I was rather afraid of red before this dream. Too fierce, too intense. Understandable--at the time, I was slowly convalescing from serious illness, and working in a library. My life was all quiet gray walls. This was the first hint a new side of my personality was starting to emerge.

Someone happy--and loud.

THE DREAM

An alien visited Earth. We became friends. I joined a student exchange program.

So now I’m the lone human on this alien world. My friend lives nearby; I can visit. Public transit is neglected though. In the dream, I compare San Diego (easy to switch between modes--bus, trolley, shuttles) and Santa Cruz (awkward, uncoordinated). The alien town's more like San Diego. But I'm more aware of awkwardnesses here; feel more vulnerable.

I'm cautious and shy with attractive alien girls on the bus. Don't know the rules of flirting here. Just here? I was as cautious on Earth as most people are when alone in an alien culture.

Walk with my friend. Curious aliens imitate my walk... annoying! I turn around, to stare... they all turn too! I shout "NO! That's WRONG!"

A sage, well, an ordinary but supposedly very grounded/practical person, gives me advice, but I can’t absorb it at all. Content yes, meaning no. Intuition's blank. Walk around the block discussing it with my friend. "I worry it’s genetic, I CAN’T learn it, brain not wired for it..."

My friend's skeptical: "Of course learning takes time!" And just walks ahead.

The street becomes a lane, the suburb thins to country. My friend's a good 50 yards ahead now. Strange creatures peer at me over fences. Feel like I'm running the alien gauntlet again. A long-necked species with flat hornless heads--hammerheads? Others have one horn, some two, some more. The longnecks follow me. I make noises. Worried. I don't know how to treat them. Suspect one species is carnivorous or a bloodsucker or some other danger that every farmkid here knows... but I don't. Ignorant alien!

But I get by safely. After all, those critters couldn't be sure what to make of me, either. Ignorance isn't always fatal.

Next, a helpful Narrative Voice leads us up into a nature preserve. Mountains, woods. Could almost be Earth--southern California, maybe. Mt Palomar! Climb to a huge Observatory on the broad summit. Inside, astronomers are debating how to move the telescope and dome! They need to migrate coastward, where the air is cleaner. Not just smog but smoke from Buddhist ceremonies in a great temple at the mountain-foot.

Evening, now. My friend and I sit on a clifftop overlooking a piny canyon. Below, a gigantic red canine beast grins up at us. Elephantine, but fire-engine red!

I ask “Is that a coyote or a wolf?”

Neither, of course. Its own alien thing. I'm still trying to squeeze these folks into familiar slots! And they just won't go.

THIRTY YEARS LATER

I remembered that huge red happy beast, but didn't draw it for two full years! By then, I remembered it was a dream image but couldn't find the dream amid the ten thousand in my handwritten journals. The predigital age!

But today, in summer 2014, while typing up those early dreams, I stumbled on the source-dream. It took just a single minute to find that picture and reunite image and dream at last. Better yet, it verifies my memory it WAS a dream. Over time, I doubted that. I'll trust my memories more about other images I recall as dreams but can't yet connect to their lost texts.

Psychology now claims memory is unreliable; I haven't found that true.

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-Sk - Sl-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites