a dream project

I have been collecting brief descriptions of recent actual dreams, all of which are included here. I am not interested in analyzing them, but simply curious about the experiences we have while our minds and bodies are at rest.


In the process of collecting these dream stories, I was inspired to make A Thousand Threads, a limited edition, screen-printed book. It contains short, meditative poems I wrote by interweaving the dream fragments of others with my own dream imagery.


This project was part of The Spaces in Between, a solo exhibition curated by Susanna Meiers, February 14 – March 11, 2011, at the El Camino College Art Gallery in Torrance, CA.


To see all of the book pages or contribute a dream story, please go to www.betsylohrerhall.com. Thanks!




Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Tiny Threads

Many Thanks


Special thanks to all the dream contributors:

Edith Abeyta, Carol Ann, Slater Barron, Cheryl Bennett, Dara Brady, Jack Chipman, Margie Darrow, Darlene DeAngelo, Marta Deffenbaugh, Don Dolan, Gabrielle Dorr, Tom Dowling, Trisha Drew, Richard Hall, Paula Isenberg, Lili Khanmalek, Stephanie Klein, Carolyn Liesy, Jason Lipeles, Drew Lohrer, Jane Lohrer, Rick Lohrer, Ruth Lohrer, Steve Marr, Lynne Mori, Gretchen Potts, Sue Ann Robinson, Joanna Roche, Don Schallau, Jean Shriver, Elena Mary Siff, Morag Stokes, Karen Frimkess Wolff, JEN ZEN (aka Jen Grey), and several anonymous dreamers...
 
and to Stephanie Klein for editing and sequencing of the stories.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

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

Betsy Lohrer Hall - Very Tan Skin


I look in the mirror and I am amazed to discover that while I have a section of long hair immediately bordering my forehead, around my face, I have a large bald spot on most of the top of my head. Not only that, the skin up there is very tan and somewhat wrinkled at the edges. It becomes clear to me - suddenly - that I’ve been living with female pattern baldness for what must be quite some time without even realizing it.

blh
October 28, 2010

Carol Ann - Fuselage

I had a nightmare last night that I was standing at a second story window watching a plane come apart on take-off, and while I was steeling myself to go outside and help the survivors, a huge chunk of the fuselage came spinning towards the building I was in.

Carol Ann

Jason L - The Walking Painting

So, there was this very strange portion of my dream where I was leaning on a large fence with some friends at a baseball diamond. It was one of those very tall fences and our weight made the fence sag behind us. We were watching high school baseball try-outs. Of course, my old high school track coach was there and I said hi to him. Different people were throwing the ball around and then this one guy came out and the track coach thought that he might actually be pretty good. He had legs but his whole upper body and head were confined to a huge oil painting in a gilded frame. He could move his hands and his face popped out of the painting, but he looked like a walking painting. I never thought of him as a painting though- he was a child who happened to be stuck in a painting. I thought perhaps that his parents were very conservative and this was some sort of religious ritual. Apparently, he was a pretty good pitcher. When one of the coaches came up to tell him what he was doing wrong he started to cry and the coach said that he made the team as a pitcher. I remember thinking that he would have made a good catcher because he would easily block wild pitches with that large upper "body." The painting was at first of a very traditional sort of Rembrandt portrait. Then, later by the end of this segment, I remember thinking it was strange that he was on the body of some sort of distraught maid.

Also, in the dream I was in an art studio and then walking around with my siblings looking at different houses. At first we were going to toilet paper them and then we just decided to look at them. I wanted to write a letter to the people and slip it under there doors. But, my sister-in-law was slightly opposed.

Jason L
New year’s eve, 2011

Betsy Lohrer Hall - Singing Several Notes at Once


I dreamt that my friend Sky could sing several notes at once – as if all the facets of her inner life each had a beautiful female singing voice and they were singing together in perfect harmony… many voices emerging from her one mouth.

