done from the bunt. =( i woke around 08:30 still thinking about the problems associated with this softball league. i believe there was a part, somehow not in the dream directly, but rather collateral with it. it had to do with the dictum "those who do not work, do not eat". the telekinetics did not have to eat. they could teleport the food directly into their stomachs. of course, an apple unchewed would block the pyloric sphincter causing pain or death. so only food well chopped up would be zapped directly into their stomachs. the best place to get that was directly from the stomachs of someone nearby who was eating. odd concept i suppose, but the pk people would not have to eat, so they need not work. i wonder what other body functions they could replace by direct transference of material... impregnation or child birth probably. )= . stankuli@gulf.net === qui non est hodie cras minus aptus erit | | who not is today, tomorrow less suitable will be --- -- Ovid _Remedia Amoris_ i 94 ** Dream: "dream with physical ailment" by stan kulikowski ii (990714) ** DATE : 14 jul 1999 03:00 DREAM : the sports star =( still on my german vacation, i took ill when touring the bavarian alps region three days ago. getting through jet lag must have weakened my resistance because i picked up the cold which mark had when i got here. while hiking on some mountain trails i began to sneeze. when we got back to town, it was after 19:30 saturday and every pharmacy and store for cold supplies was closed until monday morning. what a barbaric practice to close needed consumables for religious quackery. we stayed over saturday at a quaint bavarian inn, but i was getting too sick to enjoy it much. could not sleep hardly at all. sunday morning went to a mountain top teahouse built for adolph hilter, but it was cloud covered and drizzly and the altitude did not help my draining sinuses. got back to herzogenaurach during the afternoon, and slept off and on through most of sunday. started taking cold relief capsules and syrups on monday morning, but the german kind are too weak compared to what i usually take, and this cold had a long period untreated. all day monday i just lay abed trying to sleep as much as possible. i had a stupid mechanical dream about user interfaces, but i was too sick to write it and it was too dull and repetitious to bother with anyway. this illness had a curious cold sweat that lasted right up to the end that i usually do not experience when sick. yesterday, tuesday, i was able to get up and eat and begin to move around the house, never far from whatever these little red pills are called (labels all in german). we began to refer to them as 'the little red balls' after a funny line in the movie _les visituers_. mark and fran went out to the beerfest in the next block, but i stayed home being too soon for me to feel like going out. was rainy all afternoon anyway. had a little trouble getting to sleep until after midnight, a sure sign that jet lag is over for me. )= i promised everyone that i would come out and play with them at the picnic, but i forgot to bring cokes. no matter, i will just dash off and buy some more. we are outside in the sunshine, gathering together on the large grassy lawns of a hospital. laura white is sitting nearby, enjoying the sun. she is sure looking better after her heart attack a couple months ago. as i jump up to go for the cokes, i dump out the nylon zippered bag i am carrying and a dozen or so brightly colored frisbees twirl out, eager for flight. reluctantly i have to leave them for the coke mission. first i start searching the ground floor of the hospital for a coke machine. i look in this room, then down that hall. it seems almost deserted in here like it has turned night inside while outside is midafternoon. after a few more unproductive guesses, i stumble into a room where a pretty young nurse is studying a textbook. "i am sorry to bother you." i tell her. "but could you tell where there is a coke machine?" she nods, gets up and takes me a few doors down and points down the hall. embedded in the wall is a vending machine, only about eight centimeters of it extends outward, but it is brightly painted with the red cocacola logos. i thank her and hurry over. i fumble out a handful of coins and start to feed the machine a series of quarters. but it will not take them. the coin feed slot is closed. apparently this vending machine will not accept money when turned off or unplugged, the slot closes. i pull the vending machine out of its niche in the wall. it is only slight;y thicker than the eight centimeters exposed, maybe ten in all. the machine is surprisingly light, maybe it is empty of coke. but once i have it pulled away, i discover the problem. some repair operation from the other side has torn away the wall. there are bits of wire and plaster and loose boards scattered all over the floor of the hall on the other side. two men, one a janitor and the another a hospital administrator are standing in the rubble on the other side, searching for something. "damn, i told you he was fast." they poke through a few more boards. finally one of them comes up with a cat that is wrapped up in heavy gauge construction wire. it has yellow insulated wire wrapping up its neck and chest, red wire around its middle and hips, and finally green wire around its hind legs trailing off some distance afterwards. quick as a whistle, the cat gives a little shake and is out of the grip of the administrator. it is quick. a few wiggles and they can not see where it went, like things that vanish with stop action movies. that fast. but when they start looking around, i find that the trail of green wire is on my side of the wall, leading behind the vending machine. dragging the cat by its green wires out from the behind, i start to replace the vending machine in its hole. "i am trying to help you." i tell the cat. "lie still if you are smart." the cat's panicked eyes look at me, but it relaxes its head in consent. i do not unwrap the animal, but i carry it out a side door into the parking lot. i out it on the back seat of car and quickly start driving for home. when i get to my neighborhood, i do not pull into my driveway but park down the street where a family of black people live. in case i have been followed i can shake a tail by cutting through some backyards. "what you got there?" the teenage daughter asks me as i come up on the screened porch. she is a little overweight with round features. "take this cat but don't unwrap him yet." i feel something odd in my stomach and have to excuse myself around the corner of the porch. once alone i fish down my throat with the my fingers and just as i am about to gag, i connect with something hard. pulling it out of my mouth, a long strip of heavy white plastic starts to come out. down in my stomach i feel a larger mass start to move. it takes a couple pulls to extract it, but at the end of strip is maybe a half liter white plastic cup and off the lip are three spiral spring ribbon things that bob back and forth uselessly. i marvel that such a large thing could be swallowed or disgorged, my jaw aches almost dislodged. but i think i recognize it as some water toy that a child was playing with yesterday. i did not know that i had swallowed or inhaled it somehow. there is a thin taste of something else still in the back of my throat. first i pull out a long wet piece of cellophane, saran wrap. then several more hard plastic strips, pastel colors and a little irregular on the deeper ends as they come out. finally about eight them metal rectangles about the size and thickness of paperback novel covers. the process of pulling this slime covered stuff out of my throat and stomach hurt, but it feels good now to have cleaned that out. i wonder how long all i have carried all this, and how i only remember that monster water toy at the start. i throw the wet saran wrap away but carry the rest with me as i go back. on the bar at the end of their porch, i take back the cat and begin unwrapping the wires. when i have finally freed the animal, it takes one look at me and is gone like a shot. but it is in for a shock. no sooner has it jumped off the end of the bar than it is grabbed by the blind toothless dog that sleeps there. a hearty vibration is set up by the rapid gumming of the mangy black dog. with the back of my fist, i carefully insert my wrist into the dog's mouth to free the cat. quickly, it runs down the bar in the opposite direction, but before it gets to the end a couple puppies of the toothless bitch jump up to intercept it. the cat seeing all exit blocked, sits down to start licking its fur as if nothing has happened but its fur is a little mussed. it looks to be a rather mangy animal itself, bits of odd fur sticking out here and there, but that may be due to the wire wrap and saliva coating from old gummy here. then, licking its paw and rubbing its ears, the cat begins to talk. "you know, i am really a world famous baseball star. at that hospital they did genetic transformations on me to prevent me from getting to the world series. those men were agents of the players on the other team. if you can help get me back into shape before the series, i can make it worth your while. all the personally signed trading cards you can carry. be worth a fortune in a hundred years." seems pretty stingy considering the millions that national athletes take home, but then ability in sports only rarely coincides with good character. coaches harp on that teamwork and role model stuff to keep taxpayers supporting their recruit training facilities in public high schools. i begin to consider what restoring him will mean. massive weight gain, for one thing. i suspect he weighs maybe eight pounds american. while i am thinking about his restoration, i have been fumbling with the flat metal bits i pulled from gastric system. a little corroded around the edges, but i recognize these from my high school days. one each metal plate is the photo of young men dressed in plastic armor. one is a goalie, another a wedge leader, another a line backer. the coach used to have these embossed up a week before the games so we would form an image of our assigned targets. i did not realize that i had eaten them. =( i awake 02:50 after a rapid series of dreaming, it takes a while for me to recall all this as it seemed to happen so quickly. there are many associations here. laura white did have a heart attack a few weeks ago and had to default on teaching pascal class yesterday. she does look much better now. the hospital probably relates to my being sick the last three days, certainly the deep ache i felt pulling that stuff from my throat was really lung congestion and sore ribs from coughing. when i woke i could still feel it, just displaced a bit from alimentary to respiratory. i suppose that dreams do localize internal anatomy very well. the cat here does not like me, yowling often when i come by him on the stairs. the only time he seems to tolerate me is when i scrap dinner bits into his bowl when washing the dishes. he is a neurotic indoor cat who dashes for the door every chance he gets. the street is too busy with traffic for him to survive outside though. the thin vending machine is like the cigarette machines they have everywhere around here. i do have black neighbors, but this was not them or their house. i never played sports after little league, and could not wait to escape the dim coaches in the required gym tortures. the plastic, metal and saran wrap is probably related to the overly complicated recycling process here in germany. i never recall which of the half dozen containers take what. i have felt that it might be easier to eat the saran wrap like i saw an actor do in the movie, _les visiteurs_, a couple days ago. )= . stankuli@gulf.net === qui non est hodie cras minus aptus erit | | who not is today, tomorrow less suitable will be --- -- Ovid _Remedia Amoris_ i 94 ** Dream:"my betrothal" by stan kulikowski ii (990715)** DATE : 15 jul 1999 02:34 DREAM : my betrothal =( still on vacation in germany. mark got sleepy and went to bed early. his wife, fran, and i walked over to the kirchenweiss beer festival which was packed with germans singing and dancing on a wednesday night. fran found some women friends and they danced on the tables for a couple hours. the music was a horribly performed mix of latin swing and american rock with a german accent, but the townsfolk knew what the words sounded like and sang along anyway. often the singers on stage could only approximate the words to _born to be wild_ or _la bamba_. i drank some weissbeer and watched the pretty young women from town sing and frolick, none speaking a word i could understand. around 23:30 the3 music closed down and i went right to bed. sleep did not come easy with a liter of fresh beer in me. )= if it is said to be quietest just before the storm, or darkest just before the dawn, what is it just before true happiness? perhaps i finally know now. the family reunion of abegail jane has been planned for several weeks and i have been lucky to be involved through here. one by one she has introduced me to this aunt and uncle, or that cousin. i can hardly remember most of their names. always i have been introduced as 'a friend', no one is supposed to know that we have been lovers for several months, living together de facto rather than by plan or arrangement. my part in this reunion, besides arranging for this hall since i live in this township, is that i promised to supply the beer. being a homebrew master, it was easy for me to whip up a 40 gallon batch, but the hall has some unusual requirements to pressure tap kegs into its famous wall spigots. there not being time to cure the batch naturally in bottles, i had to use force carbonation which meant spending several hundred dollars on the several pressure canisters that charge this tap system. it was more than anyone could expect me to spend, but i was happy to do it. although her family is french in origin, most of the uncles and a few of the aunts expressed how much the beer at these gatherings meant to them, more like germans in that respect. as the last of her family comes trickling into the hall, which is a long room built down a steep hillside, i have roped some of the younger men to help install the last pressure canister. it is a long stainless steel tube about the width of a grapefruit and six meters long. just before we get it attached in its downhill pointing wall socket, one of the senior aunts, a late arrival, pulls on one of the taps behind me. with a kerchung, the wall socket in front of me extends a metal flange intended to open the pressure canister so the beer in the vat is driven through the taps. since this canister is not online, the other in the wall across the room creates a back pressure which forces the loose canister backwards out of its slot. since the flange had only started to open is valve, its internal pressure has no where except to escape into its steel casing which causes its component parts to disassemble. so the men who had been trying to help me load the thing are suddenly catching bright stainless pieces as they fall off and the canister jettisons backward. the last two manage to catch a heavy glass liner, sloshing with injected beer, before it hits the floor. i doubt if it would have broken, but it it better to have all the parts in hand to reassemble them. it will take some time, however, to get the