INTRODUCTION

I usually tell just one dream, favoring coherent story-like dreams. But here I'm presenting a whole day's journal entry--a whole night's dreaming--because I had four dreams all gnawing on one issue.

THAT DAY...

I still have a bit of a cold, though I'm healing. But the house computer has a virus too! Great. Catch and erase one worm by hand, but the browser still gets hijacked part of the time.

Work on an art project: my webtour of a habitable moon called Pegasia. Base my sketches of its landscapes on old watercolors by Edward Lear--alter, tint, add furry figures and alien structures, but keep his lovely compositions...

My sister Althea comes over so she can call round to find homecare for our mom--can't do it at our mom's house--she just hovers and worries and fusses, driving Althea crazy.

We start talking about our sister Miriel, who's sick, broke and angry at everyone. Including me. She told me I see her (or want to see her) as sweet, sexy, compliant and stupid, like our dad did. Since I identify with her a lot, her view of me was a shock.

Clean my room, go through stacks of papers years old. Consolidate stacks of books and music tapes. Progress. But I find letters from my niece Solara, years back. Feel sad and guilty I lost them, didn't answer.

That evening, on PBS: "The Orchard Wall", a Ruth Rendell mystery done by the BBC. Jenny (Honeysuckle Weeks) is a gifted teen sent out of London during the Blitz. Jenny learns her aunt is hiding that she's pregnant, even though her husband's been off at the front for a year. She had a lover in the village--he talked of eloping with her, but then disappeared. At last Jenny finds her aunt lying dead in the rain; self-abortion. From things the aunt's brother-in-law says, Jenny deduces the lover didn't faithlessly flit; brother-in-law killed him in a rage. But Jenny can't prove it, and who would listen to her anyway? Children are to be seen, not heard. They send her back to London...

They say "murder will out." Not always!

THAT NIGHT...

DREAM 1: THE FURRY ARCOLOGY

A famous cluster of houses on a hill in a European city. An arcology by Paolo Santi, or Gaudí, or Hundertwasser. Domes, curvy stone arches, carvings, all soft organic shapes. Look like eroded sea cliffs not human arches. Sculptures of gods and goddesses, part animal part human, support and rest on the arches. Lovely stuff.

I'm a student of architecture, and I've studied all these porches and portals, each dedicated to a different animal god. But I was taught them piecemeal; when at last I step back and see them all in sequence up the slope, I feel an "aha!" It's about the cluster, the community.

• Architecture with furry, shamanic sculpture:
  1. Saw a video of an autistic artist who drew all Rome from memory, accurately--the Vatican, Pantheon, Coliseum. I'm autistic too--get lost in detail. But now I see my illness and pelvic pain differently--multiple sources, and one is spill-over from my sister's pelvic pain. Makes her as moody and snappish as Jenny's pregnant aunt.
  2. Animal-people-gods: like the creatures I added to Edward Lear's landscapes today
  3. The carvings were like Georganna Malloff's dream-totem-poles, though hers are wood not stone.
• ACTION: draw this! Strange but beautiful. And keep the lesson in mind: my illness and health are synergistic. Multiple factors.

DREAM 2: ESCAPE BY INTUITION

I walk up the hill. Around its crown, find a different set of stone galleries--these form a ring-walk of terraces around a neoclassical complex capping the hill. Huge!

At first, a woman leads me round, but at some point I lose her--or she loses me... I walk into a small semicircular columned room with tall windows, half a meter wide but 3-4 meters tall. Strange neo-Gothic place.

I turn around to find... my entrance has silently disappeared!

I'm trapped. How long can I survive in here? Will anyone notice, come looking for me?

I guess I could break a window as a last resort, but I'm reluctant; twelve-foot panes have to be fantastically expensive. Is there any alternative, though?

I search the room. Look for hairline cracks; grope the gorgeous corbeled panels with their inlays and gold-leaf accents; drum on the wall, listening for a hollow; I even sniff the wall, not so much hoping to scent a door as to notice a trickle of warm or cold air from a hairline crack--my nose is the most temperature-sensitive bit of me (well, of the bits I'm ready to rub against a wall. And I admit I didn't lick the wall...)

That got me nowhere! No door. All five senses swear it...

So I try again. But this time, I use my sixth sense.

Intuition draws me to kneel at a window on the southwest side, where the wall of windows hits the hill. Fold my legs under and sit on the floor, facing the windowsill.

Absolutely no reason for this. I just go with it.

My reflection in the window catches my eye. My face is different! I'm a girl: beautiful, English-looking, with two blonde braids. Familiar. Oh. Jenny!

I look myself in the eye. A long stare-down with this new me. Suddenly I wink and silently command the hidden door to open. Feel a long-disused muscle working in my brain: willpower!

A long moment of doubt and growing disappointment as nothing happens...

...and then a panel slides open. I'm free.

Escaped by intuition.

• Neoclassical and Gothic complex: the Vatican and Coliseum as drawn by that autistic artist?
• I'm blonde girl:
  1. Jenny in "The Orchard Wall". She kept quiet, observed, deduced; but couldn't prosecute the killer.
  2. My sister Miriel. The dream hints I identify with her. So my illness may be partly spillover from hers.
• Trapped: Miriel accused me of wanting her in a box--nice, sexy, never angry.
• Won't break a window to escape: yep, that's me! And my sisters too. Good little prisoners...
• ACTION: It's OK to use my will to heal myself... IF I've intuited where to apply it. Where?
• Oh. The southwest corner of my room is... the doorway. Get out more, stupid!

Dream 3: "SPOT THE CLUES!"

I'm sitting on a grassy bluff in Marin or Sonoma, looking down on rocky points and coves, reedy marshes, winding sloughs feeding the Bay. A blonde girl--Jenny?--points to the left and says "Pay attention!" She's spotted ducks. Sharp-eyed!

She catches a second detail revealing a hidden mammalian prowler after the ducks... fox, raccoon?

She says "Chris, you're not looking! You just see the general picture, and then stop observing. You have to take the time to spot the clues!"

• Take time: echoes the previous dream! I escaped the trap only when I took time to let intuition work.
• Girl spots small clues: in "The Orchard Wall", after a German bomb raid, a cracked watch is found in a field. Jenny's aunt's lover would never casually lose it; Jenny can't prove he was murdered, but it's a strong hint.
• Ducks: pun? My family sure ducks issues!
• Marshes: pun! My mom's name is Marcy.
• ACTION: Face the full implications of Miriel's anger. My illness, guilt, shyness all may be partly rooted in her decades of silent rage and blame toward me.

Dream 4: JUST TEASING?

Three girls live together. Lovers! They're cute. They deliberately let me see them all romping nude on the bed together. Girl on her back waves her legs at me; one on all fours arches her back so her cunt winks red. I get excited, but doubt they really want ugly old ME to join them; assume they're only teasing.

But as I wake, I start to doubt the doubt! Pretty blatant invitation for mere teasing.

• I can find a lover--or lovers. The problem is believing they might like me. Since Miriel didn't. So I don't try...
• ACTION: Look. Take the time to spot the clues. And believe when you see.

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