blh

Joanna Roche - The Wedding Envelope


In the dream, my mother was central. She was organizing a wedding—for me—but I was busy at work and I arrived very late, as the few guests who had remained were leaving. I greeted those I knew by name, but it was clear I had blown it and they were embarrassed (themselves and for me, I felt). There was no groom at the space where the event was, and I wasn’t sure exactly who (or where) he was…. I saw several people to their car, and when I realized my mother was not among them, I asked the people leaving (who were carrying a lot of things—almost like they were moving—they had carts and coats and seemed very burdened by all the items they were carrying): “Where is my mother?” “She is back at the hall, straightening the chairs,” they told me. “Then I will go there to help her,” I replied. I returned to the place—and remembered the front of it as a large, Spanish style (?) entrance with an interesting façade and shallow steps leading up to a larger building, it felt formal, like an old hotel or even a museum entrance way. I believe (though I don’t remember) finding her there. I think we may have embraced and spoken, but I am not sure—I didn’t I bereft or awful when I woke up or in the dream, so probably I found her or we communicated somehow.

As I wrote up the dream for you, I remembered an earlier part: before the guests left, when I had first arrived, and went into a smaller room, where gifts or other items were located (storage or coats or something, it was small and had lots of stuff in it). I remember picking up and opening an elaborate, very large, cream-colored envelope (several feet in size) that was for me, as the bride (I assume). It was flat, like a super elaborate Hallmark card, but unfolded into a cardboard archway (kind of like a pop up book, but bigger than a book). It was, it stated or I knew, an archway for the bride and groom to walk through and down (it was a passageway, not just an arch). It said on the card that it (the card/experience) was supposed to “smell like autumn,” and had images of orange and yellow leaves on the front. I tried to enter it, but could barely fit in my head and shoulders—I remember feeling like Alice in Wonderland after her “Drink Me” episode where she was too big for the room! I thought to myself at the time, “Two people could never both fit here, or walk through it!”

Joanna Roche
October 30, 2010
at my home in Southern California

Tom Dowling - A River of Milk



Swimming upstream in a river of milk with 2 fully grown tigers on either side of me.
Companions on a shared journey.

Tom Dowling
October 28, 2010

Cheryl - Leaving


I had a dream last night about someone leaving me for someone else.  I manufactured a way to still go home with them.  I was crying and said to them, “I am afraid that I will keep doing this,” meaning not letting them go and figuring out how to spend more time with them.  They said, “No you won’t….I won’t let you.”  At first I thought they had confidence in me being stronger than that (continuing to hold on) and then I heard the second part of their sentence and realized they really were going to leave me, that they wouldn’t allow this to go on.

Cheryl 
Long Beach, CA
October 30, 2010
In my own bed

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

Jen Zen - Sweet Dream for Romi


Sweet dream for Romi...
I knew he watched me -- black eyes ringed with blue, incandescent in the dark, mine reflecting amber gold, harvest moon and honey. He was humming love songs, his thoughts a fuzzy blur. I felt his breath, and heard the smell of wind, surf pounding on the beach far away, sinking in the heartbeat through his skin everywhere we touched. His smell familiar and soft as through a freshly laundered cotton shirt, crisply pressed.
I awoke and floated as a purring cat curled small and tender on his tummy, breathing long and easy, fur thick and plushy against his tawny skin, a buoyant leather drum, warm and resilient, suspended now dropping, heavy as an oval stone of smooth grey granite carried by waves in space and time, cinnamon grey tiger stripes spinning in the dark. He caressed my head absently, twirling fingers round my furry ears, round and round and round again, rubbing exactly right... so I purred louder not to stop, warm and happy all the way through, adrift in serenity.

JEN ZEN (aka Jen Grey)
October 31, 2010

Rick Lohrer - Curious Companion

I woke up in the middle of the night thinking I was in bed with an alligator….and the skin on its belly was soft and smooth.  Go Freud go!

Rick Lohrer
December 21, 2010
Block Island, Rhode Island

Cheryl Bennett - Runaway Train


Somehow I ended up as the engineer of a runaway railroad train.  The engineer wasn’t there and I had no knowledge of how to run a train.  The tracks for this train went across the ocean and were even slightly submerged under the sea water.  The waves were very rough.  I sat in the engineer’s car which was actually more like being in a luxury cruise ship captain’s chambers.  His seat looked out onto the tracks ahead.  We were going at a fast pace but we stayed on the tracks.   I finally found a ship-to-shore communication device.  I kept leaving messages about my situation, always keeping a calm voice but no one was calling me back.

