I'm walking the hills of San Francisco--old homes, steep, narrow, snaky streets. Telegraph, Nob or Russian Hill? Ahead, traffic's blocked--not that it takes much, with just a single working lane. One car tries to get round the clog by creeping up onto the broad sidewalk, but it does no good--it's blocked too. A woman's trying to coax a reluctant horse up the walk. Tug-of-war. She's winning--the black mare's not really fighting, just wants to express her irritation at being force-marched up such a steep hill. But the car driver following them doesn't want a fender or window kicked in, and lags well back, out of range. Stop-start. We average barely a mile an hour.

A dinky copcar, small as a golf cart, flashes lights and sounds its siren. Wrenches up onto the sidewalk chasing the woman, mare, car and me. At a mile an hour! San Francisco has a long tradition of stupid car chases over the hills, but this has to be the lamest ever.

I lose patience and step into the street. Squeeze between the honking jam and the parked cars. Get ahead of the tug-of-war, slip back to the sidewalk, and round a corner.

Free! But tired. And only halfway up the hill. I feel overwhelmed by the climb, car horns and sirens (that toy copcar is as loudmouthed as a real one).

So... I picture myself as a large furry creature curling protectively round my overwhelmed self, who naps on the walk in that furry nest. My image solidifies, becomes real--I've split into guardian and guarded, awake and asleep!

But it's no use. I left the jam, but it creeps up to the corner, and that slow-mo cop peels out of the parade and comes over to me, lights flashing. A fat cop leans out and hassles me about blocking the sidewalk. Me? People walk right by me. He's the one blocking the sidewalk!

But he won't let me be. Looks like I'll have to reunite and plod home.

No rest for the weary on the hills of San Francisco!

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Car chase over San Francisco hills: a slo-mo mockery of the old action film Dirty Harry, of course. And its endless copycats.
• Slow, frustrating: I proofread two whole months of new entries for WDB, prior to uploading. Has to be done, but tedious.
• Reluctant black horse: Silky, my anima/spirit wife, who likes to appear as a black mare. If she's reluctant to push up this hill, it's probably a stupid idea. Am I nagging myself into overwork?
• Teeny weeny copcar:
  1. If a metaphor, I'm baffled. Is some disciplinary part of me weak/inept? I'd have guessed I was too disciplined today--I worked at lot.
  2. Could they be literal? Maybe in many timebranches tomorrow I go out and get hassled by cops. Really slow, stupid cops. Nah. No fools among our boys in blue!
• Split in two, guard my self in another form: odd even for me. Other dreamers report false waking or dreams within dreams, but I haven't heard of this before. Nor can I name the species I became--a mammal big as a car, with shaggy brown fur, a short mane, pointed mobile ears, and a brushy wolf-tail.
• Big creature curled up: today I also illustrated an otherworldly dream, Antlia; I painted the alien judge presiding over the court like a Chinese dragon curled round a boulder. Come to think of it, in that dream the alien lawyers looked liked wolves and coyotes, too...
• ACTION: Just to be safe, stay out of traffic; stick to parks & quiet streets today. Don't go downtown. And take a break from proofreading! Silky is sick of it.

DAYS LATER

I had a second dream that night--Bank Rigged to Fail. I found myself working in a bank where only one staffer could disburse cash. We couldn't do our jobs! Endless waits, furious customers.

That one was predictive: next day, I found I was locked out of my own savings. They were in a brokerage that a megabank recently swallowed. It 'improved' cyber security--a bit too much. Protected my money from... me. And they'd fired half the staff, so I couldn't reach a human... the financial jam lasted weeks.

Notice how the dreams differ in imagery but share a theme? The cop harasses me; the bank's policy punishes customers. Both dreams anticipate what I'd face later that day: a bank I never chose installed a security system freezing my money! Both dreams are predictive; Slow Car Chase is just less direct a warning--the woman, the mare, the guardian creature, and the napper embody my impatience, reluctance, vigilance, and exhaustion. Warning not of the event, but the stress--and my conflicting responses.

In shamanic work, dreams can warn about future events. But emotions are events too. And literalism's not the only way to address them.

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sh - Si-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites