Anonymous - Walking Together

We recently returned from a visit to Kennebunkport, Maine, so I suppose that is why my dream two nights ago (October 20) at home in Southern California was set in the New England countryside.  The actors in the dream were a young man and a young woman, walking together through a beautiful fall landscape and climbing a hill in an attempt to reach a sprawling wooden inn replete with gables and mystery.  They were engaged in a quest, frustrating but not frightening, and taking place entirely in daylight.  My dream had no resolution.  The inn they sought was entirely visible throughout yet unreachable.  And the dream repeated itself even after I awoke briefly and returned to sleep.  I'd like to revisit that place to see what happens!!

Anonymous

Anonymous - Being Dumped Into The Void

As a child, in Chatham, NJ, I had a recurring nightmare: I dreamt that I was tied to a parking meter on a conveyor belt which gradually "dumped" us into a void!

I think that this dream started as I was in my bed looking up at the ceiling where there was a long crack. Somehow that turned into the dream!

anonymous

December 11, 2010

Anonymous - Water Runs Between Us

We are near the Hollywood sign around sundown and the glow from the city and from the sign light the sky. As we walk toward the sign, we see a first trail that leads from LACMA, and a second trail that comes from over in West Hollywood.  There are canals/streams with water running and grasses and trees and we see a cross-dresser on the far side of the canal. We keep going. I’m with a beautiful young African American woman I don’t know, though it could be Sandra. Then I find myself at a yoga conference/social party. I’ve gained enough success and notoriety that people recognize me and know my name. They don’t approach me directly, but one server tells me they know who I am.

I am doing yoga. We’re in a very interesting place, part shopping mall, part county fair. When I do certain yoga poses I start to spin and twirl in the air and I can’t stop. I’ll stop momentarily in a handstand, balanced on a railing or a chair, and then roll and transition into other poses.

A man is snuggling me and kissing my neck. He’s married. I’m feeling turned on, but I don’t want things to go any further. Somehow I wriggle away and go on spinning and landing in yoga postures. I pass a pen – literally like a livestock pen – with a metal fence and there are many people practicing various poses. Someone asks me to be her academic advisor but in the back of my mind I know I’m not qualified.

I wake up with my arms over my head. My husband is getting out of bed.

anonymous

Anonymous - Newly Discovered Rooms

I regularly dream of large, run-down houses with rambling interiors. In the dream I’m often discovering a forgotten room or rooms which have been unused and neglected. I always have a need for the space in these newly discovered rooms, but am faced with a cleaning/clearing/rearranging job before I can use it. Interestingly, the houses are usually period properties – Victorian, Edwardian, and recently a 1950’s sort of place. They’re always very different places from anywhere I’ve ever lived – furnished as though there has been considerable wealth, but now are very shabby and worn. The detail I see as I survey these dream places is often phenomenal and I wake up thinking how could I possibly have had that kind of highly specific detail in my head, as I often see things that I have no memory of ever seeing in my life, but which seem totally compatible with the period. Sometimes I’m aware that I’m dreaming and have a degree of conscious control of the dream.  (It seems like that to me, anyway.) When this happens I get rather excited in the dream and will often move in and out of rooms quite quickly to take in as much of their fantastical detail as possible. This awareness never lasts long, though, because I always try to assume too much control of the dream and it brings me out of the dream state -- always such a bummer!!

 anonymous

Anonymous - The Missing Recipe

I had a dream this morning that I was trying to make a recipe.  I don't remember clearly what I was trying to make, but I think it was cookies.  I started putting the ingredients together, but then I couldn't find the paper that had the recipe on it.  I started looking around for the paper.  There were a bunch of other pieces of paper sitting around but I couldn't find the recipe anywhere.  A relative of mine started giving me a hard time about starting a recipe without having the recipe, and I said, "You're not very nice, are you?" 

November 3

Anonymous

Rancho Palos Verdes, CA, USA

Anonymous - Tiger Woods and His Teeth

Tiger Woods is not only a star golfer but he’s a performer. He sings and dances. He looks somewhat different – a long nose that is close to his face. And his teeth – it’s the teeth that are noteworthy. He has several big teeth and a couple of small, malformed ones. He has shoulder length hair, pulled back in a ponytail. He is performing on stage with an older white woman. When it comes time for the stage kiss, he really gets into it… spends time with it. And when he pulls back, the camera zooms in on his face. He is clearly going through all kinds of emotions. He actually looks for a moment like another (white) actor with blue eyes. He seems startled and touched, unexpectedly, as if he’s been taken by surprise by the strength and nature of his feelings. Then tears roll down his cheeks. I am rapt watching the whole thing. It touches me deeply and I can’t stop crying and crying. I can feel the loneliness, the need, the confusion.

Then there is also a media obsession-fascination that focuses on the outside: photos from his youth (in Africa??) in the early 1900s and those teeth – close-ups of the teeth…. and experts telling how to fix them so no one will know how they were.

Anonymous

July 2010

Anonymous - Biting a Tongue (not mine) and Other Cannabalistic Tendencies

Here are two dream snippets.  A wider context didn’t stay with me -- only the disturbing bits! Both dreams were in the last two weeks. Can’t be more specific. I was here, at home, in late November, early December 2010. 

Dream 1.

In this dream I found myself biting off the tip of someone’s tongue and having trouble extricating it from my teeth! The texture was like sticky rubber and the person was looking pretty alarmed as I struggled to get the bloody bits out of my mouth. This person changed sex during the incident, but I can’t now remember whether s/he started off as a man and ended up as a woman, or vice versa. It was a complete stranger – no one I knew. I woke up feeling a bit disturbed.

Dream 2.