system up. oh, a minor set back. i had backup with cases of imported beers on ice. some people do not always like my strong dopplebock. i like to cater parties with plenty for everyone's taste. most of the family is seated at the various little tables, each on its own step floor with a railing. the design of the building was not to excavate the hillside, but rather to enclose its natural steep slope with step terraces for the chairs and tables inside. quite a nice effect actually as it focuses the attention on the elders at the bottom tier. abegail finally comes in at the bottom to talk with her mother. my heart starts to surge when i catch a glimpse of her. you would think that after these months together i would have calmed down by now. she is normally a stunning woman just to look at, but i had not seen her all morning with these preparations, and she is dressed in peach colored one piece silk dress that takes my breath away just looking at her from the distance. whatever i was doing just gets lost from my head and the boys behind me keep clanking away with the metal parts of the canister. i suspect everyone in the room has noticed my jaw drop and my eyes roll out of my head the second she walked in. who could miss it? i am drawn down toward her several levels, just walking blind, trying to recover my supposed detached demeanor, when my name is shouted out behind me. "stan!" i turn and one of the aunts, or a sister i think, has a scrap of paper in the hand. "what is the meaning of this?" i see it is an invoice that fell out of the canister. "meaning of what?" someone in a lower row asks up to her. "it says $153.76 for just this one. there is another just like it on that other wall, not to mention the beer itself and these heavy crystal mugs. just how much have you spent on this?" she asks me. the receipt is passed downwards to abby's mother. "look," i start out lamely. "the equipment is reusable. i would have bought it sooner or later as beer master anyway so i can cater this hall. the beer itself was made from odds and ends i keep on hand anyway. i suspect i spent less than $70 dollars on 40 gallons that might get consumed here today. that works out to about 30 cents a mug. that does not sound like much to me." i neglect to mention the import cooling in the ice chests down front. "sounds like you are making a hit already." abby smiles at me. "i told you keep a low profile and you are center of the attention before we even get started." there is a little still bemused warning in her eyes. the rest of the gathering seems to accept my statement, not that interested anyway. but the receipt has found its way to abby's mother who comes over for a quiet word with me on the side. "yes, what is the reason for this?" she asks, not meaning the price. "just what is your relationship to our daughter?" i swallow hard. abegail had thought her family would never ask directly, and i am very reluctant to mislead anyone on my sentiments here. "i know what i would like it to be." i mumble a bit. abby's eyebrows perk up in question or warning, i can not tell which, but i seem started now. "i would feel forever lucky to marry her..." i stammer out. a flicker of a smile crosses her mother's face, but in a tense jerk i turn to abby direct. somehow, my tongue comes untied, but my heart just stops. "abegail, if i can persuade you to marry me i will count myself fortunate as no other. i did not intend to put you on the spot like this in front of your mother and all, but neither can i mislead her when asked so directly. i feel so lucky that you even look in my direction or say my name. if you are going to dump me someday, then this should be the time to do it. i have found it impossible to hide my love for you here among those who also care for you. oh, abby, either marry me or just shoot me in the head like broken horse who can never run again." i suppose the love smitten always end up by saying silly things. but someone whose heart is about to fall through the floor or the ceiling deserves a little leniency in metaphor. now my breath stops altogether and i do not care if it ever returns or not. her eyes have that cool fixed stare and her lips that slight smirk frozen in time, either cruel or amused, i could never tell. "yes, i will." she spoke loud enough for her mother to hear her. i suspect the assembled guest had hushed to try to hear whatever i was saying quietly to abegail jane, but i will never know. the sound of empty space came crashing down like the red sea on pharaoh's army. someone put a fork down on a plate. an empty mug was moved an inch. someone whispered a syllable to a child. my heart beat just once more. she had said yes. i have never imagined what happiness was like until this moment. i had never known it to be missing or my life in anyway lacking, but now something good clicked in my chest and the sweetness of the air almost overwhelmed me. i struggled to remain conscious. i probably looked like a drooling idiot hardly able to stand, but all i could see was a clearly pleased smile show on her face as if for the first time. i thought i had loved her before, but now i know i have finally gotten it right. her mother nodded once as if checking something off on a list and left without saying a word, going over to the table for her husband. soon there are shouts and laughter all around the room. i hardly notice. abby comes up close and murmurs with a coy tone in her voice. "and what if we have children?" "two." i can't take my eyes off her, my chest is pounding, pounding, pounding. "i have always thought two would be just right." "and if a third or a fourth turn up?" "anyone who comes from you will be beautiful by right and no one can deny beauty its due place in the world." we had never spoken like this before. perhaps unchained happiness makes everything just sound like shakespeare wrote it. the rest of the afternoon and evening was a swirling miasma of people and beer and singing. her father was always looking forward to grandchildren and was eager for the news. every female cousin, married or unmarried, swarmed around her like moths wanting a piece of the new light she seemed to radiate. me, i was like an ox dumbfounded being led down the path by well meaning relatives. finally, about an hour before midnight, the owner of the hall shows up to tell me that our rental is up. he needs us to leave soon as another party is about to arrive. this sounds a little odd to start something so late, but most of the people had left an hour ago anyway. i am walking around enjoying the shell shock. outside in the dark, i see a line of people dressed in japanese ceremonial kimonas and robes. i signal for abby to join me so we can leave. the first of the japanese to enter place two little infants on the terrace in front of the entrance. everyone who enters bows to these two tykes, and one of the babies standing on its legs (but it is surely too small to be walking) is saying things to each who enter. "your karma is mixed with indigestion." or "the souls of your feet are confused." little stock of phrases like that in a tiny, mechanical voice. what are these curious little things? they look like real babies from the distance but act like little mechanical buddas, wind them up with a key. as i turn off the final pressure valve on the tap system, a light skin asiatic woman steps from behind a post. she looks more korean than the japanese here. some other minor race from over there anyway. "those are the ribawn infants." she tells me, nodding to the odd babies. "remember, this place belongs to intermatsuu." i look over at those babies, each bowing and making weird fortune cookie statements. when i look back, the asiatic woman has vanished. stepped back behind the post i assume, but i do not have time to look as abegail comes up with an open box. she has a small doll inside, in several pieces to be assembled. it is ornately carved. "ready to go?" she asks me. am i ever. we file past the line of robed figures coming in the door. i get a closer glimpse of the weird babies. they are both dressed in one piece zip ups so only their heads and hands actually show. i don't know what is going on with them, but it is none of my business. we walk arm in arm down the hill and to a house on the flat where i should turn in the keys i was given. out of some bushes by the road comes my father. "is this what you have been doing? secretly brewing beer and hanging out with those foreign people?" "i did not think that my brewing beer was a secret." i smile directly at him and he is taken aback a bit. nothing can conceal my joy. "abegail and i are going to get married." "oh yes? and what do you think about this?" he throws a ceramic plate on the ground and breaks it with his heel. it used to be the stand to a favorite statue i had made in art classes. i think he is testing me. i just smile bigger. "we have not set a date or made any arrangements yet. i hope you can be there." he seems satisfied. "i will be there." he finally smiles and leaves. he has ever seen me this happy. "what was that?" asks abby pointing to the broken plate. "just part of a doll i made once. this one is much better." indicating to the disassembled one in the box. inside i meet the tavern owner. i try to give him back the key but he has a worried look on his face. "i want you two to go back in there and bring out those two ribawn. do not let anyone prevent you. they should not be there. they are an abomination." this sounds a little odd, but abegail says sure and puts down her doll. i start to follow her out the back way and the service entrance at the bottom of the hall. the owner hands me what looks like a rough wooden staff, highly polished, but i see that it divides in half and is actually a katana, the samurai great sword. i am not sure what use this has for the ceremonies inside, but i take it. perhaps i am to exchange that for the babies. the silk robed japanese people are darkly arranged around the sides of the hall as if avoiding the dimly lit middle. i have no idea what they are saying to each other as we pass up the central isle unopposed but clearly upsetting to the participants. at the top, abby takes up the smaller of the two infants which has been less active than the other. people have stopped coming in from outside so maybe their