Dreams

The stuff our dreams are made of.

A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten. Some of us are gourmets,
some gourmands, and a good many take their images precooked out of a can and swallow them down whole, absent-mindedly and with little relish.

W. H. Auden

I specialise in nightmares. At any rate, those are all I seem to remember--and no great rememberer of dreams am I, either.

You were recently in a dream of mine, E, a supporting role of sorts. The place: my grandmother's old apartment, the one with the dark corridor where I used to stand, eyes closed, and WISH myself back with my parents (I stayed with my grands on annual trips for school exams). I was showing you around the apartment--the balconies, my grands' bedroom, my uncle's old studio, the coffee table in the living room with sinister edges, the sweets cabinet in the kitchen I used to raid secretly (and probably perfectly obviously). You were perplexed about something--never said a word--and I was horribly nervous because SOMETHING WAS MISSING.

I used to have recurrent bad dreams as a child. Spooky.

Oh, yes. I think those are a part of growing up... Some of mine were:

1. trying to get to an address I knew existed, but was "unfindable"

2. inside a building, being unable to reach the apartment/door I was going to

3. shifting or extremely precarious wobbly staircases, or discovering that somehow the middle of the building was rotten or simply vanished

4. being in the back of the car (my dad's official Mercedes with tinted windows) and realising there was no driver

5. the worst, a truly suffocating dream--my mom brushing her hair sitting in front of a mirror, and me trying to call out to her, because something absolutely terrible is happening, but she doesn't hear me

Some less terrifying but bizarre dreams recurred too, for example one where I was consoling a skinless (skinned) man for his condition... only I could never remember what brilliant thing I hit upon to tell him! :)

#3

Interesting - because I'm quite certain that I've seen you in a dream during which you were guiding me around either Split or Zagreb (but maybe I'm conflating a couple of different imagined scenes.)

"being in the back of the car (my dad's official BUICK STATION WAGON) and realising there was no driver" - got that one. A control issue, I suspect. I still hate sitting in the backseat, driver or no driver.

Daydreams/Estrangement exercises: developing the fear of the possibility of picking up small stones that might possess an undue heft or whose report when dropped upon the pavement would be horribly different than expected.

Upon hearing slight cracks or pops in the maple tree in my parents' front yard - that I might approach and see that its bark would be detached, separated by a nearly imperceptible space, hovering and completely static around the tree.

Staring at my hand or at a group of ants until I had the sense of a completey alien presence.

The Buick theme would recur from time to time in my malformative years: as it had power steering I took great pleasure in stealing it as with only a dainty pinky on the wheel I could manage drastic corners or U turns with no fear of upsetting my beverage. Ran into it some years later with my Malibu as Dad was sitting in it. Serene detachment allowed me to appreciate the amazing plasticity of his crew-cut topped face and range of his yowlings (Quaaludes and beer got me into more than one mess and helped me make the best of it).

Whoa, crashed a car into your own dad! Never a better time to be tripped out, I agree.

The tree bark reminds me of the time I was struck by a--not sure what would be the word, phobia implies fear, and this was a crisis primarily of utmost revulsion, manic disgust--so, mad loathing towards... an array of signs signifying breeding, life's endless multiplication. But that actually took figuring out. The first episode came as I was walking on my merry way and chanced to glance at a tree--a beautiful hefty cypress or pine--and saw these spiralling marks on its trunk. I almost vomited right there. I'm still not sure what was the problem with these, I'm guessing it somehow threw me onto the idea of tapeworms, these ugly machines for producing more of the ugly (but then what living organism isn't). But this was all post facto thinking. At the time I just went weak because I looked at a tree, and then for months and MONTHS any number of similar triggers would make me squirm and grind my teeth with hate.

In dream news, I had some, but can't remember. One nightmare. Flooding, underwater darkness.

A rainy evening, overcast and dark enough to be night; running late, being chauffeured by a former driver we had that I was openly contemptible of, and who in turn hated me, in the puttering white Fiat that was my family's first car, I pull up in front of a long white/beige house with shuttered windows in a leafy suburb, that faces a lovely lit-up view of the Sydney CBD, except we are in Toronto. Now I am already inside the house, wondering how I have the key - it is Lola's house, and there are books here and there (I was here just yesterday and I am recalling the differences within the dream - I was once again a child, my grand-relatives all around pampering me, and there was a lot of furniture around and the walls were brighter; but now the decor seems somber and bare, completely Japanese, I keep telling myself, all the tones being grey or wheat, with woodwork and paper used for dividers; and instead of armchairs or sofas there are bookshelves, just as I like it; and I am of course completely alone.) And all this while I continue asking myself how did I get hold of a key to Lola's house? Why was it in my pocket? How long have I had it? My god, I could do anything I wanted. I could leave with almost anything! The house is carpeted in something soft, in a pearly hue. At this point there are only two rooms and it is very small, I can see the entrance that I walked in through though I am in the 'bedroom', and the room is actually a study, with nothing in it except a low table, as if set for a Japanese tea ceremony; not far from it is a very narrow, medium-height bookshelf open on both sides, holding a set of attractive books on the top shelf that are bound in a faded red and ivory white leather. I don't seem to know what they are. I want to take them out to browse them, but then I remember why I'm here. I have to take something back to Lola (who's at work, and who's calling my phone right now to check I have found it) - it was she who gave me a spare the other day to retrieve a single multi-volume set of books (Chin P'ing Mei?) and now, having gotten a hold of it, I turn to leave, with a lingering look at this almost bare house, which I know hides a vast collection of leather-bound treasures, neatly tucked away behind deceptive white cabinets and wall panels that look like they hold clothes or are part of the decor, but are in fact bookshelves. And as I exit, I am thinking I am doing the right thing and now I am already walking down the path to the gate past the modest but manicured lawn, and reflecting a house in the suburbs, not so bad after all, at least she's got so much space for all those books and I look back at the still façade, almost like a continuous white garage door, so quiet and so pleasant, maybe I need to move, what would it really cost - as much as my apartment, no, more, I probably couldn't after all and the rain is falling faster and louder as I get back into the car, the sky even darker now, and hurry to my next destination.

Not exactly tripped out - sort of like a bottle or so of whiskey without the unpleasant caboose of nausea and bloating. We had a bluestone driveway - unpaved - which curved around the back of the house, creating a wonderful blind turn. This particular day, with my carful of panicked freaks, I tried a "Steve McQueen" - an abrupt left turn from the road without decelerating. Squalls of gravel and grit, the car fishtailing this way and that - fantastic if all-too-brief. And then full stop, with a lot of snapping of wispy necks. Hitting pop's car (ever so slightly) was a sort of complementary event.