In a similar cannibalistic vein, this dream was longer. I found myself in a restaurant setting and was presented with a female fetus on a plate, prepared in some kind of glaze but not really cooked, as far as I could tell. Within the culture of the dream, I was expected to eat this dish and was aware that I would cause offence not to, but I found the whole idea revolting and distasteful.  Feeling pressured to do what was expected of me, I picked it up and reluctantly licked at the glaze.  I don’t recall there being any taste. I then attempted to crack it open with the intention of biting into it, like a lobster, only length- wise. This filled me with revulsion, especially as the fetus began to show signs of life!! I woke up alarmed, as you might expect.

Anonymous

Anonymous - Headless Like a Hotdog

I dreamt I was sitting and I had on prison khakis. I was shirtless. I was rocking back and forth, I was headless, but I could see.  And, at the top of my neck there was a spot where the wound had healed. It looked like the top of a hotdog. 

Anonymous

Anonymous - Holding Hands

From a semi-recent vivid dream:

I was walking up some stairs, not paying too much attention. There was someone in my way, facing me. I didn’t look up, but instead just said, “Excuse me.” The person didn't move, so I looked up, and it was an old friend, smiling at me with the warmest, most welcoming, closed-mouth smile. We immediately held hands tightly and walked away together hurriedly.

This old friend is someone I had loved for a long time without telling him. We finally were together for only one summer, and I got my heart broken. That was 15 years ago. He shows up in dreams once in a blue moon. I am pregnant right now, and I've heard it's common, for some reason, to dream about past loves.

- Anonymous

October 23, 2010

Anonymous - Driving a Mattress in the Desert

I am living with S in some neutral location. We’re living like a couple, but we’re not having sex. He’s been texting his wife (he must have told her he’s on a business trip or something) and I realize I haven’t called T in days. I feel awful about this and worried that I’ll get found out. It’s very unusual for me not to call. Then I am with J. We’re driving around the desert on a bed. The bed tilts up at the head and we’re leaning back. There are no sheets or pillows on the bed, just a simple white covering on the mattress. We’re driving on a smoothish dirt road, but we realize we’re facing the wrong way and can’t figure out how to steer or stop. We finally stick our feet down on the sides and manage to slow the bed to a stop and turn it around, just before the end of the road.  It simply ends and the desert shrubs begin. Then I am visiting J at college. She has not come out to greet me. I am talking with a friend of hers. I call H, but a friend of her answers and refuses to tell me if J is there and won’t let me talk to H. I’m giving a presentation of some kind at this school and leave my things in the lecture hall. They’ve cleared the desk where my things were to make room for their materials, messily stuffing my things under the table. I retrieve them, but I’m not sure I have everything.

J’s friend brings me into the dorm. The rooms are shaped like an oval, with only a cloth curtain for a door. The girl who’s showing me around seems to have no furniture and no belongings, just a mostly empty room with wax relief sculptures on the walls – organic shapes. It turns out, each room is artistic in some way. She didn’t make the sculptures. These are left from the previous students. J shows me her room.

I’m distressed because I figure I’ve left my belongings in J’s room. I find myself wandering the halls without my phone, my purse, anything, and I can’t remember her room number. Nothing has been explained to me in any way. I’m feeling sorry for myself and abandoned by J who is very unavailable.

We peek into a classroom from which a thrumming, singing sound emanates. Many students in blue body suits with swimcaps that match are all attached to a boat-like shape (scaffold) by a string that leads into their mouths. They are moving rhythmically and slowly like an ocean and singing the humming notes. It’s very haunting.

Anonymous

August, 2010

Anonymous - Three Dream Figures

Rather than a specific dream, I am trying to interpret three dream figures: a veiled woman, a young boy playing at the edge of an expansive ocean, and a policeman. 

The veiled woman first appeared in a dream months ago. I don’t remember the context. Aloof, mysterious, removed. I assume she is a composite. My mother, steadfast in her love of her son, guiding in a maternal way. My sister, accomplished, perhaps even driven, a constant sound board. My maternal grandmother. A bit coy, a beauty in her own right. A quiet presence, always at family gatherings, silently judging. My paternal grandmother, dead long before I was born but a presence nonetheless. Deep sorrow tinged with mystery. Who was she? All of these qualities blend to form the veiled woman – both an enigma and an attraction – the woman I haven’t met yet.

The boy appeared in my dreams as a figure against an expansive but tranquil ocean. Playful and edenic are his traits. The young child I once was. A reflection seen when I smile.

And then the policeman. A guileful presence. The stern authority of my father manifested in a dream symbol. Haunting, reprimanding. Mindful of limits.

I chose the Rodin sculpture, the Age of Bronze, as a symbol of my selfhood. This was not a dream image but a symbol nevertheless. The man shaped by the veiled woman, the playful boy, and the authoritarian policeman. What does it mean, these dream images, jewels of the subconscious?

I honestly haven’t a clue...

- Anonymous

Anonymous - Talking with Barack Obama

I was sitting in a small auditorium waiting for Barack Obama to speak.  He was on the other side of the aisle --- on a light diagonal ---  from me without the company of a Secret Service detail, just next to a rather old civilian gentleman.  He and I were talking about what he was going to say, and I urged him to address gun control.  Then I spent a long time trying to suggest a word for him to use in place of control, regulation, restriction, collaboration, limitation --- something friendlier which might pass muster with the NRA.  I came up with cooperation.  Gun cooperation.  Not likely, I suspect.  Too chummy.  Too soft.  Poor Barack, I decided, he just can't win.  I did find that he looked exactly like his photographs and was very soft spoken and pleasant.  It was a lovely experience.

Anonymous