role as greeting dispensers is done. i pick up the larger ribawn. at once i can tell something is really wrong. he is much heavier than expected, particularly bottom heavy. "is that one really heavy?" i ask abby. "this one feels like he has a load of steel crap in his diapers." kneeling down, i lay mine over on its back and unzip his one piece to check his pants. inside is a horror. all of the babies' internal organs have been scooped out and replaced by a foul corroded metal box to which the head has been attached. around the metal box is a stringy green and yellow mucus with some white pus globules floating in it. suddenly the box sounds a list of its eight or nine greetings, one after another. "your karma is mixed with indigestion." "no one will know your mother lied." "the slightest chance will bring you disaster." and so on. "stan, i think we should take these children to a hospital." abby tells me. she has not looked into the guts bag of mine yet. an elderly japanese man with a thin white beard comes over, looking worried. i zip up the ribawn's garment which apparently keeps the fluids around the box. the baby's lips move spasmodically. "i do not think there is anything a doctor can do for these infants." i tell her. "you know what this is about." i say to the elderly man. "how long does a baby in this condition live?" he looks around trying to avoid answering. "about three months. the one you have was prepared for this service tonight 54 days ago. the one she has has new technology and is expected to survive three years. we have never had a ribawn that long. we have been working on the life expectancy problem for centuries." "well, i think we have to take these two to a hospital and let the men of western science see what has been done here, one way or another." i say. "it is unfortunate that you try this." he mutters, departing into the shadows. suddenly a fully clad black ninja drops down from the ceiling, short sword drawn. i step over the ribawn on the floor to allow abegail to scoop it up with her other. i pull out the katana i was given. guess now i know why. by god, i will permit nothing get close to her tonight. the ninja attacks and somehow i parry and back slash, removing his leg at the knee. he makes no sound as he falls to the floor, clutching his spraying stump. two more come at me, this time out of the shadows. one is slightly ahead of the other, so i try for his wrist holding his sword. i miss as he jumps aside, but my blade catches him across the abdomen, his guts spilling out in a gush. he has gotten in the way of his companion. i grit my teeth and lunge forward, piercing the chest of the second ninja as he steps around. i do not know where these fighting skills are coming from as i have not fenced in years, but i will fight with every fiber in me before i let them get to abegail jane, my bethrothed. together we start backing toward the entrance just up a little way. five more assailants seem to pop up on the sides, but they hold back. suddenly, out of the middle directly in front of me, the shadows sort of congeal in an odd way. a tall thin spectral figure appears, wearing a thin white spotted silk robe that blows franticly even though the air in here is still and thick. "comes rikayu!" the five on the sides say in unison like a chant. a laugh comes out of the robe and under its hood i can dimly see a skull, bleached bone white. oh shit. a demon. giving myself up for dead, i charge forward hoping the surprise of a frontal assault will throw him off long enough for abby to get those pathetic babies out of here. it seems i was not meant for true happiness afterall, but at least i had a few moments of it. i give up the joy in my heart to desperation. the demon does not move at all. the end of the sword cracks through its jaw and buries into the cranial cavity. still the demon laughs in higher and higher frequencies. twisting the sword i break off a chunk of the skull. still it cackles insanely. i strike forward a couple more times breaking away most of the skull but nothing seems to affect rikayu's menace. then i start saying like a war cry, "i did not call him, but still he comes." rikayu stops laughing and starts paying serious attention to me. "i did not call him. i did not call him." i say over and over, the bloodied sword gripped uselessly between me and the demon. "i did not call him, but still he comes." behind me and abegail, the universe cracks open just a little and a brilliant beam of white light floods in driving away any trace of gloom and darkness. brighter and brighter it grows and the demon rikayu begins to crumble with a mournful cry. the ribawn howl in agony of what has been done to them. the followers along the way begin to drop like flies. lord intermatsuu, the god, has arrived at his place as promised. =( i woke out of breath, aching tense shoulders, but still i had a full measure of that sustained joy in my chest. 