I am with a group of professionals at a conference. We are discussing various aspects of dreaming. Several people have spoken earlier of the symbolism involved in "leaving", referring to leaves dropping from a tree. Zal and I are seated on chairs at the front. All of us are eating.

I stand up and say "We've talked about 'leaving'; I'd like to discuss the concept of 'branching.' I've had several dreams in which there was a growth. There was a woman's head and from it grew branches, almost like antlers, but many more and more, each subdividing until it grew very thick, dense." I describe more and more, feeling invested and excited.

I finish and there is a slight pause as the head person, to whom I've mainly addressed the remarks, gets up and ducks under a kind of table top in front of her to get more food.

Meanwhile, Zall says to me, "You did that really well," and kisses me on the cheek.

People get distracted with the arrival of more food. This is frustrating but I still feel good from expressing myself. They are now distributing various kinds of cake.

By the time they get to my table, there are only a few wedges left. I express a preference for one type but don't think I get it. There are several pieces on one plate, some to be shared with a blonde girl next to me. I just begin to eat without waiting further. One piece of cake is rather like crushed pineapple.

I eat what I want.

This dream expresses, in part, the frustration I felt just prior to the acceptance of my first professional paper on dreams: no one but my husband was listening and approving. There is much more symbolized here, but I tum to the unique dream image: the woman with branches growing from her head. What was that? I didn't remember ever having such dreams before. Was it a fact? Going into my massive volumes I checked back, searching for other branching women. Sketches of unusual images that I make in the left-hand column were helpful in scanning the record.

Two years before the "Branching Woman" dream I located a strangely similar one.

On May l, 1971, I had dreamed that I discovered a great power in myself: I found I could make the vines of a strange, blue-flowered, slightly frightening, plant come toward me by intemally willing it to do so. Then I could say, "Up!" or "Down!" and the vine would obey. I could do the same thing with my hair (which produced an image like the branching lady), and then with my whole body, up or down in the air.

I demonstrated all this for my husband, who was impressed. I was very excited with my great discovery that I could produce these changes by a certain state of mind, but also somewhat fearful that the power would get out of control.

I located among my dream records other antler-branch dreams. One was an incidental detail of a story in which the main female character had two small curly antlers. I came across a later dream in which a girl wore a cap from which many green leafy branches arose. This, too, was a trivial part o[ a dream focused on other action. In Branching Woman the image became central. I could no longer ignore it.

By reflecting on it and tracing is development in dreams over the previous two years, I came to new awarenesses about my creative growth, my "branching." This helped give me a new sense of identity and made it easier to behave in openly creative ways.

I formed the branching lady dream image out of clay in waking life, a deeply satisfying piece of work. You have growing images inside you, too.

--Patricia Garfield

EDITOR'S NOTE

Illustration is one of a series of collaborative paintings in which Brenda Ferrimani illustrates others' dreams. Others examples: Above Society, Surrender to the White Buffalo.

SOURCE: Image: Brenda Ferrimani's art gallery at brendaferrimanidreamart.com. Text: Patricia Garfield, Creative Dreaming 1995, p. 228-9.

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