At one point men were working on the tracks and assumed I would stop but I couldn’t.  I heard the train hit two of them and they were bumped into the ocean.

At one point,  a woman told me that someone had left me a 20 minute message of how to stop the train when we got to our designation, which was my big concern all along. I don’t know why I could hear her but not the message but I didn’t know how to retrieve it.

Somehow I came to the knowledge that the train had fallen off the tracks.  I think I could see that we were total engulfed in ocean water through the windows and that we were sinking downward.  That didn’t seem right to me as we weren’t filling up with water.

Then I noticed through the video image of our train, which now looked more like an oval with points (kinda like the Beatles “Yellow Submarine” but not so fancy), that we had fallen off the tracks.  BUT there was a rope in view that someone was trying to lasso the vessel with.  It finally caught and was pulling us.

At this point I knew I needed to talk to the passengers.  I had to confide in one person to help me locate the intercom, so I left the captain’s quarters.  The first room I came to had about six people playing handball.  I asked for help and a 30-something man offered.  He came with me.  Getting to him had been straight-forward: out of my cabin, into the hall and into the big room (athletic room).  Once we were walking back into my cabin it was if we were in an emergency room.  We had to keep walking past nurses and I had to shut a curtain to privately talk with him but then somehow we were in the captain’s quarters again and all that was shut out.

The intercom wasn’t where I had been sitting with all the equipment.  It was built into a round table in the middle of the room.  It was just a black faceplate where one part was a circle with holes.  I saw us go by icebergs and asked someone on the mike if we were in Alaska.

As we were getting off what had now become a cruise ship, I remarked to someone that this is why I never wanted to take a cruise; I was always worried about drowning.

As I got off, no one knew who I was, which felt a little empty. Off to the right of the indoor hallway ramp (kinda like at the Los Angeles Airport where you  walk up a carpeted ramp to get to some of the terminals), I noticed a body covered in a sheet and thought, “I didn’t know anyone had died because of this experience.”  But before I could think anything else, there was a young black boy on a stretcher with an IV and oxygen.  He was next to the body.  I knelt by him and asked if he okay.  He said he was.  Still kneeling I turned away from him and started crying.

I then told whoever I was walking with that I would have to go visit the wives of the two men I had bumped into the ocean.  In the dream I think I was saying it because it cast me in the “right light” to do it, not because I was moved to the point of feeling I needed to help the wives feel better.

Cheryl Bennett

Betsy Lohrer Hall - A Long Way From Where I Aimed For


I went to Holly’s apartment for a visit. (In my waking life, she lives less than a block away from where I live in Long Beach.)  It was a large building with a narrow corridor leading from the lobby to an elevator. The hallway and corridor were very dark. It was daylight outside, but it became night in the building. There was a doorman in the elevator (and the elevator was much larger than the one that is actually in her building). All of us in the elevator were whisked up quickly to another level of the building and placed straight onto a conveyor that took us to Seal Beach, several miles away. Seal Beach looked much like a fun zone, something like Coney Island or Balboa. I tried to call Holly, but my phone wouldn’t work. I was more than two hours late at this point, and had no way to reach her to let her know where I was.

Note: the morning after I had this dream I spoke with Holly on the phone. She said she’d tried to call me the night before, but the call wouldn’t go through.

Betsy Lohrer Hall

Gretchen Potts - Playdates in Canada


I had a dream last night that our good friends, who have a little boy that is best friends with our son, moved to Canada. We had to commute to do playdate every other weekend because the boys were so upset.

Gretchen Potts
October 24, 2010

Marta Deffenbaugh - One Big Fat Cow


There was a large beautiful boat, at the edge of the water and I was trying to shoo one big fat cow on that boat. The cow was almost as big as the boat.
Then, I woke up.

Marta Deffenbaugh
October 23, 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

Paula Isenberg - Tiny Threads


In this dream my son had just completed an art project for a fibers class by combining many sculptural baskets together. He was ranting with frustration because he didn't like the way he had joined the baskets and he didn't have time to take it apart and re-design it. Suddenly my sister, cousins and nieces came into the room and started the tedious process of undoing thousands of tiny threads. (This part featured each relative working.) When my son returned he was delighted to find that it was ready to re-construct. [P.S. - All these women were just here for his wedding.]