02:00ish i suspect. i lay there for a while just savoring that feeling of true happiness, however briefly experienced. the real abegail jane broke my heart, just tore it apart, when she left me, she was quite young and inexperienced in relationships. all these years i have dreamed of her with regret and longing, but this one experience almost makes up for all that. this feels like the redemptive value that religions milk out of some people and call it supernatural, but to me it seems part of this mechanism of dreamwork i have been exploring. i note the appearance of demons and gods just after the shower of emotive release. i suspect that is a cultural reflex, i certainly have no tendency to credit rikayu, or intermatsuu with any external reality although i can see how more controlled cognitive process tapping into this reservoir with focal godlings or saints might convince someone less familiar with their mental processes. i caught just a glimpse of that happiness i happened to miss all those years ago, and i am glad for even that fragment. )= . stankuli@gulf.net === qui non est hodie cras minus aptus erit | | who not is today, tomorrow less suitable will be --- -- Ovid _Remedia Amoris_ i 94 ** Dream: "psychic fair" by stan kulikowski ii (990512) ** DATE : 12 may 1999 06:25 DREAM : at the psychic fair =( my mother went to bed really early last night, about 22:00 as she was sleepy. i worked on a bit of internet history which i had taught to the naval students earlier yesterday. i needed a couple powerpoint slides to address some questions they had on how government had adopted use of computer networks rather late compared to the military deployment of arpanet. particularly i spent some time researching the 1984 AT&T divestiture in the reagan administration after the antitrust action of nixson ford justice department. economists on the internet were not making as many parallels to the current microsoft antitrust suit as i had thought. apparently, the sherman precedents against standard oil, AT&T and IBM were much stronger than the present microsoft case which is a much smaller company in terms of employees, thereby concentrating more wealth and control into fewer executives at the top. i quit early, around 02:30 and went to sleep with only a little difficulty because of the warmth of the night. still have not turned on the air conditioner. )= the psychic fair is a dusty sort of affair. gathered together outside in a dry, grassy field far away from anything civilized or urban. there must thirty large victorian tables set up side by side. at each table sits the various practitioners of different forms of divination, maybe four to six people at one table then another who has a table alone, depending on how much space is needed for the process. i walk among the tables and marvel at the variety of methods for divining one's fortune or personality. here there are several forms of the _i ching_. one man casting three coins while another heats a turtle shell over a propane burner. i wonder where the 49 yarrow rods are, as that was always my preferred method of casting the hexagrams. at the next table is a tea leaf reader with her pot of brew and next to her a woman with thick spectacles scries myopically into a crystal ball. there is a haruspex all alone peering into a disemboweled white dove, entrails spread across the table with care. no one seems to want to hear about the doubled lobed liver of this perfect victim. other doves coo in a wicker cage waiting their chance to expose the twists and turns of destiny. they do not seem perturbed by the fate of their recent cage mate on the table before them. at the next table several gentleman sit waiting customers. one of them has a silver samovar that has a white ceramic tile hanging by a red silk string. he turns over the tile to reveal some blue chinese characters etched on one side. "feng" he announces to the others and they seem suitably impressed. someone throwing rune stones on an animal fur. another constructing a tower of thin rods. someone else with rorschach ink blots. a large contraption of shiny brass that clicks and wheezes when you wind it up with a peculiar shaped key. a man with long fingers feeling the bumps on the skull of a patient young woman. a turbaned swami with magnetic eyes channeling the dead. so many different ways to conjure the future or the past. i have not decided which to try. i hardly need the future told to me as my life seems to go its own way whether i will it or not. perhaps it is lack of interest more than anything else. we live. we die. life goes on. what else needs to be said? still since i am here i can hardly not try any of the sundry harbingers. tarot cards might be entertaining. i find a sweet young woman with gypsy black hair ready to spread her cards for a coin. i watch her manipulate her gray backed cards and start to lay them out, some face up and some face down. i follow closely, but this is a layout that i am unfamiliar with. certainly not the celtic cross, but her arrangement does terminate with the seven card daath pack at the end. she is puzzled. "this ending seems to contradict the structure before it." she says. "i do not see how this future follows from what has gone before it. it makes no sense at all. i must have done something wrong." i take several of the cards and rearrange them. "i noticed when you laid them out that