For years I've had recurring dreams about wandering through houses and finding new and wonderful rooms. Sometimes the new house is mine; other times it's someone else’s house.

Paula Isenberg
Wednesday night, October 27, 2010

Cheryl Bennett - Traveling Without A Ticket

Traveling with a group of people. Time to go home and they get ahead of me in line.  I have to catch up to them because I don't even know what airline we are going home on.  I am afraid people will think I'm taking cuts but then I realize a lot of people are standing off on the side of the line talking so no one will think I'm taking cuts.  When I catch up to everyone and we are nearing the point of boarding the plane, I realize I have nothing with me.  No ticket.  No driver's license.  Someone in my group says not to tell them I lost it but to say I never had ID.  I am worried I won't think of all the answers to all their questions if I lie about that.  I go up to the counter and the agent is a sympathetic black woman.  I burst into tears and tell her that when I was in England someone stole my purse with all my money and ID.  She tells me not to worry; that is why they digitalize everything.  I am trying to remember my driver's license number but can only think of the first three digits for sure, just like in real life. I sorta think I know some of the other digits.  She needs to know what flight number and airline.  I ask Dwight for his ticket (he wasn't in the dream up until this point).  I am surprised he lets me have it as he is usually worried I will lose it or do something wrong with it.  Then I wake up.

Cheryl Bennett
December 15, 2010

Betsy Lohrer Hall - Out Into The Storm

I am a man somewhat older (in real life I’m a woman in my 40s). I am in a beachside town and there is a storm coming. It’s a major storm which they anticipate will wash most of the shoreline beach and buildings into the ocean. I’m not prepared. My coat isn’t waterproof and because of my beard and the extra blanket that I have wrapped around me, people think I may be homeless. It’s an affluent neighborhood. They want me to MOVE ON. I stop into a beauty salon to get one last haircut and a new dress (?). They are packing to leave, but give me the address of another location on higher ground. They send me out in the gathering rain with peanuts and unpopped popcorn kernels in the big pockets of my coat.

blh

Carolyn Liesy - Soaring


I am hovering over a valley --  a very lush, green valley in the alps, or a view from an airplane. I spread my arms out in a V and clasp my hands in front of me and soar through and around the valley. It is a peaceful experience.

Carolyn Liesy
October 28, 2010

Darlene DeAngelo - A Dog Named KIRKA


It was very vivid and about having a new dog. The dog was a puppy, but he was the size of a German shepherd, mostly black and tan, but had floppy ears like a cocker spaniel.  His name was KIRKA, and I was walking him all over Europe – well, European cities I have visited.  I seemed to magically go from Venice, to Paris, to Vienna, to London.  People would stop me and ask me his name – he was a very friendly dog – and I would spell out K-I-R-K-A.

I had the dream two nights ago, November 16th, while house-sitting/dog-sitting for a friend in Huntington Beach, CA.

Darlene DeAngelo

Margie Darrow - Animals Larger Than Normal


I traveled with my old friend Tig to her “job.”  She was on team that did research on a natural preserve which was located on an island in the Caribbean, but it looked more like Northern California.  It was this beautiful point and ocean cove where waves crashed up against rocks.   The cove was cliffs surrounded by this green grassy knoll up on a hill. Tig had to inform all her co-workers that they had lost funding and the research was going to be disbanded, so we were meeting with her co-workers to tell them. The office was located in a white colonial building on the grassy knoll.

After that, we sat on a bench overlooking the cove and watched the abundance of wildlife, which was EXTREME. It was almost prehistoric.  The animals were larger than normal. As I looked at the water in the cove I could see fins of huge sharks and sea life, and huge birds flying across the cove and landing on the rocks. Animals would jump out of the water. There was all this activity. It was fascinating.

Meanwhile, as we sat on the hill, some people appeared with a few life-size beeswax animal sculptures (like the ones from the machine at the zoo), but they smelled good so I knew it was beeswax. I remember a blue giraffe.

Then a woman came by walking the most beautiful specimen I had ever seen of hippo. It was shiny and pale coral and brown.

Margie Darrow
Long Beach, California- in my bedroom
October 1, 2010

Jane Lohrer - Someone Calling Me


Unfortunately, I don't have anything exciting or positive to tell about my dreams in the last month or so.  However, in the last couple months I've woken at Mom's house hearing a woman call “Jane” with no distinctive geographical accent, yet it doesn't sound like a stranger calling me.  Instantly, I'm fully awake but I have no idea who belongs to the voice.  Of course, I open my bedroom door wondering if it is my Mom calling, but if it was......it was a much younger Betty voice.  It's a little nervewracking.  I wanna know who it is.  Otherwise, I sleep like a log the instant my head hits the pillow.  Maybe I could try eating cheese before bed to dream up something more telling.  I love when I have skiing or travel adventure dreams.

Jane Lohrer
New Hampshire
December 2010

A Poem


Not a dream, but a poem:

Life is given to us to discover.
Never let me learn enough to stop.
Only more,
To listen.

And feel.

Spacing.  The dance of thought.
Action
           Reaction 
And silence.
The question that lingers,
Ripening,
Like next season's crop-
apparent, en route.
For better.


- S
October 29, 2010

Tonia Bodley - My Old House Revisited


I just had a dream the other night about my old house.  Again. I have dreams about it a lot because it was the most unique place I ever had and I always worry that some day they may tear it down or ruin it in some way.  I loved that place but I had to leave because the neighborhood was too bad.  The house was built in 1893 and had three stories. I lived on the top floor. It looked like an old castle.  There were French doors that went out onto a balcony and a circular turret living room with a steeple-like ornamentation on top.  Anyways, the dream....

I went back there and saw that there was a big party going on so I kind of invited myself and went in. They had rearranged the place and the dividing walls so it looked different and more spacious.  They had added a large balcony to the side of the house and many outdoor stairways leading up the other side. All kinds of very colorful people were there including my old landlady who had gotten a boob job and died her hair lavender and was wearing a purple Mae West-style get up!  She had a cocktail in her hand, a feather boa around her neck and an evil look in her eye when she saw me.  I tried to kinda scurry away from her and blend in with the crowd of people because I didn't want to have to leave this party.  I wandered off at some point and found myself in a more empty part of the house where someone had a bunch of boxes packed up like they were getting ready to move out.  I started thinking I should try to move back in. Then I went downstairs and outside where they had built a new entrance to the sub-basement.  I went to walk in and there was a doorman who asked who I was.  I explained that I used to live there and that I was like family so he let me in.  When I got in, I saw that they had built a tiny arena of chairs that went up the walls like a theater and everything was Tiki style.  Even the people in there were all decked out in Tiki outfits from the 60's and drinking cocktails.  I kept thinking, "God, I gotta move back here!!  This place is amazing now!!  How do I talk my old landlady into letting me??”

....That's all I remember of this dream.  I'm sure I'll have many more about that house.  I always do and they're always based on me wanting to go back or being devastated because they ruined it or something.  This one they improved it though!  I liked this dream.

Tonia Bodley

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

Karen Frimkess Wolff - Pale Woman in the Desert


There was a pale woman and a pale child between two dark men in a desert.  They all lay down to sleep at night. When the morning came, the child was dead and covered with blood and sand.  The woman was also covered with blood and sand but still alive.  The woman got up and walked away into the desert by herself.  The two dark men were fine. The desert was their natural habitat.

Karen Frimkess Wolff
December 2010

Jack Chipman - Earthquake!


11/14/10 Last night I had an earthquake dream.  I awoke from it and looked at the clock.   It was 1:20 AM on the night before my monthly Rose Bowl flea market.

The Dream

I’m asleep in my paternal grandparents’ elegant two-story Victorian home.  In reality the house was located in Hannibal, MO, but in the dream it’s in San Francisco. At first there’s a jolt that wakes me up (in the dream).  I look around and see things like chandeliers swaying so I know it’s not a dream!  This is followed by a much bigger shock.  I feel the top floor of the house shaking violently, enough so that it falls forward and collapses onto the first floor.  I can hear screaming.  What’s even crazier is that my maternal aunt and uncle (who lived in Seattle) are in the house too.  Immediately after the second quake we’re all in a car driving down the street.   Seeing all sorts of debris in the street I go, “Is this the big one we’ve all been waiting for?’”   Then I wake up.

Jack Chipman

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

Jean Shriver - Flying Away


I don't often have dreams I remember well, but sometimes dream I'm being chased and chased and cornered and I'm frantic, but then I flap my wings and I'm flying far above the danger and I'm haaaapppy!

Jean Shriver

Gabrielle Dorr - One Eyed Cat


In my dream my cat Shanti lost one of her eyeballs.  It just came out and there was an empty socket where the eyeball once sat.  I spent the rest of the dream trying to clean the eyeball and put it on ice in a small container.  I was hoping in the dream that the eyeball would stay alive so that it could be easily placed back where it came from.  Shanti didn't seem to be bothered much by the fact that one of her eyeballs was missing; she just kept staring at me with her one eye while I was running around trying to save the eyeball.  When I awoke I looked up the meaning of this dream in "The Dreamer's Dictionary."  It is always challenging to do this because the book is organized by themes.  You have to pick one theme and read that section.  I usually choose the thing that was most disturbing.  In this case it was the missing eyeball.  I found the theme titled "Eyes" and quickly read its meaning: “Strange or disembodied eyes in a dream are considered a prediction of a very beneficial change of events soon to come.” Then I read on.  “Animal eyes are a sign of hidden rivalry or jealousy in your close circle.” So, which one do I believe?  Well, I quickly thought, Shanti is my cat so she is almost like family.  If it was an animal I didn't know then I would probably believe the latter meaning.  I am going with the optimistic meaning for now until another dream tells me otherwise... 

Gabrielle Dorr
October 24, 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

Slater Barron - Saving the World



DREAM REPORT FOR BETSY LOHRER HALL:
I WAS AN OFFICER IN THE NAVY DURING THE KOREAN WAR. AFTER I MARRIED AND HAD FOUR CHILDREN, I BEGAN HAVING WHAT BECAME RECURRING DREAMS OF BEING CALLED BACK INTO SERVICE. IN MY DREAM I HAVE GOLD BRAID ALL THE WAY UP MY UNIFORM SLEEVE, DENOTING IMPORTANT PROMOTIONS. I HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED TO A NUCLEAR SUBMARINE WHERE I AM IN CHARGE OF SAVING THE WORLD. APPARENTLY I WAS SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE WE ARE ALL STILL HERE.

SLATER BARRON
THIS DREAM HAS OCCURRED IN ORLEAN, FRANCE, FORT MOMMOUTH, NEW JERSEY, FOUNTAIN VALLEY, CALIFORNIA AND MOST RECENTLY IN LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA, FROM THE 1960’S TO 2009.

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

Lili Khanmalek - The Hill and Kissing Booth


Me and Brirod were spending a Saturday together and having a wonderful time. We hung out all day and in the evening we drove out to a venue where Kissing Booth would be having a concert. The concert was being held at a plot of land that belonged to Jasmin. It was sort of like a blog – a 3-D blog kind of thing – in  that one could get a free piece of land and trick it out, make it look creepy.  It was an empty, roofed piece of land, outdoors, which felt like a parking garage – only one wall and a ceiling. Jasmin was really successful in making it look weird. There was a street light in one corner, a hill that reached the ceiling toward the wall, and huge velvet puppets in the other corner. At the top of the hill was a curtain. Behind the curtain was a room or backstage-type area with a rack of clothes. It wasn’t a functional rack of clothes, though; everything on the plot of land was placed for design purposes only. No one lived there; it was just meant to be looked at. Jasmin had made it years ago along with her other blog ventures, but had cast it off when the trend lost popularity. Now, as it was being used for the Kissing Booth show, everyone was marveling at it as if it was an art installation. I thought it was a beautiful display of 3-D design. I heard her mom laugh about it and say, “So this is what she spends all her pocket money on.” It had a name like The Cozy Castle or something.

Me and Brirod drove up in a van and set up. He was worried the show would go bad but it was amazing. Everyone was singing along and mouthing every word. A lot of people came and everyone agreed it was a beautiful evening and the music was brilliant. Afterward, he was so paranoid that it had gone badly but I was so adamant that he eventually agreed. We had a moment of appreciating our friendship and then I woke up.

Lili Khanmalek
This is my dream from late October, 2010. I dreamed it in Long Beach, CA, USA. 

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

Trisha Drew -- Tsunami


I am on an unfamiliar beach just sitting in the sand reading.  The tide comes up fast and the beach is covered in water.  At first it is just a little surprising but then loud horns start going off, and the wave and water begins to take over the whole beach area.  Suddenly it looks like a tsunami approaching – this huge amount of water is taking over everything.  People are beginning to try and run but it is impossible in the heavy water and sand....

Trisha Drew
October 23, 2010

Drew Lohrer - Three Dreams


1.   This was a recurring dream that I had when I was probably in elementary school.  I was at "Gramma's" house, which in fact was located where my friend Benny lived.  I know this because I suddenly had to get out of there, and I remember running down the hill and around the corner through Avon square from Benny's house to my house on Chelsea Road.  The weird part was that I was watching myself run (rather than looking out of my own eye sockets).  When I got inside my house, I ran down a spiral staircase (no such thing exists in our house) where each stair was carpeted with a different type of carpet (thick plush and shag carpets with bold colors and patterns...each stair completely different to the others).  Then I got down to the bottom stair, which was our laundry area.  I remember this because of the brick colored, brick patterned linoleum that we used to have down there.  I was still trying to get away from whatever was chasing me, but my feet were stuck to the floor and I couldn't get free.  Then, at the last minute, I woke up.

2.  I can't recall when I had this dream, but I imagine the dream occurred between 1984 and 1988 (my high school years).  I remember being on the cliffs that sit just below our house, and I got on my surfboard, which was sitting at the top of a dark tunnel.  The tunnel had a single rut or track running down the length of it...this was a slot where the skeg of my surfboard would go. I jumped on the board and plunged down through the tunnel gaining speed until I shot out the end of the tunnel and starting skimming across the surface of a wave at Upper Indicators (the surf break down below where I surfed regularly at the time).  I had such speed that I surfed the wave all the way along the shore down to its terminus in Bluff Cove.

3.  This next dream was associated with the most peaceful, restful morning time sleep I can ever remember having.  I think this also occurred during my high school years. The dream consisted of a flat, white, completely unwrinkled sheet and a smooth, round, white pea or marble.  The marble was not shiny or cold...it seemed to have the same texture as the featureless white background material upon which it sat.  Then, the sheet would spontaneously wrinkle itself slightly near its center, causing the pea to meander.  The sheet would partially smooth itself out before transforming into a new wrinkle formation, pushing the pea in perpetually new directions.  This seemed to go on and on, but it never became boring; a peacefulness and satisfaction came from this dreaming experience.  I remember waking up gently from the dream, without regretting that the dream was over, but just thinking what a restful and wonderful sleep it had been.

Drew Lohrer

Dara Brady -- Treasures Pushed to the Surface


Erika and I figured out we could buy a house, a huge house, for $500,000, because it had multiple rental spaces. My old boss from Chicago, Shanna, lived in the one apartment. The house was in St. Louis in the city with every building made with bricks. Next thing I know, I'm patting fires out. The whole house and rental spaces are burnt to the ground except the wooden corner posts (8 x8's) which I'm furiously trying to save. The location is no longer in the city; I’m on the bluff by my parents’ house. Erika comes up and asks why I'm bothering to save the bit of the house that's left. I explain that we can use it to rebuild. As I'm talking to Erika a huge round orange circle emerges from a tree off in the distance behind her. She's still talking, but I'm no longer listening. I'm focused on the circle trying to figure out if it's the sun. She stops talking and turns to see what I'm looking at. She says, “Wow, look at the sun!" It then falls from the sky through the trees and out of sight below. Then it bounces back up with a splash of golden heat. I realize it is a volcano erupting in the river. I get on snorkeling gear and jump in the creek, which leads to the river. When I get under the water I begin to gather golden leaves. They're leaves from the trees, covered in gold leaf. They're coming from down stream. I collect a bunch and then decide I want to scuba dive near the eruption because all of the secrets, treasures of past times, are being pushed up to the surface and being caught instantly by other people. I get dressed and go to this building which has a dock off the back leading to the source. In the building are jewelry booths.  I head towards the dock and a man refuses to let me go in because only men are allowed to dive. 

That's all I remember...

Dara Brady
December 10, 2010 in our house in Altadena, CA