these four cards in their cardinal order, you did not follow the pattern you used over there." the card faces are cryptic pastel images, not the crowley deck nor the ryder pack. i seem to have the seven of swords in my hand, but i do not see it very well. something about the card causes my eyes not to focus on it properly. maybe something about the perspective is wrong. "i do not think i could have made so elementary of a mistake." she says to me, but she shrugs her shoulders. "i will ask my teacher what the significance of a mislay is. clearly this is an ill formed result." "or maybe my life is just too screwed up to make sense to you?" i say with a half way grin. i am secretly impressed that she can recognize and admit nonsense in the cards instead of merely accepting whatever shows as some expression to make sense of. cause and effect ought to hold for any valid divination just as it does for the physics of the world being shown. now i see someone i recognize: matilda fultz sitting at a table with maybe fifty glass jars and containers spread out before her. i do not recognize the method here. "this is herbal prognostication." tilly explains to me. "pick a jar that seems to appeal to you." i look over the apparatus. every jar is different size and shape, mostly antique canning jars with those dull metal screw on lids that had the white glass inside. some of the jars have dried powder or whole leaves inside. there is one with an obvious brown mandrake root in it. some bottles have ground glass stoppers and contain a liquid extract. finally i choose a jar more for its shape than its contents. this jar is rectangular, just over an inch wide but seven inches wide. i like the thick clear glass and the way it has been shaped. also, the jar is inside a thin wire cage like it might explode. i notice almost after the fact that it has maybe half an inch of wet red pulpy material on the bottom. there are many small white seeds also. "what is this?" i ask, handing over the jar. tilly wrinkles up her nose in distaste. "tomatoes and ketchup." "do you think we can brew up some herbal tea while we do this?" i notice some chamomile blossoms in one of the jars. maybe she has some yerba mate. =( i wake 06:05, well rested and no tendency to go back to sleep. i wish i would have stayed asleep to see what tillie was to do with the herbs to divine something. i had a feeling that it involved tasting or smelling small samples of each and that she did not care for the coming taste of her tomato concoction. i have never heard of herbal divination so have no idea what that ritual might entail. an association for my study of history last night to those methods of divination seems evident. both are concerned with interpreting events. )= . stankuli@gulf.net === qui non est hodie cras minus aptus erit | | who not is today, tomorrow less suitable will be --- -- Ovid _Remedia Amoris_ i 94 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Farewell for this month. Hasta la vista! May your dreams do their magic in your life. Bob Krumhansl bobkrum@erols.com +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z ELECTRIC DREAMS ACCESS INFORMATION Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z Subscriptions: The Electric Dreams E-zine (issn 1089 4284)is *free* and distributed via email about once a month. You can have Electric Dreams delivered right to your email box by sending an e-mail To subscribe to Electric Dreams Send from the address you want to subscribe to electric-dreams-request@lists.best.com And put in the body of the e-mail only: subscribe your-email ZIPPED AND ILLUSTRATED ED Get this issue with graphics by subscribing to edreams-web-request@lists.best.com Put in body of email only: subscribe your-email ================= SUBMITTING DREAMS and Comments about Dreams: EASY! 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See www.dreamgate.com/dream/resources Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z= The Electric Dreams Staff Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z=Z= Peggy Coats - News & Calender Events Director pcoats@dreamtree.com http://www.dreamtree.com Bob Krumhansl - Editor & Dream Editor bobkrum@erols.com Kathy Turner - Dream Wheel Moderator "Kathy Turner" Dane Pestano HTML ED Designer danep@cableinet.co.uk Victoria Quinton- Friends of Electric Dreams Electric Dreams Archives & Reporter mermaid 8*) mermaid@alphalink.com.au http://www.alphalink.com.au/~mermaid Jesse Reklaw - Cover Art Gallery 1994- 1997 reklaw@nonDairy.com Cover Artist This Month's Cover byt David Wells and Kat Eiswald http://home.pacbell.net/davekat Thanks to Bryan Smith for many of our Web page Illustrations. http://www.thinkpiece.com/ Molly - Illustrated ED Archive Host WHOMEVER@prodigy.net http://www.geocities.com/~pae_sno/ Lars Spivock - Research and Development Director lars@dreamgate.com Richard Wilkerson - General Editor, Articles & Subscriptions & Publication rcwilk@dreamgate.com www.dreamgate.com + The wonderful anonymous Core who respond each issue to your dreams! + The generous authors of our articles + The creative genius of Bryan A. 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